Neighbors Respond

Antony Polonsky is Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His books include "The Great Powers and the Polish Question". Joanna B. Michlic is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Institute of Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and the author of "Minority as an Enemy" (forthcoming).

• PREFACE xiii INTRODUCTION 1 PART I: THE INITIAL REPORTING INTRODUCTION 47 Andrzej Kaczynski "Burnt Offering," Rzeczpospolita, 5 May 2000 50 Gabriela Szczesna "The Blood of Jedwabne," Kontakty, 7 May 2000 60 Maria Kaczynska "In Memory and Admonition," Gazeta Wspolczesna, 11 July 2000 64 PART II: THE MORAL DEBATE INTRODUCTION 69 Zofia Kossak-Szczucka "Prophecies Are Being Fulfilled," Prawda, May 1942 72 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir "Obsessed with Innocence," Gazeta Wyborcza, 13-14 January 2001 75 Jan Nowak-Jezioranski "A Need for Compensation," Rzeczpospolita, 26 January 2001 87 Antoni Macierewicz "The Revolution of Nihilism," Glos, 3 February 2001 93 Hanna Swida-Ziemba "The Shortsightedness of the 'Cultured,'" Gazeta Wyborcza, 6 April 2001 103 Jerzy Slawomir Mac "Homo Jedvabicus," Wprost, 22 July 2001 114 PART III: OFFICIAL STATEMENTS INTRODUCTION 121 Living in Truth: Special Statement by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek regarding the Slaughter of Jews in Jedwabne in 1941, April 2001 125 Address Delivered by Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., 5 April 2001 126 Address by President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski at the Ceremonies in Jedwabne Marking the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Jedwabne Tragedy on 10 July 2001 130 Findings of Investigation S 1/00/Zn into the Murder of Polish Citizens of Jewish Origin in the Town of Jedwabne on 10 July 1941, pursuant to Article 1 Point 1 of the Decree of 31 August 1944 133 "Jedwabne-Let Us Be Silent in the Face of This Crime: Piotr Lipinski Talks with Professor Andrzej Rzeplinski," Gazeta Wyborcza, 22 July 2002 137 PART IV: THE DEBATE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH INTRODUCTION 147 "A Poor Christian Looks at Jedwabne: Adam Boniecki and Michal Okonski Talk with Archbishop Henryk Muszynski," Tygodnik Powszechny, 25 March 2001 155 Interview with the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, on the Murder of Jews in Jedwabne, 15 May 2001 166 Rev. Stanislaw Musial, "We Ask You to Help Us Be Better," Gazeta Wyborcza, 23 May 2001 173 PART V: VOICES OF THE INHABITANTS OF JEDWABNE INTRODUCTION 181 "We Are Different People: A Discussion about Jedwabne in Jedwabne," Wiez, April 2001 186 Marta Kurkowska-Budzan, "My Jedwabne" 200 PART VI: MEMORIES AND METHODOLOGIES: THE HISTORICAL DEBATE INTRODUCTION 209 Tomasz Strzembosz "Collaboration Passed Over in Silence," Rzeczpospolita, 27 January 2001 220 Jerzy Jedlicki "How to Grapple with the Perplexing Legacy," Polityka, 10 February 2001 237 "A Roundtable Discussion: Jedwabne-Crime and Memory," Rzeczpospolita, 3 March 2001 247 Anna Bikont "We of Jedwabne," Gazeta Wyborcza, 23 March 2001 267 Bogdan Musial "The Pogrom in Jedwabne: Critical Remarks about Jan T. Gross's Neighbors" 304 Jan Gross "Critical Remarks Indeed" 344 "Jedwabne without Stereotypes: Agnieszka Sabor and Marek Zajac Talk with Professor Tomasz Szarota," Tygodnik Powszechny, 28 April 2002 371 Dariusz Stola "Jedwabne: How Was It Possible?" 386 PART VII: THE DISCUSSION OUTSIDE POLAND INTRODUCTION 403 David Engel "Introduction to the Hebrew Edition of Neighbors" 408 Israel Gutman "Do the Poor Poles Really Look at the Ghetto? Introduction to Hebrew Edition of Neighbors" 414 Istvan Deak "Heroes and Victims" (Extracts), New York Review of Books, 31 May 2001 421 Richard Lukas "Jedwabne and the Selling of the Holocaust," Polish American Journal, May 2001 430 Adam Michnik "Poles and the Jews: How Deep the Guilt?" New York Times, 17 March 2001 434 Leon Wieseltier and Adam Michnik "Washington Diarist: Righteous" and an Exchange of Letters, New Republic, 9, 17, and 24 April 2001 440 CHRONOLOGY 451 EXPLANATORY NOTES 459 INDEX 471

"This is a major addition to Holocaust studies for both popular and academic readers... [C]omprehensive, compelling and thoughtful ... Polonsky and Michlic have done a splendid job of collecting and arranging this material to highlight the inherent intellectual, moral and historical tensions."--Publishers Weekly "A meritorious, comprehensive reference book revealing a spectral episode which still haunts Poland."--Adam LeBor, Jewish Chronicle "As Polonsky and Michlic persuasively argue, the debate over Neighbors is more than an argument over the massacre of Polish Jews by their gentile countrymen. It is symptomatic of a greater debate over how Poland's history can, or should, be understood in the wake of the war and after the cultural vacuum created by decades of Communist rule."--Library Journal "The Neighbors Respond is both an important and disturbing book."--Jack Fischel, Jewish Book World "This is an interesting, highly motivated engagement of a human tragedy reflective of social prejudice that is manifested in any group that premeditatedly considers its relationship with a distinctly different group. It is a telling tale of two peoples, one land, a common tragedy, whose appeal stretches beyond a village in Poland and provides a model for similar studies of other groups in conflict."--Zev Garber, Shofar