Skąd wiemy o zbrodni w Jedwabnem? „Sąsiedzi” Jana Tomasza Grossa i badania IPN

The film explains why Jan Tomasz Gross's book caused such a shock in Poland and how it changed the public conversation about the crime in Jedwabne. When "Neighbors: The Story of the Destruction of a Jewish Town" was published in 2000, many Poles confronted for the first time the fact that during World War II, some Poles were cast not only as victims but also as perpetrators of crimes against Jews. Gross's publication challenged the established image of wartime history and launched one of the largest debates on modern history in Poland after 1989. The film shows the contribution Gross's book made to our knowledge of Jedwabne, as later verified by the investigation by the Institute of National Remembrance, and what sources today allow us to reconstruct the course of events. Krzysztof Persak cites accounts from Jewish survivors, post-war trial records, and explains the subsequent investigations into the crime in Jedwabne. The story is narrated by Dr. Krzysztof Persak, a researcher at the POLIN Museum and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Together with Paweł Machcewicz, he led the Institute of National Remembrance's research project on the Jedwabne massacre and the pogroms in the summer of 1941, the results of which were presented in the two-volume work "Around Jedwabne" (2002). Check out these difficult words: 👉🏻 Jedwabne - a town in northeastern Poland. On July 10, 1941, a massacre of its Jewish residents took place there. 👉🏻 Jan Tomasz Gross - author of, among other books, "Neighbors: The Story of the Destruction of a Jewish Town," which sparked a huge debate in 2000 about the Jedwabne massacre and Polish involvement in crimes against Jews. 👉🏻 Szmalcownictwo - blackmailing Jews hiding during the occupation. Szmalcowniks threatened to hand Jews over to the Germans unless they received money or other benefits. 👉🏻 Institute of National Remembrance / IPN - a Polish institution that investigates, among other things, Nazi and communist crimes and conducts investigations into contemporary history. 👉🏻 IPN investigation - an official investigation of the case conducted by IPN prosecutors. In the Jedwabne case, it was intended to verify findings and gather additional sources. 👉🏻 Pogrom wave - a series of pogroms that occurred at a similar time over a larger area. Jedwabne was part of such a wave of violence in the summer of 1941. 👉🏻 Pogrom - collective violence against minorities, often Jews. It can include beatings, robbery, humiliation, and murder. 👉🏻 Łomża region - the area around Łomża, which included Jedwabne. 👉🏻 The Eastern Front - the area behind the battle lines between Germany and the Soviet Union. It was not a direct battlefield, but an area controlled by the military and occupation forces. 👉🏻 The Eastern Front - the battle line between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union during World War II. 👉🏻 Historical Sources - materials from which historians draw their knowledge: witness accounts, documents, court records, testimonies, reports, archives. 👉🏻 Historical Study - a text written by a researcher based on sources. The film emphasizes that Gross's book is not a source, but a study based on sources. 👉🏻 Jewish Historical Commissions - postwar institutions and groups that collected the testimonies of Jewish survivors before the memory of the events began to fade. 👉🏻 Jewish Historical Institute / JHI - a research institution in Warsaw that collects and researches documents relating to the history of Jews in Poland, including accounts by Holocaust survivors. 👉🏻 Szmul Wasserstein - A Jewish resident of Jedwabne who survived the war. His 1945 account is one of the key testimonies concerning the crimes. 👉🏻 August Decree - a post-war legal act used to punish Nazi criminals, collaborators, and those guilty of murder or abuse of civilians. 👉🏻 Fascist-Nazi criminals - a term used in post-war law to refer to individuals responsible for Nazi crimes. 👉🏻 Collaborators - individuals collaborating with the occupiers. Krzysztof Persak is a historian and PhD, a researcher at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. He specializes in Poland's modern political history and the history of the Holocaust. Together with Paweł Machcewicz, he led the Institute of National Remembrance's research project on the Jedwabne massacre and the pogroms in the summer of 1941, the results of which were presented in the two-volume work Wokół Jedwabnego (Around Jedwabne, 2002). He is the author and editor of over twenty books, including: A Handbook of the Communist Security Apparatus in East Central Europe, 1944–1989 (with Łukasz Kamiński, 2005), The Case of Henryk Holland (2006), and Jews in the Fight against the Germans 1939–1945 (2023). Chapters 0:00 The book "Neighbors" and the upheaval surrounding Jedwabne 1:50 The Institute of National Remembrance and the verification of Gross's findings 3:18 How do we know what happened in...