Kazimierz Moczarski

Kazimierz Damazy Moczarski (21 July 1907 – 27 September 1975) was a Polish writer and journalist, an officer of the Polish Home Army (noms de guerre: Borsuk, Grawer, Maurycy, and Rafał; active in anti-Nazi resistance). His book Conversations with an Executioner, recounted a series of interviews with Nazi war criminal Jürgen Stroop, a fellow inmate of the UB secret police prison under Stalinism, who was soon to be executed. Thrown in jail in 1945 and pardoned eleven years later during Polish October, Moczarski spent four years on death row (1952–56), and was tried three times as an enemy of the state while in prison. Following his graduation in December 1932, he continued his studies in France at the Institute of Higher International Studies of Paris University. In 1935, he returned to Warsaw and became an advisor to the Ministry of Labor and Social Services, specializing in Polish and international law. He was also a member of the "Youth Legion", and a member of the progressive organization "Labor Club Maurycy Mochnacki". In 1937, he took part in the setting-up of the Democratic Club of Warsaw. Their first meeting took place at his own Warsaw apartment. In 2026, a new English translation by Sean Gaspar Bye was published by Duckworth. Other translations include German, published by Droste in 1978; French by Gallimard, in 1979; Hebrew by Loḥame ha-Geṭaʼot, in 1979–80; Czech by Mladá fronta in 1985 (the full version by Jota in 2007); and Ukrainian, by Černìvcì in 2009, among several others. Moczarski's biography written by Kunert was published in 2006 with foreword by Władysław Bartoszewski.

In popular culture In the 2006 Polish television film Rozmowy z katem (Conversations with an Executioner), based on Moczarski's memoir, Stroop is played by Piotr Fronczewski. In 2007, filmmaker Maciej Englert created a DVD documentary entitled "Conversations With An Executioner" based on Moczarski's book. On April 18, 2012, Philip Boehm's stage adaptation of Moczarski's Conversations with.an Executioner premiered at the Upstream Theater in St. Louis, Missouri.

Notes and references