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Massacre In JedwabneAfter the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, special Einsatzgruppen were organized to kill as many Jews as it was possible on the Polish areas annexed by Soviet Union. The Nazi propaganda mentioned the Soviet crimes committed in this region and blamed Jews for collaboration with the Soviets. In July 1941, the Jewish population of Jedwabne, Poland, was massacred. Most of the victims were burned alive in a barn. The number of persons killed is estimated between 380 (the latest estimate by Polish IPN) and 1600 (very disputable). Some historians, namely Prof. Jan T. Gross, claimed that it was a typical pogrom in which Jews were massacred by their Polish neighbours. Others, like Prof. Tomasz Strzembosz, claimed that it was a German provocation. Indeed, the fact that German bullets were found near the barn at Jedwabne was used to support this hypothesis. Following an intensive investigation, in 2001 the IPN released its finding which showed that the bullets in question came from a period years after the massacre, and that some probably remained from World War I. Many witnesses claim to have seen German soldiers that day in Jedwabne, yet others contend that there were no Germans in the town on the day of the massacre. That some non-Jewish Poles took active part in this crime is beyond doubt, but the question of how important their involvement was is still controversial. Indeed, it is still unclear whether there were any German units in Jedwabne on the day of the massacre, and if so, if any non-Jewish Poles were forced to participate in the execution of the massacare. The IPN claims that there were only 8 German policemen. In 2001 the President of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, officially apologized to the Jewish nation for this crime. Many people criticized him for doing so before events were reconstructed with reasonable confidence. There is a large question of whether this mystery will ever be solved.. References - Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, Princeton University Press, 2001.
- Dariusz Stola, "Jedwabne: Revisiting the evidence and nature of the crime", Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, Spring 2003, 139-152.
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