Jan Tomasz Gross (photo: Princeton University)
Polish–American historian and Professor at Princeton University, Jan T. Gross played a crucial role in the process of dealing with the past and countering distortion of the Holocaust with his seminal books, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton, 2001); Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz (Random House, 2006), and Golden Harvest: Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust (co-authored with Irena Grudzińska-Gross, Oxford University Press, 2012). Jan T. Gross researched previously neglected topics. Each of his books represents a different facet of the debate. In Neighbors—which first was published in the Polish language in 2000, and the next year in English—Gross describes an anti-Jewish pogrom that occurred on 10 July, 1941 in Jedwabne, a small town in Eastern Poland. Polish inhabitants of Jedwabne and surrounding villages began to herd Jews from the town to the market square. There, the Jews were beaten and humiliated, and several of them killed. Later, all of the Jews who remained in the market square were rushed to a single barn, which was then soaked in paraffin and set alight. Germans were in the town, but did not directly participate in the pogrom.
Monument in Jedwabne (photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Through Neighbors, Gross sparked a national discussion on the relationship between Jews and their Christian neighbours, antisemitism, and wartime violence against Jews in Poland and in other parts of Nazi-occupied Europe. The book also draws attention to the story of an ordinary community in the circumstances of war, destruction and brutalisation (Polish society itself was ruthlessly occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War). The debate divided Polish society deeply, and the book was met with both positive and negative reactions. Hundreds of anti-Gross publications appeared in subsequent years. Distorters accused Gross of generalisation, exaggeration of the facts, anti-Polonism and of being unacademic. They expressed competitive victim claims by emphasising the facts of ethnic Poles’ suffering during the Second World War, denied the participation of ethnic Poles in anti-Jewish violence and focused exclusively on German guilt in the Jedwabne pogrom (selective negation). Nevertheless, the Polish government commissioned an investigation led by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which confirmed that Poles had participated directly in the pogrom.
Anna Bikont (Photo: Wikimedia commons)
A Polish journalist, Anna Bikont conducted her own investigations and interviewed residents of Jedwabne; in 2004, she published the book, My z Jedwabnego (‘Jedwabne: Battlefield of Memory’).
Polish (Jewish and Christian) schoolchildren with their teachers, Jedwabne, Poland, 1933. (Photo: Wikimedia commons, source: Jewish Historical Institute)
The theatre production, Nasza klasa (‘Our Class’) about a group of Polish and Jewish classmates and neighbours in Jedwabne since 1925 was written by Tadeusz Słobodzianek and performed in Polish theatres. It was the first play to discuss Jedwabne’s atrocity and was inspired by Jan T. Gross’s Neighbors.
Neighbors inspired similar debates in other parts of Eastern Europe, including in Romania, Moldova and Lithuania—although their historical contexts differed. In 2012, Moldovan writer, Nicoleta Esinencu—who had learned of the Holocaust in her home country while in her late twenties in Germany—wrote and presented her play, Clear History about Romanian dictator and ally of Hitler, Ion Antonescu and the tragic fate of the Jews and the Roma people under his rule.
Photos: Archive of theatre “Spalatorie”, Chisinau, Moldova
Moldovan historian Diana Dumitru who wrote her book about the role of local population in the Holocaust in Romania “The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union” (2018) said that she was inspired by Jan T. Gross’ writings and in particular his book ‘Neigbours’. In Lithuania, a famous Nazi-hunter and descendent of Holocaust victims, Efraim Zuroff and a writer and descendent of Nazi collaborators, Rūta Vanagaitė jointly researched and published the book, Our People. Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust about the role of locals in the mass murder of Jews and Lithuanian officials’ attempts to conceal the complicity of local collaborators.
In the photographs: Professor Jan T. Gross sharing his experience of Polish debates with Moldovan academics, students and members of civil society. Chisinau, 2017. A series of events was organised by the NEVER AGAIN Association with the support of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Moldova (photographs: NEVER AGAIN).
In 2017, NEVER AGAIN and its partners translated and published the book, Golden Harvest: Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust (2011) by Jan T. Gross into the Russian and (partially) Romanian languages. The book discusses the story of Polish peasants who scavenged for gold teeth and other treasures from the ashes of the murdered Jews at Treblinka death camp. It is a story of hatred, persisting antisemitism and greed. More: NEVER AGAIN support Holocaust awareness in Eastern Europe. The translated book was launched in Moldova. It aimed to inspire the Moldovan public to discuss its own history more critically.
In the photograph: Moldovan history teacher, Natalia Caraion from Olanesti presenting flowers to Professor Jan T. Gross during his book presentation.
Listen to Jan T. Gross’ lecture at Moldova State University (in English): Lecture of Jan T. Gross at Moldova State University (with introduction of Rafał Pankowski), 14.09.17 Watch Jan T. Gross’ presentation at the conference organised by the Liberation War Museum (Bangladesh) and NEVER AGAIN: https://www.nigdywiecej.org/en/multimedia/video-materials/4553-holocaust-and-genocide-distortion-and-hate-speech-co-organised-by-the-never-again-association
● The debate revealed the complexity of the Holocaust perpetrated on Polish soil by Germans, when Poles held a variety of attitudes to the Jewish fate, ranging from compassion through indifference to hatred. ● The debate also contributed to changing Polish understanding of the Second World War and of society's need to remember the Holocaust from the perspective of its victims. ● The debate contributed to reconciliation between Poles and Jews in post-Communist Poland. Many Poles began to look critically at aspects of their past and identity. ● The debate increased the number of initiatives directed at constructing a pluralist and historically conscious society in Poland.
Questions for Critical Thinking: 1. How do human relations change in wartime, and what impact can it have on minorities?2. How can new research be helpful in the process of dealing with the past and how can it contribute to critical debates? What challenges might that entail?2. What would such a debate mean in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand, with their diverse populations and where there are many ‘neighbours’? Can such a debate counter distortion of the Holocaust and other atrocities?
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