Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland [Paperback]

Jan T. Gross (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 29, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0142002402 | ISBN-13: 978-0142002407

On a summer day in 1941 in Nazi-occupied Poland, half of the town of Jedwabne brutally murdered the other half: 1,600 men, women, and children-all but seven of the town's Jews. In this shocking and compelling study, historian Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts as well as physical evidence into a comprehensive reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but hidden to history. Revealing wider truths about Jewish-Polish relations, the Holocaust, and human responses to occupation and totalitarianism, Gross's investigation sheds light on how Jedwabne's Jews came to be murdered-not by faceless Nazis, but by people who knew them well.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"One day, in July 1941, half of the population of a small east European town murdered the other half--some 1,600 men, women and children." This short sentence summarizes the subject of Neighbors, historian Jan Gross's account of a massacre that occurred in Jedwabne, in northeastern Poland. Gross describes the atrocities of Jedwabne in almost unbearable detail. Men and women were hacked to death with knives, iron hooks, and axes. Small children were thrown with pitchforks onto a bonfire. A woman's decapitated head was kicked like a football. Historians before now have blamed the massacre on the Nazis--whose participation in and responsibility for these crimes has been exaggerated, Gross says. In fact, he argues, a virulent Polish anti-Semitism was liberated by German occupation. Instead of explaining the horrors of Jedwabne, which would be impossible, Neighbors sets the record straight as to the identity of the criminals. In doing so, Gross has ensured that future histories of the Holocaust, particularly in Poland, will be more honest, because future historians will be answerable to his argument that the evil of the Nazis was not only forced on the Poles. In places such as Jedwabne, it was welcomed by them. --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Claude Lanzman's myth-shattering documentary film Shoah demonstrated that some Polish peasants were keenly aware of the Nazis' mass murder of Jews on Polish soil. This volume takes the real-life horror story a step further, documenting how nearly all of the Jews of Jedwabne, Poland, were murdered on one day most of them burned alive by their non-Jewish neighbors. Drawing on testimony that prompted and emanated from a 1949 Polish trial, Gross carefully describes how apparently normal citizens terrorized and killed approximately 1,600 Jewish villagers. Gross, a professor of politics and European studies at New York University, also attempts to place this heinous crime in historical and political context, concluding that he can explain but not fully understand. How to understand the Polish villagers, led by their mayor, exceeding the July 10, 1941, command of conquering German soldiers to annihilate the Jews but spare some tradesmen? Immediately,according to Gross, local townsmen-turned-hooligans grabbed clubs studded with nails and other weapons and chased the Jews into the street. Many tried to escape through the surrounding fields, but only seven succeeded. The thugs fatally shot many Jews after forcing them to dig mass graves. They shoved the remaining hundreds of Jews into a barn, doused it with kerosene and set it ablaze. Some on the outside played musical instruments to drown out the victims' cries. Yet Neighbors isn't as terrifying as one might expect, since Gross, a Polish ‚migr‚ himself, guides the reader along an analytical path. By de-emphasizing the drama, he helps readers cope with the awful incident, but his narrative occasionally bogs down in his own thoughts. Still, he asserts hopefully that young Poles are "ready to confront the unvarnished history of Polish-Jewish relations during the war." (May)Forecast: The always heated question of the role of Poles in the Holocaust comes to a head here. The book is bound to generate controversy (it has already garnered mention in the New York Times), though its sales will probably be limited.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (October 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142002402
• ISBN-13: 978-0142002407
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > History > Europe > Poland
  • #53 in Books > History > Europe > Eastern

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Neighbors: A Tragic History September 14, 2012

By Crank2Lover

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book "Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland" was a very insightful book about the tragedy where Polish residents attacked and killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors. While there may be a huge debate on the accuracy and the influence that this book carries, I found it to be very informative and well-written. Some may be disturbed, some may be bored, and others may be skeptical, but one thing is for sure: all of you will definitely be intrigued.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sorting out the Sordid Past March 30, 2010

By Frank Bellizzi

Format:Paperback

In Neighbors, Jan Gross tells the story of a summer day when "half the population of a small East European town murdered the other half" (7). The author, a Polish Jew who now teaches at Princeton, gives special attention to the question of "who did what in the town of Jedwabne [Poland] on July 10, 1941, and at whose behest" (10).

As the subtitle intimates, the evidence points to a shocking conclusion. Those who tortured and slaughtered nearly all of the 1,600 Jews of Jedwabne were not the soldiers of the recently-arrived German army. They were, instead, the Polish residents of the town, the long-time neighbors of the victims.

The report of the trial of 22 people accused in 1949 as perpetrators has every appearance of being perfunctory and hastily done. By contrast, the 1945 testimony of Szmul Wasersztajn--one of only seven Jewish survivors of the massacre--provides many details of the hellish events that took place in Jadwebne in late June and early July of 1941. Gross insists that the first-person accounts of Waserztajn and others must be taken seriously. The speakers, he points out, have few if any reasons to lie. Their stories corroborate one another and match up well with what the people of the region still say about that time.

Of course, the specific events described in the book took place within a set of contexts. The author is careful to mention and discuss them as well. The totalitarian regimes of Stalin and Hitler made every effort to exploit any sort of division or resentment.... In that world, says Gross, a person living in a place like Jedwabne, completely disoriented by the events of the Second World War, "could simultaneously endear himself to the new rulers, derive material benefits from his actions (it stands to reason that active pogrom participants had first pick in the division of leftover Jewish property), and go along with local peasants' traditional animosity towards the Jews." Gross goes on to say that if "we add to this mix encouragement by the Nazis and an easily whipped-up sense that one was settling scores with the `Judeo-commune' for indignities suffered under the Soviet occupation--then who could resist such a potent, devilish mixture?" (162).

That someone of his background could make such an observation indicates that in this book we have not only the work of a fine historian. We also have the mature and thoughtful reflections of someone who has managed to tell about a crooked world in a remarkably straightforward way. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read. June 16, 2013

By Ruth Kenner

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I recommend this book for anyone interested in history, also for anybody like mine that has lost family due to pogroms in the past. I do not agree with the criticism of this book. There is plenty of evidence that supports the authors claim that is was the Polish neighbors that executed these atrocities.

72 of 108 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars "Cautious Skepticism" November 20, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

While interesting reading, and somewhat overdone in terms of the gory detail, one is still lead to not fully take at face value all that is stated by Gross as "fact" in the book.

By his own admission in the chapter titled "New Approach To Sources", Gross offers us the new way of studying history by suggesting that we should accept "...what we read in a particular account as fact, until we find persuasive arguments to the contrary, we would avoid more mistakes than we are likely to commit by adopting the opposite approach, which calls for cautious skepticism toward any testimony until independent confirmation of it's content has been found".

If all "historians" were to follow that approach than our historical texts (which are based on empirical evidence) might be full of false information. I am not suggesting that the events described in the book did not happen at all (to the contrary there is independent confirmation of some of what is written), but I am suggesting that all historical subjects be treated with the same "cautious skepticism". The Holocaust of the WW II era should not be afforded any different treatment, just because it may be politically correct to do so.

Gross has cheated the process by which a historical thesis is made, investigated, proven, and documented, by simply taking a few uncorroborated testimonies at face value. As a respected historian and Professor at New York University, Gross should both know better, and should be ashamed of his behavior as a "historian" in the writing of this book.

71 of 107 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Does not look into context enough November 13, 2005

By yami

Format:Paperback

OK, this book informs about the massacres of Jews in eastern Poland once Germany invaded. It describes the extremes the populations went to in ridding their villages of their Jewry.

Thus, the portrayals are obvious: Germans - they ordered it but didn't actively take part in it, so they're semi-innocent, semi-guilty; Jews - they were slaughtered, so they're innocent victims; Poles - they did the killing so they're heartless monsters.

I'm Polish and people may claim I'm biased.

But I've done a lot of reading about the topic of World War II Poland.

Now, I'm in no way condoning the massacres that occurred at places like Jedwabne. Those that participated in the slaughter are a huge black mark on Polish people. But they in no way represent all Polish people.

The context of the situation that befell the Jews in eastern Poland was this: When 2 years earlier, in September of 1939, the Soviets crossed the border and joined Germany in the partition of Poland, the Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Jewish ethnic minorities in eastern Poland were largely ecstatic since they never really wanted to be part of Poland. Of course the question comes to mind "why would they want to be part of the Soviet Union when in areas like Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Byelorussia, there was constant starvation and repression on large scales during Stalin's reign even before the war?" Well, those minorities living in eastern Poland were fed by Communist propaganda that life would be so much better for them if they were rid of the Polish "nobles" and joined with the Soviet Union. The Communists in eastern Poland that had orders from Moscow did not tell about the starvations and repressions.... Thus, when the Soviets finally did enter these territories, the minorities were welcoming them, according to some accounts, in cities they tore down Polish flags, ripped them in half, and hung the red portion to mimic the communist flag of the USSR. As some Polish troops tried to flee southeast into Romania, when some of the minority groups encountered groups of soldiers, they overwhelmed them and disarmed them. When the Soviets began deporting the Polish population to Siberia and Kazakhstan, many people of the minority groups collaborated with the NKVD agents in listing the intelligentsia and other potential targets, and denounced the Poles to the NKVD to deport them. Granted, the Jews themselves also would come to suffer under Soviet rule as well, but it was many of them and the Byelorussians and Ukrainians that denounced Poles to be deported. It was them that cheered and celebrated the arrival of the Red Army.

Thus, the remaining Polish population regarded them all as traitors, even though not ALL of them collaborated with the Soviets. This universal condemnation was wrong, but it is the context for the massacre at Jedwabne and other such places in eastern Poland. When the Germans invaded these areas, the Jews were no longer under "Soviet government protection" and Poles were no longer the bottom rung of society over there. Thus, when Germans encouraged and endorsed elimination of the local Jews, the Poles that were not deported in late-1939 and early-1940 had the perfect opportunity to vent their anger and exact revenge.

This was the contextual situation in eastern Poland. There particularly, the relationship in the inter-war years between Pole and Jew was tense because of the proximity of the Soviet Union which propagated that they would be better off without Polish rule.

Note that there were no such events of Poles massacring Jews in western Poland and central Poland. Why? Because the central-Polish and western-Polish Jews didn't buy the Soviet propaganda of life being better without Poland. In western Poland (incorporated into Germany) and central Poland (made into the General Government, under virtually complete German rule since there were not enough Poles collaborating to create a stable Polish puppet state) the Poles and Jews shared the same fate right from the start - elimination.

So this in no way represents ALL Poles. Just as not ALL Jews collaborated with the Soviets during the Soviet annexation and deportation of Poles. Just as not ALL Germans were Nazis or aware of the mass murder.

I personally am outraged that anyone here would say that it shows how racist Polish people are and how deceitful Poles are in manipulating the world into thinking that Poland was always the victim and never the wrongdoer.

If anyone would make these generalizations about an American - that ALL Americans are stupid, or racist, or any other bunch of negative characteristics - there would be international outrage. If anyone would say all Russians are hardcore Communists or all Germans are hardcore Nazis, there would be international outrage. But yet it's completely OK to make these generalizations about Poles or any other ethnicity that isn't a major world power just because they're living in a small country?

People have to recognize that calling EVERYONE in an ethnic group a racist or any other kind of insult, IS racism.

This book would be so much better if it actually presented the context of the situation rather than just the situation. In the form it is currently, it's just the same as drawing conclusions from one sentence of an entire page-long essay without looking at the rest of the essay. Read more ›