Jedwabne: How was it possible?

The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 386-400

  Stola, Dariusz ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84883926782     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (14)

1. D. Stola, "A Monument of Words," Yad Vashem Studies (Jerusalem, 2003), originally published as "Pomnik ze słow," Rzeczpospolita, 1-2 June 2001. I am indebted to Yad Vashem Studies for permission to use the translation by Jerzy Michałowicz when preparing this article.
2. The numbers provided by Jan Gross are questionable. It is far from certain that 1,600 Jews were killed on 10 July or that Jews made up 60 percent of the population of Jedwabne before the killing. There are strong arguments for the claim that the number of victims was much lower. The size of the mass grave of the victims, as explored by archaeologists this summer, allows for an estimate of up to 400. The size of the barn where the victims met their death (144 square meters) confirms such an estimate. Soviet registration data from 1940 report only 600 Jewish residents in Jedwabne. These three are sources contemporary with the crime, which should not be simply ignored.
3. Sasiedzi, 68
4. F. Chalk and K. Jonassohn, eds., The History and Sociology of Genocide (New Haven and London, 1990)
5. H. Fein, Genocide: A Sociological Perspective (New York, 1993). The killing of (almost) all Jews in only one town does not meet the definition of genocide as set forth by Raphael Lemkin or endorsed by the relevant UN convention. It certainly was a part of the genocide, a genocide in part, or a genocidal killing
6. Henry Abramson, A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 119.
7. Anna Landau-Czajka, W jednym stali domu. Koncepcje rozwizania kwestii zydowskiej w publicystyce polskiej lat 1933-1939 (Warsaw, 1998).
8. On the debate between "functionalists" and "intentionalists," see Michael R. Marrus, The Holocaust in History (Hanover, N.H., 1987).
9. Reinhard Heydrich's instruction to Security Police of 29 June 1941, quoted by A. B. Rossino, "Polish 'Neighbors' and German Invaders," POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry 16 (2003).
10. Sasiedzi, 70
11. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 1992). Browning's outstanding book can be recommended to everyone moved by the story of Jedwabne.
12. Sasiedzi, 115
13. Jan Tomasz Gross, Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton, 1988)
14. As defined by the decree of 31 August 1944