Interview with Dr Franz Grassler -Deputy to Dr Auerswald

 Nazi Commissioner of the Warsaw Ghetto  

  Interview with Claude Lanzmann

You don’t remember those days?

Not much. I recall more clearly my pre-war mountaineering trips than the entire war period and those days in Warsaw. All, in all, those were bad times. It’s a fact we tend to forget, thank god, the bad times more easily than the good. The bad times are repressed.

I’ll help you remember. In Warsaw you were Dr Auerswald’s deputy

Yes

Dr Auerswald was…..

Commissar of the Jewish district of Warsaw

Dr Grassler, this is Czerniakow’s diary. You’re mentioned in it

It’s been printed, it exists?

He kept a diary that was recently published. He wrote on July 7 1941 ….

July 7 1941? That’s the first time I’ve relearned a date. May I take notes? After all, it interests me too. So in July I was already there!

He wrote on July 7 1941 …. morning at the Community, that is at the Jewish Council headquarters and later with Auerswald, Schlosser…

Schlosser was….. and Grassler on routine matters. That’s the first time…..

that my name is mentioned?

Yes, but there were three of us. Schlosser was in the economics department. I think he had to do with economics.

And the second time was on July 22

He wrote every day?

Yes, every day. It’s quite amazing…..

That the diary was saved. It’s amazing that it was saved.

Did you go into the ghetto?

Seldom. When I had to visit Czerniakow

What were the conditions like?

Awful. Yes, appalling. I never went back when I saw what it was like. Unless I had to. In the whole period I think I only went once or twice. We at the Commission tried to maintain the ghetto for its labour force, and especially to prevent epidemics, like typhus. That was the big danger.

Yes. Can you tell us about typhus?

Read the full interview here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/grassler.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org


Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009