Jedwabne

One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town's Jews. On that day, the Jews were forced into a barn by their Polish neighbors and burned alive.

In and of itself, the Jedwabne story could have been yet another tragedy lost among so many during World War II. But, what makes this story profoundly different and distressing is the length to which these Polish neighbors went to cover up their murderous actions. For generations after the massacre, and even until this very day, there are still people in Jedwabne who refuse to admit the truth.

The story is a simple one, first uncovered by Jan T. Gross, a professor of history at Princeton University. According to Professor Gross, "On July 10, 1941, the Polish inhabitants of Jedwabne murdered their Jewish neighbors in a single day of horrendous violence. With very few exceptions, all of the Jews of Jedwabne died in a single day. It began with people being pulled out of their houses and assembled together in the town square. At first the Jews were killed in individual incidents; people were clubbed to death in the street, people were stabbed. But eventually the rest were all herded into a large barn, which was doused with gasoline and set on fire. All of the data I have seen indicate that about 1,600 people were killed. Everybody was killed -- women, children, old people. And the people who killed them were their neighbors and acquaintances. People they had gone to school with, people they bought milk from."

After the war, the nearby family who saved Jedwabne's surviving Jews was derided and driven from the area. A monument was erected on the site of the barn where the Jews were murdered. The sign read, "To the 1500 Poles murdered by the Hitlerites." It took 60 years to get the sign changed to read, "To the 1500 Jews who were murdered." To this day, that is what the sign says, a constant testimony to the fact that this one town refuses to admit its guilt. Those within the town, like one man who served as mayor, had the option of continuing the lie, or accepting the truth. Those who accepted and admitted that Poles murdered Jews in Jedwabne are hounded until they leave, as the mayor of Jedwabne did (he eventually went to live in Canada).

The Poles are deeply disturbed by the massacre at Jedwabne because it damages the role they have chosen for themselves, that of victim. Polish groups want people to believe that they are the victims and that they did all that they could, within the limitations of the time period, to help the Jews of Poland.

But ultimately, all roads lead back to those defining moments in history when Poland's Jews were taken to Auschwitz and Treblinka and Maidanek and Chelmno and to the ghettoes and mass graves.