The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland

Published by Princeton University Press 2004

The Neighbors Respond

The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland

Edited by: Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400825813

Overview
Contents

About this book

Neighbors--Jan Gross's stunning account of the brutal mass murder of the Jews of Jedwabne by their Polish neighbors--was met with international critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award in the United States. It has also been, from the moment of its publication, the occasion of intense controversy and painful reckoning. This book captures some of the most important voices in the ensuing debate, including those of residents of Jedwabne itself as well as those of journalists, intellectuals, politicians, Catholic clergy, and historians both within and well beyond Poland's borders.

Antony Polonsky and Joanna Michlic introduce the debate, focusing particularly on how Neighbors rubbed against difficult old and new issues of Polish social memory and national identity. The editors then present a variety of Polish voices grappling with the role of the massacre and of Polish-Jewish relations in Polish history. They include samples of the various strategies used by Polish intellectuals and political elites as they have attempted to deal with their country's dark past, to overcome the legacy of the Holocaust, and to respond to Gross's book.

The Neighbors Respond makes the debate over Neighbors available to an English-speaking audience--and is an excellent tool for bringing the discussion into the classroom. It constitutes an engrossing contribution to modern Jewish history, to our understanding of Polish modern history and identity, and to our bank of Holocaust memory.

Author / Editor information

Antony Polonsky is Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His books include The Great Powers and the Polish Question. Joanna B. Michlic is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Institute of Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and the author of Minority as an Enemy (forthcoming).

Reviews

This is an interesting, highly motivated engagement of a human tragedy reflective of social prejudice that is manifested in any group that premeditatedly considers its relationship with a distinctly different group. It is a telling tale of two peoples, one land, a common tragedy, whose appeal stretches beyond a village in Poland and provides a model for similar studies of other groups in conflict.---Zev Garber, Shofar

"There was a wide range of responses to Jan Gross's Neighbors around the world, for the good reason that the book frankly astonished us when we learned what happened in a tiny Polish village during the Holocaust. Polish citizens murdered their innocent Jewish neighbors in the cold light of day. Reactions to the book in Poland have varied, but in addition to positive accolades, many journalists, clergy, and 'experts' disputed the book's findings and attacked its author. Until this incredibly important volume, most non-Polish speakers have not been able to follow the interesting debates that ensued. This book provides a wealth of information and translates many key Polish reviews and reactions to Neighbors. The editors' scholarship is first-class from beginning to end. There simply is no comparable book."—Robert Gellately, Earl R. Beck Professor of History, Florida State University

"Jan Gross's revelations about the Jedwabne massacre have shaken Polish public opinion such as no other issue since the fall of communism. Now English-speaking readers will be able to sample the richness and complexity of that discussion."—Brian Porter, University of Michigan

As Polonsky and Michlic persuasively argue, the debate over Neighbors is more than an argument over the massacre of Polish Jews by their gentile countrymen. It is symptomatic of a greater debate over how Poland's history can, or should, be understood in the wake of the war and after the cultural vacuum created by decades of Communist rule.

A meritorious, comprehensive reference book revealing a spectral episode which still haunts Poland.---Adam LeBor, Jewish Chronicle

This is a major addition to Holocaust studies for both popular and academic readers. . . . [C]omprehensive, compelling and thoughtful . . . Polonsky and Michlic have done a splendid job of collecting and arranging this material to highlight the inherent intellectual, moral and historical tensions.

The Neighbors Respond is both an important and disturbing book.---Jack Fischel, Jewish Book World

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. The Initial Reporting
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
Burnt Offering Rzeczpospolita, 5 May 2 0 0 0 Andrzej Kaczyński Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
The Blood of Jedwabne Gabriela Szczęsna Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
In Memory and Admonition Maria Kaczyńska Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
Part II. The Moral Debate
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
Prophecies are Being Fulfilled Zofia Kossak-Szczucka Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Obsessed with Innocence Joanna Tokarska-Bakir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
A Need for Compensation Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
The Revolution of Nihilism Antoni Macierewicz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
The Shortsightedness of the “Cultured” Hanna Świda-Ziemba Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Homo Jedvabicus Jerzy Sławomir Mac Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
Part III. Official Statements
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Living in Truth: Special Statement by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek regarding the Slaughter of Jews in Jedwabne in 1941, April 2001 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
Address Delivered by Władysław Bartoszewski, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., 5 April 2001 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Address by President of Poland Aleksander Kwasńiewski at the Ceremonies in Jedwabne Marking the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Jedwabne Tragedy on 10 July 2001 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	130
Findings of Investigation S 1/00/Zn into the Murder of Polish Citizens of Jewish Origin in the Town of Jedwabne on 10 July 1941, pursuant to Article 1 Point 1 of the Decree of 31 August 1944 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Jedwabne—Let Us Be Silent in the Face of This Crime: Piotr Lipiński Talks with Professor Andrzej Rzepliński Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Part IV. The Debate in the Catholic Church
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
A Poor Christian Looks at Jedwabne: Adam Boniecki and Michał Okoński Talk with Archbishop Henryk Muszyński Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Interview with the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Józef Glemp, on the Murder of Jews in Jedwabne, 15 May 2001 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Rev. stanisław musiał. We ask you to help us be better Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Part V. Voices of the Inhabitants of Jedwabne
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
We are Different People: A Discussion about Jedwabne in Jedwabne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
Marta Kurkowska-Budzan. My Jedwabne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
Part VI. Memories and Methodologies: The Historical Debate
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Collaboration Passed over in Silence Tomasz Strzembosz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	220
How to Grapple with the Perplexing Legacy Jerzy Jedlicki Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
A Roundtable Discussion: Jedwabne—Crime and Memory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
We of Jedwabne Anna Bikont Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
The Pogrom in Jedwabne: Critical Remarks about Jan T. Gross’S Neighbors Bogdan Musiał Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	304
Critical Remarks Indeed Jan Gross Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	344
Jedwabne Without Stereotypes: Agnieszka Sabor and Marek Zajac Talk with Professor Tomasz Szarota Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	371
Jedwabne: How was it Possible? Dariusz Stola Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	386
Part VII. The Discussion Outside Poland
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	403
Introduction to the Hebrew Edition of Neighbors David Engel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	408
Do the Poor Poles Really Look at the Ghetto? Introduction to the Hebrew Edition of Neighbors Israel Gutman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	414
“Heroes and Victims” (Extracts) István Deák Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	421
Jedwabne and the Selling of the Holocaust Richard Lukas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	430
Poles and the Jews: How Deep the Guilt? Adam Michnik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	434
Washington Diarist: Righteous Leon Wieseltier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	440
Chronology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	451
Explanatory Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	459
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	471

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