Author Discusses Her Gestapo Grandfather

In a talk taped by CSPAN, poet and historian Rita Gabis told a Westport Library audience today about her memoir about the journey to unravel dark truths about her grandfather, chief of security police under the Gestapo during World War II. The book is called “In A Guest at the Shooters’ Banquet: My Grandfather’s SS Past, My Jewish Family, a Search for the Truth.” Gabis, the daughter of a Lithuanian Catholic mother and Russian Jewish father, learned that from 1941 to 1943, her grandfather was the chief of security police under the Gestapo in a Lithuanian town where eight thousand Jews were killed over the course of three days. The talk was co-sponsored by the Federation for Jewish Philanthropy of Upper Fairfield County and the Westport Country Playhouse in conjunction with its current production of Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Phyllis Groner for WestportNow.com