Difference between revisions 952012589 and 952013918 on enwiki

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{short description|1941 massacre of Jews in Poland}}

{{Infobox civilian attack
| title         = Jedwabne pogrom
| partof        = [[World War II]] and [[the Holocaust]]
| image         = A-438 Mogiła-pomnik, na cmentarzu żydowskim, 1941 Jedwabne.jpg
| image_size    = 
(contracted; show full)meline of pogroms in the former Soviet occupation zone – summer of 1941|publisher=POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews}}</ref> In the days before the Jedwabne massacre, the town's Jewish population increased as refugees arrived from nearby Radziłów and Wizna. In Wizna, the town's Polish "civil head" (''wójt'') had ordered the Jewish community's expulsion; 230–240 Jews fled to Jedwabne.{{sfn|Crago|2012|p=900}}

==Jedwabne pogrom==
===10 July 1941===

[[File:Jedwabne pogrom map.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|alt=diagram|Jedwabne crime scene, compiled from Polish court documents{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}]]
On the morning of 10 July 1941, according to Poland's [[Institute of National Remembrance]] (IPN) investigation, Polish men from nearby villages began arriving in Jedwabne "with the intention of participating in the premeditated murder of the Jewish inhabitants of the town".{{sfn|Ignatiew|2002}} The town's Jews were forced out of their homes and taken to the market square, where they were ordered to weed the area by pulling grass up from between the cobblestones. While doing this, they were also beaten and made to perform exercises by a group of residents from Jedwabne and the surrounding area.<ref>{{harvnb|Ignatiew|2002}}; for exercises, see {{harvnb|Persak|2011|p=412}}.</ref>

Around 40–50 Jewish men were forced to demolish a statue of [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] in a nearby square and carry part of the statue on a wooden stretcher to the market square, then to a nearby barn,{{sfn|Ignatiew|2002}} while singing communist songs. The local [[rabbi]], Awigdor Białostocki, and the kosher butcher, Mendel Nornberg, led the procession.{{sfn|Persak|2011|p=412}} According to a survivor, Szmul Wassersztajn, the group was taken to the barn, where they were made to dig a pit and throw the statue in. They were then killed and buried in the same pit.<ref>{{harvnb|Wasersztajn|1945}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Gross|2001|pp=19–20}}.</ref> Historian Krzyszto Persak writes that Polish government investigators found this grave during a [[#exhumation|partial exhumation in 2001]]. It held the remains of about 40 men, a kosher butcher's knife, and the head of the concrete Lenin statue.{{sfn|Persak|2011|p=429, n.&nbsp;12}}

Most of Jedwabne's remaining Jews, around 300 men, women, children and infants, were then locked inside the barn, which was set on fire, probably using [[kerosene]] from former Soviet supplies.{{sfn|Ignatiew|2002}} This group was then buried in the barn near the first group. The 2001 exhumation found one mass grave within the barn's foundations and another close to the foundations.{{sfn|Musial|2003|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=a_49GjK8ovMC&pg=PA325 325]}} Eighteen-year-old Szmul Wassersztajn deposited a witness account in [[Yiddish]] with the [[Jewish Historical Institute]] in [[Białystok]] on 5 April 1945:

{{quote|The other brutality was when the murderers ordered every Jew to dig a hole and bury all previously murdered Jews, and then those were killed and in turn buried by others. It is impossible to represent all the brutalities of the hooligans, and it is difficult to find in our history of suffering something similar.{{pb}} Beards of old Jews were burned, newborn babies were killed at their mothers' breasts, people were beaten murderously and forced to sing and dance. In the end they proceeded to the main action—the burning. The entire town was surrounded by guards so that nobody could escape; then Jews were ordered to line up in a column, four in a row, and the ninety-year-old rabbi and the ''shochet'' [Kosher butcher] were put in front, they were given a red banner, and all were ordered to sing and were chased into the barn. Hooligans bestially beat them up on the way. Near the gate a few hooligans were standing, playing various instruments in order to drown the screams of horrified victims. Some tried to defend themselves, but they were defenseless. Bloodied and wounded, they were pushed into the barn. Then the barn was doused with kerosene and lit, and the bandits went around to search Jewish homes, to look for the remaining sick and children.<ref>{{harvnb|Wasersztajn|1945}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Gross|2001|pp=19–20}}.</ref>}}On the morning of 10 July 1941, according to Poland's [[Institute of National Remembrance]] (IPN) investigation, Polish men from nearby villages began arriving in Jedwabne "with the intention of participating in the premeditated murder of the Jewish inhabitants of the town".{{sfn|Ignatiew|2002}} The town's Jews were forced out of their homes and taken to the market square, where they were ordered to weed the area by pulling up grass from between the cobblestones. While doing this, they were beaten and made to dance or perform exercises by residents from Jedwabne and nearby.<ref>{{harvnb|Ignatiew|2002}}; for exercises, see {{harvnb|Persak|2011|p=412}}.</ref> Eighteen-year-old Szmul Wassersztajn, a Jewish resident, deposited a witness statement in [[Yiddish]] with the [[Jewish Historical Institute]] in [[Białystok]] on 5 April 1945:

[[File:Jedwabne pogrom map.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|alt=diagram|Jedwabne crime scene, compiled from Polish court documents{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}]]
{{quote|The other brutality was when the murderers ordered every Jew to dig a hole and bury all previously murdered Jews, and then those were killed and in turn buried by others. It is impossible to represent all the brutalities of the hooligans, and it is difficult to find in our history of suffering something similar.{{pb}} Beards of old Jews were burned, newborn babies were killed at their mothers' breasts, people were beaten murderously and forced to sing and dance. In the end they proceeded to the main action—the burning. The entire town was surrounded by guards so that nobody could escape; then Jews were ordered to line up in a column, four in a row, and the ninety-year-old rabbi and the ''shochet'' [Kosher butcher] were put in front, they were given a red banner, and all were ordered to sing and were chased into the barn. Hooligans bestially beat them up on the way. Near the gate a few hooligans were standing, playing various instruments in order to drown the screams of horrified victims. Some tried to defend themselves, but they were defenseless. Bloodied and wounded, they were pushed into the barn. Then the barn was doused with kerosene and lit, and the bandits went around to search Jewish homes, to look for the remaining sick and children.<ref>{{harvnb|Wasersztajn|1945}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Gross|2001|pp=19–20}}.</ref>}}

Around 40–50 Jewish men were forced to demolish a statue of [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] in a nearby square and carry part of the statue on a wooden stretcher to the market square, then to a nearby barn,{{sfn|Ignatiew|2002}} while singing communist songs. The local [[rabbi]], Awigdor Białostocki, and the kosher butcher, Mendel Nornberg, led the procession.{{sfn|Persak|2011|p=412}} The group was taken to the barn, where they were made to dig a pit and throw the statue in. They were then killed and buried in the same pit.<ref>{{harvnb|Wasersztajn|1945}}, quoted in {{harvnb|Gross|2001|pp=19–20}}.</ref> Polish government investigators found this grave during a [[#exhumation|partial exhumation in 2001]]. It held the remains of about 40 men, a kosher butcher's knife, and the head of the concrete Lenin statue.{{sfn|Persak|2011|p=429, n.&nbsp;12}}

Most of Jedwabne's remaining Jews, around 300 men, women, children and infants, were then locked inside the barn, which was set on fire, probably using [[kerosene]] from former Soviet supplies.{{sfn|Ignatiew|2002}} This group was buried in the barn near the first group. The 2001 exhumation found a mass grave within the barn's foundations and another close to the foundations.{{sfn|Musial|2003|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=a_49GjK8ovMC&pg=PA325 325]}} 

===Role of the German police and others===
According to various accounts, Persak writes, the Germans had set up a ''[[Feldgendarmerie#Operations|Feldgendarmerie]]'' in Jedwabne, staffed by eight or eleven military police.{{sfn|Persak|2011|pp=411–412}} The police reportedly set up a "collaborationist civilian town council" led by a former mayor, Marian Karolak. Karolak established a local police force, whose members included Eugeniusz Kalinowsk and Jerzy Laudanski. The town co(contracted; show full)

===Survivors===
[[File:Jewish children and their teacher, Jedwabne, 1938.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Jewish children with their schoolteachers, [[Jedwabne]], 1933, including three boys who survived the war by hiding on [[Antonina Wyrzykowska]]'s farm. Back row, second left: Szmul Wassersztajn (the eyewitness); third, Mosze Olszewicz; and fourth, Jankiel Kubrzański.{{sfn|Bikont|201
25|p=246}}]]
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Between 100 and 125 Jews who escaped the pogrom lived in an open ghetto in Jedwabne before being transferred to the Łomża ghetto in November 1942. Several escaped to other towns.{{sfn|Chodakiewicz|2005|p=88}} In November 1942, when the Germans began putting ghetto inmates on trains to the [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] for extermination, seven of them—Moshe Olszewicz, his wife, Lea, and his brother, Dov; Lea and Jacob Kubran; Józef Grądowski; and Szmul Wassersztajn—escaped again to the nearby hamlet of [[(contracted; show full)[[Category:1941 in Judaism]]
[[Category:1941 in Poland]]
[[Category:Controversies in Poland]]
[[Category:Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Poland]]
[[Category:July 1941 events]]
[[Category:Mass murder in 1941]]
[[Category:Poland in World War II]]
[[Category:World War II crimes in Poland]]-->