Wartime Diary Of Edmund Kessler

Edmund Kessler attended the Jan Kazimierz School of Law in Lwow, Poland. He graduated with an Advanced Degree in law in 1931. He was registered with the Bar Association in Krakow and Lwow, Poland. After emigrating to America, he completed a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from New York University in 1958. He worked as an accountant for the New York City Rent and Rehabilitation Commission until his retirement. Mr. Kessler began translating the diary himself shortly before his death. However, he was not able to finish the task that became his daughter’s legacy.

• Continuation. Acknowledgements. Preface by David M. Bossman. Foreword by Leon Wells. PART I: Introduction by Antony Polonsky. The Kessler Family of Lwow. Autobiographical Statement. Life in America. Notes. PART II OUR PEOPLE By Edmund Kessler. Terror in Lvov. Life in the Camps. Reflections. Notes. PART III: SALVATION By Kazimierz Kalwinski. Our Bunker in Lwow. Lusia’s Letter by Lea Gera (Formerly Luisa Sicher, a survivor of the bunker). Part IV. Epilogue: The Search by Renata Renee Kessler. Afterword. PART V: Biographical Statements. Bibliography. Index Part VI: APPENDIX.

“The Wartime Diary of Edmund Kessler is a slim volume with considerable power. In prose and poetry, Kessler describes the conditions of Jewish life in the large but understudied ghetto of Lwow, Poland. His observations are keen, precise, his tone reserved and understated. He writes simply: “needless to say, conditions were difficult.” Elsewhere he says: “I owe my survival to the fact that admirable people are still in the world.”