Revisiting the Gross-Wasersztajn Story.
 

A goodly amount of time has elapsed since the Polish edition of John Thomas Gross' "Neighbors" made its appearance in 2000. It has been possible over these months to take stock of Gross' charges against the community of Jedwabne and to review "Neighbors" against the evidence that was presented in its support. Further work has also been done in identifying and locating materials which Gross has missed or failed to reference and to establish whether he pursued all available sources, such as visiting the site of the massacre and interviewing still living witnesses (we now know he did neither of these things). Regarding those parts of the book describing the actions of the Catholic Church whether he consulted church records and day chronicles from that time (also apparently not done). His work has been critically assessed on how he determines the selection from primary sources - are they corroborated by different types of evidence (e.g., original documents, living witnesses, site visits) and how does he resolve conflicts among these sources. Does the book reveal any biases of the writer that preclude his providing a fair and honest conclusion. Also, very disturbing in relation to the treatment of sources of evidence is new information that Gross had special access to1949 court records which were inaccessible until March of this year to Polish historians (perhaps President Kwasniewski would care to enlighten everyone why his government agency had treated Polish professionals as second class citizens in their own country).

However, notwithstanding this, the process of verification of the facts and review of Gross' conclusions and his allegations is far enough advanced to render some preliminary observations. Above all, we find that Gross exhibits strong bias against even-handed treatment of available documentary sources. For instance, the Łomża court records from 1949, as professor Strzembosz, an acclaimed specialist on the history of the Eastern Occupied Territories notes, show a unique repetitive pattern - the accused when interrogated by security officers admit to certain criminal acts; later, when interviewed by prosecutors, they deny the most serious allegations; before the court, we find a near total denial and counter-charges of torture, beating and brutality against the Security Bureau interrogators. But Gross firmly tends to favor the testimony given under duress.

More importantly, however, he does not explain why he selects one side over the other. Though even here, we should note, that in spite of his procrustean stance, the most incriminating parts of the testimony deal only with charges of helping congregate Jews into the town square (most defendants speak of being coerced by German soldiers or policeman and several speak of escaping from their guard duty as soon as they see an opportunity to do so). Nowhere are acts of murderous violence as narrated by Gross to be found ascribed to the defendants. For such charges, there is no independent corroboration discernible in the court records. So Gross has to resort in that instance to selective stitching of fragments of testimony. Beside being partial to only a few accounts given by preferred attestants and ignoring the numerically far larger number of witnesses, Gross clearly and mainly bases the episodes of his story on a single account - Szmul Wasersztajn's, who is now identified as being a thoroughly anti-Polish and anti-Christian personality. Known under the alias Calka, Wasersztajn was a known collaborator under the communist occupation of 1939-1941 and later after the war was a member of the communist security apparatus.

His accusation served as the basis for the investigation and proceedings of the Jedwabne incident but he was never cross-examined by the court at Łomża in 1949 or at any time later. Yet, his account is sanctioned by Gross and serves as the framework for the Jedwabne massacre story. Once again, Gross never candidly explains why he uses Wasersztajn's highly personal scheme to impart his version of the July 10th events and why he believes his consequent account in "Neighbors" is a true representation of the course of those events except for the embarrassing statement that we should believe unequivocally the stories of those who survived the Holocaust. Apparently, Gross theorizes Holocaust stories should be considered true even where they contradict one another which would further imply his method does not rest on reconciling sources, but on some vague principle of selection that he does not choose to reveal to us.

[Except that his beliefs are sometimes a tad peculiar. Recently, Gross promoted "Neighbors" throughout Europe, especially in Germany, where, for obvious reasons, it is more than welcome. Here is a fragment from his statements given on March 22d to the German newspaper "Badische Zeitung":

Question: "Why did Polish historians not study the pogroms of 1941 earlier? Was it because of the censorship existing then?"

Gross' answer: "No that was not the reason at all. I, myself, needed several "revelations" to perceive that the Jedwabne pogrom actually looked like it did".

Perhaps such cherubic juvenilia answers the question of method in a most pithy fashion!]

But seriously, we do not know how he would reconcile Ryvka Fogel's account in the "Remembrance Book of the Jedwabne Jews" and other points, such as local Church records in Jedwabne, that directly contradict particular vignettes of the "Neighbors" version - more specifically the suicidal drowning of two Jewish sisters with their newborns and the story of the "visit" of Jedwabne Jewish elders to the Bishop of Łomża.

Altogether, a disturbing picture emerges of a writer who arbitrarily and inexplicably disdains the greater part of relevant testimony and bases his story line on the biased account of the communist Szmul Wasersztajn.

We referred to the court records, which Gross uses tendentiously. But what are these judicial documents and how did they arise?

The trial of twenty-two Poles accused of participating in the death of the Jedwabne Jews actually has its roots in the Szmul Wasersztajn account (note that there is very strong evidence that Wasersztajn was in hiding - some two miles away during the July 10th pogrom), given in 1945 before the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (Personal Accounts Collection, # 301). This interview was the basis for the actions taken by the police and the court in Łomża. The indictment of March 31, 1949 reads: "The Jewish Historical Institute sent to the Ministry of Justice evidentiary material regarding criminal actions in the killing of persons of Jewish nationality by the residents of Jedwabne. According to the testimony of Szmul Wasersztajn who had seen the pogrom of the Jews. The main perpetrators were ... ". In this way, the Wasersztajn account found its way into the court record, which Gross cites and it spurred the investigation and the court proceedings. Essentially, the communist Wasersztajn accused the Poles of Jedwabne before the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw which was dominated by communists and which in turn sent the accusation to the communist Ministry of Justice where it turned it over to the brutal communist security apparatus and courts. Such a genealogy informs the case and is one, which Gross finds ineluctably trustworthy. And so he uses the Wasersztajn story as his inspiration to build the skeleton for the storyline of his Jedwabne version. Other sources of evidence are not employed to critically balance and test the accusatory statements in Wasersztajn, but simply to help, wherever each can become a useful fragment in fleshing out the story's framework (or "improving" on the believability of Szmul's vindictive piece).

What do these documents specifically consist of that help select and embroider Wasersztajn's account. Principally they are a variety of court documents as follows:

1) The already mentioned testimony of defendants and witnesses

a) before the County Security Bureau at Łomża

b) before the County prosecutors and,

c) before the Łomża court

2) The indictment and the ruling of the Łomża court

3) Letters of appeal before various government officials

4) Records of the Court of Appeals and the High Court in Warsaw

An adversary of the communist system could have seen all this in another way. An inveterate communist enemy of Christians falsely charges them. This charge is sent to his friends at the prosecutor's office that also hate Christians and obtain forced confessions, which are then retracted by the Christians in court. The court sensitive to the politics of the time hands down criminal verdicts. Finally, the court records are used by a sociologist, never trained as a historian, to vilify the Christians of the Jedwabne community.

But aside this wholly believable rendering, the suspicion raised by the origins of Gross' adopted schema for the story deserves to be scrutinized more fully. An effort to understand the basic design is worthwhile since it can help us clarify why certain elements appear in the story in spite of lack of evidence that they in fact had occurred. Why Gross uses the hypothetical "maybe" or "probably" for certain scenes becomes more transparent on such consideration. Each of the main scenes presented by Gross as having taken place on July 10th, 1941 are developed to produce a deliberate dramatic effect, and are intended to create a climate of growing suspense - much as one would find in a movie. Consider the first scene - the congregation of coarse farmers and villagers in wagons and horses - a massing crowd for some reason congealing in town (we are left puzzled but sense a first sign that something ominous may be underway) - then comes the next scene - a mysterious visit by the Gestapo to the Town Hall - we do not know what was said but clearly our suspicion is aroused even more - we become heedful (note that this incident is included despite the weakest evidence of when, and if it actually occurred) now follows an even more foreboding scene - the Germans, perhaps in a rhythmic, cadenced manner, are handing out sticks, whips, and knives to the local men (here again there is no real proof except for Gross' supposition). Suddenly, the next scene comes upon with a bloody shift to violence - we see Jews being pulled from their homes, pushed along streets to the town square - then the climax arrives - the utterly vicious killing of the herded people is detailed- but it doesn't end with that- another more grotesque scene appears- the victims are once again prodded along a road. But to where? And what worse can happen? We watch with horror!

What could be more terrible than that which has already befallen them- we watch this high pitched scene rend the heart - we see all of them callously pushed into the short lived safety of the barn - followed by the diabolical pouring of gasoline - then a match is lit-

An effectively symbolic ending- meant to inhabit the memory- a holocaust in the very measure of the term- an extensive loss of life through fire.

The overriding problem with these powerful images is that they are composed of confabulation. There is some truth, some distortion, and some fiction; all bound together with a dramatic purpose. Where a basis for a scene is lacking, it is supplied from suggestion or by selection in the sources; where overwhelming data does not support a needed scene the data is simply ignored. The story progressively wets our interest and has us demand more- with gradually unfolding answers in accelerating tempo; as the next, and then the subsequent scenes are exposed to view. Just as the screen writer draws on real life events but exaggerates and skews them to mold melodrama - so has Gross produced a work that poorly correlates with an unprejudiced view of the record but is persuasively shocking because it contains all the progressive elements of good dramatic development, albeit still dressed in scholarly trappings.

The most galling and impudent act in devising this storyline is basing it on Szmul Wasersztajn. Beside his dishonorable behavior, he was not an eyewitness to the events at Jedwabne; he was in a hideaway about two miles away when the pogrom took place. So we may quite confidently presume that his story, given to the Jewish Historical Institute in 1945, is at best a personal reconstruction from other accounts with a pastiche of his own biases thrown into the tangle. Incredibly, Wasersztajn whose testimony initiated the Łomża trial of March 31, 1949, never testified in support of his accusations, and his tall story was never independently corroborated at that time nor any time later. Two other accusers cited by Gross were shown at the trial in 1949 to be false witnesses. Abram Borszczak was proven to have never resided in Jedwabne; a fact confirmed by its residents, including a Jewish citizen of Jedwabne Joseph Gradowski - while the other witness Gross calls upon... Eljasz Gradowski- had been imprisoned for theft by the Soviets and already was in Russia in 1940. He returned to Poland in 1945. The court totally discounted their testimony as well as Wasersztajn's. Gross, to his chagrin, only very weakly admits to a mistake in calling upon Gradowski as his witness. In fact, professor Strzembosz has meticulously examined the records of the Łomża trial. He relates that after having completed the review, the details totally fail to confirm the Gross-Wasersztajn story.

The accessibility of these court records since March and other evidentiary material recently unearthed have raised eyebrows about Gross' sense of fair play and his dependability as an interpreter of historical material. One further example of a fair-weather development of the Jedwabne account is the question of the 600 or so victims who were killed in the town square. That scenario is very problematic. On page 54 (all pages refer to the Polish edition) he claims that the Poles were allowed eight hours by the Germans to carry out the Jedwabne pogrom and because they were unable to fully complete this "job" as dusk approached (page 70) they resorted to burning the remaining 1000 Jews in Sleszynski's barn (page 64) just outside the town. However, a more finely grained examination reveals some truly perplexing dissonance in this scenario. How is that? Let us see what must follow if we accept Gross' eight hour scenario and the consequent burning. According to his calculations on page 63 there were over 200 Christian participants (even without the farmers and villagers mentioned by him who came from outside Jedwabne). Allowing 2 hours for the preparation and the burning of the barn, we are left with a possible slaughter of about 600 Jews during 6 hours by over 200 Poles. With these numbers, calculation gives us one victim per executioner every two hours in order to massacre the 600 victims. It would mean a fantastically slow killing rate for what Gross characterizes as bloodthirsty and vengeful killers. These murderers were well-supplied with "sticks, whips, and knives" according to Gross, but other parts of his book speak of the use of other horrible methods and implements leading to acts of forced drowning and beheading. So we see here a perplexing gap between the fury as Gross describes it and the expected complete carnage it should have brought.

Readers in light of these thoughts can readily determine for themselves the amount of credence they should place on the Gross-Wasersztajn version of this scene.

Following closely on this is the issue of the mass graves. Is there only one mass grave or is there another mass grave yet to be discovered?

We are able to ascertain with a good degree of confidence that the burned victims from the barn are buried near it, although the exact number cannot be determined forensically because of religious barriers to unearthing the remains (however, preliminary scientific examination of the site suggests a burial area that is hard pressed to contain more than several hundred remains). The account given by Gross speaks of a clean-up of bodies in the town itself extending over two to three days, but he does not guess as to where these remains are buried. Such a time lag would constitute a serious delay and in a macabre way of speaking, would be a threatening public health problem. And so this partly countervails the argument that the same burial pit was used as for the burned victims. It is most unlikely that the barn area burial pit would be allowed to stay opened for two or three days as the already heavy decomposition of the charred bodies and the July heat would have posed a major peril. So there is some good reason to believe that a second or several other burial sites for the town square bodies would have been prepared.

Yet, there is no indication that such exist! But there is another altogether different explanation for the town square victims and it is that most were actually not killed in Jedwabne. It is possible that several hundred of the healthier and more skilled Jews were selected out for labor and led away out of the town only to die later at German labor and concentration camps. After all, it is Gross himself who drops the hint that the Germans were interested in saving and utilizing skilled and healthy workers. Why not keep those whose labor could be well exploited. After the selection process, the remaining one thousand were considered expendable and were so treated by the Germans. An unlikely scenario? Possibly.

Except that the known gravesite by the barn appears on close scrutiny to be relatively quite small to contain even a thousand remains let alone 1600, and there is total lack of evidence currently for a second or multiple locations for the town square victims. Under these circumstances, this alternative explanation becomes an eminently more plausible one.

All the above considerations and reflections on the evidence acutely contest at many points and levels, the Gross-Wasersztajn version of the Jedwabne events. Indeed, the slow but steadily mounting layers of grounds to the contrary presage a rather difficult time for the story over the next months.

Lastly, a brief word about Gross' exaggerated sense of importance and authority. The last sections of the Polish edition of his book contain an extensive statement of his academic credentials and affiliations, followed by another shorter part featuring a well-known rabbi's restatement of the Pope's "Christian contrition to the Jews". The first of these sections is quite unusual for a purportedly scholarly work; the normal practice is at most to state academic accomplishments and standing tersely and within 2-3 paragraphs. Gross' purpose here may be to overwhelm the Polish reader with his credentials and edge him into accepting his reconstituted account of Jedwabne. Unfortunately for Gross, our times are much too different today for that play to be effective. Poles sense and Americans understand that America's universities provide the world's finest technical and scientific training. They also clearly perceive the humanities and social sciences at these universities as hopeless hotbeds of ideological fervor. One need not search afar to see that there is more freedom of expression pulsating just beyond the campus perimeter and that open, respectable debate in our best colleges has been cast out and is only a lifeless relic of the more civil university community of the past. In this new context, Gross' active credentialism raises more suspicion than confers faith in him.
Finally, the closing section quotes John Paul II's exhortation to seek the Jews' forgiveness for past sins against them - the problem with this quote being that it leaves the other half out. John Paul II also asked Christians to forgive the Jews for the sins committed by Jews against Christians.
Moreover, lest we forget, there is a much higher authority than the Pope's and one, which is the very source of righteousness. Its admonition is the stark cautionary verse of Mark 3:29. "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness - but is in danger of eternal damnation".

After all on this ancient earth, we need not be Christian in faith to divine that there is also an exigent recompense, which does not admit of gratuitous remission, for hubris and for trespass before the ineffable. It is too a most recondite yet explicit declaration of the fountainhead for the Decalogue's instruction which proscribes bearing false-witness against one's neighbor.

 

 

 

RE: "Neighbors", by J.T. Gross

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

Enclosed please find an analytical review of the book "Neighbors" by Jan Thomas Gross published recently by Princeton University Press.

We hope that considering all Gross' factual and logical lapses you will decide not to recommend his book as a reliable source of information for your faculty staff and students.

Sincerely,

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