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Conversations with an Executioner

255 Days Imprisoned with the Nazi who Destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto - 'A MASTERPIECE OF 20th-CENTURY LITERATURE' THE TELEGRAPH
By Kazimierz Moczarski
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Brief Description
Extraordinary, original, gripping, and painfully relevant to our times – Philippe Sands This is a fascinating and totally unexpected account of one of the darkest periods of the Second World War – Antony Beevor Warsaw, 1949: freedom fighter and journalist Kazimierz Moczarski is being held in... Read More
Format: Hardback
$5999
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Releases 1st December 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Conversations with an Executioner" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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Warsaw, 1949: freedom fighter and journalist, Kazimierz Moczarski is horrified to find himself locked up in a cell with the notorious Nazi official responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the death of over 50,000 people: Jürgen Stroop. This is the extraordinary insight into the mind of one of history's most brutal war criminals.

The classic work of non-fiction that describes the Nazis’ rise to power, written by the Polish freedom fighter imprisoned with one of WWII’s most notorious war criminals

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Extraordinary, original, gripping, and painfully relevant to our times – Philippe Sands

This is a fascinating and totally unexpected account of one of the darkest periods of the Second World War – Antony Beevor

Warsaw, 1949: freedom fighter and journalist Kazimierz Moczarski is being held in a maximum security prison, accused of being an enemy of the state by the Polish secret police. A survivor of the Warsaw Uprising, he is horrified to find himself locked up in a cell with the notorious Nazi official responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the death of over 50,000 people: Jürgen Stroop.

For 255 days Stroop talks to Moczarski of his life, entirely unrepentant of the crimes for which he would soon be executed himself. Conversations with an Executioner is Moczarski's first-hand account of these extraordinary exchanges, an insight into the mind of one of history's most brutal war criminals, and one that unflinchingly examines some of humanity's darkest moments.

Never before published in the United Kingdom, Conversations with an Executioner is a book of enormous historical importance, written in masterful prose by a writer who tragically wouldn't survive to see his work published.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780715655771

Publisher: Duckworth Books

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 27 August 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Duckworth

Contributors:

  • Translated by Sean Gasper Bye

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 480

Collections

Biography & Memoir History & Archaeology History & Military Kazimierz Moczarski Military History Non-Fiction Political Biographies Pre-order Biographies Pre-order Books Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date

About the Author

Kazimierz Moczarski was born in Warsaw in 1907, and studied law at Warsaw University and the Sorbonne. During the Nazi German occupation of Poland, he fought as an officer in the Polish Resistance. In 1945, he was arrested by the new Communist regime as an enemy of the state, and was sentenced to death and imprisoned for eleven years. It was during this time that he was locked up with the Nazi war criminal, Jürgen Stroop. After his release, Moczarski worked as a journalist, and began writing his masterpiece, Conversations with an Executioner. Moczarski died in 1975, weakened by years of torture during his time in prison.

Sean Gasper Bye is a translator from Polish. His translations have won the EBRD Literature Prize and the Asymptote Close Approximations Prize; and been shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, a National Jewish Book Award, the Sami Rohr Prize and the National Translation Award. He has been a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow and Translator-in-Residence at Princeton University. He serves on the staff of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

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