Jedwabne massacre

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Monument in Jedwabne (2009)

The Jedwabne massacre was a pogrom by Polish citizens of Jedwabne and the surrounding area against Jewish residents of the small town in northeastern Poland on July 10, 1941, in which at least 340 people were murdered. It took place during the occupation of Jedwabne by the Wehrmacht and is considered a joint crime by a group of Polish residents and the German occupying forces.

Historical background

Jedwabne belonged to the part of Poland that fell to the Soviet Union in September 1939 through the German-Soviet non-aggression pact (Hitler-Stalin pact), in which the partition of Poland had been decided . The Soviet occupiers immediately set about replacing the pre-war Polish order with a Soviet one, and it was important to them to smash the old political and social elite. In order to achieve these goals, they used a previously unknown force for this more agricultural region, which included arrests, torture , deportations , forced relocations, expropriations and shootings . The Jewish population was also persecuted, but the Soviet system also offered them some opportunities for social advancement. In addition to the anti-Semitic prejudices that had previously been widespread in the Polish population , which had arisen as a result of economic, social and religious conflicts, there was also the image of the Jews as supposed beneficiaries of the Soviet occupation regime.

The German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 was therefore welcomed by parts of the Polish population, as the German soldiers were perceived as liberators. On June 23, 1941 Jedwabne was occupied by the Wehrmacht. The following day there were anti-Semitic riots by Polish residents and German soldiers in the towns around Jedwabne, with around 300 dead. Surviving Jews fled to Jedwabne and tried to hide there.

Events on July 10, 1941

On July 10, 1941, the town's Jewish population was rounded up by Polish citizens on the market square. After individual victims had already been mistreated and killed there, the remaining Jews were herded into a barn outside of the village and burned alive. Their property was looted and taken over by Poland. Only a few Jews survived the pogrom.

According to research by the Polish- American historian Jan Tomasz Gross , Germans were at the scene and took photos. Contemporary witnesses would also speak of Gestapo members on site. Several sources dated these Gestapo people's visit to the day before or after the massacre. In addition, there is a testimony that a corresponding murder order had been issued by the Germans: "Where did the initiative come from, whether from the Germans ('A corresponding order was issued by the Germans' it says in Wasersztajn's testimony) or from members of the city council of Jedwabne ", says Gross," can no longer be determined (...) apparently both sides quickly came to an agreement on the matter and the method of its implementation ".

The Polish historian Tomasz Strzembosz, however, takes the view that the pogrom was clearly initiated by the Germans. What is certain is that the presence of armed bobby men in Jedwabne guaranteed impunity for attacks against Jews. For the journalist and historian Thomas Urban , who specializes in Eastern Europe, the massacre is the murders of a "small group of locals", to which, according to the results of a public prosecutor's investigation, "an SS task force incited the local Polish population".

This thesis, only briefly presented by Urban, is represented by the Polish historian Edmund Dmitrów in a detailed and nuanced discussion of the massacre . After that, the massacre and its initiation must be seen against the background of Reinhard Heydrich's orders of June 29, 1941 and July 1, 1941. In his letter to the chiefs of the four Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD at the end of June, Heydrich, for example, recalled the previous verbal orders to "trigger anti-communist or anti-Jewish circles to purify themselves without a trace". The murder of Jews was most likely ordered by a support group of SS Einsatzgruppe B, led by SS officer Hermann Schaper. Dimitrov sums up: "The decision, the decision, the signal, the order or the order to kill was given by Germans, an Einsatzgruppe." Bert writes in the collection of documents The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 Hoppe in the introduction that "there are indications of the leading role of German units in all occupied areas - even where exclusively non-German perpetrators murdered, such as in Jedwabne in eastern Poland".

While the number of victims was originally estimated at 1,600 people, after the exhumations of the mass graves and excavations by the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) in 2001, it was assumed that the figure was between 300 and 400 people. Later research estimates the number of Jewish victims to be at least 340. The number of victims was determined by a superficial exhumation, as the rabbis protested against the disturbance of the victims' peace and quiet. The bodies lying deeper could not be counted; their number could only be estimated.

Similar pogroms took place in several places in the area.

The criminal proceedings in 1949

In the main judicial hearings on May 16 and 17, 1949, many of the 22 accused Polish residents of Jedwabne revoked the confessions they had given to them under torture. Ten defendants were acquitted, twelve convicted:

  • Karol Bardon: death penalty , after a Gnadenersuch of Boleslaw Bierut in 15 years ' imprisonment converted
  • Jerzy Laudański: 15 years imprisonment
  • Zygmunt Laudański: twelve years imprisonment
  • Władysław Miciura: twelve years imprisonment
  • Bolesław Ramotowski: twelve years imprisonment
  • Stanisław Zejer: ten years imprisonment
  • Czesław Lipiński: ten years imprisonment
  • Władysław Dąbrowski: eight years imprisonment
  • Feliks Tarnacki: eight years imprisonment
  • Roman Górski: eight years imprisonment
  • Antoni Niebrzydowski: eight years imprisonment
  • Józef Zyluk: eight years imprisonment

On June 13, 1950, two of the convicts were acquitted by an appeals court.

Work-up

In the People's Republic of Poland

For decades, the German occupying power was solely responsible for the massacre. The number of victims was given as 1,600 dead and no further investigations were made. After 1960 the city erected a memorial stone with the translated wording: “Here, the Jewish population was martyred. On July 10, 1941, the Gestapo and Hitler Police burned 1,600 people alive. "

Debate after 2000

It was not until 2001 that the topic came into the focus of public attention after the Polish historian Jan Tomasz Gross , who worked in the USA, wrote his book Neighbors in 2000 . The murder of the Jews of Jedwabne had published in which he processed the previous account of the massacre in Jedwabne and presented it as a falsification of history . Gross based his publication on, among other things, a report by the surviving Jew Szmul Wasersztajn, who, however, was probably not a direct eyewitness to the events, on files from the trials in Łomża between 1949 and 1953, on the memorandum of the Jews from Jedwabne published in 1980 and on a 1998 from Agnieszka Arnold created film documentation of conversations with residents and contemporary witnesses from Jedwabne.

This publication initiated a reappraisal of the Jedwabne massacre and massacres committed by Poles of Jews in World War II and sparked an intense discussion not only in Poland - especially since Gross did not describe the events of July 10, 1941 as an isolated case, but as the Polish society as a whole attested a latent anti-Jewish attitude . He also claimed that generations of historians had deliberately kept the events of Jedwabne secret.

Shortly after the publication, the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) initiated investigations by the public prosecutor, which essentially confirmed Gross' statements, but stated the number of victims as 300 to 400 and determined the presence of German troops in the area. Since no new suspects were identified apart from those already punished in the post-war years, the proceedings were discontinued. In addition, since then several academic monographs and articles by Polish and foreign historians have appeared on the Jedwabne massacre without attracting similar attention.

Gross was criticized for his book Neighbors by historians such as Tomasz Strzembosz , Piotr Gontarczyk , Jerzy Eisler and Richard C. Lukas , who accused him of deficiencies in research and historical processing. Their criticism ranges from the number of victims (Gross assumed the figure of around 1,600 dead) to the role of the Germans: It is not credible that Germans were only there to take pictures. They relied on the testimony of witnesses, according to which the pogrom should have been prepared by the mayor and the German gendarmerie.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the events, a commemoration was held in Jedwabne on July 10, 2001, at which Poland's President Aleksander Kwaśniewski asked for forgiveness for the massacre on his behalf and on behalf of those Poles whose consciences were troubled by the crime. A new memorial was also erected with the inscription: "In memory of the Jews from Jedwabne and the surrounding area, the murdered men, women and children, residents of this area who were burned alive at this point". The celebration was rejected and boycotted by the majority of Jedwabne's residents. In protest, the Catholic priest let the church bells ring during the event. Slips of paper were hung in the windows of the village with the words We do not ask for forgiveness or We will not ask for forgiveness for the atrocities that were not committed. So help us God . The mayor of Jedwabne at the time, Krzysztof Godlewski, who had campaigned heavily for the memorial service, was made so difficult that he was forced to emigrate to the USA. The memorial services held after 2001 were not attended by residents of Jedwabne.

In 2006, in response to the publication of the book by Jan T. Gross , the then PiS government passed a law known as "Lex Gross", which "accuses the Polish nation publicly of participating, organizing or responsible for communist or national socialist crimes" threatened with a prison sentence of up to three years. This law was repealed in 2008 by the Polish Constitutional Court.

In 2006, Der Spiegel stated that the Laudański brothers, who many experts consider to be co-responsible perpetrators of the pogrom, are still being glorified. A publication honors the brothers as Polish patriots. The Catholic daily Nasz Dziennik carried the headline “The Laudański Brothers are waiting for justice”.

To this day, the reappraisal of the events has been rejected by extreme right-wing circles, who reject the historical image according to which Poles supported the crimes of the German occupying power and collaborated with them in some cases.

In August 2011, the Jedwabne Memorial was damaged by unknown perpetrators. - With his film Pokłosie , the Polish director Władysław Pasikowski restarted the discussion in Poland in 2012.

literature

Books

Essays and Articles

Web links

Commons : Jedwabne Massacre  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jews in the Soviet Union: Not only victims - book review about Sonja Margolina: The end of the lies - Russia and the Jews in the 20th century; Time online; 4th September 1992.
  2. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger of March 21, 2001, p. 2.
  3. ↑ a b Cf. The place that does not want to repent. In: Die Zeit No. 6, February 3, 2005.
  4. ^ Jan T. Gross: Neighbors. The murder of the Jedwabne Jews . Beck, Munich 2001, pp. 60f.
  5. ↑ Deeply hidden truth . THE TIME. Retrieved January 25, 2013.
  6. ^ Thomas Urban : Poland. Portrait of a neighbor . CH Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63326-3 , p. 124.
  7. ↑ Edmund Dmitrów: The task forces of the German security police and the security service at the beginning of the extermination of the Jews in the Lomza and Bialystok area in the summer of 1941 . In: 'Edmund Dmitrów, Paweł Machcewicz, Tomasz Szarota, Beate Kosmala (transl.): The beginning of the extermination, on the murder of the Jews in Jedwabne and the surrounding area in the summer of 1941, new research results by Polish historians . Fiber, Osnabrück 2004, pp. 95-208.
  8. ↑ Edmund Dmitrów: The Einsatzgruppen of the German Security Police and the Security Service at the beginning of the extermination of the Jews in the Lomza and Bialystok area in the summer of 1941 , p. 124.
  9. ↑ Edmund Dmitrów: The task forces of the German security police and the security service at the beginning of the extermination of the Jews in the Lomza and Bialystok area in the summer of 1941 , pp. 154–166 (on Hermann Schaper's curriculum vitae and his command) and others. Pp. 185–200 (on the German initiation of the massacre).
  10. ↑ Edmund Dmitrov: The Einsatzgruppen of the German Security Police and Security Service at the beginning of the extermination of Jews in the area of Lomza and Bialystok in 1941 , p 124; see also in the same anthology: Tomasz Szarota : Murder in Jedwabne. Kalendarium , pp. 213-252, here pp. 214f.
  11. ↑ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Volume 7. Soviet Union annexed areas I . Edited by Bert Hoppe and Hildrun Glass. Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58911-5 , p. 31.
  12. ^ Investigation report on the Jedwabne massacre. Institute for National Remembrance (Polish); PDF; 25.44 MB ( memento of November 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), p. 174.
  13. ↑ See A Troubled Past - Remembering Jedwabne.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Arte.tv , accessed on February 4, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.arte.tv  
  14. ^ Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw: Individual Reports No. 301.
  15. ^ Richard C. Lukas : Jedwabne and the Selling of the Holocaust. ( Memento of April 26, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Polish American Journal. May 2001 (English).
  16. ↑ Tomasz Strzembosz : Jedwabne - a different picture of the neighbors. ( Memento of January 13, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) 2001.
  17. ^ Gerhard Gnauck: Final report on the pogrom presented by Jedwabne in 1941 . THE WORLD. July 12, 2002. Retrieved November 28, 2017.
  18. ^ President Kwasniewski's Speech at the Jedwabne Ceremony. In: Dialog.pl , July 10, 2001 (English).
  19. ↑ See also The City of Spirits. In: Spiegel Online , May 1, 2006.
  20. ↑ Not just powerless witnesses. Tagesspiegel, February 11, 2008, accessed on February 6, 2018 .
  21. ↑ UM expert discusses Poland's Holocaust speech law. University of Michigan, February 1, 2018, accessed February 6, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Poland's ban on Jan Gross. Berliner Zeitung, February 22, 2016, accessed on February 6, 2018 .
  23. ^ Anti-Semitism debate divides Poland. Die Zeit, January 26, 2011, accessed on February 6, 2018 .
  24. ↑ See also Gabriele Lesser : The “Jedwabne Discussion” in anti-Semitic and right-wing extremist media ( memento of the original from October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 95 kB). In: Transodra. Vol. 23, 2001. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dpg-brandenburg.de
  25. ↑ http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=236311
  26. ↑ Klaus Brill: Exorcism of the conscience. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 1, 2013.

Coordinates: 53 ° 17 ′ 19.6 "  N , 22 ° 18 ′ 34.4"  E