Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:06, 25 February 2008

The Jedwabne pogrom (or Jedwabne massacre) (pronounced /jɛdˈvabnɛ/) was a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the town of Jedwabne in Poland that took place in July 1941 during World War II.

Although long assumed to have been a solely Nazi Einsatzgruppen (death squad) operation, it has been established by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, that the crime was "committed directly by Poles, but inspired by the Germans." Whether and how far the occupying German forces were involved remains the subject of dispute among historians. Before the pogrom 562 Jews lived in Jedwabne, of which several dozen survived the incident, but few survived the war.

The massacre

Following their attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, German forces quickly overran those areas of Poland that the Soviet Union had annexed as part of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact. The Nazis distributed propaganda in the area claiming that Jews, having sided with the communist Soviet occupiers, are responsible for crimes committed by the Soviet Union in Poland and the SS organized special Einsatzgruppen ("task forces") to murder Jews in these areas. The small town of Wizna, for example, near Jedwabne in the northeast of Poland, saw several dozen Jewish men shot by the invading Germans.

A number of people collaborating with the Soviets before Operation Barbarossa were killed by local people in the Jedwabne area during the first days of German occupation. Many former Soviet prisoners reported witnessing massacres of prisoners. One of the prisoners killed by the Soviets was a young priest from Jedwabne.

A month later, on the morning of July 10, 1941, a number of Poles from Jedwabne and its neighborhood rounded up the local Jews as well as those seeking refuge from nearby towns and villages such as Wizna and Kolno. These Jews were taken to the square in the centre of Jedwabne, where they were attacked and beaten. A group of about 40 Jews, were forced to demolish and then carry a statue of Lenin around town while singing Soviet songs. The local rabbi was forced to lead this procession. The group was then killed, while most of the remaining Jews, estimated at most probably around 300 to 400, including many women and children, were locked in a barn where they were burned alive using kerosene from the former Soviet supplies. They were all buried in a mass grave along with fragments of the monument.

Nazi propaganda during the war

Some sources say that the movie made by Germans during the massacre was shown in the cinemas in Warsaw to document the alleged spontaneous hatred of local people against Jews.

1949–1950 trials

In 1949 and 1950 a number of local Poles were accused and put to trial in Poland. The official cause of the trial was the collaboration with Nazis. One person was condemned to death but commuted to imprisonment, nine were imprisoned and 12 were acquitted. The legality of the trials was never challenged following the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.

Controversy and investigation

It was generally assumed that the Jedwabne massacre was an atrocity committed by an Einsatzgruppe until 1997–2000, when Agnieszka Arnold's Where is my older brother, Cain? and Neighbours revisionist documentary films were produced.

These were followed by a detailed study of the event by Polish-Jewish-American historian Jan T. Gross, who described the massacre as a pogrom. Gross concluded that, contrary to the official accounts, the Jews in Jedwabne had been rounded up and killed by mobs of their own Polish neighbours, without any supervision or assistance from an Einsatzgruppe or other German force. He referred to the number of victims (1,600) presented on a memorial stone in Jedwabne. Nevertheless Gross states that this massacre could be a provocation, considering that two main local leaders inspiring the mob to murder, Zygmunt Laudański and Karol Bardoń, were NKVD agents.

Not surprisingly, the book caused enormous controversy in Poland and many people, including historians, questioned its conclusions. Tomasz Strzembosz, Professor of History at the Catholic University of Lublin and at the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Political Studies, argued that though Poles would have been involved, the operation had been supervised by the German forces.

Following an intensive investigation the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) released a report in 2002 in which it supported some of Gross's findings, although the number of Jews killed (no less than 340) was significantly lower than the number suggested by Gross. The IPN also found that there were eight German policemen present. Many witnesses claim to have seen German soldiers that day in Jedwabne, whereas others had not witnessed Germans in the town at that time. As contemporary court records show, the active involvement of gentile Poles is certain, but the question of extent and nature of possible German participation has not been settled. The IPN concluded that the crime in a broader sense must be ascribed to the Germans, whilst in a stricter sense to gentile Poles, estimated at about 40 men from Jedwabne and a nearby settlements. Jan T. Gross himself praised the conduct of the IPN investigation.

In 2001 the President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, officially apologized the Jewish people for the crime on behalf of Poland. This caused a certain criticism, as some considered Jedwabne to be a solely German crime, while others believed that the whole nation was not to bear responsibility for the crimes performed by some. At that time of the apology the IPN investigation was not yet completed.

Notes

1. Michlic, Polonsky, p.317
2. Gross, Neighbours p. 17-18 (Polish edition)
3. Gross, "Neighbors ..."
4. The inscription on the memorial stone raised in the place of the barn at Jedwabne read: "Place of torture and execution of the Jewish population. The Gestapo and Nazi gendarmerie burned 1600 people alive on 10 July 1941." (Template:Lang-pl). In 2001 the stone was removed and deposited in the Polish Army Museum in Białystok.
5. Gross, Neighbours p. 78-79 (Polish edition)
6. Tomasz Strzembosz Jedwabne 1941
7. Komunikat dot. postanowienia o umorzeniu śledztwa w sprawie zabójstwa obywateli polskich narodowości żydowskiej w Jedwabnem w dniu 10 lipca 1941 r.
8. Wyniki śledztwa w sprawie Jedwabnego - Jednak sąsiedzi, Rzeczpospolita, 10 June 2002
9. Poland's Kwasniewski apologizes for Jedwabne pogrom.

References

• Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan (2005). "The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After". Columbia University Press and East European Monographs. ISBN 0-88033-554-8.
• Gross, Jan Tomasz (2001). "Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland". Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-14-200240-2.
• Gross, Jan Tomasz (2003). "Wokół Sąsiadów. Polemiki i wyjaśnienia" (in Polish). Sejny: Pogranicze. ISBN 8386872489.
• Polonsky, A., & Michlic, J. B. (2004). The neighbors respond: the controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. isbn 0-691-11306-8
• Stola, Dariusz. {2003). Jedwabne: Revisiting the Evidence and Nature of the Crime. Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 17 (1):139–152.

Further reading

• Grünberg, S. (2005). The Legacy of Jedwabne. Spencer, NY: LogTV, LTD.
• Zimmerman, J. D. (2003). Contested memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and its aftermath. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813531586
• Thou Shalt Not Kill. Poles on Jedwabne, Więź.

See also

• Tykocin pogrom
• Wąsosz pogrom

External links

• The Announcement of the Verdict by Piotr Gontarczyk from IPN
• Jedwabne - the Findings of the Historians by Pawel Machcewicz from IPN
• The Jedwabne Tragedy
• The Tragic Events of the Holocaust in Radzilow and Jedwabne
• The Politics of Apology and Contrition by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, 2002
• Joanna Michlic, The Polish Debate about the Jedwabne Massacre

• 1941
• History of Poland (1939–1945)
• Holocaust massacres and pogroms
• Jewish Polish history
• Massacres in Poland
• World War II crimes in Poland