"He's a really interesting guy and he is someone whom almost no one studies about," said Epstein of Greiser. "[Yet,] in every book on the Holocaust there is always a sentence about him." This is because, Epstein explained, under Greiser's aegis, the first mass gassings of Jews were initiated in December 1941.
Greiser was made Nazi regional leader of the Warthegau, because he was born and raised in that area. The Warthegau was the largest subdivision of Nazi-occupied Poland between 1939 and 1945.
"The reason I'm so interested in the Wartheland and the Warthegau is because it went back and forth between the Germans and Poles four times," said Epstein. Greiser's main task in the Warthegau was to make the area purely German. His Germanization initiative sought not only to Germanize the land and the landscape but to transform the demographics of the region. Ethnic Germans were brought in from abroad to create a "human wall against Polish influence." Greiser proposed the murder of 35,000 Poles sick with tuberculosis, but the potential international repercussions deterred him from carrying it out.
Nonetheless, a brutal apartheid-like system was employed against the Poles. Polish marriage ages were raised to inhibit reproduction and "racially valuable" children-Polish children that appeared sufficiently German-were kidnapped and given to German families. They were not allowed to speak Polish in the streets and children could not go to school. The objective was to turn the Poles into a population that could serve Germans.
The U.S. eventually captured Greiser and he was tried in Poland. He denied everything, but was hanged in 1946 before the Nuremburg war defendants' death sentences had been decided.
"People know very little about him, and remarkable errors about his biography circulate all over the place," Epstein said. "I've been fascinated that someone who ended up doing such terrible things was in many ways a very normal human being. He had excellent relations with his children, and was capable of positive relations with many others. I've been surprised by how much personal material I've found on him, in particular letters that he sent to various individuals. I've also been surprised by how much personal initiative regional Nazi leaders had. This is especially true of those leaders in the eastern occupied areas-they could really shape the policies in their areas."
Professor Epstein has been researching Greiser since her last sabbatical (2003-2004). She has interviewed one of Greiser's daughters, Rotraut, as well as his cousin and personal assistant in the Warthegau, Harry Siegmund. She has spoken and corresponded with Greiser's niece.
"I hope that people came away with a sense of how radical Nazi plans were for Eastern Europe," said Epstein. "The Nazis did not only want to eradicate the Jews, but also to totally transform the population of these areas. [...] And they wanted to make the areas German-a project that involved transforming both the built environment and the landscape of the area."
The talk was sponsored by the College's chapter of Amnesty International. Jonathan Andicoechea '09, a member of the chapter's executive board, explained that the organization asked Epstein to talk as a part of a large project. "This semester we decided to focus on genocide. [...] The intent of Amnesty International was not to differentiate between various genocides, but rather highlight the common threads that run through all of them. We hoped that this realization would encourage students to actively condemn future violations of human rights."