No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Neighbors, the Jedwabne Massacre of Jews and the Controversy that Changed Poland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2023
Extract
There are not many other cases when one single book about history, written by an academic, not only provoked a massive and stormy nationwide debate involving mass media, political leaders and bishops, but also unleashed processes that strongly influenced the self-perceptions of a nation, opening the way for ground-breaking new historical research and, at the same time, for political responses which had a tangible impact on the direction in which the whole country moved. It was all achieved by a not very long historical essay (around 100 pages in Polish, 170 pages in the subsequent English-language edition, excluding photographs, maps, indexes) by Jan Tomasz Gross.1 Its subject was the massacre of almost all Jews (the number is still debatable: between several hundred to 1,600 – the latter number claimed by Gross) living in the small town of Jedwabne in German-occupied Poland, committed by their Polish neighbours in July 1941. After its Polish debut, the book was translated into thirteen languages.
- Type
- Forum
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Gross, Jan Tomasz, Sąsiedzi. Historia zagłady żydowskiego miasteczka (Sejny: Pogranicze, 2000)Google Scholar; Gross, Jan T., Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See an autobiographical book: Jan Tomasz Gross w rozmowie z Pawlicką, Aleksandrą, …Bardzo dawno temu, mniej więcej w zeszły piątek (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo WAB, 2018)Google Scholar.
3 Gross, Jan T., Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement 1939–1944 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Gross, Jan T., Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.
4 Jan T. Gross, with a new preface by the author, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).
5 Cf Nora, Pierre, Les Lieux de mémoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1984–92)Google Scholar.
6 About how this narrative was shaped in the 1960s see: Machcewicz, Paweł, ‘Na straży wizerunku narodu. Cenzura w latach sześćdziesiątych wobec stosunków polsko-żydowskich w czasie II wojny światowej’, Przegląd Historyczny, CXII, 3 (2021), 735–50Google Scholar.
7 Cf Steinlauf, Michael C., Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.
8 For the Polish reactions to Lanzmann's film and to the essay by Błoński (‘Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 11 Jan. 1987) see: Forecki, Piotr, Od Shoah do Strachu. Spory o przeszłość i pamięć w debatach publicznych (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2010), 132–65Google Scholar.
9 Michał Cichy, ‘Polacy-Żydzi: czarne karty Powstania Warszawskiego’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 29–30 Jan. 1994. For the reactions to this article see: Steinlauf, Bondage, 133–5.
10 Jan Tomasz Gross w rozmowie z Aleksandrą Pawlicką, …Bardzo dawno temu, 137–8.
11 Andrzej Żbikowski in the early 1990s published an article in a scientific journal about the anti-Jewish pogroms after the outbreak of the Nazi-Soviet war in 1941, but it did not evoke any interest among the broader public or even professional historians (see ‘Lokalne pogromy Żydów w czerwcu i lipcu 1941 roku na wschodnich rubieżach II Rzeczypospolitej’, Biuletyn ŻIH, 162/163 (1992), 3–18). The author later said that he had not fully used the information from the survivors’ testimonies about the role played by Poles in anti-Jewish violence: ‘to be honest, I did not really believe that such things could have happened on such a scale. I was completely unprepared for it’ (see ‘Jedwabne-Crime and Memory’, in Jacek Borkowicz and Zbigniew Nosowski, eds., Thou Shalt Not Kill: Poles on Jedwabne (Warszawa: Więź, 2001), 269.
12 Gross, Neighbors (2022), 72.
13 Ibid., 78.
14 Gross, Sąsiedzi, 115.
15 Gross, Neighbors (2022), 170.
16 Ibid., 168.
17 Ibid., 169.
18 Forecki, Od Shoah do Strachu, s. 371–2. This book offers the most detailed analysis of the debate.
19 Polonsky, Antony and Michlic, Joanna B., eds., The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 132Google Scholar. The book contains the most thorough presentation and analysis of the debate available in English.
20 Ibid., 30.
21 Gross, Neighbors (2022), XIX–XX.
22 Forecki, Od Shoah do Strachu, 294, 300.
23 Deák, István, ‘Heroes and Victims’, in Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, eds., The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 428Google Scholar.
24 Gross, Neighbors (2022), 139.
25 Ibid., 141.
26 See Musiał, Bogdan, ‘The Pogrom in Jedwabne: Critical Remarks about Jan T. Gross's Neighbors’, in Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, eds., The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 318–22Google Scholar.
27 See for instance a critique by Strzembosz, Tomasz: ‘Covered-up Collaboration’, in Borkowicz, Jacek and Nosowski, Zbigniew, eds., Thou Shalt Not Kill: Poles on Jedwabne (Warszawa: Więź, 2001), 163–81Google Scholar. For an examination of the complex issue of the attitudes of Jews towards the Soviet occupiers see: Pinchuk, Ben-Cion, Shtetl Jews Under Soviet Rule: Eastern Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990)Google Scholar; Levin, Dov, The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry Under Soviet Rule, 1939–1941 (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995)Google Scholar.
28 Stola, Dariusz, ‘A Monument of Words’, Yad Vashem Studies, 30 (2002), 35Google Scholar. See also: Stola, Dariusz, ‘Jedwabne: Revisiting the Evidence and Nature of the Crime’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 17, 1 (2003), 139–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Machcewicz, Paweł and Persak, Krzysztof, Wokół Jedwabnego (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2002)Google Scholar. Gross called it ‘an invaluable – more than 1,500 pages – compilation of archival sources . . . and scholarly essays . . . on issues related to the Jedwabne mass murder and other similar episodes in the surrounding territory of the Białystok voivodship’ (Gross, Neighbors, 2022, XXXII).
30 See Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Berlin: Hentrich, 1997), 318–28.
31 ‘Akt skruchy i co dalej?’, Res Publica Nowa, 2001, 7, 50–1.
32 See Forecki, Od Shoah do Strachu, 334–55.
33 Andrzej Nowak, ‘Westerplatte czy Jedwabne’, Rzeczpospolita, 1 Aug. 2001.
34 About uses of history by the right wing in Poland see: Karolewski, Ireneusz Paweł, ‘Memory Games and Populism in Postcommunist Poland’, in Chiara De Cesari and Ayhan Kaya, eds., European Memory in Populism (London: Routledge 2020), 239–57Google Scholar; Kotwas, Marta and Kubik, Jan, ‘Symbolic Thickening of Public Culture and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Poland’, East European Politics and Societies, 33, 2 (2019), 435–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 About this political instrumentalisation of Poles saving Jews see: Michlic, Joanna B., ‘“At the Crossroads”: Jedwabne and the Polish Historiography of the Holocaust’, Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, 31, 3 (2017), 296–306Google Scholar.
36 Barbara Engelking, Jest taki piękny słoneczny dzień…: losy Żydów szukających ratunku na wsi polskiej 1942–1945 (Warszawa: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą, 2011); Barbara Engelking, Jacek Leociak and Dariusz Libionka, eds., Prowincja noc: życie i zagłada Żydów w dystrykcie warszawskim (Warszawa: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2007); Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, eds., Zarys krajobrazu: wieś polska wobec zagłady Żydów 1942–1945 (Warszawa: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą, 2011); Jan Grabowski, Judenjagd: polowanie na Żydów 1942–1945: studium dziejów pewnego powiatu (Warszawa: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą, 2011) [the American edition: Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013)]; Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, eds., Dalej jest noc: losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski (Warszawa: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą, 2018) [the American edition: Night without End: the Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022)].
37 Michlic, ‘“At the Crossroads”’, 299.
38 Nijakowski, Lech, Polska polityka pamięci. Esej socjologiczny (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, 2008), 221Google Scholar.
39 Dziennik Ustaw Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Warszawa, dnia 14 lutego 2018 r. Poz. 369, Ustawa z dnia 26 stycznia 2018 r. o zmianie ustawy o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, ustawy o grobach i cmentarzach wojennych, ustawy o muzeach oraz ustawy o odpowiedzialności podmiotów zbiorowych za czyny zabronione pod groźbą kary (http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20180000369).
40 See Jonathan Freedland, ‘Fears Rise that Polish Libel Trial Could Threaten Future Holocaust Research’, The Guardian, 3 Feb. 2021.
41 The deputy minister of research and education declared in Dec. 2022 that measures should be taken to prevent activities which ‘undermine the good name of the Polish state and nation’, pointing at the Centre for Holocaust Research. See ‘Rozmowa z prof. Włodzimierzem Bernackim, sekretarzem stanu w Ministerstwie Edukacji i Nauki, pełnomocnikiem rządu ds. reformy szkolnictwa wyższego’, Forum Akademickie, 2022, 12 (https://miesiecznik.forumakademickie.pl/czasopisma/fa-12-2022/sloty-prowadza-do-usrednienia-wynikow%e2%80%a9/).