49 pages • 1 hour read
Jan Tomasz GrossNeighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 18-PostscriptChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary: “For a New Historiography”
Antisemitism, according to Gross, “polluted whole patches of twentieth-century Polish history” (121) and created many forbidden subjects. Many people insist on avoiding any discussion of certain “shameful episodes” in Poland’s past. Gross argues that Poland must confront this history “to reclaim its own past” (121). Jedwabne has made some effort in its post-Stalinist years, but it still has some way to go. There are “two stone monuments” in town that “[commemorate] the time of war” (121). One monument claims that the Nazis killed 1,600 Jedwabne Jews, while another, “which was erected in post-1989 Poland,” commemorates around “180 people including 2 priests who were murdered […] in the years 1939-1956 by the NKWD, the Nazis, and the secret police” (121). The latter monument ignores the existence of Jews, while the former blames other parties for the murders. The truth, of course, is that the Jews were murdered by their own neighbors—fellow ordinary citizens.
Postscript Summary
The Jedwabne massacre became a subject of national attention in Poland after Agnieszka Arnold aired her documentary Where Is My Older Brother Cain? The documentary featured an interview with Bronislaw Sleszynski’s daughter. There were also investigative reports published in the daily newspaper on May 5, 2000, which had a “nationwide circulation of several hundred thousand copies” (123). A “follow-up article,” published on May 19, debuted on the same day that “the Polish-language edition of Neighbors” (123) was released at Warsaw’s International Book Fair.
Several weeks later, Jedwabne’s citizens held conversations with the mayor and “Catholic Church representatives both in Jedwabne and in Lomza, as well as representatives of the Jewish community from Warsaw” (123). All agreed that “the burial site of the Jewish victims [would] have to be properly identified and marked as a cemetery” (123) and that the inscription on the town monument noting the massacre of the Jews would have to be changed to reflect the truth. In August 2000 the recently established Institute of National Memory announced that it would investigate the Jedwabne massacre and try the perpetrators who were still alive. Gross concludes that the youngest Polish generation, raised “with freedom of speech and political liberties,” was “ready to confront the unvarnished history of Polish-Jewish relations during the war” (123).
Chapter 18-Postscript Analysis
The monuments, in their initial incarnations, symbolized collective denial and scapegoating. They were also indicators of historical whitewashing, censorship, and secrecy—prevailing characteristics of the Stalinist regime. Gross’s avowal of a new historiography is an effort to redress these miscarriages of history. Poland cannot adequately move forward as a nation without confronting the conditions and actions that fostered its present reality.
Years of political denial cultivated an effort from mass media, particularly filmmakers, to confront Poland’s history of genocide. Subsequently, the state worked to illuminate the truth about the Jedwabne massacre, spurred by a public that had developed interest in the incident due to articles and documentaries. This demonstrates how art and journalism can spawn awareness about history and create popular demand for truth and accuracy.
