The Jedwabne pogrom (pronounced [jɛdˈvabnɛ]) was a massacre of at least 300 Polish Jews in German occupied Poland in July 1941. After an investigation concluded in 2004, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance stated the crime was committed by a mob of Polish Gentiles in the presence of Nazi German Ordnungspolizei. The involvement of German forces remains the subject of debate, especially the role of Nazi German Einsatzgruppe B.[1][2][3][4][5][6] According to some commentators, many people were shocked by the findings, which contrast with the rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust.[7][8][9]
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The Jewish community in Jedwabne was established in the 18th century.[10] According to the 1921 census, the town had a Jewish community consisting of 757 people, or 61.9 percent of its total population [11] It was a typical shtetl, a small town with a very significant Jewish community, one of many such towns in prewar Poland.
The start of World War II in Europe began with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. Likewise, on September 17, 1939, the Soviet Red Army invaded the eastern regions of Poland while in secret agreement with Germany.[12][13] The area of Jedwabne was originally occupied by the Germans who crushed Polish resistance formed by local cadets. Jedwabne was then transferred to the Soviets in accordance with the September 28, 1939, German–Soviet Boundary Treaty.[14] At first, many Polish Jews were relieved to learn that the Soviets, rather than the Nazis, were to occupy their town, and unlike Gentiles publicly welcomed the Red Army as their protector.[5][15] Some people from other ethnic groups in Kresy, particularly Belarusians, also openly welcomed the Soviets.[15] As soon as the Soviets entered Jedwabne, local Polish government was dismantled. Administrative jobs were offered to Jews who declared Soviet allegiance. A number of young Jewish men joined the NKVD, the Komsomol, and the Bolshevik party. Some of them joined the Soviet militia. In at least one witness testimony describing the third week of June 1941, armed Jewish militiamen guarded prisoners selected for transport, ahead of the NKVD's deportation of Poles to Siberia.[5][14] Red Army troops requisitioned food and other goods, undercutting nearly everyone's material needs.[5] The Soviet secret police spread terror throughout the region.[3][16] Waves of arrests, expulsions and prison executions continued until June 20–21, 1941.[5]
Following Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, German forces quickly overran the territory of Poland which had been occupied by the Soviets since 1939. A number of Soviet collaborators from before the German invasion were killed by local people in the Jedwabne area during the first days of the German occupation. The small town of Wizna near Jedwabne saw several dozen Jewish men shot by the invading Germans under Hauptsturmfuehrer Schaper, as did other neighboring towns.[17] The Nazis distributed propaganda in the area,[18] revealing crimes committed by the Soviets in Eastern Poland and saying that Jews might have supported them. In parallel, the SS organized special Einsatzgruppen ("task forces") to murder Jews in these areas and a few massacres were carried out. The guidelines for such massacres were formulated by Reinhard Heydrich,[19] who ordered his officers to induce anti-Jewish incidents on territories newly occupied by the German forces. Local communities were encouraged to commit anti-Jewish pogroms and robberies with total impunity.[20][21]
On the morning of July 10, 1941, by the order of mayor Marian Karolak and the town's German gendarmerie,[22] a group of Polish men from around Jedwabne and neighboring settlements was assembled,[23] which then rounded up the local Jews as well as those seeking refuge from nearby towns and villages such as Wizna and Kolno. The defenseless Jews were taken to the square in the centre of Jedwabne, where they were ordered to pluck grass, attacked and beaten. A group of Jewish men were forced to demolish a statue of Lenin that had been put up earlier by the Soviets and then carry it out of town while singing Soviet songs. The local rabbi was forced to lead this procession of about 40 people. The group was taken to a pre-emptied barn,[14] killed and buried along with fragments of the monument, while most of the remaining Jews, estimated at around 250[14] to 400, including many women and children, were led to the same barn later that day, locked inside and burned alive using kerosene from the former Soviet supplies (or German gasoline, by different accounts) in the presence of eight German gendarmes, who shot those who tried to escape.[14] The remains of both groups were buried in two mass graves in the barn.[14][24] Exhumations led to the discovery not only of the charred bodies of the victims in two mass graves, but also of the bust of Lenin (previously assumed to be buried at a Jewish cemetery) as well as bullets that according to a 2000 statement by Leon Kieres, the chief of the IPN, could have been fired from 1941 Walther P38 type pistols.[14] Some sources claim that a movie made by Germans during the massacre was shown in cinemas in Warsaw to document the alleged spontaneous hatred of local people towards the Jews. No trace of such movie has been found.[25]
Soon after the war ended, in 1949 and 1950, the communist authorities of the People's Republic of Poland arrested and interrogated a number of suspects from or around the town of Jedwabne, accused of collaboration with the Nazis in committing the crime and put them on trial. Out of twenty two defendants, twelve were convicted of treason against Poland, one person was condemned to death.[22]
Records show that the use of extreme physical torture during pre-trial interrogations conducted by the Security Office (UB) resulted in some individuals admitting to made-up crimes, which were later renounced by them before the courts. Among those who (at trial) retracted their earlier statements given during prolonged beatings by the security service were Józef Chrzanowski, Marian Żyluk, Czesław Laudański, Wincenty Gościcki, Roman and Jan Zawadzki, Aleksander and Franciszek Łojewski, Eugeniusz Śliwecki, Stanisław Sielawa and several other local men pronounced innocent and released by the courts without recompense. Out of 22 indicted for the crime at the time, almost half were wrongfully accused.[22]
The unlawful interrogation methods were confirmed by the Stalinist minister of public security Stanisław Radkiewicz, who admitted in an internal memo that the "fixing" of the investigation included beatings, the complete omission of circumstances and evidence, and the rephrasing of testimonies to aid prosecution in a way that did not reflect reality.[26] None of the Polish people who rescued Jews in Jedwabne were contacted, and no attempts were made to establish the names of the victims. There was no police search for Marian Karolak who vanished, and no efforts to name the German units present at the time. The courts however confirmed that the defendants' participation had been prompted by threats and acts of physical violence by the German police.[27]
In July 1941, a few hundred Jews were massacred in the town of Radziłów near Jedwabne, shot dead and burned in the barn by the Gestapo paramilitary Einsatzgruppe B under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper. The methods used by Schaper's death squad in the massacre were identical to those employed in Jedwabne only three days later suggesting their specific involvement in that pogrom also.
"The evidence collected by the West Germans, including the positive identification of Schaper by witnesses from Łomza, Tykocin, and Radziłów, suggested that it was indeed Schaper's men who carried out the killings in those locations. Investigators also suspected, based on the similarity of the methods used to destroy the Jewish communities of Radziłów, Tykocin, Rutki, Zambrów, Jedwabne, Piatnica and Wizna between July and September 1941 that Schaper's men were the perpetrators." — Alexander B. Rossino [28]
During the initial German investigation at Ludwigsburg in 1964, Schaper lied to interrogators that in 1941 he had been a truck driver. However, Count van der Groeben testified that it was indeed Schaper who conducted mass executions of Jews in his district. Legal proceedings against the perpetrator were terminated on September 2, 1965. Schaper's case was reopened in 1974 and in 1976 a German court in Giesen (Hessen), pronounced Schaper guilty of executions of Poles and Jews by the kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg. Schaper was sentenced to six-years imprisonment, but was soon released for medical reasons.[29]
The Jedwabne pogrom received widespread attention on its 60th anniversary in 2001, when the Polish president, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, on behalf of the people of Poland, apologized and sought forgiveness for the fratricide of the massacre.[30] At the time, a study by Polish-American historian Jan T. Gross concluded that Germans were not present at the time of the crime and that the only perpetrators were Polish Gentiles. Gross did not conduct research in any German archives, especially the Zentralen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen (Central Bureau) in Ludwigsburg charged with prosecution of Nazi crimes pertaining, among others, to war crimes committed by Hermann Schaper in the Białystok region in the summer of 1941.[6] A subsequent official criminal investigation by the Institute of National Remembrance confirmed many of Gross's findings but established that Germans were in fact present in Jedwabne at the time of the crime.[31][32][33] There was insufficient evidence to find further suspects who had not already been prosecuted in the original trial. Gross has praised the IPN's findings.[34]
Public awareness of the Jedwabne massacre was increased by two documentary films: Where is my older brother, Cain? by Agnieszka Arnold and Neighbours. They were followed by a detailed study of the events in the book Neighbors,[35] by Polish-Jewish-American sociologist and historian Jan T. Gross, whose description of the massacre was based – for the most part – on the deposition of Shmuel Wasserstein (Szmul Waszerstajn, aka Stanisław Całka)[36] drafted in April 1945 by a Polish Jewish office in Warsaw.[37] Wasserstein, a Polish-Jewish resident of Radziłów who arrived in Jedwabne barely a day before the massacre, survived by hiding three kilometers away from the epicenter, at the house of Aleksander Wyrzykowski, Polish Righteous among the Nations. According to local sources, he learned only after the war about the alleged scenario of the events in Jedwabne from a Jewish woman connected to the NKVD.[36] Gross concluded that, contrary to Stalinist proclamations, the Jews in Jedwabne had been rounded up and killed by mobs of their own Polish neighbors 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 erected by communist authorities, later removed and deposited in the Polish Army Museum in Białystok.[38] In his book Gross stated that the massacre could have been a provocation, considering that two main local leaders inspiring the mob to murder, Zygmunt Laudański and Karol Bardoń, were the NKVD agents prior to German occupation.[39]
The publication of Neighbors in Poland inspired widespread controversy upon its release in 2000. The accuracy of Gross's findings was put under scrutiny with regard to a number of controversial details. Questions about Gross's methodology were debated by Polish and Polish-American scholars,[40] including Tomasz Strzembosz who questioned his conclusions. Also, the Jewish American political scientist Norman Finkelstein said: "Neighbors bears the unmistakable imprint of the Holocaust industry. By Holocaust industry, I mean those individuals and institutions exploiting the Jewish genocide during World War II for political and financial gain."[41]
Following an intensive investigation, the Polish State Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Institute of National Remembrance, IPN) released a series of reports in 2002–2004 supporting Gross's accounts of Polish participation in the pogrom, although IPN estimated its final death toll at around 340 rather than the 1,600 suggested by Gross, while confirming the Nazi German presence.[42][43] Since then, other unofficial estimates have been presented also, in the range of 200 to 1000.[44]
There is a controversy related to the extent of German involvement in the massacre.[45] The IPN study informed that there were 68 Gestapo as well as numerous German policemen present in Jedwabne arriving from different regional posts, as reported by witness Natalia Gąsiorowska, who was providing a meal.[22] Some scholars noted that the German involvement is not certain; while many witnesses claim to have seen German soldiers that day in Jedwabne, not all had witnessed them at that time.[45] 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.[45] 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 nearby settlements.[34] Jan T. Gross himself praised the conduct of the IPN investigation.[34]
In 2001 the President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, officially apologized to the Jewish people for the crime on behalf of Poland.[46] This caused a certain amount of criticism, as some still believed Jedwabne to be solely a German crime, while others argued that the whole nation should not have to bear responsibility for the crimes performed by some. At the time of the apology the IPN investigation was not yet completed. The commemoration service on the 60th anniversary of the pogrom was overshadowed by the boycott of the service by the majority of the citizens of Jedwabne. When the service began, the priest of Jedwabne started to chime the church bells as a sign of protest. The mayor of Jedwabne at the time of the Jedwabne debate, Krzysztof Godlewski, emigrated to the USA due to these incidents.[47]
In 2009, Polish politician Michał Kamiński was attacked by the Labour Party (UK), and some British journalists, for having opposed Poland's national apology for the Jedwabne massacre in 2001. The criticism came shortly after Kaminski was made chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, which includes Labour's opponent, the Conservative Party (UK).[48][49][50][51][52] Kaminski denied his opposition to the apology was derived from anti-Semitism, and has been defended by the Conservatives and some journalists including the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard.[53][54] Amid the dispute, British comedian Stephen Fry, who supports the Labour Party, implied Poles were responsible for the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz.[55][56] The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, an editorial in The Economist and criticism from British Jewish historian David Cesarani.[57][58][59][60] Fry then posted a six-page apology on his personal weblog.[61]
On October 30th, 2009 Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, complained about the British political row playing on a "'false and painful stereotype that all Poles are antisemitic', whereas the truth was that the problem was around the same there as elsewhere in Europe."[62]
A 2009 play Our Class by Polish playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek, performed in Britain [63], deals with a massacre of Jews by Poles in a small town during the Holocaust and is based on the Jedwabne massacre, though it does not mention Jedwabne by name.
The Daily Telegraph complained about the play's lack of historical accuracy:
No German is represented on stage; their presence is only alluded to. And yet we’re told by Gross himself, on the basis of surviving testimonies, that the Germans were an active force on the scene. They were there in the town square on June 22nd, beating to death alleged Soviet sympathisers. Germans gave an order on 10 July ‘that all the Jews be destroyed’. Gross writes emphatically - ‘At the time the overall undisputed bosses over life and death in Jedwabne were the Germans. No sustained organised activity could take place without their consent… It is also clear that had Jedwabne not been occupied by the Germans, the Jews of Jedwabne would not have been murdered by their neighbors.’[64]
Coordinates: 53°17′20″N 22°18′34″E / 53.288792°N 22.309542°E
   | Jedwabne 1941 - Tomasz Strzembosz Jedwabne 1941 |
| | Poles and the Jews: How Deep the Guilt? - Race Matters - Poles Jews Deep Guilt |
| | "''Burning Alive''" - Yedwabne, Poland (Burning Alive article) |
| | ''The Politics of Apology and Contrition'' - Pogonowski on Jedwabne |
| | The Tragic Events of the Holocaust in Radzilow and Jedwabne - The Holocaust in Radzilow |
| | ''The Announcement of the Verdict'' by Piotr Gontarczyk from IPN - The Verdict of Circuit Court in Lomza in 1949 - Piotr Gontarczyk |
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