Talk:Jedwabne pogrom/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Jedwabne pogrom. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

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Archive 5

Question: Were the Jews considered to be Soviet collaborators?

If that's the case, can it really be considered to be part of the Holocaust? People in France and Holland who collaborated with the Germans were harshly treated and even executed upon liberation. Is this instance really any different? And therefore, should this NOT be considered part of the Big H? Rather, merely an example of harsh, wartime justice?? Just wondering.... 24.69.26.197 (talk) 19:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

What happened to the page?

It could be just me, but when I click on the link for the article it says that Wikipedia has no page for it, even though its history, its talk page and even all its revisions have remained, and you can even "restore" the article by clicking the "start the Jedwabne Pogrom article" link. I think there may be a glitch in the database.-RomeW 08:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I used to have the same problem. I took the last version of the article, pressed "save", and here it is. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't do anything because I worried, "what if it was deleted"? -RomeW 09:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

Please do not remove external links before discussing the reasons here. --Ttyre 14:52, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What should be linked to

  1. Official sites should be added to the page of any organization, person, or other entity that has an official site.
  2. Sites that have been cited or used as references in the creation of a text. 
  3. If a book or other text that is the subject of an article exists somewhere on the Internet it should be linked to.
  4. On articles with multiple Points of View, a link to sites dedicated to each, with a detailed explanation of each link. 
  5. High content pages that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article.

So which is it? --Denis Diderot 16:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How about #4? --Ttyre 19:23, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that doesn't work. The main POVs discussed in the text are those of Gross, Strzembosz and the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Including Finkelstein in the main text doesn't work either. He is hardly notable on this topic. (He is a political theorist mainly known for his controversial opinions about some Jewish organizations.) Finally, under #4 there must be balance and all links should be explained with the POV indicated. --Denis Diderot 20:07, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, I have moved Finkelstein comment on Gross' book to his page. Other ext. link The Jedwabne Tragedy already contains article in question. --Ttyre 20:47, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, good solution, no information lost --Denis Diderot 11:09, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the main article the following is untrue: For many years, it was assumed that the atrocity had been committed by German Einzatsgruppen, but in 2001 the Polish-American historian Jan Tomasz Gross published a detailed study of the event, Neighbors, where he described it as a pogrom. In fact, the alleged collaboration of a number of Polish citizens with Germans and their complicity in the Jedwabne massacre was investigated more than half century before Gross made his "discovery". The investigation was started on Feb. 24th 1948, and in January 1949 arrests and interrogations begun. Subsequently, 21 people were charged and a number of them were convicted (May 17th 1949, one death sentence, later commuted, and a number of long prison terms). The IPN (Institute of National Rememberance) report, in Polish: http://www.ipn.gov.pl/jedwabne_postanowienie.pdf The IPN investigation, prompted by the publication of Jan Gross' Neighbors, and concluded in 2003, has not resulted with charging any other suspects. IMO this fact downgrades the Gross' book from a major, drastic discovery, to merely a politically motivated hype. Of course, this is just my private opinion. Gumisie 28 Aug 2005

Gross actually refers to documentation of possible Polish investigation of atrocities committed by Poles against Jews shortly after the end of the war, but points out that these crimes were quickly covered up or ignored in trials.
- I don't think so. The communists had no interest in covering up the jedwabne massacre, but they did not have any interest in making it remembered either. There were a lot of trials during the time of stalinist regime in Poland and it is quiet plausible that the trials of the murderers from Jedwabne were quickly forgotten. Mieciu K 16:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

the movies

"For many years, it was assumed that the atrocity had been committed by German Einzatsgruppen, but in 2001 the Polish-American historian Jan Tomasz Gross published a detailed study of the event, where he described it as a typical pogrom. Gross concluded that the approximately 1,600 jews in the village were clubbed, drowned, gutted, and burned to death by their Polish neighbors without any assistance from the Germans." - is seems that Gross was not the one who revailed the truth about Jedwabne - according to Agnieszka Arnold, who (in 1997) had been working on a documentary about the atrocity ("Where is my older brother Cain?"; "Neighbors") the inhibitants of Jedwabne wanted to tell the truth and told her the truth about the massacre; cf. an interview with Arnold, "Liczenie szkieletów", in Polish only, unfortunately.

Only some of the inhabitants of Jedwabne wanted to tell the truth. You have to remember that this is the only known case of mass murder commited by the "free" (and not communists) poles in modern history. The release of this information was a big problem for the polish right-wing parties which based on the presumtion of a "black and white world" and "Polish innocence". So the people who tried to make this information public were publicly, intensivly and aggresivly critisised by the polish right-wingers. That is why the movies by Agnieszka Arnold were held back (probably by the makers themselves) for fear of problems. Mieciu K 14:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
- Mieciu, are you out of your mind? No offense, please, but you are ignoring obvious facts. What "free" Poles?! The area was under German occupation. As for the problem for the right-wing parties, this indeed could be a problem. Certain left-wingers seem to have a problem of their own too, which is evident from their allergic reactions to pointing out to some facts, which may undermine the recent "official" and politically correct view on the role of the Polish inhabitants. Among such facts is the very method of killing, which (to anyone familiar with the conditions in occupied Poland) clearly points out to at least a significant German participation. Firstly, setting the barn on fire was one of the typical methods used by the Einsatzgruppen. Secondly, kerosene was a valuable commodity for the people living under occupation. Even if they had it, they wouldn't expend it so freely. This argument was made by someone else, on some forum. I will add another one: the said barn had an owner, a gentile Pole. Do you think he freely volunteered his property? Do you think his neighbors just appropriated it? It takes a good deal of hatred against Poles to ignore such facts and still peddle the theory of the Polish instigation and perpetration. Behemoth, 03 November 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.186.134.104 (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

Why is it at Jedwabne Pogrom and not Jedwabne pogrom? Is the capital letter really necessary? Halibu tt 23:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it looks nicer with both words capitalized than just the first one.-RomeW 00:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the event does not seem to fit into any of the categories listed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters). Halibu tt 01:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd say we don't need it capitalized. —Nightst a llion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 12:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Some explanations

Official statements of Polish IPN (Institute for National Remembrance) tell about 300 killed Jews and 40 Poles taking part in the massacre inspired and led by German soldiers.

The facts are: Germans were then totally uninterested in inciting, let alone supervising pogroms (massacres of Jews). In '41 the Holocaust hadn't really begun but there were many incidents of Germans killing Jews in Poland. The Germans never needed or wished Polish help other than turning hiding Jews to the SS.

There were more than 1600 Jews then in Jedwabne, most of them disappeared that day, yet IPN claims that only about 300 were killed. What happened to others? If 1300 people fled that day from Jedwabne at least some of them should have survived or at least left some traces of their later lives, but no.

And the most important - it is obvious that 40 well trained people equipped with guns can force 300 people into a barn but it is just impossible that 40 peasants and craftsmen armed with axes, sledgehammers or knives could do the same. But the Poles of Jedwabne were peasants and craftsmen indeed and by no means trained to control crowds. So it's just incredible that there were only 40 people doing the killing.

> some of them did survived. You should read a little more than wikipage. "It should be noted that before the people were taken away from the market, individual murders had been committed. These killings were mentioned, among others, by the victim, Awigdor Kochaw, who at that time was at the market place."

Explanation to what happened with Jedwabne Jews not killed on July 10, 1941 could be found in Marek Jan Chodakiewicz book The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941 Before, During and After. The following is an exempt from the book's review [[1]]: Some time ago Jan Tomasz Gross wrote that the one, who claims that in that crime "only" 300-400 Jews were murdered, would have to explain what happened to all other Jews from Jedwabne. Given Chodakiewicz's work Gross's postulate can be met. The author cites demographic data from the pre-war period and the time of Soviet occupation. He established that during the thirties the population of Jedwabne was 2,500, including about 1,200 Jews. In 1939 this number fell to about 1,000. From the census carried out by the Soviets in September 1940 follows that during that time 562 Jews lived in Jedwabne. The reason for the decrease in the number of Jewish inhabitants can be explained by migration (the escape from the Germans of about one hundred Jews in September 1939, the migration of 200 to Bialystok, the deportation of 10 to Soviet gulags and the possible incorporation of about 100 into the Red Army). In addition, according to the testimony of Rywka Fogel, about 150 Jews managed to avoid the massacre of July 10th, 1941; those Jews later returned to Jedwabne and lived in the local ghetto (they were saved only temporarily - until the liquidation of the ghetto); some of the saved managed to hide. --Ttyre 13:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing points

Many (all living now) criminals were imprisoned, interrogated (beating was a standard procedure at that time), sentenced and served their terms. The leader perished during the war, his wife has been probably murdered. There are two questions:
- they were punished as collaborators, not as murderers - it was typical for that time;
- was the punishment just - comparing to sentences in Germany - yes.

The documents were known to many historians, including the Jewish Historical Institute and Gross himself. The history of Łomża region wasn't an important subject in Poland. Prof. Tomasz Strzembosz visited the region frequently but asked about anti-Soviet resistance. He probably admitted shortly before his death, that he shouldn't had believed the local people.

The number 1600 of Jews in Jedwabne in 1941 is higly unprobable. Some Jews (Beker) emigrated shortly before the war. There was the September 1939 campaign, during which many Jewish soldiers died. Many people emigrated or were deported to the "real" Soviet Union 1939-1941. Even if there were 1600 Jews, many of them survived the pogrom in or outside Jedwabne and were murdered by the Germans. It would be good to reconstruct the list of all Jedwabne Jews. As far as I know the existing list is very short. If you have a better one...

Did't Gross in his book take statment from a woman from Jedwabne ? How is this possible if everyone was killed during this pogrom ? [Comment made by 85.222.21.109]

The crime was one of the series from Latvia to Moldova. I have the impression that Jedwabne is more "cool", that the other places. Why? Because Poland was the only anti-German state in the region?

Some people ask - where were the local priests during the pogrom. I know a partial answer - the junior one (pl. wikary) has been imprisoned and murdered by the Soviets.

Xx236 09:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice please read these and assess whether there are any similarities to what occured in Jedwabne, particularly how people were killed, by whom and why. [Comment made by 62.56.61.216] I don't see much analogies, Jedwabne was a local pogrom, the crimes you have mentioned were committed by the police. Xx236 10:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Germans were then totally uninterested in inciting, let alone supervising pogroms

The "Warsaw Voice" claims someting other: http://www.warsawvoice.pl/archiwum.phtml/1583/ Xx236 09:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I have read that, amazing, Wehrmacht troops (not SS) actually were instrumental in ending this pogrom. (There was apparently a huge difference between Wehrmacht and SS). A source for this is Martin Gilbert's The Righteous.--Jrm2007 05:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I know only one work of Martin Gilbert (it was not a book, but popular atlas of Jewish history), and it was full of little errors, mistakes, and biased scholarschip. I know he is some kind of authority in the west, but after reading those work, I can't see why. But if you can post a quote about Wehrmacht ending pogrom in Jedwabne, I would be definetely interested. Szopen 15:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

"Many witnesses claim to have seen German soldiers that day in Jedwabne, whereas others had not witnessed Germans in the town at that time." If somebody is accused of a crime, they can always find a great many people who did NOT see him/her committing the crime. It is the people who witnessed the perpetrator at the crime scene whose testimony matters. 'Not seeing Germans there' is not synonymous with 'Germans were not there'. 'Seeing Germans there' IS synonymous with 'Germans were there'.

Non-Jewish Poles?

In the lead, there is an accusation that Volksdeutsche, and Non-Jewish Poles were mostly (sic) responsible for this atrocity. I'm not sure which is the bigger joke, that German settlers were responsible, or that Jews were not responsible. What German settlers? Dr. Dan 19:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I intend to delete the incorrect information concerning "Non-Jewish Poles" and Volksdeutsche, unless this can be substantiated. Dr. Dan 17:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Where do you see "German settlers" there ? --Lysy^talk 13:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Forgetting the semantics of what Volksdeutsche means, what is the basis for trying to pin the Jedwabne Massacre on Volksdeutsche and "non-Jewish Poles". Does anyone think "Jewish" Poles might have been the perpetrators? What's the basis for adding Volksdeutsche, other than to take the blame off of those who perpetrated the deed? Dr. Dan 14:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I cannot see how Volksdeutsche could make sense here. Whoever added this, maybe this was a result of semantic misunderstanding, as in Polish "Volksdeutsch" is nearly synonymous to "Nazi collaborationist". But was the Volksliste even implemented there in July 1941 ? (I don't know). I've checked both Gross and IPN and they both agree that the murderers were Poles, possibly with some assistance of Germans. Did not find any source mentioning Volksdeutsche. As for gentile Poles, I don't quite get your point. The mob consisted of gentiles as far as I know, and the article also agrees that these were "non-Jewish Poles", I don't see any contradiction here. --Lysy^talk 19:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not a matter of a contradiction or not. They murderers were Poles, and the issue is not if they were "non-Jewish" Poles, because no one thinks that the massacre was perpetrated by Jewish Poles. Nor does one expect to distinguish between Jewish Poles and non-Jewish Poles whenever the subject of Poles comes up, whether they are doing good things or bad things. Hopefully you now get the point. Dr. Dan 18:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[2] "A death sentence was pronounced against a Volksdeutsch from Cieszyn"

"Karol Bardoń was a former Austrian soldier.... Shortly after the tragedy he joined, probably as a Volksdeutsch, the Hilfspolizei." [3] "According to Józef Grądowski Karol Bardoń had a rifle" [4] . Xx236 (talk) 14:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

'Directly'?

I have removed the word 'directly' in the text "Although long assumed to have been a Nazi Einsatzgruppen operation, it is now known that the massacre was directly executed by a group of non-Jewish Poles in the area. Whether and how far the occupying German forces were involved remains the subject of dispute among historians.". Obviously, it is possible or even likely that the pogrom was directly executed by Poles - meaning that there was no German initiative whatsoever - but this is not known for a fact, as it is disputed by historians. The word 'directly' is at odds with the next sentence, which leaves the possibility of German involvement or initiative open. Including 'directly' does not add information but may lead to an inconsequence in the text, so I have removed it. Mcouzijn 10:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Jedwabne

Descent of the Satan or Arrival of the Gestapo? - Professor Tomasz Strzembosz

The Verdict of Circuit Court in Lomza in 1949

WHO HINDERS THE DIALOGUE ? An interview with the Reverend Professor Waldemar Chrostowski by Pawel Paliwoda

THE SILK ROAD OF LIES A historian Leszek Zebrowski about Gross's "Neighbors"

Ultimate debunking of Gross - Professor Tomasz Strzembosz

The Moral Duty of Getting at the Truth - Bishop Stanislaw Stefanek

100 Falsehoods of J.T. Gross (1 - 3) - Professor Jerzy Robert Nowak

Gross versus the facts ("Zycie", 1 February 2001) - selected fragments

Another "Rush to Judgment"? - Miroslawa Zawadzka

The unknown life of Jerzy Laudanski. According to J.T. Gross he was one of the ringleaders in the Jedwabne massacre.

Bogdan Musiał interviewed by Paweł Paliwoda

THE IGNORED COLLABORATION by Prof. Dr. Tomasz Strzembosz

LIES AND DISTORTIONS Professor JERZY ROBERT NOWAK

JEWS MURDERING POLES Professor JERZY ROBERT NOWAK

Use the informations from the links above in the article, please be obiective, thank you.

--Greetings [[User:Krzyzowiec|Krzyzowiec]] (talk) 21:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you do it yourself mr. Crusader (Krzyżowiec in Polish)? And articles with titles like "the silk road of lies" hardly qualify as a neutral and reliable source. Mieciu K (talk) 11:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Gentile population of 1,670

I'm commenting out the sentence: After the war ended, in 1945, Jedwabne had a gentile population of 1,670, as not relevant to the article. Or maybe out of context ? Mcouzijn claimed it was informative and relevant and that it was a factual counterweight to statements by Gross a.o. that "one half of the village killed the other half" and "the Jews were killed by their neighbours". It is only an interpretation of the sentence, which does not clearly say so. Other than that:

We already know that Gross claimed the number of victims to be 1,600. He may be right, he may be wrong. There is no need to support his version with our original research. If it really needs support of the article's editors, it's better to cite him.
The source of the 1,670 number is missing. It is a result of a census ? What census ?
If we really want to go for original research, than we need to answer these questions: how many Jews were there in the town before the massacre ? How many of them were from Jedwabne and how many from other villages ? How many were murdered and now many escaped the town ? How many gentile Poles were there in Jedwabne before the war ? How many of them participated in the massacre ? Otherwise the presented interpretation of the sentence is only an insinuation.

Anyway, I don't think we should be doing any research on our own and the irrelevant (or otherwise insinuational) sentence has to go. --Lysy^talk 20:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Jews betraying Poland Category and other changes by Altone

With the cynical comment "More centered fact and less sensationalism thus upsetting needlessly" Altone added the category of Jews betraying Poland, Jewish Collaboration with Communists and Polish-Catholic victims. Kind of boggles the mind. The statement "nothing," absolutely "nothing,' was done without the permission of the nazis" is far from the truth. Also, what does the recent exhumation of 200 bodies prove? Is there any indication that there are not other mass graves in the area? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ABANumber (talk • contribs) 16:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Wrong tone

When reading this article I was struck by a certain self-satisfied obtrusive Polish-nationalistic undertone. What shall be said by such statements like In total, the Soviet NKVD was responsible for the mass deportation of up to 1.5 million ethnic Poles to Siberia in less than two years, with some of the local Jews collaborating with them. There were instances of Jewish Communists betraying Polish victims. No question that the Poles suffered from the Soviet occupation. Did the Jews deserve their fate because they betrayed the Poles? This statement is absolutely superfluous. Since the Jews made up 8.3% of the population as stated above and since a much larger percentage of them lived in towns (not in the countryside) it is not astonishing that there were many Jewish Communists. Not to mention the fact that Jews were largely regarded as second-class citizens by Polish pre-war authorities. What shall be said by the statement "...by the order of a Polish-speaking German mayor Karolak and German gendarmerie ..." ? Were the Polish perpetrators killing the Jews because they were forced to do it? Was there no other choice?

This article should be rewritten in a less exculpating and more critical language. It should also mention the prevailing antisemitism in pre-war Poland as one of the major reasons for this crime. --87.123.107.104 (talk) 12:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Pre-war anti-Semitism as one of the major reasons for the killings should absolutely be mentioned in my opinion and of course nobody forced Jedwabne residents of Polish origin to act in such a terrible way. This was a shameful act of revenge for collaboration of a few, directed against innocent people. However, one has to be careful not to go "another way" and blame the pogrom solely on Polish pre-war anti-Semitism because there was more to it. This Pogrom would have never happened if not for the war, the events during the Soviet occupation, later German occupation and the Nazi attitudes that encouraged such behaviour towards the Jews. This is difficult subject and I’m a little afraid to touch it. Please feel free to contribute. Thank you for your comments.--Jacurek (talk) 14:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

You raise good points. As Jacurek wrote, we appreciate your comments.

This is one of many articles that need such attention. Wikipedia is edited by volunteers with limited time resources, however, and everybody's got his or her own priorities. If you have some time, and the interest, please roll up your sleeves and help. :-) — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

When dealing with a subject as difficult as this, I have a difficulty relating to critical opinions expressed by dynamic IP numbers complete with the usual buzzwords. Nevertheless, since it was me who made some far reaching revisions to this article in recent time, I’d like to also set the record straight. First, I would like to encourage the anonymous user to please familiarize yourself with the series of articles about the Holocaust in Poland including critical opinions of modern scholars such as Paulsson on the complex relation of antisemitism in prewar Poland and the Jewish-Polish relations thereafter. Gunnar S. Paulsson – one the highest authorities on the subject in recent time – explains in the Journal of Holocaust Education: "99.9 per cent of Polish Jews never experienced a pogrom, and 99.9 per cent of Poles never took part in one. The norm in Polish-Jewish relations – he writes – was peaceful, if mistrustful, coexistence and I do not think that things were changed very much by the arrival of the Nazis." It is usually acknowledged that Polish prewar government could have done more to protect the rights of Jewish minority and help educate the nation with that regard, but the situation in Eastern Poland following two (not just one) invasions within a couple of years in World War II still demands adequate background information, which includes the role played by Jewish communist in the Soviet security apparatus as explained by scholars listed in bibliography. No moral judgement is being passed in the article as far as I can see, but the average Wikipedia reader needs to know what went on, without having to guess where to turn next. --Poeticbent talk 07:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have made few changes to the article. Hope they meet everybody's approval. Thanks.--Jacurek (talk) 21:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have written the comments under the above IP 87.123.107.104 (@Poeticbent: I will adopt a user account, but I think I did not use "the usual buzzwords"). I absolutely agree with the comments made by Jacurek. Thank you for the changes in the article Jacurek! Almost certainly the pogrom wouldn't have occurred without the extreme circumstances of the war. I certainly did not want to blame Polish people in general (I think I didn't do this, please read again my comments), there are numerous examples of Poles who supported their Jewish neighbors but there were also avowed antisemites or people who at least had no sympathy with the Jews and these people were not only a small minority. Concerning the percentages given by Poeticbent: in pre-Nazi Germany before the Great Depression also only a small minority of people were openly antisemitic and most people people had no problems at all with their Jewish neighbors. Killing a Jew also was regarded a crime and not approved by the vast majority of people. But things change under the extreme circumstances of war, dictatorship, economic depression, martial law, etc.. This may lead to the awakening of primitive and atavistic instincts in people who may have been inconspicuous citizens before especially when they are encouraged by an official ideology. --87.123.87.199 (talk) 10:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to know that sometimes behind anonymity might as well be a reasonable person, and didn't mean to discourage you of course with my critical comments. Btw, I also believe in the universality of human mind including both, potential for good and for evil, but there are other mitigating circumstances that need to be taken into account as well. The comparison between Jewish minorities in Germany and Poland before the emergence of racial ideologies might be valid in selected context, but the Stalinist Russia was different, with an entirely new set of aims based on socio-political status of its victims. A lot of people got fooled into believing it at the time, and also, the new job openings were springing up everywhere in Eastern Poland especially after Katyn. --Poeticbent talk 19:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Katyn and Jedwabne

The following fragment is a pure nonsense:

"The Nazis distributed propaganda in the area^[1] revealing crimes committed by Soviet Union in Eastern Poland such as the 1940 Katyn massacre of 25,700 Poles and claimed that Jews sided with them and might be partly responsible. In parallel, the SS organized special Einsatzgruppen ("task forces") to murder Jews in these areas and a few massacres were carried out."

It is well known that Katyn was discovered in 1942-43. No similar mass graves of Poles were found by 1941 (if found at all). The Nazis could not know about this or similar mass killing in 1941. In general, the article seems to devote more attention to persecution of the Poles by the Soviets than to its main subject: killing of Jews by German led Poles.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The prison killings of the Poles by the Soviet NKVD were of course widely known in the region throughout the Soviet occupation. They were performed in all major cities accompanied by a wave of mock trials. Katyn massacre serves as an example of what happened there. Besides, it was the local Poles who asked the German authorities to start the exhumations, because everybody new about it long before. As far as the persecution of the Poles, it's an integral part of the historical background missing from Stalinist depositions. --Poeticbent talk 20:05, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: "The prison killings of the Poles by the Soviet NKVD were of course widely known in the region throughout the Soviet occupation." Frankly, I am unaware of documented mass killing of the Poles by NKVD other than Katyn (I mean something of similar scale). If you know any sources, please present them.

Re: "Besides, it was the local Poles who asked the German authorities to start the exhumations" AFAIK, Katyn mass grave was found by accident.

Re: " As far as the persecution of the Poles, it's an integral part of the historical background" The background cannot occupy the same space as the description of the major event.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, according to Norman Naimark

"It is important to state that providing the context for a case of mass murder does not excuse it, nor does comparing genocidal episodes, like those in Poland, with those that occurred elsewhere in eastern Europe diminish the responsibility of the Poles or of anyone else for the murder of innocent civilians. The historian's task is to try to understand; in doing so, contextualization and comparison are critical." (The Nazis and "The East": Jedwabne's Circle of Hell. Author(s): Norman M. Naimark Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 476-482)

By making unneeded emphasis on NKVD crimes the article tries to attenuate the guilt of Polish Nazi collaborators.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Paul, unfortunately you are correct. The entire sub-sections, "Backround" and "Circumstances Surrounding the Massacre" are pathetic attempts to whitewash an anti-Semitic atrocity in Poland, committed by Polish peasants, with a barrage of obfuscating information that has no bearing on this Nazi inspired pogrom. This spinning of the facts is nothing new, and should be corrected. The link to Heydrich is pretty fanciful to say the least. Katyn even more so. Dr. Dan (talk) 20:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Lets strive for some balance here. The collaboration of Polish Jews with the Soviets who occupied eastern Poland in 1939-1941 is well documented by Jewish scholars such as Nechama Tec, who writes that Polish Jews welcomed the Soviets with relief because it meant they hadn't fallen into the Nazi side of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line, whereas Polish Gentiles viewed Nazis and Soviets with equal suspicion. Tuvia Bielski himself, just 2 hours drive from Jedwabne, became an enthusiastic communist when the Soviets arrived - though that quickly changed as he felt Soviet anti-Semitism pretty soon. I think we outsiders, viewing this from the luxury of the 21st century, can see that Polish Jews and Polish Gentiles both had entirely reasonable responses to the Soviet invasion in 1939. One shouldn't leap to the assumption that talk of Jewish collaboration with the Soviets is an anti-Semitic slur. Nor should we say that Jedwabne was entirely a revenge attack on Jewish collaborators with the Soviet terror by Polish Gentile victims of the Soviet terror. In fact, any Polish Jews in the NKVD to 1941 left eastern Poland with the rest of the NKVD and the rest of the retreating Soviet forces at the start of Operation Barbarossa. The Jews that remained in Jedwabne were likely not NKVD but the unfortunate victims of guilt by association and scapegoats of small town bigotry. I agree we should delete the Katyn reference, as Katyn wasn't known about at the time - but I think that was an innocent mistake by an editor rather than an attempt to deflect Poles from any blame. We should include a link to Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946) instead, which were well known about and experienced first hand. Its also worth keeping the fact that Jedwabne was a murder of up to 1600 Polish Jews by Polish Gentiles in what was the most Jewish country in the world at the time - it is remarkable that there weren't 100s of Jedwabnes repeated all over the country when the Nazis arrived. Another point for balance, there were tens of thousands of Polish Gentiles who as communists signed up to the Soviet cause, enlisted in the Berling Army, or even the NKVD, and executed Polish Home Army troops and Polish Judeophiles like Witold Pilecki. Poles both Gentile and Jewish created the future Polish Communist state - collaboration with the Soviets wasn't an exclusively Jewish tendency. Chumchum7 (talk) 21:46, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

You are almost right with some exceptions. The article looks like an attempt to deflect Poles from any blame rather than an innocent mistake. It is too focused on Soviet occupation that, according to the article, justifies everything. For instance, the "see also" section is a pure Freudian slip: it contains the link to Soviet invasion of Poland, but has no link to articles telling about German occupation of Poland!
One way or the another, the balance should be restored.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, there's nothing stopping us adding The Holocaust in Poland to the "see also" section - it is perfectly relevant. But I don't see particular bias there right now - the "see also" lists the pogroms and Polish violence against Jews as well as Polish of rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. The Soviet invasion (and as I mentioned above the divergent reaction by Polish Jews and Gentiles that Tec observes) is totally relevant to our understanding of Jedwabne. To my mind the intro to the article is accurate and fair. The section on circumstances/background could be interpreted as an attempt to defend the Poles, but personally I see it as a valuable explanation of where the hatred and prejudice came from. I corrected the Katyn issue (thanks for that very good call). I now have no outstanding concerns with this article, but am all for continued discussion. Thanks, Chumchum7 (talk) 22:32, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Chumchum, do you think that any anti-Semitic hatred and prejudice in Poland preceded the Jedwabne pogrom? In the recent past I saw this same "passing of the buck" at the article concerning the Bialystok pogrom. I would hate to think that some agenda is being pursued in relation to the historical facts. Of course these incidents pale in comparison to the crimes committed in this most brutal war of wars, but I think you are missing the point. The point is that the "neighbors" who were murdered, and became the "...the unfortunate victims of guilt by association and scapegoats of small town bigotry..." not need be further marginalized, or conveniently explained away with something other than Poland's occupation by both of the partners who partook in the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement. Dr. Dan (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

A lengthy debate without reliable sources conducted (among others) by some well known problem users with an anti-Polish bias is probably not going to enlighten any of us. Whether Katyn gets to be mentioned in this article along with other Soviet atrocities is not that important. But the fact is that the NKVD would have never been able make disappear for years 15,000 top Polish officers including generals and priest. Before the 1943 exhumations, generals Anders and Sikorski already asked about the victims since 1941. Local people started visiting the mass graves in Katyn, Kozielsk, Starobielsk, Ostaszków as soon as the NKVD squads moved on. Most importantly though, there are multiple witnesses to Soviet widespread executions of Polish officers conducted since September 1939 all over the province. In fact, Semyon Timoshenko explicitly ordered his soldiers in 1939 to shoot the Polish officers on the spot. Terror breeds terror.(See: Józef Mackiewicz, Zbrodnia katyńska w swietle dokumentów, with the foreword by Władysław Anders, Gryf, London 1948. Excerpts by Stanisław Stroński.) When Jan T. Gross published the Polish edition of Neighbors, he was blamed for omitting the circumstances surrounding the Jedwabne massacre. We are not going to repeat that mistake I hope. --Poeticbent talk 03:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You are right, a lengthy debate without reliable sources isn't going to get us anywhere. Katyn was a horrible crime and I've always believed that to be the case. I've stated that before on Wikipedia. The issue is whether it had anything to do with this other crime. Unless you have reliable sources connecting Jedwabne and Katyn, it doesn't belong here. It's that simple. And your remark, "Terror breeds terror" in the context of this discussion is rather disturbing. Is that supposed to be the explanation or rationalization for the Jedwabne massacre? I hope that's not what you meant. One might interpolate that the terror instigated by the NKVD (that anti-Semites claim was controlled by Jews and the Nazi propaganda apparatus trumpeted to be the case as well), was the explanation for why these Polish villagers killed their neighbors. Surely in this tiny town people knew each other for a very long time. Is there any evidence that the ca. 200+ people killed here were collaborators with the NKVD, and were responsible for any crimes or the perpetration of terror against anyone? To me it's the same old whitewashing of "historical skeletons in the closet" that are too ugly to acknowledge and face for what they were. Dr. Dan (talk) 05:05, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Dan, you asked me "do you think that any anti-Semitic hatred and prejudice in Poland preceded the Jedwabne pogrom?". Yes of course I know there was anti-Semitic hatred and prejudice in Poland that preceded the Jedwabne pogrom - I'm one of the editors who've been involved with WP: History of the Jews in Poland. I'm inclined to add content from that article to the background section here - and you can suggest that too. Lets keep constructive and add more content that may balance any bias that you see. On the Jedwabe pogrom the facts should include: (1) that unlike its neighbours Poland did not have a very strong tradition of mainstream anti-Semitic mass pogroms that might have inspired Jedwabne; (2) it had a very long history of friendship with the Jews, from the Statute of Kalisz to the pro-Jewish policies of Jozef Pilsudski; (3) that the 19th century pogroms were mostly prevalent in ethnic Ukraine, where Jews were often seen as the historical deputies of Polish imperialism, and in ethnic Russia; (4) that during the Soviet Union pogroms of the 1930s 150,000 Jews were slaughtered and many fled to Poland for sanctuary, leading to an immigration crisis, a new anti-assimilation trend within the Jewish minority, and Polish Gentile resentment that included tens of murders of Jews; (5) that from 1935, the Polish military government restricted Jews in universities and some professions and also cooperated very closely with the Zionist movement to encourage Jewish emigration to the British Mandate of Palestine; (6) that paradoxically during the Holocaust some Jews were blackmailed by Polish Gentiles or even turned in to the Nazis, while some Jews had their lives saved by Polish Gentiles; (7) that there weren't Polish regiments under German command like in Latvia, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine; (8) there was no Polish collaborationist movement like there was in France, Italy, Belgium, Norway; (9) Jedwabne was a reprisal murder of innocents including children - the skeletons prove it; (10) it is likely that medieval 'blood libel' pretext was used; (11) some explanation as to why Jedwabne is unique and why there weren't many, many more incidents like Jedwabne during Nazi occupation; (12) that in 1939-1941 when the Soviets deported over over 1.2 million Polish Gentiles from places like Jedwabne in Kresy to the Gulags, they also deported up to 300,000 Polish Jews who like Menachem Begin were suspected of being pro-Polish or 'bourgeois' - thousands of these Polish Jewish soldiers joined the Anders Army, some later deserted to fight the British and Arabs in Israel, other Jews fought on, shoulder-to-shoulder with their Polish Gentile brothers at the Battle of Monte Cassino. All those facts should be mentioned very briefly, but it should be mainly links to existing articles. I'll also dig up the citation for the fact that some 600 Jewish officers in the Polish Army (including the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces) were executed by the Soviets at Katyn, and 130,000 Polish Jews were serving in the Polish army at the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. That would challenge the myth that Katyn was a massacre of the Polish Catholic elite alone, and it would also challenge the myth that the Polish Army was an ant-Semitic institution. We could include the Polish Muslim Lipka Tatars for good measure. You also said "I would hate to think that some agenda is being pursued." I believe Jan Gross' work omits context, includes sensationalism as well as new evidence, contains Anti-Polish sentiment and should be viewed with some scepticism. I also believe there is a Polish anti-Semitic stereotype of Jewish Bolshevism that should be viewed with equal scepticism. I don't mind sharing with you my personal view, for your interest: Looking at the evidence, I view Jedwabne as a lynching by a group of extremely nasty - indeed evil - Poles rather than something representative of the Polish state or nation. I'd like to find out whether or not a U.S. president has apologized for the lynching in the United States of 5,000 African Americans between 1860 and 1890. It is worth noting that the Polish state has thoroughly investigated Jedwabne and a Polish president has apologized for it - and in that sense Poland has stepped forward and claimed the moral responsibility for truth and reconciliation about Jedwabne. That is an important cultural and sociological issue in Polish-Jewish relations and race relations in general. I think prejudice is a very bad thing, and that Poles, Jews, Russians, Germans, Brits, Americans, etc, etc are equally fallible and we all need to watch out for our own prejudices, myself included. Even accusations of prejudice can be a form of prejudice itself.Chumchum7 (talk) 06:59, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with (1) to (3), (5) to (11). With regards to (4), I would like to know your sources, because I failed to find any information about Jewish pogroms in the USSR in 1930s. Moreover, the articles devoted to anti-semitism in the USSR talk about pogroms in subjunctive mood only, see, for instance:

"If Stalin had not died in March and the trial of the doctors had been held, there could have been, in the words of Isaac Deutscher, "only one sequel: a nationwide pogrom."" (The Origins and Development of Soviet Anti-Semitism: An Analysis Author(s): William Korey Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1972), pp. 111-135)

and, importantly, contain no mention of pogroms in 1930s.
Your (12) is also controversial, because, according to declassified data, the number of Poles in GULAG in 1940 was 16,133. (Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence Author(s): J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn, Viktor N. Zemskov Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 1017-1049). Note, the data from this article have been vetted by western scientific community, and even Robert Conquest consider the overall numbers to be reliable. Therefore, I believe you meant not GULAG, but exile. However, these are very different things.
In general, your proposal may be a good scaffold for this article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate Chumchum taking the trouble to give a more detailed explanation of his view on Polish-Jewish history and relations. Personally I was aware of many of the claims and much of the history that he presented above in a nutshell. Regarding "historical skeletons in the closet", Poland is by no means unique in this regard. Just the same, the relationship of the Jedwabne massacre to the Katyn massacre and its relevance is I believe what the issue being discussed here is. If I'm not mistaken Chum has already agreed that any connection is at best very tenuous..."I agree we should delete the Katyn reference, as Katyn wasn't known about at the time". Links are good and I'm a strong advocate for them. However, just as Lynching in the United States or the Battle of Monte Cassino would be inappropriate links within this article (not claiming that anyone wants to link them), one should be careful not to include links that are not relevant to the subject matter. Too often this can be seen at various WP articles. As for whitewashing certain ugly aspects in historical contexts, I have long felt that this has been pursued by certain editors. The Pinsk massacre and the Kielce pogrom are just two examples that come to mind. There is also a definite tendency by these editors to insist that collaboration in the Baltic countries was gleefully and voluntarily embraced, while any that occurred in Poland was under duress. The Blue Police article is a classic example. The bottom line is that an article can be skewed with too many "explanations" (lot's of nonsense can be sourced), and it is important to keep this in mind when creating or editing an article. I know that its been in vogue for some time, in some quarters, to explain criminality with theories and hypotheses like the impetus of a serial killer's behaviour resulted from his broken home or his torturing animals or his being abusively toilet trained, etc. But I'm more inclined to go with the idea that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Dr. Dan (talk) 16:58, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: "that collaboration in the Baltic countries was gleefully and voluntarily embraced, while any that occurred in Poland was under duress." That probably was generally the case. For instance, Naimark wrote "Already in the summer and fall of 1939, the Nazis planned pogroms with their Lithuanian and Ukrainian sympathizers." Note, the didn't mention the Poles.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes Paul..."That probably was generally the case..." is a very weasely way to look at it. The operative word in the entry... "Already in the summer and fall of 1939, the Nazis planned pogroms with their Lithuanian and Ukrainian sympathizers..." is the Nazis. As to the Nazis' sympathizers in the two countries mentioned, having populations of around 2.5 million and 30 million, can you put a percentage on the numbers of Nazi "sympathizers" vs. people who had lived through the excesses of the NKVD and had enough of that experience? Which, btw seems to be an argument being used at this discussion, if not within the article itself. Even more pertinent, what would percentages of these sympathizers be in 1939, prior to the Baltic State's yearlong "voluntary constituency" in the Soviet Union? And before this gets too far away from the issue of Katyn (seems now to have been resolved) maybe this discussion should be moved elsewhere. Dr. Dan (talk) 20:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

My only point was that there were lesser Nazi collaborators among the Poles than among Ukrainians or Lithuanians even after the Poles suffered from NKVD excesses.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

And my point was that certain editors continually try to present a POV that collaboration with the Nazis in the Baltic countries was gleefully and voluntarily embraced, while any that occurred in Poland was the result of duress, regardless of the percentages or numbers of collaborators. More to the point, I think that the inhabitants of Jedwabne "suffered from NKVD excesses" about nine months longer than the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. The Ukrainians over twenty years longer. Dr. Dan (talk) 21:44, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: Jewish pogroms in the USSR. Chumchum7 was referring in his point #4 to the pogroms of the 1920's (rather than the 1930's), beginning with the wave of Kiev Pogroms (1919) area. Please compare that with Arno J. Mayer, The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions for the spread of anti-Jewish terror over many regions of Ukraine (please read above and below the marked page). --Poeticbent talk 20:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be quite irrelevant because the number of Red pogrom victims (725 Jews) was negligible as compared with the total number (31,071). The pogroms were perpetrated mostly by White and nationalist forces and can hardly be called "Soviet Union pogroms" (Henry Abramson, Jewish Representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917-1920, Slavic review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 542-550)--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand? What is irrelevant to what? The Russian Civil War was over by 1921.[5] By then, over 30,000 Russian Jews were killed in pogroms, about 150,000 died as a result, half a million were left homeless. 2.3% of the pogroms were committed by Bolshevik armies. Our denominations don't influence that reality. We don't have to call them Soviet Union pogroms (a Freudian slip perhaps), but they were Russian nevertheless. (Zvi Y. Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present. Pg. 70) --Poeticbent talk 22:21, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no Freudian slips in my words. The initial statement was "that during the Soviet Union pogroms of the 1930s 150,000 Jews were slaughtered". I spent about an hour trying to find any mention of pogroms in the USSR, and now I see that apparently we are talking about pogroms that took place mostly in Petlura's Ukraine, were perpetrated by anti-Communist (as a rule, non-Russian) forces and took place before the USSR was formed. With regards to relevance, I am not sure expulsion of Jews from Ukraine in 1919-20 is more relevant to Jedwabne pogrom than expulsion of Jews from Spain.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Just to point out, before this fact gets lost in the storm, that currently the word "Katyn" does not appear in the article - and in my opinion doesn't really belong in here. Some of the other background stuff however, does.radek (talk) 00:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Chumchum7 here. Firstly yes, I was the editor who removed the Katyn reference immediately - with the explanation that Katyn was uncovered 2 years after Jedwabne. Still, Soviet atrocities against Poles remain in the article, and rightly so, but that content should be balanced with more material as I have started to outline above. I've added links to Jewish Polish history during the 20th century etc for background of rising anti-Semitism in Poland that wasn't primarily caused by alleged Jewish collaboration with the Soviets. Secondly yes, in my point (12) I was using Gulags in an imprecise, generic sense as it is often employed in reference to Population transfer in the Soviet Union of Polish Gentiles and Jews to Siberia, Kamchatka and Kazakhstan etc, rather than a strict definition based on KGB documents. Thirdly, in my point (4) for the 150,000 figure I trusted a paragraph that has citation in Jewish Polish history during the 20th century. If you think those citations are bogus and we should not trust them, please alert us to that. Here is the paragraph in question:

"Jews were often not identified as Polish nationals; a problem caused in part by the reversal of assimilation shown in national censuses between 1921 and 1931 coupled with the influx of Russian Jews escaping persecution especially in Ukraine where up to 2,000 pogroms took place in which an estimated 150,000 Jews were massacred.^[2]^[3] A large number of Russian Jews emigrated to Poland, as they were entitled by a peace treaty in Riga to choose the country they preferred. Several hundred thousand joined the already numerous Jewish minority of the Polish Second Republic. An ever increasing proportion of Jews in interwar Poland lived separate lives from the Polish majority. In 1921, 74.2 percent of Polish Jews listed Yiddish or Hebrew as their native language, but the number has risen to 87 percent by 1931 already, resulting in growing tensions between Jews and the Polish majority.^[4]"

Thanks all, lets keep working at some kind of consensus. Chumchum7 (talk) 09:29, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: 150,000 Jews. I am not sure the number is not an exaggeration. According to another source (Henry Abramson, Jewish Representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917-1920, Slavic review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 542-550) death of only 31,071 Jews was documented during pogroms and similar incidents. According to another source (Nora Levin. The Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917: Paradox of Survival NYU Press, 1991, ISBN 0814750516, 9780814750513, p.43), the number of killed was estimated to be 50,000 to 60,000, however, these pogroms took place during the Civil war, not after that, mostly in 1918 - early months of 1921.
It is necessary to tell explicitly in the article that pogroms took place during the Civil war.
With regards to "A large number of Russian Jews emigrated to Poland", I would like to know how large this number was (I am curious because during first year of the USSR, before Stalin seized power there, the Soviet authorities were pronouncedly pro-Jewish).
--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Wrong Tone Revisited

I find that the line in the article..."All city jobs were passed on to those Jews who declared allegiance with them (Soviets), and who subsequently formed an armed militia overlooking local deportations", to be somewhat peculiar as this village had 1,942 inhabitants in 2002, and didn't become some lost metropolis in the interim. Again there is definitely a bias being played out here attempting to blame this massacre on the victims instead of the perpetrators. Just how many victims of this massacre collaborated with the Soviets? Who were they? Again, there is definitely a wrong tone being played out here. All of the people living there were very simple people, Jews and Gentiles alike, no one living there was a Rothschild or Potocki. As in most small towns, many of these people had at least a casual acquaintance. Modern High Schools have more students than this village did. Let the article reflect what occurred rather than a bunch of veiled conspiracy theories. There was a vicious murderous attack that killed families: men, women, children, and babies. They were not any less dead than any other victims of the Shoah. They were not any less dead than those people killed by drunken primitive thugs elsewhere all over Europe during this war. The problem with the article is in its approach in trying to explain why the event occurred. I see too much blame being shifted here from the perpetrators to the victims. It needs to be corrected. Dr. Dan (talk) 01:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

In general, the problem is not in what the article says, but in the way the facts are presented. Of course, the fact that the Soviet Union occupied Poland and repressions, common in other parts of the USSR started in newly occupied territories should be mentioned. Of course, the collaboration of some civilians with new authorities took place and that could partially explain anti-Jewish sentiments. However, I see absolutely no reason to devote large space to all of that in the article telling about mass murder of Polish Jews by their Polish neighbours. In my opinion, a couple of sentences (with appropriate links) would be sufficient to provide needed background. Otherwise, the explanation looks like apology.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you've explained what needs to be done in a "nutshell" and more concisely than myself and others have. It's the way the facts are presented, not all of the facts themselves, that's the problem with the article. Correcting that aspect is all that's necessary, and the article could be on its way towards becoming an FA. Dr. Dan (talk) 04:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree there's plenty of work to be done on this article and its tone. That said, I think much of the debate between editors can be resolved. For example, I suspect "All city jobs were passed on to those Jews who declared allegiance with them (Soviets)," is a reference to the NKVD practice in Kresy 1939-1941 of attempting to persuade (usually poor) Jewish, Belarusian, Lithuanian and even Ukrainian locals to take on the bureaucratic jobs (and homes) made vacant by Polish Gentiles (as well as Polish Jews) who the NKVD deported or shot. This does help to explain why the Jedwabne Pogrom happened when and where it did, and why after a 1000 year tradition of Polish acceptance of (and Polish sanctuary for) Jewish people. The USSR most definitely used positive discrimination and social engineering to pit race against race. Jews definitely preferred to be in the Soviet-occupied rather than the Nazi-occupied half of Poland in 1939, for completely understandable reasons. They also often found opportunities: Tuvia Bielski is a brilliant case study of a Polish Jew finding upward mobility in the new Soviet regime, and Nechama Tec writes about this phenomena brilliantly and impartially. But I agree, lets make all this far more precise, clear and accurate so that the article cannot be misinterpreted as some kind of justification for a lynch mob. This brings me to my next point started in Sensitivity below.Chumchum7 (talk) 11:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Sensitivity on every side

I'm going to try to help with some understanding here, and I hope not take a moral tone myself - I'm certainly not a superior editor to anyone else. What some of us may see as tasteless justification for the horrific crime at Jedwabne may in fact be an attempt by some (Polish?) editors to reject the actions of an extremely unusual Polish lynch mob that have never represented Poland, the Polish people, the Polish government nor even a Polish splinter organization. Polish courts have ruled the mob were guilty of treason in the very clear legal sense of the word, because during wartime they were Poles who killed Polish citizens (who happened to be Jewish - which is important). We have to think about that when we write lines like "Jedwabne was a murder of Jews by Poles." That may be as wrong and as loaded to Poles as the "Colfax massacre was a murder of blacks by Americans" would to people in the U.S. My point here isn't that we should let peoples' feelings get in the way of building a truthful article, but that our own imprecision and inaccuracy while editing may provoke others to leap to the defence and to contextualize this horrific crime in an unreasonable manner. Of course some Poles contributed to the Holocaust, but at the same time Poles are rightly proud of the fact that they had an extremely different reaction to the Nazi menace than say the French or the Latvians. Polish editors will likely strive to point that out and defend themselves against the sometimes prejudiced charge that Poles hold responsibility for the Holocaust. We've got to be mindful both of our generation's anti-Semitism as well as its anti-Polish sentiment. WP: Jedwabne Pogrom should be billed as an exception rather than a norm in Nazi-occupied Poland. At the same time, WP: Jedwabne Pogrom should be billed as a mass murder and probably Poles' worst instance of race hate during the Holocaust. Both points are accurate. With all this in mind, lets start a write-through of the article by adding content rather than removing content, for now. And I repeat, I'm trying to work at a solution with an open mind rather than preach. I sincerely hope I've succeeded. Thanks all and keep up the good work.Chumchum7 (talk) 11:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Poles are rightly proud of the fact that they had an extremely different reaction to the Nazi menace than say the French or the Latvians." Although this point of view is common among Polish historians, I found some sources that state a directly reverse.

"Despite the fact that radical right-wing conceptions and anti-Jewish attitudes spread enormously in the late 1930s, Polish historical research has widely neglected the fact that even before the war many Poles shared with the Nazis a concept of the enemy as communist and Jewish. The momentous stereotype of Jewish Bolshevism-zydokomuna - was, according to historian Andre Gerrits, "the most recent and widely propagated version of the Jewish world conspiracy myth." But not only right-wing radicals considered the Second Republic's national minorities-and especially the Jews-to be "foreigners in the Polish home."'03 Most nationalists and representatives of the Roman Catholic Church also anticipated a solution to the 'Jewish question" in the mass emigration of Polish Jews. In such scenarios, Jews would leave their property behind. Consequently, in the initial phase of the Nazi occupation regime, when Jews were banned from an ever increasing number of professions and the authorities conceived plans for their expulsion and resettlement in Madagascar, the aims of the Nazis and the Polish right-wing radicals did not fundamentally differ." (Collaboration in a "Land without a Quisling": Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II. Author(s): Klaus-Peter Friedrich Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 711-746 Published by: The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649910).

After reading this and some other sources, I started to think that the role of Soviet occupation has been overemphasized in the article. --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, lets quote that opinion in the article. Chumchum7 (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This is much too simple. For example, you are disregarding the possibility that a fanatical anti-semite who wanted to expel Jews from Poland could also at the same time be totally opposed to the murderous Nazi methods of doing this. Please read about Zofia Kossak-Szczucka for an example of such a person. She was not unique.

At any rate, the Polish right-wingers who admired some aspects of Nazism never came to power in Poland before 1939 and never formed the majority of the Polish population. We can speculate what anti-Jewish measures they would be able to put into place if they ever came to power, but this is entirely hypothetical. Putting Poland in the same dock with Germany, as the above quote at least partially attempts to do, is quite a stretch.

This is not to deny of course that there certainly was some section of the Polish population who secretly or openly supported (or at least accepted or rationalized) what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. But to suggest that this was a general Polish attitude is completely unjustified. At any rate, I would suggest that comments like "Nation A can be justly proud of B, while nation C and D must be ashamed because of not-B" are divisive and counterproductive. Nations are made up of individuals and it is individual moral choices that matter. 99.236.70.174 (talk) 01:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)No one puts Poland in the same dock with Nazi. However, the article implicitly claims that the major, if not the sole reason for anti-Jewish sentiments among the Poles was the Soviet occupation and alleged collaboration of Jews with Soviet authorities, thereby understating the role of pre-war anti-Semitism. According to the above source, it is a POV of some Polish historians, however, since WP must reflect the global POV, undue weught should not be given to this local POV.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely pre-war anti-Semitism must be mentioned. At the same time, there is no indication that it was any stronger in Jedwabne than in hundreds of others communities in Poland, where such massacres by Poles did not take place. Thus, pre-war anti-Semitism cannot be the main cause here. What does distinguish Jedwabne (and related massacres carried out in a few surrounding towns, those with mixed Polish and German participation) is clearly the fact that it was located in the relatively small area of Poland that had an ethnic Polish majority and was under Soviet control in 1939-1941. In most other areas of Eastern Poland seized by the USSR in 1939 the Poles were themselves a minority and hence were not in a position to stage massacres of other minorities. So there is some causal connection between Soviet occupation and the massacre and it should be discussed. Obviously, going too far and attempting to justify the massacre is not acceptable, so I understand the concerns expressed here. But we should remember that considering what the motive for the massacre may have been is entirely legitimate and does not justify it at all, if the right emphasis is given.99.236.70.174 (talk) 01:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I cannot follow your logic. Pogroms were not common in Eastern Poland. Do you mean that Soviet atrocities were outstanding in Jedwabne, or that Jedwabne was among few unique places in Eastern Poland where the Poles constituted majority?

Re: "we should remember that considering what the motive for the massacre may have been is entirely legitimate and does not justify it at all, if the right emphasis is given." The motive for any massacre can never be legitimate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Please read carefully. I clearly meant that discussing what the motive may have been is legitimate, not that the motive itself was.

Second yes, Jedwabne region and the general area around Bialystok was the only substantial region of Soviet-occupied Poland in 1939-1941 where the countryside was homogeneously Polish. To see for yourself, the following two maps of ethnicity distribution and 1939 border will be instructive. True, there is also a patch of Polish population in Lithuania, but as Dr. Dan will attest, this area was definitely not "100%" Polish. Everywhere else in Eastern Poland the Poles found themselves in rather precarious circumstances as a minority and were certainly not in any position to stage any massacres (they rather feared being massacred themselves by the dominant local population). If anything, the Holocaust survivors from Eastern Poland generally recount good relations with the Poles they encountered in those regions, as the two minorities felt a certain solidarity.

In short, the Bialystok region and hence Jedwabne was indeed special and unique. There remains the question as to why massacres did not take place in every single town in the Bialystok region. It is possible that there was something distinctive about Jedwabne in 1939-1941 as opposed to neighboring places, but I don't have any information on this point.

All this is my personal interpretation and obviously I am not a scholar. I am simply trying to explain why some editors make such an effort to include the discussion of the Soviet occupation. Clearly it played a crucial role, though clarifying was excatly it may have been is challenging. 99.236.70.174 (talk) 05:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Which leads me back to the question of why some editors (who are prominently involved in shaping the tone of this article) insist on portraying collaboration in the Baltic States as a voluntary phenomenon, while whenever it occurred in Poland it was due to a variety of extenuating circumstances? Dr. Dan (talk) 02:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Probably, because this is a point of view of majority Polish historians? At least, my source (Klaus-Peter Friedrich) states that directly...--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I see some agreement here. We all agreed to cut Katyn and we agree that pre-war Polish anti-Semitism, including the stereotype of Zydokomuna, should be mentioned. Let's get on with it! Scholarly theory about Jedwabne being the result of Polish nationalism has a place next to scholarly theory about Jedwabne being the result of Soviet recruitment of Polish Jews. But the article simply needs to be expanded, to include a range of ideas and perspectives. More non-partisan analysis about the psychology and sociology of primitive human hatred and hysteria could also be mentioned - the Jedwabne Pogrom has pathological aspects unspecific to the complex and nuanced relationship between Polish Gentiles, Polish Jews, Soviets and Nazis. WP: Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust manages to include disparate opinion (and includes Polish wrongdoings) and we can do that here. By the way I don't think we should stereotype Polish historians as local or provincial - Paulsson, Davies (and arguably Tec) are all non-Polish scholars who agree with much current Polish academia. I'm not going to accept any charges of unreasonable bias among Jewish scholars either. I'm going to start slowly adding to the article now, based on my 12 points above, and with the attempt to build consensus and taking all sentiments expressed here into consideration. I would appreciate all your good faith input in case edit wars emerge.Chumchum7 (talk) 08:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that your edits are correct.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Here Goes

Folks, I've saved this paragraph to the article, to get the ball rolling: - Input, discussion, advice, additions, citations most welcome:

"While the Jewish community in Poland had enjoyed a 1000-year tradition of tolerance unparalleled anywhere in the world, Polish-Jewish relations deteriorated in the 20th century. From the time of the Russian Revolution and the Polish-Soviet War, a racial slur of Zydokomuna stereotyped Jews as communist traitors. Census data shows that the Yiddish-speaking community rapidly increased in size, widening the gap between races. Some politicians wanted Polish Jews to emigrate. Some politicians cooperated with the Zionist movement in its aim of creating the state of Israel. Particularly after the death of Jozef Pilsudski in 1935, Jews were discriminated against in education and in some professions. Still, according to some scholars, Jews preferred to live in Poland than in the U.S.S.R., and continued to form an important part of Polish society.^[5] One possible indication of this is that at the 'decapitation' of the Polish elite at the Katyn massacre, some 600 Jewish Polish Army officers were executed by the Soviets. Around 130,000 Polish Jews fought in the Polish Army during the September Campaign, defending their country against the Nazis and Soviets."

Chumchum7 (talk) 11:05, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

"when a mob of around 40 Polish Gentiles killed hundreds of Polish Jews in their neighbourhood."

Sorry, but this sounds just a little bit absurd. 40 unarmed Poles without any special training were able to kill hundreds of Jews, while the rest of the town's residents were hiding in their cellars, or ignored the proceedings? Give me a break.

I think there is some confusion here. I can only surmise that from the legal standpoint, there was enough evidence uncovered by the IPN to charge 40 Poles with murder in the judicial sense (but none of those were alive in 2001). But obviously in addition to those 40 there were many who guarded the assembled Jews, pulled them out of their homes, jeered and humiliated them, all acts which do not warrant a murder charge but certainly were indispensable to making the massacre possible. So yes, strictly speaking it may be possible that "40 Poles murdered 400 Jews", but obviously this is completely misleading as to what actually took place. 99.236.70.174 (talk) 13:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The Soviet secret police accompanying the Red Army routinely massacred ...

The statement:

"The Soviet secret police accompanying the Red Army routinely massacred Polish prisoners of war - both Gentile and Jewish - spreading terror throughout the region.^[6]^[7]^[8]"

is claimed to be supported by three sources. However, the first source (p 67-68) tells about "arrests and deportations" exclusively. Neither massacres nor POWs are mentioned on page 67-68 at all. Therefore, the first source does not support the statement. (Interestingly, according to the source, the Jews were overrepresented among arrested and deported persons - 30% of deportees while constituted only 10% of population.) However, my most striking observation was that this source, probably introduced by some Polish nationalist in attempt to connect Jedwabne with Jewish collaboration with the Soviets, directly states that such an attempt is "historically false and morally untenable" (p. 67.)
With regards to two other sources, the source #2 is quite obscure, and I don't understand what claim it was intended to support, whereas the source #3 is obviously a primary source (telling about some particular case, a murder of some Polish general and his adjutant).
I remove last two sources and change the text accordingly.
In addition, since the source #1 directly states that it is incorrect (from both historical and moral points of view) to connect Jedwabne with Soviet occupation, that should be reflected in the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

PS. Note, I didn't introduce my own sources, I just checked the existing sources that appeared not to support the article's statement.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I think it would also be extremely useful if we could also get a handle on how many 'reprisal killings' against 'Soviet collaborators' there were in Kresy at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Some Poles, Belarusians, Lithuanians and Ukrainians also collaborated with the Soviets in Eastern Poland 1939-1941. We should find out how many of them got lynched, shot or burnt to death.Chumchum7 (talk) 12:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Waves of expulsions, mock trials and prison executions continued until June 20–21, 1941.

Two sources have beed added recently to support the unsourced statement:

"Waves of expulsions, mock trials and prison executions continued until June 20–21, 1941.^[9]^[10]"

After looking at these sources, I cannot agree that they completely support it. Alexander B. Rossino (the first source) tells mainly about arrests. He also adds:

"Yet arrest by the NKVD was not the only means of repression employed by Soviet occupation forces, deportation was another. "

In other words, he clearly states that the repressions consisted in arrests and deportations. The words "execution" and "mock" are absent in the article at all, and the word "trial" was used only once (in different context).

The second source tells primarily about Katyn, and I also don't see how can it be used as a support.
I am waiting for comments, otherwise I'll delete the sentence as unsupported by sources.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Here we go again. "Waves of expulsions, mock trials and prison executions continued until June 20–21, 1941," (i.e., arrival of the Germans). What in tarnation does that have to do with the Jewadne massacre, unless the "villagers" of Jewadne, both gentiles and Jews were actually involved in pre-Operation Barbarossa activities concerning waves of expulsions, mock trials and prison executions? Are we dealing with realities here or the "perception" of what these murderers believed the activities of the Jewish inhabitants of Jedwabne were? This is way off the chart in a real encyclopedia article. Dr. Dan (talk) 19:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: "What in tarnation does that have to do with the Jewadne massacre..." Independently of that, the statement is not supported by the source. Even the modified version ("Waves of expulsions, and prison executions continued until June 20–21, 1941.^[9]") is incorrect, because Rossino tells nothing about prison executions.

Another newly added sentence:

"One estimate put the death toll in the prisons at up to 30,000.^[11] There may be as many as 100,000 victims at the Soviets hands as they retreated.^[11] Another estimate puts the total at 120,000 prisoners killed before their flight from eastern Poland.^[12]"

is also inaccurate. On page 18 of his book Piotrowski says that the execution took place mostly after June 22, 1941, just before arrival of German troops, so the number of 30,000 corresponds to total deaths including post-June 22 evacuation and executions. In combination with the previous sentence that creates absolutely wrong picture.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Gendarmes?

Poeticbent, thanks very much for your additions. I have a query about the intro. Firstly the use of the word 'gendarme', which I understand to mean 'French policeman'. Do you mean 'German military police' or simply 'German police'? Or Einsatzgruppen? Also, isn't the naming of the owner of the barn a little too much info for the intro? Also, shouldn't we say the possibility that the German authorities were present is only one of several theories? All that would be resolved with a simple revert to my intro (believe me I worked long and hard at trying to write something that was informative, accurate and balanced!) Thanks, Chumchum7 (talk) 18:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Gendarmes [6] is the least "faux pas" of the edit. A brief re-reading of policy would be helpful in straightening out this inappropriate edit. Dr. Dan (talk) 19:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Vengeance, Reprisal, Lynching

Dr. Dan, am happy to discuss this with you. I like the word 'reprisal' because it indicates wartime retaliation that has gone too far and has become illegal. I like 'lynching', because it indicates extra-judicial (therefore illegal) retribution by a mob - and it also has race hate overtones, which is appropriate. To my mind, both words add more insight to this event than the word 'vengeance', which seems far more abstract and less descriptive, in my honest opinion. Chumchum7 (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Be glad to discuss this further with you or anyone else interested in the matter. Chumchum, however I'd like to clarify whether or not you are a native speaker of English first. Dr. Dan (talk) 20:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm a native English speaker. And yes, a 'reprisal lynching' is an unusual term. We could change it simply to 'reprisal', then use 'lynching' in the clause about moral panic.Chumchum7 (talk) 06:53, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories and the Lead

While an attempt to review the objectivity of the information being presented in this article is currently being reviewed, I find the line..." the possibility it was a diversion by NKVD agent provocateurs, and whether it was a case of moral panic,..." especially strange and inappropriate for the lead. If such theories belong anywhere in the article, they do not belong in the lead. Dr. Dan (talk) 23:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Correct.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Hang on. WP guidance on leads says any controversy about the subject should be mentioned in the lead. That said, am happy for this to be moved down to the fourth paragraph. But this opens another problem. As far as I am aware, it was Jan Gross who has said it was possibly an NKVD provocation - and that the Germans weren't there. Is Gross a conspiracy theorist? If yes, then when we move the theories to the fourth paragraph, we have to move the 'according to most scholars' part too, because the median investigative view seems to be that Nazi German police were there, either tacitly accepting Gentile actions or stage-managing Gentile actions. This is a puzzle but we'll get there.Chumchum7 (talk) 07:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Cannot fully agree. The lede states:

"The degree of Nazi German involvement, the extent to which the massacre was anti-Soviet vengeance, the possibility it was a diversion by NKVD agent provocateurs, and whether it was a case of moral panic, remain subjects of debate."

whereas the main article says:

"Until 1997–2000 it was generally assumed that the Jedwabne massacre was an atrocity committed by an Einsatzgruppe. This version of events was challenged by two revisionist documentary films: Where is my older brother, Cain? by Agnieszka Arnold and Neighbours."

and

"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. ... although IPN estimated its final death toll at around 340 rather than the 1,600 suggested by Gross, while confirming the Nazi German presence"

therefore, the Nazi involvement is still a subject of debates. However, the article tells nothing about debates over moral panic. With regards to NKVD, the article says:

"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."

In other words, this is Gross' hypothesis that is not a subject of debates. Similarly, whether the Nazi organized this pogrom or not, the anti-Soviet component was obvious and no one questions this fact (according to the article).

Lede should "summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies." The controversy over German involvement is notable and should be in the article. Other aspects seem not to be a subject of controversy, according to the article, and, therefore, should be removed from the sentence.--Paul Siebert (talk) 11:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

So lets compile a check-list of undisputed facts here, next to a check-list of unproven hypotheses, whether by Gross or anyone else. Has Gross challenged the IPN account from 2003/04? If yes, then there is genuine controversy. If not, then why not?

Also, "Until 1997–2000 it was generally assumed that the Jedwabne massacre was an atrocity committed by an Einsatzgruppe" directly contradicts "Soon after the war ended, the communist authorities of the People's Republic of Poland arrested and interrogated a number of possible suspects from or around the town of Jedwabne and put them on trial. Out of twenty two defendants, twelve were convicted of treason against Poland. Responsibility for the massacre sensu largo, according to international law, has been given to the German occupiers; while the responsibility sensu stricto has been given to approximately forty Polish men." Surely it's a gross generalization by us to say something was 'generally assumed', in direct contradiction of the court ruling? Of course the communist-era court's legitimacy is questionable - but that doesn't logically mean its verdict was generally thought to have been bogus.

Lets remember that the work of Jan Gross has been as widely critisized for its personal agenda as it has been praised, and even outside Poland. It might be worth remembering that Gross is not a relative outsider looking in, like Gunnar Paulsson or Norman Davies, but he is Polish Jewish, and his world view was shaped by the personal trauma of Polish Communist Anti-semitism in the 1968 Polish political crisis. Take a look at (the 'liberal Jewish' or 'anti-Zionist', depending on your viewpoint) Norman Finkelstein's vitriolic critique of Gross right here: [[http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=7 Perhaps Gross should be in receipt of the same scepticism as the IPN. We've got to take all that into account when using his theory for articles.Chumchum7 (talk) 12:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the statements about "the possibility it was a diversion by NKVD agent provocateurs" is not presented as debatable in the article. NKVD hypothesis, put forward by Gross, is just briefly mentioned. What is the reason for adding them in the lede as "remaining subjects of debate"?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead if you want to cut Gross's conspiracy theories from the lede, given they are down in the article anyway. Both his idea that the NKVD could have been involved, and his idea that the Germans weren't there, may need to be cut. I don't yet see that either one of the ideas has more credibility than the other, but I have tried to include these opinions for fairness and balance. If you have quotes of Gross's views, please let me know whether or not he has reiterated, retracted, or made no mention of his theories since the IPN 2003/04 report, which seems to be the most up-to-date report. There's no evidence here to show me that we should view the IPN as a less credible than Gross. Also, yes, 'moral panic' can be dealt with in the 'circumstances' section. I'm going to cut the 'generally assumed' phrase right away. Chumchum7 (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

No. I just want only notable controversies to be in the lede. Nazi involvement is being discussed in details in the article, whereas alleged NKVD's role has been only briefly mentioned. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to establish consensus here. Poeticbent said Gross hasn't challenged the IPN's findings since they were published 6 years ago. What's the truth? If you've got the evidence that the IPN has been challenged by Gross, please upload it and that will prove without any shadow of a doubt that there is an ongoing dispute about the presence of Germans. If Gross just stopped talking after the IPN report, that's not quite as persuasive.Chumchum7 (talk) 18:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

First let me say that Paul Siebert correctly assessed what my objections were to the information concerning placing the NKVD and "moral panic" in the lead of the article. That is why I started this sub-section to begin with. Please note that I did not include the parts regarding the possibility of German involvement nor the aspect of the murders possibly being an act of anti-Soviet revenge. Those controversies are notable, the other two are not. One is even what appears to be OR. Unfortunately I have a slight problem with Poeticbent's editing the lead of this article after I removed his "edit" concerning "Volksdeutsche" some time ago [7]. That one was way off the charts. Dr. Dan (talk) 19:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I've cut 'moral panic' and Jan Gross's NKVD theory. I changed 'vengeance' to reprisal, which I submit is slightly more accurate. Maybe 'lynching' would be better still. I'm reading up on this and I am finding major academic disagreements with Gross are not exclusively Polish, and have added that to the article. Also, I am having trouble finding any post-2004 debate on whether or not the Nazis were there. Everything I've got says the Nazis were there. Gross seems to have been happy with the IPN report - doesn't that imply he accepts he was mistaken about Germans being absent? And if so, doesn't that imply the whole 'revelation' and 'scandal' back in 2000/01 is questionable? Tell me what you think. And an interesting piece of trivia - I see Gross's mother was a Righteous Polish Gentile, who saved the life of his father, a Polish Jew. In some of his writing he really seems to stereotype and even hate Poles. What's it all about? Chumchum7 (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Our Class

I've added links about 'Our Class' the stage play based on Jan Gross's version of what happened, and the reviews to it, which represent public discussion about the tragedy just as much as academic theory, investigation and journalism does.Chumchum7 (talk) 13:53, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I have nothing against mentioning the above stage play somewhere towards the end of this article. However, having it featured in the opening paragraph is highly inappropriate per wp:advert and wp:trivia. The play has no scientific value. Whether it is of any significance in literary terms hasn't been confirmed by the passing of time. The play is based on a controversial book which has already been superceded by more accurate historical research. For what I know, the play may be perceived as sensationalist, or perhaps even of inferior quality in the eyes of other theatre professionals before the end of its run. --Poeticbent talk 14:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok - lets move it down lower in the article.Chumchum7 (talk) 15:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Controversy and investigation - wording

Is it clear that both documentaries were produced by Agnieszka Arnold?Xx236 (talk) 07:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

anti-Soviet revenge

I don't have any sources, but I have read that the direct revenge took place in June 1941, (two ?) gentiles were killed in Jedwabne. Later survivors of NKVD prisoner massacres returned, influenced by German anti-Jewish propaganda.Xx236 (talk) 07:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, NKVD prisoner massacres is a very useful link. Chumchum7 (talk) 10:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Background

The paragraph is very general. Jedwabne was ethnically Polish-Jewish, so why to discuss Slavic minorities (majorities) here?.Xx236 (talk) 09:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your question. Yes, absolutely, Jedwabne was split almost 50/50 Polish Gentile - Polish Jewish. After a long discussion on this page, several editors concurred that a general background section is needed to put the event in broader context. It is important to mention that collaboration with the Soviets 1939-41 in Kresy was not an exclusively Jewish tendency, and that is what prompts the mention of e.g. Belarusians. The two points here are that the Soviets actively stirred up racial hatred (perhaps evidence that Soviet policy was an important cause of racial tension and reprisal at Jedwabne) and also that Jews were not uniquely pro-Soviet (perhaps evidence that anti-Semtism was an issue in the reprisal at Jedwabne). All this background should help inform a balanced observation of the massacre and the subsequent controversies and differing points of view. Chumchum7 (talk) 10:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Jedwabne was one of many pogroms, which should be summarised like NKVD prisoner massacres are, Kaunas pogrom being the biggest of them. Strange that the article Kaunas pogrom is much shorter and the background section is also much shorter than here. Certain pogroms seem to be more equal.Xx236 (talk) 10:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC) The same the categories should be similar, they aren't.Xx236 (talk) 10:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC) Lviv pogroms Xx236 (talk) 11:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

My lengthening of this article was an attempt to add balance on every side and I ask you to respect my good faith. If you think this is in some way unfair, look again. Previously, one could have read parts of the article with a very stereotyped view of Poles as simple anti-Semites, and Jedwabne simply as their anti-Semitic pogrom. Similarly, one could have read parts of it as simply a reprisal against Jewish Communists, or some kind of justification for the killings. Neither point of view represents the whole truth. General background helps. And so, I seek to add evidence and context rather than take away. I don't think WP articles should be cut down to make them as short as the less well researched articles. I have taken the trouble to research this pogrom, not the Kaunas pogrom. I might get round to researching Kaunas and if so I'll enlarge it. And remember, Jedwabne is now infamous and arouses very strong points of view - people will do an internet search and look for it. When they find it, we should offer them a lot of fair context and factual evidence. For example, it seems that more Jews were killed at Katyn than at Jedwabne: that should puzzle Jewish and Polish bigots equally. And no bigots are more equal than others ;-) Chumchum7 (talk) 11:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Dear Chumchum7, if I understand correct Xx236 does not criticize this article, he simply propose to bring other articles on the subject into accordance with this one.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for your support. By the way, I'm trying to check the accuracy of our second sentence. Do we yet have have supporting evidence to prove there is an an ongoing debate about the level of Nazi German involvement and the extent to which it was an anti-Soviet reprisal? There surely was debate in 2000-2004. But perhaps scholars including Gross and the IPN have formed some kind of consensus over the last 5 years? Chumchum7 (talk) 06:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I mean that a general background should be available in an another, more general, article. I believe that this background should be more specific, related to Łomża region, ethnically Polish-Jewish. Another problem - the fate of local leaders should be explained here. The rc priest was arrested by the Soviets and killed. What happened to the "mayor" and teachers. Xx236 (talk) 09:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The Jedwabne pogrom has been used as a political and/or ethical tool, an example. I believe that the article should be about facts rather than interpetations. There was a series of pogroms in Łomża area and some summary article is needed rather than branding Jedwabne people as exemplary.Xx236 (talk) 10:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the articles on Jews persecution in Poland should be linked together, and that the background information should be extended and moved to some mother article. The links should be added to this and similar daughter articles leaving only minimal information specific to this particular case.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I mean - "article on Jews persecutions in 1941 in lands annexed by the SU" as a main article, "article on Jews persecutions in 1941 in Łomża area" as a daughter article and Jedwabne pogrom. "in Poland" included eg. Wolhynia, where the situation was totally different.Xx236 (talk) 08:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, are you suggesting we should create articles about 'persecution by Jews' or 'persecution of Jews' ? The two clauses have completely opposite meanings in English. Chumchum7 (talk) 08:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"of Jews".Xx236 (talk) 09:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

(OD) Is anyone claiming that the Jews of Jedwadne were persecuting anyone or persecuted anyone? What's all this blather about anyway? Dr. Dan (talk) 00:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

RE. "article on Jews persecutions in 1941 in lands annexed by the SU" There were no Jews persecution in 1941 in lands annexed by the USSR. Soviet repressions were not ethnically motivated, NKVD repressions were directed against those who were believed to perform counter-revolutionary activity (actually or potentially). With regards to Jews persecution "in lands annexed by the SU" during the last half of 1941, I see no difference between persecutions there and persecution of Jews in the USSR proper, or in General Governorship.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There was a series of pogroms after the German attack in areas annexed by the SU 1939-1941. Please, formulate the names better than me. "no difference" - ?????????Xx236 (talk) 08:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Jacurek

Jacurek, please lets discuss changes from now on. To my mind that is the best way to avoid future edit wars. Firstly, you added that in Jedwabne Jews and other minorities were given jobs etc by the Soviets 1939-1941. I had the understanding that Jedwabne had a majority Polish Jewish population, and 40-50% were Polish Gentiles. Are you saying that Belarusians or others also lived in Jedwabne? I think we need citation for that.

Secondly, the opening sentence now reads The Jedwabne pogrom (or Jedwabne massacre) took place in German Nazi occupied Poland on July 10, 1941, when a mob of Polish Gentiles under possible German police authority killed at least 340 Polish Jews. Does source (1) say that German police were 'possibly' there? This is a nuanced, though important distinction. Especially given that it's our first sentence and that several editors have discussed this at length already.

Thirdly, you write Many people in Poland were shocked by the revelations of the incident, which drastically contrasts Polish popular beliefs about Polish–Jewish relations during World War II and documented rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust. This is a troublesome sentence. I see you've declared English isn't your first language and I have to respectfully point out that 'the incident contrasts beliefs' doesn't really make sense linguistically. Moreover, the sentence strikes me as PPOV, even if that is the opinion reflected by the sources selected. I'm not sure that WP guidance would welcome us asserting that anything is a popular belief, anywhere in the world, with such a broad brush-stroke. I think this would be more neutral: According to some commentators, Poles were shocked by the details of the incident, which challenges some beliefs about Polish–Jewish relations during World War II.

Fourthly, the fact that the incident contrasts with Polish Righteous action should not be buried in the sentence about modern Polish beliefs, but made more visible: Somewhere it must be made clear to the reader that Polish Gentiles killed >340 people at Jedwabne, and Polish Gentiles saved <450,000 Jews from the Nazis, who exterminated 3 million Polish Gentiles, 3 million Polish Jews, and 3 million Jews from outside Poland - and perhaps somewhere we should also mention the c. 27 million Soviet deaths of WW2. By the way, as an aside, my personal view is that the 600 Polish Jewish deaths at Katyn is an extremely compelling statistic and is an excellent meeting point for those at opposite ends of the Jedwabne issue.

Chumchum7 (talk) 06:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

1- Yes, Belorussians etc. also lived in and around Jedwabne area and jobs were available to them. Belorussian in fact became an official language of the region if I remember correctly.

2 - Yes, the Germans may not have been there at the time but I personally think that they were.

3 - Proposed by you sentence is also fine with me.

4 - No, there is no need to "whitewash" the crimes committed in Jedwabne by giving examples of rescue of Jews by other Poles.--Jacurek (talk) 07:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

1 - Please could you point it out to me in a citation. I'm the editor who brought Belarusians into this in the first place, so I'd be fascinated to read more about the Belarusians of Jedwabne.

2 - Does source (1) say that German police were 'possibly' there? My Polish is lousy ;-)

3 - Thanks, I'll change that.

4 - The link to rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust is there in the article and I don't think anyone is saying it should be permanently removed. My point is the link is to a relevant, self-contained subject and it needs its own sentence. It isn't a figment of Polish imagination, as far as I'm aware. Murder is murder. 340+ murders is 340+ murders. A life saved is a life saved. Zydokomuna, anti-Semitism and collaboration are covered by the article. There's no whitewash.Chumchum7 (talk) 08:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There were almost no local Belarussians in Jedwabne before the war, I remember reading about one. I don't know ethnicity of Soviet occupants.Xx236 (talk) 09:50, 9 October 2009 (UTC) "Belorussian in fact became an official language of the region" which was absurd in Jedwabne.Xx236 (talk) 09:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

German presence at massacre aka as vandalism

Chumchum7 - references given only suggest that Germans were present in the area - deleted text implies that they were at the massacre and did nothing. This is good faith edit if Chumchum7 classifies this as vandalism then file appropriate complaint. Bobanni (talk) 07:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Bobanni, this is fast becoming an edit war and I would like it to end amicably. Jan Gross does not contest the IPN report which you can download here http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=en&dzial=55&id=131&search=5667, and which says Germans were present. There's no dispute whether or not Germans were present, there is speculation about to what extent they were involved. For the record, the text of the overview is below and relevant parts highlighted:

IPN ABSTRACTS

Pawel Machcewicz, The Jedwabne Case

This article, written by one of the bookÕs two co-editors, summarizes the debate in Poland about the massacre in Jedwabne and the archival research undertaken by historians from the Institute of National Remembrance. In addition, it also outlines the contents of these two volumes, as well as the main conclusions and hypotheses they contain regarding the pogroms and massacres of Jews in June and July 1941 in the üomýa and Bia¸ystok regions.

The debate over the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne was sparked by the publication in May 2000 of Jan Tomasz GrossÕs book, Neighbors, and has undoubtedly been one of the most important events in Poland since 1989. By touching on some of the most fundamental elements of Polish national identity and collective memory, it has provoked Poles to reflect critically on the validity of traditional views of Polish history, which have focused on the countryÕs struggle for freedom and on its own tragic losses. At the same time, the debate has prompted equally strong reactions of those who warn against the deleterious effects of radical and hasty reassessments of the countryÕs past.

The current publication represents the culmination of almost two years of work by a group of more than a dozen scholars. Polish historians took up this subject only just recently for several reasons. It was only possible to do so in a free and democratic country, where there was complete freedom to engage in academic research and public discussion and where historians did not have to serve as guards of national memory. The political climate in communist Poland, as we know, was not conducive to this. On the other hand, for the first few years after 1989, historians concentrated on filling in historiographical gaps about communist and Soviet crimes. Psychological issues were also important Ð for a long time, people simply did not believe information suggesting that Poles had in fact also killed Jews. It is worth recalling, however, that the Polish situation is not untypical. In democracies, too, at times such settling of historical accounts became the subject of public debate only late, often even only after several decades had passed.

This book is being published after the conclusion of the investigation conducted by the Institute of National Remembrance. Even after the investigation, many questions remained without any clear answers. Because of the rigors of criminal procedure, prosecutors could not formulate decisions without supporting materials from an investigation. Historians have more freedom: their right and duty is to analyze and interpret facts, to consider various versions of events and to formulate new questions and hypotheses. These two approaches should complement one another.

This book is comprised of two volumes: the first contains texts written by historians and lawyers. The fact that their assessments are often very different Ð but not necessarily contradictory

Ð stems from the very nature of the process of scholarly research. Historians, even if they are analyzing the same sources, are rarely in agreement with each other, especially on such complicated matters. The second volume contains documents about the pogroms and massacres of Jews in June and July 1941 in the üomýa and Bia¸ystok regions. It also contains documents about the genesis and background of these events. Research was carried out in Polish, Belarusian and German archives. The accounts by Jews who survived are of particular importance. These are housed in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and were collected during the years 1945Ð1948. Additional materials have come from Yad Vashem. The second main type of source consists of materials from the investigations and trials that took place during the years 1945Ð1958. Among the documents published here are those from the trials of Ramotowski et al (1949) and the documents from the Sobuta trial (1953), which, next to the testimony of Szmul Wasersztejn

� (Shmul Wasserstein) and Menachem Finkelsztejn (Finkelstein), have served as the main point of departure for the author of Neighbors. During research in the archives of the Institute of National Remembrance and in state archives (including those in Bia¸ystok, üomýa and E¸k) the documents of 61 trials were found, in which 93 Poles were accused of participating in the anti-Jewish events during the period from June to September 1941. These Poles were accused on the basis of the ÒAugust decreeÓ (Òon the punishment of fascist and Nazi criminals guilty of murder and of torturing civilians and POWÕs and of traitors to the Polish nationÓ). The public did not know these trials were taking place, and their sheer number came as a surprise to historians. It was impossible to include the complete documentation from these trials, which amounts to many thousands of pages. It was decided instead to include a broad selection of documents from eight of the criminal trials about the massacre in Radzi¸.w. Another kind of document published here is witness testimony from the civil proceedings before the Court of of primary jurisdiction in üomýa. These are from the State Archives in üomýa and are indirectly related to the crime of July 10, 1941. In addition, there is also documentation from the investigation of the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne that was conducted during the years 1967Ð1974 by the prosecutors from the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Bia¸ystok.

There are also Soviet (NKVD) documents describing the public mood in Western Belarus during the years 1939-1941, and documents from the structures of the Polish Underground State. For the most part, historians were already familiar with these sources. The German documents included here, however, were, with just one exception, found during archival research conducted by Edmund Dmitr.w of the Institute of National Remembrance in the Ludwigsburg archives (Bundesarchiv-Aussenstelle Ludwigsburg), Freiburg (Bundesarchiv-Milit.rarchiv Freiburg) and Berlin (Bundesarchiv Berlin). The materials from the investigation conducted during the 1960Õs regarding a Gestapo functionary from Ciechan.w, SS-Obersturmf.hrer Hermann Schaper, are particularly noteworthy. Here it should be emphasized that Dmitr.w reviewed all documents from all cases that could have had any connection whatsoever with the massacres of Jews in the area in question.

All information on the subject was collected from over twenty locations where Polish residents engaged in acts of violence against their Jewish neighbors during the first weeks of the German-Soviet war. The nature, scale and mechanisms of these acts varied. In some locations, several to a dozen or more people were killed; in others (Jedwabne, Radzi¸.w), there were fullscale massacres, with hundreds of victims. In many locations, it was the Germans who provoked and carried out the killings, who were joined by Poles who played the role of informers, or who helped terrorize the victims, and sometimes also participated in the actual killing. In other places (Goni.dz, W.sosz, Szczuczyn, Jedwabne, Radzi¸.w), it was the Poles who were directly responsible for committing the crime.

According to what is known today, the üomýa and Bia¸ystok regions were the only areas in which Poles participated on a large scale in the pogroms and killing of Jews. There are several reasons for this. The anti-Jewish violence broke out where there was a clear ethnic majority. The regions of western Bia¸ystok and üomýa were the only thoroughly ethnically Polish regions under Soviet occupation Ð with only a relatively small Jewish minority. This region was different in other ways, as well. For example, National Democratic influence was traditionally strong here. In the 1930Õs, this led to a boycott of Jewish shops, which in many cases gave rise to clearly anti-Jewish incidents. The fact that there was a strong anti-Soviet resistance movement in this area also played a role. Repressions against the underground contributed to the explosive atmosphere, and, in many places, those who initiated or participated in the anti-Jewish incidents were either people who had been released from Soviet prisons after June 22, 1941, or had been active in the underground and partisan movements.

The discussion about the crime in Jedwabne has focused primarily on the JewsÕ attitude towards the Soviet occupation and the consequences, motives and mechanisms of the anti-Jewish incidents. There have been attempts to recreate the tragic course of events leading up to the burning of the Jews in the barns in Jedwabne and Radzi¸.w, the German role in those events, and the social profile of the Polish perpetrators. It was not possible to find answers to all these questions. Thus, for example, the attitude of the Jews during the Soviet occupation cannot

� be conclusively assessed for lack of reliable figures, although many of the Polish sources mention how Jews enthusiastically greeted the Red Army and helped the Soviets create the new order, particularly during the first few months. By conducting a comparative study of the anti-Jewish incidents, one can identify the main factors which combined to create the context of those events and defined their mechanisms and dynamics. These are: the anti-Semitism of some of the local Polish population, the motivation of robbery, the desire to avenge the JewsÕ real or imagined collaboration with the Soviet occupiers and encouragement on the part of the Germans. Despite all the differences between the specific locations, there can be no doubt the Germans strove to direct this anti-communist mood and thirst for revenge against the Jews.

Another controversy surrounds the role of the Germans who were present in Jedwabne on July 10, 1941. The available sources show there was a total of between ten and twenty Germans (gendarmes and Gestapo functionaries). Violence may have been used against the Polish residents, but at the same time, many of the sources suggest it was relatively easy to avoid the role that was being forced on them. The testimonies varied and none of the participants or witnesses could have included all of what had occurred. As a result, it is impossible to determine conclusively just what the German role actually was in that last, most tragic phase Ð the burning alive of JedwabneÕs Jewish residents in the barn. The sources present contradictory and imprecise descriptions of the GermansÕ behavior, and historiansÕ assessments also vary greatly.

The events in Jedwabne and Radzi¸.w are unusual in the context of other anti-Jewish excesses in the region Ð not only because of their scale and methods, but also because Poles played an active role there. In most places where such events took place, the GermansÕ participation is indisputable, and clearly more important than their role in both those towns. Although Jedwabne and Radzi¸.w have prompted a great deal of speculation, much evidence suggests that these towns were ideal examples of the Òself-cleansing actionsÓ. In such actions, it was the local population which actually carried out the pogroms, and the Germans merely encouraged them. These plans had been drawn up by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the ReichÕs Main Security Office. This interpretation does not of course diminish the role of anti-Semitism among the local population as one of the main contributing factors in these incidents. German encouragement would not have had any chance of succeeding if it had not fallen on fertile ground.

The next point of contention has been the question of the Polish perpetratorsÕ social background. The documents do not make it clear whether any particular social groups were responsible. A comparison of the situation in approximately twenty locations in the region indicates that the perpetrators were frequently people who had been released from Soviet prisons after June 22, 1941, relatives of victims of the last deportation, or very often members of the civic guard or auxiliary police.

This publication, prepared by the Office of Public Education of the Institute of National Remembrance, constitutes the first thorough attempt to deal with this subject matter. As a result, many of the issues and hypotheses in these volumes have only been mentioned in brief and will require further research and verification.

Jan J. Milewski, Poles and Jews In and Near Jedwabne Before June 22, 1941

This article deals primarily with the 1930Õs and the period of the Soviet occupation. The first part describes the settlement itself and the structure of its municipal government. It also provides an overview of political and inter-ethnic relations in the context of the general situation in the üomýa administrative district. The areaÕs bipolar political situation gave rise to a basic conflict between the national camp (Stronnictwo Narodowe, called endecja) and the government camp (Pi¸sudskiites, known as sanacja). Other opposition political parties had no role. The second antagonism, which escalated after 1935, was not so much a conflict between Poles and Jews, but more an action directed against Jews by the endecja. Both conflicts, endecja-government camp and endecja-Jewish, engaged local political elites and the Catholic clergy, as well as a broad swath of the Polish population. The author provides numerous examples of anti-government and anti-Semitic agitation led by local priests, and points to the anti-Jewish propaganda in üomýaÕs Catholic press and its influence on the political climate. JedwabneÕs provost also publicly

� opposed the sanacja government, and was punished several times for slandering the state and spreading false information. The sources do not indicate, however, that he made any anti-Semitic statements. Despite the stereotype of ÒJudeo-CommunismÓ (ýydokomuna) forwarded by the nationalist media, there were very few supporters of communism in Jedwabne. The Jewish population voted for government parties, while the Jewish organizations demonstrated their pro-state stance. There were many anti-Jewish incidents in and around üomýa, the largest of which was the anti-Jewish pogrom in Radzi¸.w on March 23, 1933. When these intensified, the Stronnictwo NarodoweÕs activities in several administrative districts in the Bia¸ystok province were suspended. This wave of anti-Jewish incidents, which continued until 1939, did not, however, include Jedwabne. The boycott of Jewish traders was more peaceful there than elsewhere in the region.

After PolandÕs defeat in the defensive war of September 1939, the Red Army entered the üomýa administrative district after several weeks of German occupation, as had been previously arranged. There were no cases of anti-Polish activities here. In Polish accounts from this area, there is a recurring theme about how the Jews were glad when the Red Army entered. This attitude was seen in Wizna, Radzi¸.w, W.sosz, Przytu¸y, Grajewo and Jedwabne. Jedwabne became the regional seat, which included the towns of Wizna and Radzi¸.w as well as about 150 villages. There were Jews in the revolutionary committees and militia, and many Poles believed it was mainly Jews who were involved in local government. According to Soviet data on the ethnic composition of the regional government, we can see that the higher posts were filled with individuals who had been sent from the East, mostly Belarusians. In the Executive Committee, the highest government body in the region, there were no Jews at all. They were especially visible in education, although in this field there were also vostochniki Ð i.e., ÒEasternersÓ, people who had come from the USSR.

The Polish underground active in the Jedwabne region was probably the strongest center of anti-Soviet resistance within the territories incorporated into the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. Contrary to popular opinion, its penetration by NKVD, and as a result its collapse in June 1940, should be attributed to agents recruited from among the Polish population, not Jews. The author draws attention to the varying attitudes of the Jewish population toward Poles and the Soviets, and also outlines actual Soviet policy regarding Jews. He argues, however, that Poles did not notice the internal divisions within the Jewish community, which meant their ÒothernessÓ was more marked and hostility between the two communities grew. In the authorÕs opinion, the anti-Jewish mood was strengthened significantly by the latest deportation of Poles that had taken place June 19-21, 1941.

Marcin Urynowicz, JedwabneÕs Jewish Population: Demographic Changes from the Late Nineteenth Century to 1941 in the Context of the üomýa Region as a Whole

The main aim of this article is to determine the number of Jews in Jedwabne before the massacre of July 10, 1941. Because of the scarcity of primary sources from the interwar period and the Second World War, the author has decided to present the demographic changes in the üomýa region since the turn of the twentieth century. From 1884 to 1914, Jedwabne, like the entire region, fell within the üomýa guberniia of the Russian Empire. During the 1880Õs, Jedwabne had 1,857 residents, Òmostly IsraelitesÓ. In the larger towns, the number of Jews varied from 62.4% in Kolno to 81% in Szczuczyn. In some smaller towns, however, Jews represented only a small percentage of the population. There are differing accounts as to the number of Jews living in Jedwabne at the outbreak of the First World War. Some authors state that Jedwabne had 4,600 residents, of whom 94% were Jewish, and others claim that Jedwabne had just under 3,000 residents. In 1915, the town was 72% destroyed, with its population falling to just 700.

This article includes a detailed analysis of the demographic situation in the Bia¸ystok province during the interwar period. Because the census forms from both censuses (1921 and 1931) conducted by the Main Statistical Office (G¸.wny Urz.d Statystyczny, GUS) have been destroyed, it is not certain what JedwabneÕs exact demographic situation was during those years. Statistical analyses indicate that Jedwabne, which at that time was in the Kolno district, had

� 1,222 residents in 1921. Four hundred fifty-nine people said they were Poles and 757 said they were Jews (61.9%). On average, towns in the Kolno district were 55% Jewish. The percentage of Jews fell in later years in all the districts of the Bia¸ystok province. In the üomýa district, which in 1931 also came to include Jedwabne, after the Kolno district ceased to exist, Jews constituted 38.9% of the total population. At the same time, unlike most other towns in the region, JedwabneÕs population grew significantly. Most of the new residents were, however, newcomers who had arrived from the countryside. As a result, in the early 1930Õs, the proportion of Poles to Jews was reversed. In 1931, the townÕs population was 2,167, of which 1,309 declared Polish to be their mother tongue, and 858 (39.6%) spoke other languages as their mother tongue. (This time, however, they were not asked about their ethnicity.)

Emigration was a very important factor affecting the demographics of the üomýa region. On a national scale, the Bia¸ystok province was first in terms of the percentage of its population that emigrated. In the 1930Õs, the proportion of Jewish emigrants to Christian ones was almost two times higher than the percentage of Jews within the population of the province as a whole. This was a result of the deepening economic crisis, but also of the worsening relations with Poles and the boycott led by Stronnictwo Narodowe. Although there is no way of ascertaining exact figures, this wave of emigration must have resulted in lower growth among the Jewish population of Jedwabne and environs. In 1937, Jedwabne had a population of 2,500, of which 60% were Catholic and 40% Jewish (approximately 1,000 people). Other studies indicate that two years later the number of residents was between 2,720 and 2,800, with no breakdown according to ethnicity. Those proportions most probably did not change, however.

Soviet documents indicate that in December 1939, there was a total of 1,680 Jews in the entire Jedwabne raion, and in the second half of 1940, even fewer Ð from 1,245 to 1,400 Jews. According to this data, in 1940, 1,762 Poles, 562 Jews and 97 Belarusians lived in Jedwabne. Despite the discrepancy between these figures and prewar estimates, and what we know about the imprecision of Soviet bureaucrats, it is nevertheless difficult to completely reject these calculations. During this period, there were great population migrations. During the three-week-long German occupation in 1939, about 300 men were taken from Jedwabne to the Reich. On the other hand, relatively large numbers of Jewish refugees from the German-occupied territories could also have appeared temporarily in Jedwabne. In addition, conscription into the Red Army might also have resulted in a lower number of Jews in Jedwabne, as could have deportations into the interior of the Soviet Union, as could have the eastward flight of some of the Jewish residents after the German-Soviet war broke out. On the other hand, Jewish refugees from Radzi¸.w and Wizna were also in Jedwabne in early July 1941. It is difficult to provide precise figures.

The number of victims in the Jedwabne massacre of July 10, 1941, as stated in the sources and studies on the subject vary from 1,000 to 1,600. The author is inclined to believe that in late June and early July 1941, the Jewish population of Jedwabne could have numbered approximately 1,000. Since several dozen people were probably not burned in the barn, but were killed in other ways instead and since some escaped and hid in the vicinity and later returned to the ghetto that was created in Jedwabne, it would seem that significantly fewer than one thousand people Ð many of whom were refugees Ð died in Bronis¸aw åleszyÄskiÕs barn in Jedwabne. The figure of 1,600 Jewish victims, all allegedly residents of Jedwabne, is an estimate which appeared for the first time only after the war and has since been repeated in many publications. The author argues that this figure seems untenable in light of what we know today.

Dariusz Libionka, The Clergy of the üomýa Diocese, Anti-Semitism and the Extermination of the Jews

This article is comprised of two sections: the first contains a description of the political preferences of the clergy of the üomýa diocese prior to the Second World War. The diocese included the Western part of the Bia¸ystok province. The local ordinary, Stanis¸aw üukomski, was one of the bishops most virulently opposed to the sanacja government and his policies were aimed at filling Church posts with Stronnictwo Narodowe supporters. As a result, this friction

� between the Church and the government camp Ð more serious than elsewhere in the country

Ð developed into a deep-seated antagonism. The article describes the conflicts between the clergy of that diocese and the state authorities and local administration, and the problem of Church engagement in the endecja program aimed at Ònationalizing tradeÓ. The sources indicate that the bishop and provostsÕ active support of that program was more serious and far-reaching than in other dioceses. Much of the article is dedicated to an analysis of journalistic writings on the ÒJewish questionÓ in the diocesan weeklies ûycie i Praca and Sprawa Katolicka. The author strives to present the most important anti-Jewish aspects of discussions in the üomýa press, comparing them to the main trends in the Catholic press of that period. Because the anti-Jewish excesses, incidents and pogroms were intensifying in the üomýa diocese during the 1930Õs, the author focused on the reaction of the Church press to those events. The second part of the article concentrates on the attitudes of üomýa clergy towards Jews during the Second World War. Although most of the diocese was under Soviet occupation from 1939 to 1941, the priests who were in areas that had been annexed to the Reich were subject to harsher repressions. The Germans, unlike the Soviets, strove to liquidate the Polish Church structures entirely. Within a few days of the German invasion of the USSR, the entire diocese found itself under German occupation. The author, basing his conclusions on both Polish and Jewish accounts, describes the broad spectrum of attitudes and behavior among priests from the parishes of the üomýa diocese, and from towns in other Church provinces in response to the rash of anti-Jewish acts in June and July 1941. The author concentrates on events in Jedwabne and Radzi¸.w, and attempts to verify the views of Polish historians and writers regarding Bishop üukomskiÕs stance toward those events. The last section of the article describes historiographical texts about how the clergy from this diocese helped save Jews.

Marek Wierzbicki, Polish-Jewish Relations in Western Belarus, 1939Ð1941

This article discusses Polish-Jewish relations and their context in the previously Polish areas which were annexed to the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, known in Soviet nomenclature as ÒWestern BelarusÓ. The article first describes this region in demographic terms, summarizing its pre-war social and ethnic structure. September 1939 represented a caesura in Polish-Jewish relations, which worsened as the result of the differing reactions of the Polish and Jewish populations to the Soviet annexation of territories that had belonged to Poland before the war. The author was interested in both long-term processes and the day-to-day formation of attitudes and behavior. Jewish attitudes after September 17, 1939, were influenced by growing anti-Semitism in Poland, which disillusioned many Jews. Another reason why Jews might have greeted the Red Army enthusiastically was because they sensed the threat posed to them by the Germans. The local communists and their supporters who joined diversionary activities directed against the Polish state had completely different motivations. To a large extent, these were the factors that made it possible for such a radically negative image of Jews in the Polish collective memory in the Eastern Kresy (PolandÕs eastern territories) to form and take root.

This article then discusses the scale and forms of cooperation between the Jewish population and Soviet occupying forces from October 1939 to June 1941 and their motivations. This is impossible to understand and analyze without taking into account Soviet ethnic policy as a whole in the Kresy. Contrary what many Poles believed, the thesis about a unified and unchanging attitude of the Jews towards the Soviets is difficult to maintain in light of the Soviet sources we have at our disposal. This argument does not, however, undermine the reliability of the hundreds of Polish memoirs and accounts which are highly critical of the choices made by the Jewish population. Their radical assessments were prompted by a combination of the PolesÕ own decline in status with the JewsÕ social advancement, as well as by the JewsÕ presence during every step as the anti-Polish policies of the new Soviet authorities were being implemented.

According to the author, it would not be correct to call the Jewish populationÕs attitude ÒcollaborationÓ. He argues that the first months of the occupation were a decisive factor in the worsening of Polish-Jewish relations and the adoption of a radically negative image of Jews. It was during this time that the percentage of Jews in the new government was highest and their

� presence most visible. On the other hand, the fact that the PolesÕ subjective feelings were disproportionately strong compared to the actual Jewish presence in the Soviet apparatus was less important than the fact that they were indeed present in those structures. During the years 1940-1941, it is difficult to speak of any privileged treatment of the Jewish population. The Soviet occupation Òbrought Jews no fewer disappointments and suffering than other ethnic groups living in Western BelarusÓ. Their religious communities were liquidated, industry and trade were nationalized, and Jewish political life was ended. In addition, there was the tragic fate of refugees from the German-occupied territories who in 1940 were forcibly deported far into the interior of the USSR. This all created a change of mood among the Jewish population. The increase in anti-Soviet sentiments did not mean, however, that Jews were automatically more favorably inclined toward the Poles. It was no different among the Poles, most of whom felt a certain antipathy toward all Jews. The author argues that although the Jews were not at all the main beneficiaries of the Soviet system, it was they who became the victims of revenge when it was wreaked indiscriminately for all communist crimes. This was because during the years 1939Ð1941, Poles had come to identify Jews completely with communism.

Andrzej ûbikowski, Pogroms and Massacres of Jews during the Summer of 1941 in the üomýa and Bia¸ystok Regions in Jewish Accounts and Court Documents

The author focuses on the anti-Jewish incidents in the area of the former Bia¸ystok province in which Poles participated from the start of the German-Soviet war on June 22, 1941, until mid- September of that same year. The Jedwabne massacre on July 10, 1941, was not an isolated incident, although its scale was indeed exceptional. Anti-Jewish incidents occurred during that period in other towns in the region. These events differed in terms of dynamics, development and consequences. In some places, it was only a relatively limited number of ÒactivistsÓ who turned violent; in others, a broad swath of the population was swept up in the violence. The author has tried to discover the facts of these events by basing his conclusions on two kinds of sources: the accounts of Jewish witnesses collected during the years 1945Ð1948 by the Jewish Provincial Historical Commission in Bia¸ystok (accounts by 32 people about the events in 22 different places were analyzed) and court documents, as well as those from criminal investigations. This second category includes documents from 61 investigations and trials from the years 1945Ð1958 on PolesÕ participation in the anti-Jewish actions. These people were tried on the grounds of a decree issued by the Polish Committee of National Liberation on August 31, 1944. (It read: Òon the punishment of fascist and Nazi criminals guilty of murder and of torturing civilians, and prisoners of war, and of traitors to the Polish nationÓ.)

Before reconstructing the events in specific locations, the author first describes both kinds of sources used, and notes problems associated with using and interpreting them. Specific aspects of the Jewish accounts are noted, including their authors, language and context and

Ð significantly Ð why they were given. The fact that the vast majority of them were not meant to be used as evidence in court supports arguments for their credibility. As far as materials from court proceedings are concerned, the author rejects arguments that the testimony of the defendants was given as the result of manipulation by the investigating officers from the Security Offices (Urz«dy BezpieczeÄstwa, UB). From the point of view of the authorities, who strove to deal first and foremost with the armed and political opposition, proceedings against the perpetrators of anti-Jewish violence during the war could not have been a priority. The aim of this article is both to reconstruct and interpret the anti-Jewish incidents. The places discussed are presented geographically, starting with Kolno, closest to the 1941 German-Soviet border. After Kolno, the author moves north around Bia¸ystok, then returns south of the Narew and crosses to its right bank and ends in Radzi¸.w. The events in the following places were reconstructed: Kolno (early July 1941), Stawiski (July 5Ð7), W.sosz (July 5Ð8), Szczuczyn (June 27 and July 13), Grajewo (late June and July 3), Rajgr.d (early July), Goni.dz (July 3Ð4), Suchowola (July 6), Korycin, Jasion.wka (July 6), Knyszyn (late June Ð early July), Wasilk.w and Zab¸ud.w (July 6), Choroszcz (July 20Ð21), Trzcianne (late June), Tykocin (late June and early July; August 25Ð26), Soko¸y, Czyýew, Zar«by Koæcielne (July 5), Narewka, Kleszczele,

� Siemiatycze (July 5), Rutki (June 25), Bielsk Podlaski (July 5Ð7), Pi.tnica, Wizna (late June) and Radzi¸.w (July 7). The author devotes special attention to the massacre in Radzi¸.w. To present the course of events in a given location, the author first presents them as recalled by the Jews who survived, and then compares this picture with the PolesÕ testimonies from court proceedings. In many cases, however, the sources do not allow the events to be described with any accuracy. This is because most of the Jewish accounts were given by simple, uneducated people, as was the case with the Polish witnesses and defendants. One must also take into account the poor understanding of the historical issues involved on the part of those working in the courts, UB functionaries and prosecutors.

The second part of the article discusses the debate about Jedwabne among historians. The author, having analyzed the sources, takes issue with the thesis that there existed a universal Òpogrom scenarioÓ that was implemented by the Germans in one place after another. Evidence for such a scenario is negligible. What some historians have interpreted as evidence of a pogrom scenario has been characterized by ûbikowski as German soldiersÕ typical treatment of Jews, which was not necessarily meant to encourage the local population to participate in anti-Jewish aggression. Further study is needed to determine whether this was specific to the occupied areas of Mazovia and Podlasie, or whether the same pattern was in fact occurring throughout all areas formerly under Soviet occupation. He also argues that although the leadership of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) expected there to be anti-Jewish incidents, their breadth and degree of violence must have nonetheless surprised them.

An extremely important problem in terms of reconstructing the course of events is to establish which German units were in the area, and when. Because there were various types of German formations there in June and July 1941, and because the data regarding their activities are fragmentary, it is impossible to establish a precise chronology or geography of the German forces in this area. There is a close correlation between the presence of police or army and the way the Jewish population was treated, thus the scale of German repressions varied. For example, functionaries of the special detachments treated the Jews differently than the gendarmerie and Wehrmacht soldiers did. That first group, whose aim was to discover and eradicate communist sympathizers, acted systematically and with a clear purpose. It was only in a few places that these actions grew into large-scale massacres (Radzi¸.w and Jedwabne). In most of the cases studied, repressions against Jews were selective in nature.

The last sections of the article deal with the role played in these events by the local administration and Òauxiliary policeÓ formed in late June and early July 1941, both of which had broad authority. In addition, the author also discusses the motives of those who participated in the anti-Jewish excesses, which included robbery, anti-Semitism and revenge for the Soviet occupation.

Edmund Dmitr.w, Operational Detachments of the German Security Police and Security Service and the Beginning of the Liquidation of the Jews in the üomýa and Bia¸ystok Regions in the Summer of 1941

This article discusses the role of the operational divisions of the Security Police and the Security Service in the killings and pogroms of Jews during the summer of 1941 in the Bia¸ystok province. The question is examined in its broader historical context. First, the activities of the Einsatzgruppen during the September 1939 campaign in Poland are described, as well as the ideological basis of the German-Soviet conflict. With reference to the international historiographical debate currently underway about the nature and chronology of the decision-making process leading to the ÒFinal SolutionÓ, the author describes the tasks of the operational groups which were created just before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Like historians P. Longerich,

C. Browning, G. Aly, C. Streit, A. Streim and C. Gerlach, the author believes the decision to kill the Jews living in the USSR developed in three stages. The decision to annihilate all Jews was preceded by the killing of Jewish men (from late June and early July 1941), after which the extermination action included women and children as well (from late July 1941 on). The activities of Einsatzgruppe B, operating in Western Belarus, are of special importance in this context, as are the police formations supporting it. Four Òsupport detachmentsÓ

� (Unterst.tzungstrupps) formed in the Generalgouvernement were included in the latter, as were commandos created by the local Gestapo offices from Olsztyn, Tylýa and Ciechan.w-P¸ock.

In discussions about the massacres of Jews in the Bia¸ystok region, it has been particularly important to learn about the activities of the division led by SS-Untersturmf.hrer Wolfgang Birkner, as the detachment that was in the area the longest, as well as those of the detachment sent by the Gestapo office in Ciechan.w-P¸ock, led by SS-Obersturmf.hrer Hermann Schaper. In fact, although information about it is limited, it was the latter which played a key role in initiating the Òcleansing actionÓ in the üomýa region.

The article includes a detailed description of how events unfolded, including the pogroms and massacres of Jews which took place in a swath stretching from the Baltic states (Kowno/Kaunas) through Western Ukraine (including Drohobycz, Lw.w, üuck, Sambor, Z¸ocz.w and Tarnopol), to Moldova and Bessarabia (Iasi) during the first weeks of the Soviet-German war. These comments provide the background for an analysis of similar phenomena in Western Belarus. The author is also interested in the content of HeydrichÕs orders related to the Òself-cleansing actionsÓ, the circumstances surrounding the massacre of Jews by functionaries of the 309th Police battalion in Bia¸ystok on June 27, 1941, and the massacres of Jews in Kolno, Szczuczyn and W.sosz. The author asks how these events might be related to the visit of Hermann G.ring in üomýa and Kolno on July 4, 1941.

The investigation carried out in West Germany from 1960 to 1964 is of particular importance in explaining the course of events in the üomýa region. Martin Opitz, court counselor from the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufkl.rung von NS-Verbrechen (Central Office of the Judicial Administrations of the L.nder for Investigation of Nazi Crimes), focused his search on the unit led by Hermann Schaper, comprised of Security Police functionaries (Gestapo) from Ciechan.w. In 1963, two Jewish witnesses identified him as the officer responsible for the massacre of Jews in Radzi¸.w and Tykocin. The evidence gathered was used by the Zentrale Stelle in Ludwigsburg to accuse him of directing the extermination of Jews in those places, and probably also in Wizna and Jedwabne. In September 1965, however, the public prosecutorÕs office in Hamburg decided to discontinue the legal proceedings.

From the authorÕs reconstruction of events in Jedwabne and vicinity, it becomes apparent that elements within the Polish population had willingly taken the lead from the Germans, who took advantage of the Polish experience during the Soviet occupation, the PolesÕ sense of having been wronged and the tradition of pre-war anti-Semitism. The chance to loot was also an important motivating factor. The Òself-cleansing actionsÓ were an episode calculated for propaganda purposesÐwhich is why they were photographed. Much evidence suggests that Schaper was the commanding officer for the Jedwabne and Radzi¸.w action. The role of the Germans in the üomýa region was not limited solely to decision-making, but was also to provide models for anti-Jewish activities, which initiated the process of dehumanizing the victims. In addition, their role also guaranteed that the perpetrators recruited from among the Polish population would go unpunished.

Andrzej RzepliÄski, He is my Compatriot? The Criminal Cases against the Perpetrators of the Massacre of Jews in Jedwabne and the Principles of Procedural Due Process

This text reviews all aspects of the criminal cases during the years 1949-1954 dealing with the massacre in Jedwabne on July 10, 1941. Special attention is paid to the proceedings of May 1949 before the District Court in üomýa. The authorÕs focus here is the question of the reliability of the proceedings to take evidence, and of the trial itself. In the first part of the article, the author discusses the legal context of the prosecution of perpetrators as outlined in the decree of the Polish Committee of National Liberation of August 31, 1944, Òon the punishment of fascist and Nazi criminals guilty of murder and of torturing civilians and POWÕs, and of traitors to the Polish NationÓ. The author thoroughly analyzes the circumstances surrounding the initiation of criminal proceedings in 1949, and discusses the procedural regulations regarding the way in which this kind of investigation was to be conducted and how the inquiry was actually carried

� out, preparations for the trial, analysis of the indictment itself, the course of the trial and the reasons for the verdict.

Next, the author discusses the procedure for nullification of the verdict begun by defense counsel when a petition for nullification was submitted to Supreme Court, trials in the Court of Appeals in Bia¸ystok involving the two accused, whose sentences were overturned by the Supreme Court, and the course and effects of the attempts by the lawyer defending the other defendants to have them pardoned. The article concludes with an analysis of the investigation and trial of J.zef Sobuta in the Provincial Court in Bia¸ystok in December 1953, whose case had been excluded from the first criminal trial in 1949.

The fact that the ÒAugust decreeÓ provided the basis for the case against twenty-two residents of Jedwabne bore important consequences. In cases of this kind, proceedings were carried out without an investigation, which meant in fact that there could be only summary proceedings. This seriously limited the ability to establish the truth. Proceedings were initiated as the result of a letter written by Ca¸ka Migda¸, originally from Jedwabne but living at that time in Uruguay. The letter was sent on December 29, 1947, to the Central Committee of Jews in Poland. It was then sent to the Ministry of Justice, which on February 16, 1948, ordered the Public Prosecutor of the District Court in üomýa to begin an investigation. On March 15, 1948, that same public prosecutor sent the documents of the case to the District Office of Public Security in üomýa in order to carry out the investigation. Despite the procedure in place for such cases, for many months there was no progress whatsoever. A group of suspects was arrested only on January 8, 1949. This delay was either because of negligence, or because the full significance of the case was not realized. From the very start of the investigation, there were very many irregularities, such as the fact that the temporary arrests were illegal, and the apartments of those under arrest were not searched.

The questionings of the suspects and of the Polish and Jewish witnesses carried out by the UB and the District Public ProsecutorÕs Office in üomýa were of key importance, as far as preparation of the evidence is concerned. From the records of those questionings, however, it can be concluded that the investigators, prosecutors and judges ignored contradictions in the testimony and were uninterested in details that were of key interest to the case. For example, they did not investigate the situation in Jedwabne from June 25, 1941, the date of the first outburst of violence, to July 10, 1941, nor the question of which Germans were present at the time.

During the trial, several of the defendants said they had admitted guilt and incriminated their co-defendants as the result of physical abuse and threats. Analyses of the defendantsÕ testimony show, however, that this scenario was not very likely. It cannot be ruled out that UB functionaries Ð who were after all members of a criminal organization Ð did at times verbally abuse, strike, or even beat the suspects. Testimony given during the investigation was retracted as evidence to be used in court for other reasons, however: some of the witnesses were more frightened of their own neighbors than they were of the UB. The defendants were nevertheless conscious of the fact that the whole local community was standing behind them. In their testimony, it is difficult to find evidence that the investigators were trying to impose any particular ÒlineÓ on them. It is apparent, however, that those investigators were not at all interested in discovering the truth behind the crime. In searching for explanations of what happened, it is also significant that the victims were non-Poles.

The exceptionally long list of errors and retractions demonstrates the attitude of the investigators and court toward the case. The people who rescued Jews were not questioned, nor was the provost from Jedwabne. The composition of the Municipal Board was not established, whose role in the persecution of Jews was considerable, as the materials from the investigation indicate. No attempt was made to discover the names of the victims, nor were any remains exhumed. No efforts were made to find Marian Karolak, the mayor, nor did anyone determine which of the defendants acquired Jewish property and how. Even the indictment of March 31, 1949, is glaringly imprecise: a wrong date is given for the crime, and the time at which the crime occurred is not mentioned. It is also vague in the way it defines its subject matter and contradicts the findings of the investigation. The reasons for the judgment were similarly imprecise. It was a mistake entrusting the investigation to an ensign from the District Office of Public Security and to the local public prosecutorÕs office, whose capabilities were far too limited for such a case.

� Because of the crimeÕs scale, it would have been more appropriate to abandon the summary proceedings and instead have qualified individuals carry out a thorough investigation.

The trial took place on May 16Ð17, 1949. The first day, questioning of the 22 accused and 48 witnesses took approximately seven hours. This means that approximately five minutes was spent on every person who was to appear in court. The District Court found twelve of the defendants guilty, and acquitted the other ten. In the reasons for the judgment, as in the indictment, there were errors and contradictions. They did not establish the facts of the matter, nor did they describe all the circumstances surrounding the crime. In the reasons for the judgment, there is also no mention of the German perpetrators and nor any suggestion that they should in fact be prosecuted. The court however did admit that the defendantsÕ behavior had been prompted by threats of physical violence by German policemen. All of the defendants appealed their sentences to the Supreme Court. Although only two of the defendants had their sentences reversed, none of the others served the full length of their sentences. Two individuals died in prison. Jerzy LaudaÄski, who served eight years and two months in prison, had been sentenced to fifteen years; of those sentenced, he served the longest term.

The trial of J.zef Sobuta was an epilogue to the Jedwabne case. This time, the trial lasted just one day (December 11, 1953). The presiding judge was the same one as in the previous trial, and the trial resulted in an acquittal. The Supreme Court reversed the decision (on February 22, 1954), but the Provincial Court in Bia¸ystok once again acquitted the accused on September 24Ð25, 1954, and once again exhibited a lack of interest in reaching the truth of the matter.

The article concludes by raising the question whether the Jedwabne trial can be seen as a typical Stalinist-era trial Ð i.e., one which had been faked to gain political advantages through force and falsified testimonies and material evidence, carried out in the presence of specially chosen public prosecutors and teams of judges. The author clearly argues that this was not the character of the criminal case about the Jedwabne massacre. In Stalinist trials, when the defendant refused to plead guilty during the proceedings or questioned the methods and conclusions of the investigation, the reaction was different than in the Jedwabne case. The political climate in which the investigation and trial took place did, however, influence how it was conducted and its conclusions. As the apparatus had become increasingly Stalinized, representatives of the judicial system and UB functionaries very well might have established their own kind of ÒconspiracyÓ, whose aim was to limit the facts of the case, the number of individuals brought to criminal justice and the responsibility of the defendants.

If so, that ÒconspiracyÓ was highly successful: from todayÕs perspective, many of the functionaries of the District Public Security Office, the public prosecutors and judges could be accused of failing to fulfill their obligations as stipulated in the Criminal Law Code, which constitutes a crime in itself. If this was the case, then in fact they had been acting against the public interest and against the victims themselves.

Tomasz Szarota, The Jedwabne Massacre: Documents, Publications and Interpretations, 1941Ð2000 Ð A Chronology

This chronology, compiled by Tomasz Szarota, notes the events immediately preceding the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, as well as information from primary sources, and related investigations and publications, both from Poland and abroad, in their order of appearance. These include those which preceded the publication of the book Neighbors, by Jan Tomasz Gross. The first item is from June 20, 1941, and the last is from May 19, 2000. In the case of historical publications, their interpretations of the events are also discussed. The author was also interested in determining how the Nazi police system functioned in the region of Bia¸ystok during the summer of 1941.

The pogrom in Jedwabne was first described by Szmul Wasersztejn (Shmul Wasserstein) at the Jewish Provincial Historical Commission in Bia¸ystok on April 5, 1945. Another was that given to members of that same commission on June 14, 1946, by Menachem Finkelsztejn (Menachem Finkelstein). That account (in Polish and Yiddish) was included in the Grayevo Memorial Book, published in the United States in 1950.

� On May 16-17, 1949, the trial of Boles¸aw Ramotowski and twenty-one other co-defendants took place before the District Court in üomýa. One of them received the death sentence (which was not carried out), one received fifteen years in prison, three received twelve years in prison, two were sentenced to ten years and five to eight years. The rest were declared not guilty. On December 11, 1953, J.zef Sobuta also appeared before the Provincial Court in Bia¸ystok, but he was also declared innocent.

The first academic text that mentions the events in Jedwabne was Szymon DatnerÕs article published in the Biuletyn ûydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego in 1966. The author, basing himself on WasersztejnÕs account, points to the German Einsatzkommando and Òthe local rabbleÓ as perpetrators of the crime. In 1974, Reuben Ainsztein cited DatnerÕs findings in his book Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Europe. PolesÕ participation was emphasized more in this work, and was attributed to ÒPolish anti-SemitesÓ. In 1980, the volume Yedwabne: History and Memorial Book (Sefer Jedwabne: Historiya ve-zikaron) appeared simultaneously in the United States and Israel, which included several new accounts related to the events in Jedwabne.

In the 1980Õs, a different interpretation of those events appeared in Polish historiography. In 1982Ð1989, several articles by public prosecutor Waldemar Monkiewicz of the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Bia¸ystok were published by the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland (G¸.wna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce), as well as in the regional press. These texts, which argue that it was the ÒKommando BialystokÓ, led by Wolfgang Birkner, that organized and carried out the crime, were however very weakly documented and contained a number of mistakes and contradictions. Fragments of WasersztejnÕs account were published for the first time in a feature article on Jedwabne by Danuta and Aleksander Wroniszewski, which was published in the üomýa weekly Kontakty in 1988. Two years earlier, another local paper had rejected that text for publication. None of these publications aroused historiansÕ interest.

During the 1990Õs, Polish researchers focused on the fate of the anti-Soviet partisans who were active in the Jedwabne region and on the Soviet repressions in the Bia¸ystok area.

The year 2000 proved to be a watershed. Whereas before that time the matter of Jedwabne had been known only among historians, over the course of several months, the media informed the Polish public about what had happened there as well. In February, Jan Tomasz GrossÕs text ÒLato 1941 w Jedwabnem: Przyczynek do badaÄ nad udzia¸em spo¸ecznoæci lokalnych w eksterminacji narodu ýydowskiego w latach II wojny æwiatowejÓ [ÒSummer 1941 in Jedwabne: A Contribution to the Research on the Participation of Local Communities in the Extermination of the Jewish People during the Second World WarÓ] appeared in the volume Europa nieprowincjonalna: Przemiany na ziemiach wschodnich dawnej Rzeczypospolitej [ÒUn-provincialÓ Europe: Changes in the Former Eastern Territories of Pre-War Poland], which was dedicated to Professor Tomasz Strzembosz. In April, the Jedwabne massacre was mentioned in a film by Agnieszka Arnold titled Ò...gdzie jest m.j starszy syn Kain?Ó [ÒÉ Where is My Elder Son Cain?Ó], which was broadcast by Polish state television. On May 5, a feature article by Andrzej KaczyÄski titled ÒCa¸opalenieÓ [ÒBurned AliveÓ] was published in the Warsaw daily Rzeczpospolita. Its author cited not only Wasersztejn, but also the accounts given in Yedwabne: History and Memorial Book, as well as those collected from the townÕs residents. On May 11, the first mention of the subject was published in another Warsaw daily, Gazeta Wyborcza. In mid-May, Jan Tomasz GrossÕs book S.siedzi [Neighbors] appeared in bookstores around the country.

Translated by Christina Manetti

�Chumchum7 (talk) 08:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The film was broadcast in April but 1999, not 2000.Xx236 (talk) 13:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

^ Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki, A Concise History of Poland, page 261.
^ Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews: The Anglo-Jewish Community, Britain, and the Russian Revolution. Published by Routledge, pg. 87 [8]
^ Zvi Y. Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present. Pg. 70. [9]
^ Ilya Prizel, National identity and foreign policy Published by Cambridge University Press. Page 65.
^ Tec, Nechama (1993). Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0195093909.
^ Cite error: The named reference Zimmerman67 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Sanford, p. 23; (in Polish) Olszyna-Wilczyński Józef Konstanty, Encyklopedia PWN. Retrieved 14 November 2006.
^ (in Polish) Śledztwo w sprawie zabójstwa w dniu 22 września 1939 r. w okolicach miejscowości Sopoćkinie generała brygady Wojska Polskiego Józefa Olszyny-Wilczyńskiego i jego adiutanta kapitana Mieczysława Strzemskiego przez żołnierzy b. Związku Radzieckiego. (S 6/02/Zk) Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Internet Archive, 16.10.03. Retrieved 16 July 2007.
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference Rossino was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Józef Mackiewicz, Zbrodnia katyńska w swietle dokumentów, with the foreword by Władysław Anders, Gryf, London 1948. Excerpts by Stanisław Stroński.
^ ^a ^b Tadeusz Piotrowski Poland’s Holocaust', ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 Page 18
^ Malcher, G.C. (1993) Blank Pages Pyrford ISBN 1 897984 00 6 Page 13

[1] Jerzy Lukowski, Hubert Zawadzki, A Concise History of Poland, page 261.

[2] Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews: The Anglo-Jewish Community, Britain, and the Russian Revolution. Published by Routledge, pg. 87 [8]

[Gitelman-3] Zvi Y. Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present. Pg. 70. [9]

[4] Ilya Prizel, National identity and foreign policy Published by Cambridge University Press. Page 65.

[5] Tec, Nechama (1993). Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0195093909.

[Zimmerman67-6] Cite error: The named reference Zimmerman67 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[7] Sanford, p. 23; (in Polish) Olszyna-Wilczyński Józef Konstanty, Encyklopedia PWN. Retrieved 14 November 2006.

[JOWIPN-8] (in Polish) Śledztwo w sprawie zabójstwa w dniu 22 września 1939 r. w okolicach miejscowości Sopoćkinie generała brygady Wojska Polskiego Józefa Olszyny-Wilczyńskiego i jego adiutanta kapitana Mieczysława Strzemskiego przez żołnierzy b. Związku Radzieckiego. (S 6/02/Zk) Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Internet Archive, 16.10.03. Retrieved 16 July 2007.

[Rossino-9] Cite error: The named reference Rossino was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[10] Józef Mackiewicz, Zbrodnia katyńska w swietle dokumentów, with the foreword by Władysław Anders, Gryf, London 1948. Excerpts by Stanisław Stroński.

[Piotrowski7-11] Tadeusz Piotrowski Poland’s Holocaust', ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 Page 18

[Malcher3-12] Malcher, G.C. (1993) Blank Pages Pyrford ISBN 1 897984 00 6 Page 13

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