Jedwabne
The word "Jedwabne" has a number of
meanings and connotations. The first of these is the small town in the
northern Podlasie region, north of the Narew River and west of the
Biebrza. The name also stands for the pogrom that took place in that
place. It was one of about twenty locations in that small region where
massacres of Jewish civilians took place in 1941, after the Germans
entered and the Red Army fled. It was not Germans, however, who were
carrying out the exterminations in this case: in this region, twenty-odd
collective exterminations were carried out by Poles. Finally, in
2000-2002, Jedwabne became a symbol for the greatest historical and
public debate in Poland's history, comparable perhaps only to the
Dreyfus Affair in France.
The debate began with a book by Jan Gross titled Sasiedzi: Historia
zaglady zydowskiego miasteczka (Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish
Community in Jedwabne, Poland). The book is a journalistic study of the
events of 1941, based primarily on accounts given just after the war.
The publication stirred a great debate that touched on several
fundamental issues.
The first of these was the need to establish what had happened in
Jedwabne, as well as in Radzilow, Stawiski, Wizna and other locations in
the region during the years 1939-1941.
The Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw joined the
historical and journalistic analyses. In 2002, it published the results
of its extensive and multifaceted investigation. The Institute estimated
that several hundred (probably about 400) Jews from Jedwabne were
killed by their non-Jewish neighbors in July 1941, with the approval or
minor assistance of the German soldiers who were present.
The first volume, published by the Institute's own publishing house,
contains studies that put the events in their broader historical
context. These include an outline of Polish-Jewish relations in that
area during the interwar period, a description of the German policy of
exterminating the Jews, anti-Jewish excesses by the local population,
and an analysis of the postwar criminal cases related to the Jedwabne
massacre.
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The second volume contains Polish, Soviet
and German documents, including a report by the NKVD, accounts by Poles
repressed during the Soviet occupation of 1939-1941, intelligence
reports by the Polish Underground State, reports by the German military
and police formations, testimonies from Jewish survivors, as well as
documents from the investigation and criminal trials regarding the
massacres in Jedwabne and Radzilow.
The second aspect-painful for many-was the need to revise the image
of Poland and Poles' past. Because of the persecution of Poles and
things Polish during the nineteenth century, the two world wars, and the
half century of communism in Poland, a myth Poland's heroic past
developed-a myth in which there was no space for baseness and heinous
crimes. In that myth, it must be admitted, there was also little room
for ethnic and religious minorities. Some historians taking part in the
Jedwabne strove to rescue this myth, which they believed provided the
basis for Polish patriotism. Others, who were thankfully more numerous,
argued that national memory must be cleansed by accepting the shameful
aspects of history as well as the praiseworthy deeds, for the sake of
truth and as a warning to future generations.
The third aspect was the moral attitude today towards the tragedy in
Jedwabne. Two events became the most important statement about how
Poles regard those events now. The first of these was a prayer by the
Polish Episcopate asking God's forgiveness for all sins committed by
Polish Catholics against the Jewish nation. It was said in May 2001 at
Warsaw's Church of All Saints. The second were the ceremonies held at
Jedwabne on the sixtieth anniversary of the massacre. The Polish
president took part, as did the marshal of the Polish parliament, Marek
Borowski; the Ambassador of Israel, Professor Shevach Weiss; Poland's
foreign minister, Professor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski; the head of the
Institute of National Remembrance, Professor Leon Kieres; the rabbi of
Warsaw and Lodz, Michael Schudrich; families of the victims with Rabbi
Jacob Baker; representatives of the Union of Jewish Communities in
Poland, and many people from all over Poland. The mayor of Jedwabne,
Krzysztof Godlewski, also made the opening speech to those who had
gathered for the event.
Listed above are links to Internet sites containing collections of
articles about the tragedy, as well as the speech made by the Polish
president in Jedwabne on July 7, 2001.
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