Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland

Poles did not need the Nazi's prodding to killed 1600 Jews". According to the evidence provided in the book, Poles needed no prodding, a permission at the best. The criminals exterminated Jews happily with the support of the MAJORITY of population. The few Jews who escaped the murder, were caught by the local peasants and brought back to Jedwabne to be murdered. The Polish woman hero, Pani Antonina Wyrzykowska, who saved a few Jews, was after the war beaten by the Polish antisemites and chased out of town, soon in the people of the second (larger) town, learned that she saved Jews during the war, and she was persecuted again. She moved to a larger town, a provincial capitol, however even there, after a few years the people learned that she saved Jews during the war and persecution started again. Only after she moved from her Polish motherland to Canada, was she able to find safety! Neither was Jedwabne an isolated case. The book documents the murder of the Jews by the Poles in the neighboring Radzilow, and Lomza. Of course there was nothing special about the Jedwabne area, the Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and other East-Europeans murdered Jews in multitudes of places. Unfortunately, there is a huge denial, of both antisemitism, and of the local complicity with genocide. It is important to understand that Gross is not some "Poland-hating-Jew". His mother was ethnic Pole, both his parents fought against Nazis in the heroic Warsaw uprising. Gross grew up as a proud Pole, loving his country, it's heritage and the language. It is cheap and dishonest to dismiss Gross' scholarship calling him anti-Polish. The truth is that Poland (other East European countries) has centuries long history of intense antisemitism, pogroms and murder of Jews, only by facing the truth, can there be a change. Antisemitism is an illness of Polish soul, and this illness will continue until it is exposed to the full light. Having spent my childhood in Poland I attest from personal experience that GREAT MAJORITY of Poland's population is from moderately to intensely antisemitic. Because of my Jewish descent, already as 6 years old child, I have been beaten by the older Polish kids, for the crime of "having murdered Jesus Christ". In my childhood in 1960s I have frequently heard Poles say that "Hitler was a monster, but he did one good thing: He cleaned Poland from Jews", and that "It's a shame that the war ended too soon not allowing Hitler to finish up the job of killing **ALL** the Jews."

As thy self. A command so profoundly ignored on July 10, 1941 when the Christian half of Jedwabne, Poland murdered their Jewish neighbors. 1,600 of them. The elderly, the young, women, men, and children, all slaughtered with unfathomable barbarity. Why and how did such an outburst of savagery happen amongst people who had lived together for centuries? Jan Gross' cathartic book, 'Neighbors' attempts to answer this question among others. More an academic dissertation than fully realized book, Gross' work deserves the highest praise for lifting the veil from a taboo topic in Polish history. The book centers around two central questions. How could a people as brutalized by totalitarian regimes as were the Poles, eat their own children as it were? How could a nation so victimized by foreign powers turn upon itself? Gross' work examines these pressing questions and sheds light on possible answers. Poland is a country of extreme contradictions. Nowhere in Europe did Jews have so much freedom in setting up their own communities. By the 20th century, Poland had attracted the largest Jewish community in Europe. Centers of Talmudic learning flourished in Wilno, Warsaw, Lwow and Krakow. Every village had its own Jewish artisans, craftsmen, merchants and rabbinical schools. The borderlands with the Ukraine were home to the Hasidic movement of estatic, emotion-centered piety. Why then did a pogrom of Jedwabne's scale and horror take place in a nation which had offered the Jewish people such sanctuary over the years? Gross' convincing answer is that Polish peasant society was rife with ignorance and hatred towards their Jewish neighbors. Rightly so, Gross places the largest portion of responsibility for such prejudice at the door of the Catholic Church. For hundreds of years, priests and church officials had spoonfed their uneducated parishioners a strong dose of crude Anti-Semitism. The standard charges were the same as in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Jews were the unrepentant killers of Jesus, greedy usurerers who added further burdens to the already impoverished peasantry, and most livid in the rural imagination, child-killers who used the blood of Christian children in ritual. Such heady charges were hardly to be challenged by the largely unschooled peasantry. No doubt the Catholic Church stirred up such resentment for economic reasons. The concentration of wealth in the cities was largely in Jewish hands and had it been spread more evenly amongst the Christian segments of the Polish population, the Church would no doubt have welcomed the increased income from tithes and gifts. With such a smoldering trash-heap of resentment, only a spark was needed to start an inferno. Poland had always suffered from the occasional explosion of anti-Jewish resentment. Pogroms were a shameful reality of Poland's history up until the end of World War II. Yet, Gross' study asks the painful question as to why would Polish Christians, so

As a Catholic Pole, I must apologize for the embarassing ignorance and arrogance of my fellow countrymen, apparently so many of them antisemitic, who can't stand to hear anything but the usual story of the martyr nation. Real Poles, those in Poland, are better able to confront their past than ethnic Poles in this country. This is an excellent book, its findings cannot be denied, and even the Polish government now acknowledges this.

Despite the attempt to manipulate the record, this book is of such historical and social importance it will endure. There are two myths--One that the Poles did nothing to protect their Jewish neighbors and another that they did not collaborate with the Germans. No nation has more trees on the Avenue of the Just at Yad Vashem and no other nation has the need for antisemitism that Poland has exhibited. Nothing is simple and the impact of this book on the national character of Poland will be felt as the struggle to come to grips with the past continues into the future

.. Reputable historians in Poland - with the exception, of Prof. Strzembosz... - have not disputed the major fact of the murder of Jews by Poles. They suggested that further study is needed to learn more about this atrocity. The main investigative body has also concurred with Prof. Gross that this murder took place and is investigating the crime. With regard to the book, it is very well documented - considering the documents and testimonies available - and very well presented. The documents and testimonies are corroborated by a number of sources. Professor Gross also writes about the involvement of Germans. He clearly states that this murder would not have been possible without the permission and encouragement from the local Germans. According to some testimonies, several Jews were able to hide in the German germanderie office in Jedwabne. Please read the book and don't let some prejudiced minds to deny you this opportunity. This is history at its best.