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The Polish Town That Refuses to Face Its anti-Semitic Past

Bytut editor

Sep 24, 2015

Polish journalist Anna Bikont has authored a powerful first-person exploration of the killings in Jedwabne and the current residents’ response to the discovery of Jewish skeletons in their closets.

Ha’aretz

“One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half.” With those jarring words, the Polish historian Jan T. Gross began his unforgettable account of a Holocaust massacre carried out not by Nazi invaders but by ordinary Polish civilians against the Jews next door. Gross’s book “Neighbors” (2000) set off an agonizing debate in Poland that has still not fully subsided about Polish culpability in anti-Jewish atrocities.

Now Polish journalist Anna Bikont, in “The Crime and the Silence,” has authored a sequel of sorts – a powerful first-person exploration of the killings in Jedwabne and the response of the town’s current residents to the discovery of all those Jewish skeletons in their closets.

“The Crime and the Silence” is written in the form of a diary, mostly covering 2001-2002, as Bikont speaks with survivors, perpetrators, bystanders and the next generation. The format makes for an effective narrative as Bikont weaves back and forth between the 1940s and our own time, trying to understand how so many citizens of Jedwabne could take part in herding more than 1,000 of their Jewish neighbors into a barn and burning them alive – and how so many could continue denying it to this day.

For some contemporary Poles, the fact that Poland was conquered and victimized by the Germans establishes a black-and-white perspective, according to which the Holocaust is something that the Nazis did to the Jews and in which Poles had no hand. The reality, however, was very different.

“The Crime and the Silence” reminds us, first of all, that the slaughter in Jedwabne did not come out of the blue but was preceded by many decades of deeply rooted, and largely church-driven, anti-Semitism. The anti-Jewish rhetoric that Bikont finds in the local literature, especially church publications, in the 1920s and 1930s is pervasive, profoundly ugly and often provides a rationalization – even an inspiration – for violence.

A regional newspaper called The Catholic Cause happily reported, in 1937, “the mood of excitement” sweeping the region as “farmers refuse to sell to Jews” and signs proclaiming “No Jews” spring up all over. In a follow-up story, the newspaper fairly chortled with glee as it announced that in one town, “Jewish stalls [in the marketplace] are watched so carefully that no peasant can go near them, and 250 Jewish families are doomed to hunger.”

Radoslaw J. Ignatiew, a prosecutor who headed a Polish government commission that investigated the Jedwabne massacre, at one point told Bikont he had encountered so much anti-Semitism in the course of his work that he wondered “if Poles hadn’t imbibed it all with their mother’s milk.” Then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ruffled feathers in 1989 for using that same undiplomatic expression. But what some elderly Jedwabne residents told Bikont was not that different: when they were growing up, a child who resisted bedtime would be warned by his parents, “The Jews will turn you into matzo.” Parents who wanted to deter a nagging child from tagging along to the market would warn him that he would have to “kiss the Jewish lady’s beard” at the entrance.

The prevalence of grass-roots anti-Semitism in rural Poland not only helps explain the foundation of hatred that facilitated the Jedwabne slaughter; it also sheds light on the roots of similar pogroms that took place nearby during the previous week in July 1941. In Wasosz and Radzilow, too, Polish mobs raped, robbed, tortured and murdered. In each town many hundreds of Jews – exact numbers are elusive – were herded into a barn, which was then set afire. In Jedwabne, the destruction was almost complete: Only seven of the town’s 1,600 Jewish residents survived.

Germans played little or no direct role in these massacres, yet the Poles perpetrated many of the same kinds of outrages commonly associated with the Nazis. Jews were tied to the backs of wagons or horses and dragged through the streets. Infants were torn from their mothers’ arms and butchered before their eyes. In the Jedwabne synagogue, Jews were “forced to sing and destroy their holy books,” Bikont notes.

In Radzilow, some of the bodies were dumped into a pit used for curdling dairy products. One eyewitness told Bikont “the earth was moving” from the breath of victims who were only half-dead. I have had students who wondered about the veracity of a report in an American Jewish magazine, in early 1942, of German massacres in which the victims were machine-gunned into pits in a field, “and by the living breath of those interred, the field was heaving like the sea.” Bikont’s book should put those doubts to rest.

In all three of the towns that Bikont studied, those who were not involved in the violence played a supplementary role as looters. She presents accounts of peasant women in Radzilow tearing the dresses off Jewish women as they were being herded off at gunpoint. One Polish housewife admitted stealing and ripping apart Torah scrolls because of a popular belief that “there were dollars hidden in them.”

Yet at every turn, Bikont found herself confronted by the almost unanimous refusal of Jedwabne residents to face up to their town’s past. Younger residents resented what they saw as the besmirching of its good name. Old-timers conjured up tall tales to explain what had happened. Some insisted, despite mountains of evidence, that it was the Germans who did it. Some even claimed that a secretly Jewish Nazi officer who was trying to hide his identity led the massacre. Others accused their Jewish neighbors of having collaborated with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, during the brief Russian occupation of the town. There were “60 Jewish units” of the NKVD, one older resident absurdly insisted. Sometimes Bikont directly refutes such allegations; sometimes she lets their inanity speak for itself.

Then-Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, to his credit, acknowledged the truth about Jedwabne, but the townspeople boycotted his speech at a 2001 memorial ceremony and denounced him as a puppet of international Jewry. A sign blaming the Germans for the pogrom was removed from a local monument by the federal government, but the town council refused to authorize mention of the Polish perpetrators in the replacement sign. Even a local teacher who had attended a two-week program at the United States Holocaust Museum insisted that the Polish mobs in 1941 were just “carrying out orders” from the Germans and that contemporary critics are all just “making money” from the Jedwabne controversy.

Again and again, Bikont encounters ears of Jewish financial claims against Jedwabne.

“‘The Jews are about to come and take what belongs to them’ is a phrase I hear all the time,” she writes. If it belongs to them, one might ask, why can’t they take it? To this day, Poland is the only major European country that has no Holocaust restitution law, and numerous Jewish homes in Jedwabne remain in the hands of families who illegally occupied them in 1941. The silence to which Bikont’s title refers masks a continuing injustice.

The writer is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and coauthor of “The Historical Dictionary of Zionism,” among other books.

By tut editor

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0 thoughts on “The Polish Town That Refuses to Face Its anti-Semitic Past”

  1. The Polish despise the Jews and have done nothing but persecute them. In 1938 the Polish National Assembly passed stringet laws against Jews working abroad from returning home.
    The Third Reich yes,the Third Reich loaded with Polish Jews began sending them home…one of the precepts of Krystal Nacht ,as the killer of German diplomat von Rath did not want his family to go back to the back ward hellhole.

    See ,The Gliewitz Incident, VK Clark.

    The SS Commanders in the ” Pale “, of Poland had so many volunteers of Polish descent they did not know what to do with them !
    Former Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff Shali Khaslivi ,father was a Polish Army officer ,who became Waffen SS officer,captured by Allied Forces at D – Day,in 1944 !

    About 75 .000 Poles served in the Whermacht outright. They wore special red,and white embems on there sleves. Poland entire civilan infrastructure ,and sovereign President during the war,Kosikowski worked cooperated with Germany….one can see this in The Katyn Incident,German Newsreel,You Tube.
    Adolf Hitler faithful chauffer S S Lt Colonel Erich Krempka was of Polish descent. The S S had a Polish ” Galation Division, and Heinrich Himmler infiltrated Polish Resistence ,and was turning them against Stalin,with proper treatment.

    But of course the Polish ” eternal victims” ,will never admit this. As their 1939 Military Junta chose the lies,and bribes of the Jews ,in London who promised thrm r” onto Berlin”.
    Rejecting a German Alliance,and giving back the German city of Danzig ,that voted 100 percent to return to the Reich.

    Today Poland is doing the same…they still hate Jews but deny any role in persecuting them. Only ” evil Nazis” did that….repeating the 666 ” million gassing “,nonsense.
    Their government being used against Russia, instead of Germany this time. All to keep their fantasy of world power alive,and the NWO dividing Europe from Eurasia.

    Until Poland stops hating Jews,but despising Germany,and Russia more….there natural Allies ,nothing will change for them,or ending Jewish power.
    ” Rule Polionia ” is never going to happen…get over it.

    See origins of WW 2, The Great Tomato Bubble.Com. Hitler’s War, David Irving.Com.

  2. ““the earth was moving” from the breath of victims who were only half-dead. I have had students who wondered about the veracity of a report in an American Jewish magazine, in early 1942, of German massacres in which the victims were machine-gunned into pits in a field, “and by the living breath of those interred, the field was heaving like the sea.” Bikont’s book should put those doubts to rest.”
    Wow, Jewish breaths are powerful! This is reminiscent of the disgusting lie of Elie Wiesle that he saw blood spurting like geysers from the earth were Jews were buried.
    Nowhere here is the question “what caused the Poles to be so hateful towards Jews?” Just something “in their mothers’ milk?” Nowhere here is even a hint of the answer that Shahak gave to this question long ago.

  3. Yes. No crime should be conceded without a thorough forensic investigation by conscientious forensic scientists with no conflict of interest and no fear of prosecution or persecution for honestly reporting their findings. Sadly those conditions have become almost impossible to meet.
    All else is secondary to determining the facts.
    If the witness turns out to be true, then let justice be done.
    If the witness turns out to be false, then that, in my opinion, is itself a terrible crime, and again, let justice be done.

  4. Elaborate Jewish lies.

    A start had been made on the forensic excavation of the grounds on which the barn had stood, and emptied bullet jackets had been found, that is, with the long solidified lead melt by the side.

    Proves two things; the Germans used lead in 9mm bullets, but used sintered iron in the 7.92mm rifle ammunition.

    The Jedwabne Poles did not have rifles, nor pistols or submachineguns, and 9mm was used in these latter two.

    The then very recent background to this was the Germans pushing the Russians out of eastern Poland as part of Operation Barbarossa which had started on 22/6/41, not three weeks before.

    The Germans had found from the local people of Jedwabne that the Jews had collaborated with the invader Russians against the locals for nearly two years since late September 1939.

    What may have happened is that the Poles were only too happy to finger those who amongst them were the Jews, which fitted in well with the German then hatred of the Jews, with the result that they were rounded up and pushed into the barn.

    The barn was set alight, and any trying to escape were shot, and it would have been their bullet riddled bodies which were later thrown onto the fire collapsed barn, the lead melting out of the lodged bullets at a certain point in the cremation process.

    Of course, as the flames took hold of the barn, the Germans would also have fired directly through the walls and doors.

    The excavation in the 1990s was soon halted by the Rabbis, declaring the area sacred ground – no less, when they realised the import of what was being found – the solidified lead melt from the bullet jackets meant that the Germans had done the shooting, as the Jedwabne Poles at that time could not have had any kind of weapon.

    For sure the Jews are working on a stupendous compensation claim, which no doubt once accepted by the Polish govt, will be lodged anew with each passing generation. Familiar ?

    Unfortunately, the Polish govt is Jew riddled, and we can say that there won’t be the due diligence of the equivalent of an archeological dig because of ‘cultural sensitivities’, the area being a ‘sacred site’.

  5. On the ” dear Poles” so love to compete for ” victims of Nazi” statis ,while every deep reader of history knows how they hated Jews,and went after them before,during, and after WW 2.

    The Jews exploit the Polish like they go after everyone.
    But the Polish experience is unique ,as the always ” brilliant” Polish only allow themselves the privilege, and honor of criticizing ,or fighting them !

    Anyone else doing so are ” evil Nazis”, ” Satanists “,” Anti Catholic”, and other such nonsense, inspired by the Jews themselves !

  7. The yidds were lucky that the Polish Nation let them into their country after every other Nation of Europe threw them out. Why were the yidds tossed out of other European Nations? For collection of hideous behaviors, not the least of which was their refusal to assimilate. As for the story of the supposed massacre, I am not I should believe it, as the yidds are famous for theatrical exaggerations, that serve their penchant for victimhood. Oy vey

  8. Did they yesterday, or the day before yesterday enact the Kol Nidre renewing the endless loop, the labryinth of thought : “All texts are wrong.” — (if this text is right, then it’s wrong ….etc. with no solution, ad infinitum!)

  9. Poland was the HQ of the Jews in Continental Europe for centuries.
    They have done nothing but keep that country down ,and used by the West,as power center.
    When the Polish stop denying this,they might set themselves free.

    All great comments, and Michael Mazurs excellent forensic history!
    The Germans had to secure their lines of communications as their offensive went East against the Red Jews .

    Every Soviet Commisssr was a Jew ! Every Jewish village a nest of partisan fighters.
    The German High Command issued the ,” Commissar Order”, which yes said would ” shot on the spot”.
    The Poles in the car East where cruelly persecuted by these scum,and many saw the Axis Forces,as liberators and cooperated.in going after Jews ..

    I might add the Commissar Order” ,was later rescinded at the German Armies request by the Fuhrer, ,as the Jew Commissrs terror of bring killed in the spot made them force the Russian army to fight harder.

    The Poles where very glad to have the Germans to Liberals them from their Jewish tormentors.

    As I heard one old Polish women day one time,” The Jews made us walk in the dirt, and we.couldn’t sell our eggs”.
    ” After the Germans came,we walked on the pavement,and vou!d sell our eggs”.

  10. When a historian uncovers evidence the Jews don’t like, it’s simply a lie. No research is necessary. When others uncover a Jewish lie, the Jews just keep repeating the lie in the mainstream media, regardless of any facts. Jews never stop propagandizing. It’s just a normal, but central part of their existence. The fact that they are lying continuously means nothing. Their conscience remains clear. They are a disgusting lot.

    Oh, was that anti-semitic?

  11. Sounds like pure bullshit, Sefton Delmer style, as in ‘the way we won the second world war was by atrocity propaganda” (quote not verbatim).

    Surely, it was Jewish-led Polish mobs that hacked to death and smashed to death 58,000 former German civilians then living on Polish territory due to their having being unfortunate enough to be living on lands passed over from Germany to Poland. http://www.jrbooksonline.com/polish_atrocities.htm

    These lands were given to Poland as a result of Germany being cut into small pieces to make it weaker after the Versailles treaty land settlement, and thus suitable for Jewish Communist invasion later on, Germany having been the only country big enough in all of Europe at that time to stop the Jewish Bolsheviks achieving their stated aim of taking all of Europe and eventually America too, and then ‘killing all the land owners there’ just as they stated they had already done in Russia in the so-called ‘Red Revolution’, which was merely a slaughter of non-Jews in Russia in truth.

    Is there really any solid evidence that this massacre of Jews by Polish people ever took place? Of course not, this kind of fakery is intended to muddy the waters and thus allow the Jews to carry on with their several thousand year old “Even the best of Gentiles should all be killed” psychosis, even against the Poles, but with seemingly new reasons, to throw Gentiles off putting two and two together.

    I suppose some might believe in this falsely alleged violence by Poles against Jews, and that this was ample justification for the Katyn Forest massacre by Stalin, and the handing over of Poland to Russia after WWII.

    And not surprisingly the Poles were used by the Jews to fight alongside ‘Allied’ troops and airmen in WWII, and then the Jews slag the Poles off with atrocity propaganda too, even while they have the Poles fighting and dying for the Jews. How utterly disgusting. The Jews do that to ALL Gentiles, without fail, no matter how many wars those Gentiles fight on the behalf of the Jews. ALL we Gentiles are meant by the Jews for only one thing, that is TO DIE.

    Whilst slave state Germany now under Jewish control builds Dolphin submarines for Israel to carry the Samson Option thermonuclear missiles that Israel threatens the entire world with, certain German Jewish politicians openly call for the complete physical extermination of ALL Germans by any means possible, and Jews in Israel have stated they wish for not only Iran, but also Germany to be destroyed by Israel too. ALL nations outside Israel are in the same position, as there is nothing any nation can ever do for Israel and all the Jews in the world that will ever be enough, and the Jews will simply turn around after taking every country and every people for everything they have, and simply have them completely annihilated, quite literally. This is their actual plan for war against all of humanity.

    The Jew is utterly relentless in his determination to fulfill his demonic path at the cost of the very lives of very one of us.

  12. Nobody, you Khazars not invited to Poland. Came to Poland, to our towns and villages, have destroyed our lands, our homes, and continues to destroy. God is with us, with you is the devil. Poles are beautiful, wise, persevering, brave and the spirit of God. You can defame us, we ignore you. Your language is vile, vipers tribe, our language is beautiful, divine and wonderful. Poles are everywhere the Lord!

  14. Dear Dante Ardenz, as a Pole I have to correct your mistakes:

    “About 75 .000 Poles served in the Whermacht outright. They wore special red,and white embems on there sleves. Poland entire civilan infrastructure ,and sovereign President during the war,Kosikowski worked cooperated with Germany….one can see this in The Katyn Incident,German Newsreel,You Tube.
    Adolf Hitler faithful chauffer S S Lt Colonel Erich Krempka was of Polish descent. The S S had a Polish ” Galation Division, and Heinrich Himmler infiltrated Polish Resistence ,and was turning them against Stalin,with proper treatment. ”

    “The 75.000 Poles…” They were not Poles, but the Silesians – Silesia had a kind of autonomy in
    pre-WW2 Poland, the attitude of Silesians to the Poland was positive, they were FORCED by the German authorities to sign up the Volks Liste, making from them the third grade “Germans”.
    (the “mischlings” were the second grade “Germans”)

    Not even one important Pole cooperated with Germans after they attacked perfidiously the Poland.
    Only Jewish”Polish” traitors cooperated with the Germans Gestapo – eg.Kalkstein directing the Gestapo to the hidden/secret place of the general “Grot” – leader of the Polish Underground Army (the “AK”).
    Even the “jewish”/Khazars anti-Polish propaganda never lied as you today, shame on you, Dante.

    Before the idiotic and perfidious attack of Germans on the 1st Sept. 1939, Poles were much more positive to Germans, than to Russians.
    The “jews”/Khazars did EVERYTHING in Germany and in the Poland for making the alliance between our nations IMPOSSIBLE.
    HAVE YOU FORGOT THAT THE POLES STOPPED THE JEWCOMMIES MARCH TO THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC IN y. 1920???
    At this time Poland was alone, the Germans, English, French shipyards workers refused to load ships with armament bought by Poland – ONLY HUNGARY delivered the so needed munition for canons and rifles, exactly in the last moment before the crucial battle.
    If you’re honest, Dante, then say: “Sorry, thank you, Poles – without your resistance the jewcommies will have the entire Europe, bye, bye, Herr Adolf, Weimar Republic forever!”

    Erich Kempka was a “jew”/Khazar, as was Hitler’s personal doctor, minister for propaganda,etc.
    Me think that only the beloved Hitler’s dog, the German Shepherd had the true blue Germans blood in the Hitler’s inner circle…
    The Heidrich was the only “blondie with blue eyes” in this Hitler’s circle, but even he, when drunk screamed ” I kill you, Jew!” and shoot his mirror image – he know well his family roots.

    The SS had not the “Polish Galation Division” , but the SS Galizien unit, formed from Ukrainians volunteers, plus Russian anti-jewscommies.
    Similar units were formed by volunteers anti-jewscommies from France, Romania, Hungary, etc.
    I repeat: even the “jews”/Khazars didn’t say so blatant lies, as you, alas.
    I hope, that it is not plenty Germans, as “judaized” as you are…

    The H. Himmler/SS/Gestapo did not infiltrate the Polish Resistance – the “jews”/Khazars did it from two sides: London (Rettinger, “jew”/Khazar, future creator of the Bilderberg mafia) and in
    Warsaw (I can’t find now the name of the one of top leaders of Polish Resistance cooperating with the jewcommies, sorry, here in Australia is almost 1 am, and I have only the last drops of red wine…)
    Shortly: “jews”/Khazars influence on decisions of Polish Resistance leaders PLUS jewscommies radio propaganda pushing Poles to rebellion (easy task thanks to the cruelty of the “Germans”: SS Ober commendant Kutschera for the district Warschau (“jew”/Khazar killed by the Polish Resistance) and the Gauleiter Frank (“jew”/Khazar, hanged after the war by jewcommies, because he know too much ) PLUS the military meister schtick of watercolor painter EQUAL to the tragedy for Poles and Germans – the “jews”/Khazars again won!

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