Jan T. Gross

Jan Tomasz Gross (born December 8, 1947) is an American historian and sociologist of Polish Jewish origin. He was born in Warsaw in Poland, where he attended Warsaw University. Arrested and expelled from the university for his participation in Polish student and intellectual protest in 1968, he emigrated to the United States in 1969, following the anti-semitic campaign launched by Poland's ruling communist party. He later earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University, and has taught at Yale, NYU, and Paris, in addition to Princeton. Gross is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society at Princeton University.

He is most known for his work on the Jedwabne massacre, the controversial "Neighbors" book (2001), describing the pogrom of Polish Jews by gentile Poles in the village of Jedwabne in Nazi occupied Poland during Second World War. In the book he argued that the massacre was conducted by Poles and not by the German occupiers, as previously assumed. The results were the subject of vigorous debate in Poland, and were subsequently largely supported by the results of the investigation of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. The investigation however resulted in the number of victims being about 380, while Gross earlier claimed 1600 in his book.

One of his other notable books is "Fear -Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz", in which he covers the Kielce pogrom and instances of violence against Jews in post-war Poland. The book (available in Polish since January 11, 2008) has caused uproar and provoked many conflicting opinions in Poland.

Gross was awarded Order of Merit of Polish Republic, an award granted to foreigners for their exceptional role in cooperation between Poland and other nations. He was also a Senior Fulbright Research, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, and Rockefeller Humanities Fellow.