Jedwabne pogrom

Jedwabne pogrom
Part of World War II and the Holocaust
Memorial in Jedwabne, Łomża County, Poland
LocationJedwabne, German-occupied Poland
Coordinates53°17′20″N 22°18′34″E / 53.288792°N 22.309542°E / 53.288792; 22.309542
Date10 July 1941 (1941-07-10)
Attack type
Pogrom/massacre
DeathsAt least 340 Polish Jews[1]
PerpetratorsAt least 40 ethnic Poles in cooperation with German military police[1][2]
MotiveAntisemitism, looting, retribution, German incitement[3]
Trials1949–1950 trials (Polish People's Republic)
Inquiry

The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust.[4] Estimates of the number of victims vary from 300 to 1,600, including women, children, and elderly, many of whom were locked in a barn and burned alive.[5]

At least 40 ethnic Poles carried out the killing; their ringleaders decided on it beforehand with Germany's Gestapo, SS security police or SS intelligence, and they cooperated with German military police.[6][7] According to historian Jan T. Gross, "the undisputed bosses of life and death in Jedwabne were the Germans," who were "the only ones who could decide the fate of the Jews."[2]

Knowledge of the massacre did not become widespread until 1999–2003. Polish filmmakers, journalists, and academics, in particular Gross's history Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001) raised public interest. In 2000–2003 Poland's Institute of National Remembrance conducted a forensic murder investigation; it confirmed that the direct perpetrators were ethnic Poles. The country was shocked by the findings, which challenged common narratives about the Holocaust in Poland that had focused on Polish suffering and heroism,[8] and that non-Jewish Poles had little responsibility for the fate of Poland's Jews.[9]

In a 2001 memorial ceremony at Jedwabne, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski apologized on behalf of the country, an apology that was repeated in 2011 by President Bronisław Komorowski. With the Law and Justice (PIS) party's rise to political power in 2015, the subject again became contentious. The PIS has a controversial "history policy"; President Andrzej Duda publicly criticized Komorowski's apology.[10][11]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Ignatiew 2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Gross 2001, pp. 76–78 "There was an outpost of German gendarmerie in Jedwabne, staffed by eleven men. We can also infer from various sources that a group of Gestapo men arrived in town by taxi either on that day or the previous one." [...] "At the time the undisputed bosses of life and death in Jedwabne were the Germans. No sustained organized activity could take place there without their consent. They were the only ones who could decide the fate of the Jews."
  3. ^ "All these acts had four elements in common: antisemitism prevalent in a significant part of the Polish population; looting Jewish property as one of the main motives for aggression; seeking retribution for real or imaginary Jewish cooperation with the Soviet occupant; German incitement – varying in different places, from direct organisation of pogroms to giving encouragement or condoning the behavior." "Pogrom in Jedwabne: Course of Events". POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  4. ^ Gross 2001, pp. 14–20; Stola 2003; Persak 2011.
  5. ^ Stola 2003, pp. 140, 145–146; according to Dariusz Stola, "the number of the victims cannot be definitively proven, although estimates ranging from 400-800 seem much more plausible than those above 1,000" (Stola 2003, p. 141); according to Crago 2012, p. 900, "Some set the number of victims at 2,000, including 230 Wizna Jews, and others at 1,400, including refugees from Wizna and Radziłów. Until recently, the most widely accepted death toll was 1,600, likely drawn from the testimony of Szmul Wasersztejn. However, the Soviet population figures and an incomplete and controversial forensic investigation in 2002, which estimated 300 to 400 people perished in the barn, have led some to argue the fire claimed fewer lives".
  6. ^ Stola 2003.
  7. ^ Jedwabne before the Court: Poland's Justice and the Jedwabne Massacre—Investigations and Court Proceedings, 1947–1974. East European Politics and Societies. 25 (3): 410–432. Krzysztof Persak p.412 (2011)
  8. ^ Adam Michnik, In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe, Chapter 10: "The Shock of Jedwabne", p.204-, University of California Press (2011)
  9. ^ Holc 2002, p. 454. "By focusing so intensely on this single massacre, Neighbors effectively challenges the standard view that non-Jewish Poles had little responsibility for the fate of Jews living in Poland during World War II..."
  10. ^ "Poland Duda victory: Why have Poles voted for change?". BBC News. 25 May 2015.
  11. ^ "Poland elects right-wing president who criticized predecessor's apologies to Jews". The Times of Israel.