LETTERS TO BOOKS Hanna Sokolski, Canadian Polish Congress |
National Post (Toronto) June 23, 2001 LETTERS TO BOOKS Re: the Review of Jan T. Gross's Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Allan Levine (June 16) It is a thankless task to review a sensational bit of historical writing whose accuracy has been seriously challenged by virtually every professional historian who has examined the events, and whose author, American sociologist Jan T. Gross, conducted virtually no research in wartime archives. Since he cites no supporting Nazi documents or reliable eyewitnesses, Gross's claim that the local Polish population of Jedwabne undertook, on its own, the annihilation of 1,600 Jews in July, 1941, is a theory that requires careful scrutiny. Those witnesses Gross relies on either didn't actually see most of what they claim (Shmuel Wasserstein) or weren't even present in the town (Eliasz Grondowski and Abram Boruszczak) and were therefore discredited at the Stalinist trials.
A census taken by the Soviets counted fewer than 600 Jews in Jedwabne
in
September, 1940. It has long been known that several hundred of them
fled
to nearby towns such as Lomza. Not surprisingly, when the investigation
branch of Poland's Institute for National Remembrance carried out an
exhumation earlier this month, only some 200 bodies were found.
More importantly, the discovery of bullet fragments from German weapons
at the site suggests that German soldiers were responsible for the
massacre.
While there were doubtless some local collaborators, their number was
not the preposterous 225 cited in the book. The prosecutor charged with
the
investigation has identified no more than 40, some of whom acted under
duress, and none of whom represented any Polish authority or
organization. [OMITTED: The book also claims that the locals scavenged the dead bodies. If that is true then they were singularly inept because the exhumation found jewelry and other valuables.]
Polish authorities are presently conducting investigations of civilian massacres (including women and children) in two other villages, Koniuchy and Naliboki, where Jewish partisans boast of killing 300 and 130 Poles respectively. Some of the partisans later surfaced as Stalinist security police after the war and took part in extra-judicial killings like the one in Siedlce that took 34 Polish lives. Since the victims and perpetrators don't fit the accepted profile, neither the Western media nor the usual pundits who comment on Polish-Jewish relations have picked up on those stories. In his book Fugitives of the Forest, reviewer Allan Levine simply ignored those events, preferring to lay all the blame on the Poles.
Hanna Sokolski |