"LIVING IN POLONIA" - MORE "BIRDS"? T. Ron Jasinski-Herbert |
"Polonia Today is known for it's incisive and often hard-hitting columns, "Living in Polonia," by its editor, T. Ron Jasinski-Herbert." "LIVING IN POLONIA"MORE "BIRDS"?As we had suspected would ultimately happen, some Poles and Polish Americans are discovering the truth about the Jedwabne incident and are attempting to inform the public. Hopefully, we played some part in the revelation. You will probably recall that Jerzy Kozinski authored "Painted Bird,"
the supposedly auto-biographical tale of a young Polish Jew, who avoided
the murderous instincts of the Nazis only to suffer at the hands of his
fellow Poles. Well, that little epic turned out to be a total fabrication,
the author and his family actually owing their lives to the decency of
Catholic Poles. Gross relies primarily on the testimony of one so-called eyewitness,
although there is even some evidence that his witness was not actually
close enough to the scene to actually see anything. There is no question that Jews were mercilessly murdered at Jedwabne. There should also be no question that the relatively few participating Poles did so in revenge, providing a motive other than mere prejudice and hate. As is almost always true in Polish history, the problems that arose between Poles and Jews in their shared homeland were occasioned by political, rather than religious or racial, motives. Having been murdered, the Jedwabne victims surely do not care about the motivation, but it does explain a great deal about what happened there. We make no apology for murderers. As every Pole we have heard, we condemn the vicious, mindless slaughter that occurred in Jedwabne. If any of the Polish perpetrators are still living, they should be exposed and punished. At the same time, we deplore the use of the incident for the promulgation of anti-Polonism or national extortion. Those, too, in our eyes, are disgusting crimes for which those responsible should be held exposed and held accountable. |