This article has been published on the Web site of The Guardian, on the 08.04.01. under the title "Poland's willing executioners" by George Steiner.

Personally, I would like to say that I've never read such collection of lies and venom against my Fatherland and my people.

Thank you very much prof. Gross for providing such people like Steiner, with the excuse to write such comments about Poland.

http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,470068,00.html

Below is my commentary to the anti - Polish venom of this publication.

www.observer.co.uk

"Jan T Gross's unflinching account of anti-Semitic atrocities in the war, Neighbors, has awakened a nation to its systematically hidden and falsified Past"

The only problem is that the book is based on lies, manipulations, and in some cases, testimonies of witnesses that were obtained by torture, threats of death and deportation to Siberia.

"It did not involve any German units, though the occupiers and the Waffen SS had made no secret of their own homicidal intentions towards Polish Jews. The joyous, demented sadists of Jedwabne were Poles to a man (and woman)."

The investigation conducted by IPN hasn't finished yet. So how could Steiner arrive to such a conclusion? Is he in possession of some documentary evidence indicating movement of the German troops, their presence in various regions, names of commanders and so on? If he is in possession of such documentary evidence, he should supply it to the investigating body IPN or state prosecutor Mr. Ignatiew, who is heading the current investigation.

So far, there was only one investigation in the presence of the German units in Jedwabne conducted by the state prosecutor Monkiewicz, who in his article published in 1989 in the Bialystok University periodical "Studia Podlaskie" stated:

<<"In the beginning of July 1941 from the German police battalions No. 309 and 316 were selected 200 men assembling a special troop called Kommando Bialystok under the command of the Wolfgang Birkner from the Warsaw Gestapo branch. That troop arrived to Jedwabne by trucks on the 10.07.41. For this action against the Jews, the Germans also used the Gendarmes and some of the "supporting police". This last formation was only used to bring victims to the main plaza and escort them outside the town. There the Hitlerites locked app. 900 persons in the barn and set it on fire...">>

Somehow, I don't think that prosecutor Monkiewicz just "dreamed up" or made up those 232 Germans, trucks and the figure of Birkner.

According to prof. Szarota, such an officer existed in the Warsaw Gestapo office, held the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer, and was probably killed in Poznan.

According to the testimony of Aleksander Wyrzykowski, who saved Szmul Wasersztein, the Nazis carried out the murder with some Polish participation. A Polish cook, Julia Sokolowska, testified in court that she prepared a meal that day for a large number of Gestapomen (60), who were the chief perpetrators of the crime. Another eyewitness, Leokadia Blajszczak, recalls the presence of the German police as well, and blames a local Volksdeutsches for leading the pogrom. The same Jan Sokolowski also provides a very similar version of events.

Very well known and respected Polish historian, prof. Strzembosz, who only recently was able to obtain access to the 1949 court case files, and is still studying them, already claims that he has discovered a large number of testimonies blaming the Germans for the massacre. He also stated publicly that Gross selected only those testimonies, or even only parts of such, that suited him.

The most recent investigation by IPN conducted in the German archives in Ludvigsburg Bawaria by IPN's representative Edmund Dmitrow discovered documentary evidence indicating that the murder in Jedwabne was committed by Gestapo Kommando under Obersturmfuehrer Herman Schaper. (PAP 06.04.01)

Also new documentary evidence and witness testimonies were discovered in the State Archives and were passed to IPN. In the opinion of the general manager of the State Archives, prof. Daria Nalecz these documents also indicate participation of the German units in Jedwabne and that at least three Poles were burned in the barn together with the Jews. (PAP 23.03.01)

"Jan Gross, who stumbled on the documentary evidence by accident in a Polish archive five years ago, spares us no detail. Jewish men were forced to enact grotesque rituals before being butchered; women were raped and beheaded; babies were trampled to death; finally, more than 1,000 tortured Jews were herded into a barn, drenched with kerosene and torched. The Poles played raucous music in order to muffle their screams. They had surrounded the town to make sure that no Jew could escape (it would appear that there were, in fact, seven survivors)."

Slowly the evidence is emerging that Gross performed his research very badly, didn't research secondary sources properly, is using some witness's testimonies selectively, and hiding parts of their testimonies that don't fit his thesis. In another instance, he uses testimonies of witness's that weren't even in Jedwabne during the time of the murder. One of them never lived in Jedwabne, another one was deported to the Soviet Union in 1940 for the theft of some music equipment and returned to Jedwabne in 1945. Also, it become apparent that another witness, Shmul Waserstein held the rank of lieutenant in the State Security Forces, dreaded UB, and was in hiding during the time of the massacre, so wasn't able to observe any details. At least one Polish source claims that the key witness, Shmul Wasersztein, learned only after the war about the alleged scenario of the events in Jedwabne from a Jewish woman, Zeier, who was connected to the NKVD. (Teodor Eugeniusz Lusinski to the Institute of the Jewish History (ZIH), 20. 03.1995). There are two testimonies from 1945 by Wasersztein. Gross himself in his book complains: "In ZIH are two testimonies by Wasersztein written up separately - numbers don't correspond and some other details don't." (Prof. Jerzy Robert Nowak, article "Kto falszuje historie")

"The massacre at Jedwabne had been preceded by similar atrocities in the surrounding region. At Radzilow, some 1,500 were massacred; 1,200 in nearby Wsosz. "

There is a problem with the number of the victims. In his book, on page 42, Gross mentions the testimony of Menachem Finkelsztajn (Finkelstein?) who states that 3300 Jews were murdered in Jedwabne. On page 43, Gross says that numbers provided by Finkelsztajn should be divided in half. So, Gross arrives to the nice and tidy number of 1600.

Lets look at what the documentary evidence says about the number of the Jews living in the area.

The Soviet census conducted in 1940 counted only 1400 Jews in the Jedwabne region, which also included the outlying town of Radzilow and the village of Wizna. If we also take into account the number of Jews that fled approaching German armies, this would put into serious question the number of victims in Jedwabne, where according to Mr. Gross and his witnesses 1600 perished. In Radzilow, only three days earlier, an alleged 1500 Jews were also burned in a barn. But Mr. Gross doesn't bother himself with such "minor" details as the size of the barn and an accurate number of victims. It would have to be the biggest barn in Europe in 1941.

Recent archaeological works done in Jedwabne to establish the correct number of victims concluded that the mass grave where they are buried could contain maximum of 300 bodies and its size was app. 2 meters by 5 meters.

Also, the Jewish side objected to any further work being carried out (exhumation) for religious reasons. Religion becomes very convenient sometimes.

"In every instance, rituals of humiliation, of slow torture, of unspeakable bestiality accompanied the killings. Though encouraged and sometimes initiated by the Nazi occupiers, the actual mass murders were the work of 'local hooligans'.

In fact, this anodyne phrase masks the involvement, and the participation, of the vast majority of the local Polish communities, who watched the carnival of Jewish agony with derisive indifference or active approval. When Jewish women strove to drown themselves and their babies in order to escape torture and incineration, there were Poles who stood on the banks cheering them on."

It is a very strange story with those two women and their babies. At least the author of this article could do some research himself, before he starts repeating someone else's B.S.

There are two contradicting testimonies of the so-called eyewitnesses of Gross's regarding this incident. I will just quote them, and let the reader see for him (her) self.

Mrs. Rivka Fogel,

"The sisters, the wife of Avraham Kubzanski and the wife of Saul Binshtein, whose husbands left with the Russians, **after enduring horrible punishment at the hands of the Germans**, decided to end their own lives and that of their children. They exchanged the children between themselves and together they jumped into deep water. **Gentiles standing nearby pulled them out, but they managed to jump in again and were drowned.**"

Shmul Wasersztein about the same incident, as translated from JT Gross book "Neighbours":

"That same day I saw a horrible scene. Chaja ("Chaya") Kubrzanska, 28 years old, and Basia Binsztajn, 26, both with babies in their arms **jumped into the pond and drowned, rather than falling into the hands of those hoodlums **. First they tossed the babies into the water and then they followed them themselves. Baska Binsztajn sank immediately to the bottom while Chaja Kubrzanska suffered for hours. **Bystanders (hooligans) made a spectacle out of it enjoying the view and were advising her to lie face down in the water, so she can drown quicker...**"

HMMM....

"Gross's chronicle of inhumanity is near to unendurable. As nauseating, though in a different way, is his implacable exposition of the aftermath. After the liberation of Poland, there followed an ice-age of systematic falsehood and amnesia. The hideous pogroms carried out by Poles at Cracow and Kielce in 1946 were either denied or unmentioned, as was the hunting down and murder of the very few Jews who escaped into the forests after an uprising in a death camp."

Also, the lies written by the author of this article is near to unendurable. One would have to write a book, to refute all his lies.

"Before long, German military archives made available films showing Poles in Warsaw cheering and laughing at the spectacle of the last defenders of the ghetto leaping into the flames rather than surrender."

So, where are these films? There is suppose to be one made in Jedwabne. So far, nothing has been found despite searching for it. Lets not forget that the Nazis were masters of propaganda. They even tried to tell the world that it was Poland that attacked Germany and not the other way around. To achieve such an effect they staged an attack on the radio station in Gliwice, dressing up some criminals in the Polish soldiers' uniforms. After setting up a trap and killing them during the raid, the German propaganda officials took some photos as proof of the Polish army attack on Germany and presented it to the press.

"Of course, there were postwar voices seeking to speak the truth. But they were not many and fellow Poles often turned on them in fury. To ask a taxi-driver to take one to the somewhat lamentable ghetto memorial in Warsaw was to risk insult or the assurance that the survival of a Jewish remnant was to be deplored."

This is so much Jewish propaganda lies that I can't event comment on it. The whole of this article contains so many lies, it is like a flood, one big lie. You refute one, and the next one is coming or the old one repeated. And someone tries to tell me that there is no conspiracy against my country, Poland. But one day the time will come, they will have to pay for it. We will not forget or forgive.

"After the Middle Ages, Jew-hatred in Germany was sporadic and assimilation seemed plausible. It is in Austria and Poland that anti-Semitism has been. The Catholic church has played a seminal role in this plague. As Gross points out, it is not only in the benighted Polish countryside that priests and bishops preach Jewish deicide and keep alive the blood-libel whereby Jews kidnap and sacrifice Christian children for ritual purposes."

This part is very interesting. I think that here I will use Jewish sources. According to the Jewish historian, prof. Ezra Mendelson, during Polish independence 1918 - 1939 Poland was for the Jews the biggest cultural centre in Europe. A country of free development of the Jewish press, publications, education, Jewish political parties and organisations.

Well-known Jewish historian, prof. Anthony Polonsky stated that before WWII in Poland there was far less anti-Semitism than in Romania and Hungary, despite Poland having had the biggest Jewish population in Central Europe. (Interview for publication "Wiez", nr. 7-8 1988).

Another Jewish historian, prof. Jakub Goldberg stated that the situation of the Jews in Poland was far better than in any other Central European country beside Czechoslovakia, but Czechoslovakia had a much smaller Jewish population.

So did the main rabbin of the British Empire, dr. Joseph Herman Hertz in his publication "Mysli zydowskie oraz mysli o zydowstwie" (Warszawa, 1936, p. 18).

And so did N. Davies in his book "Gods playground" t. 2, p. 336.

Before WWII in Poland, there were 130 publications in Yiddish and Hebrew, existed 15 theatres showing in Yiddish, 266 elementary schools, 12 high schools and 14 trade schools with Hebrew or Yiddish languages.

Jews represented 49% of lawyers, 46% of medical doctors, 59% of merchants and 21% of industrialists.

But they (the Jews) were only 10% of the general population. Not too bad for the country that displayed "visceral, venomous and, it would appear, ineradicable" anti - Semitism.

After regaining her independence after 1917, reborn Poland didn't solve all of the basic economic and social questions, but its legislation granted equal rights to all citizens irrespective of nationality and religious convictions. This was guaranteed by its constitution adopted by the Sejm in March 1921. Thus were abolished the legal norms inherited from the partitioning powers, which gave different legal status to various groups of society. However, some questions as laid down in the constitution lent themselves to various interpretations. In 1931, the Sejm passed a law that abrogated expressis verbis all regulations that were discriminatory on grounds of religion, nationality and race.

After Hitler took power in Germany, mass persecutions of Jews started, among which there were also some 50,000 Polish subjects living in Germany. This resulted in official protests from the Polish consulates and embassy, which took various steps to help the persecuted. Many employees of the Polish consulates, as reports sent to Warsaw indicate, intervened on behalf of Jews for purely humanitarian reasons, since they wanted, at least to some degree, to alleviate the difficult situation of the persecuted Jews.

These interventions stopped the Third Reich from applying against the Polish Jews all repressive measures, which were used against the German citizens of Jewish origin. Not bad either for a country with such "visceral, venomous and, it would appear, ineradicable" anti - Semitism.

The rest of the article is too much B.S. to even comment on it.

And then one has to ask the question. Where the anti - Semitism comes from.

Chris Janiewicz