Poland’s Jewish community, political leaders and ordinary citizens gathered Friday to commemorate hundreds of Jews murdered by their Polish neighbors 85 years ago in Jedwabne, north of Warsaw, as far-right activists protested nearby and said only the Nazis were responsible for the massacre.
AFP journalists at the scene reported a heavy police presence at the site of the 1941 massacre, a former barn where local Polish peasants locked between 300 and 1,600 Jews, according to different estimates, including women and children, and then set it on fire.
Nationalist protesters facing Jews wrapped in Israeli flags
(Photo: Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Agnieszka Sadowska/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS)
Some participants at the memorial ceremony wrapped themselves in Israeli and European Union flags as they paid tribute at the monument erected in 2001 at the site of the pogrom. Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich called for unity in his address. He invited those attending the ceremony to read aloud the names and professions of the Jews murdered in Jedwabne.
Nearby, about 1,000 people took part in protests and a Catholic Mass organized by far-right parties that refuse to acknowledge the responsibility of Polish villagers in the killing of hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust.
Protest near the memorial ceremony for hundreds of murdered Jews
(Photo: Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP)
Cutout figures of Poland’s chief rabbi and former presidents who acknowledged Polish responsibility for the massacre
(Photo: Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP)
Polish nationalists held a Mass in protest
(Photo: Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP)
Nationalist protesters held signs reading, “I do not apologize for Jedwabne, let the perpetrators apologize,” and “Finish the exhumation, end the defamation of Poles, the Jedwabne lie.” Cutout figures depicting Poland’s chief rabbi and former Polish presidents who recognized Polish responsibility for the massacre were also displayed.
Official probe found Poles responsible
An official investigation concluded in 2003 that the massacre was carried out by Poles from Jedwabne, not by the German Nazi occupiers. The finding contradicted historical narratives long accepted in Poland, and extreme nationalist groups continue to challenge it.
They have demanded that exhumations of the victims be resumed. The exhumations were halted in 2001 for religious reasons at the request of the Jewish community.
“As long as we do not know the truth, there will be divisions,” said Elzbieta Rybarska, a far-right activist carrying a Polish flag. “If someone were not afraid of the truth, the exhumation would have been carried out long ago.”
Among the organizers of the protest was the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown, led by Grzegorz Braun. Braun previously caused outrage when he used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles during a Jewish ceremony in the Polish parliament in Warsaw.
Braun attended the protest. During the demonstration, he and Polish lawmakers Roman Fritz and Wlodzimierz Skalik unveiled a cross and commemorative plaque erected by their supporters near the anniversary ceremony.
Polish nationalist Grzegorz Braun erects memorial bearing false claims about responsibility for the massacre
(Photo: Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Agnieszka Sadowska/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS)
The plaque placed by the Polish nationalists did not state that the victims were Jews. It read: “Passerby, stop in silent prayer for the souls of those persecuted, murdered, imprisoned, tortured and humiliated from this area, during World War II and after its end, who fell victim to the two criminal totalitarian regimes: German Nazism and Russian-Jewish Sovietism.”
In addition to the massacre in the barn, about 40 other Jews from Jedwabne were murdered by villagers in other ways. Other massacres of Jews also took place in the area during Germany’s occupation of Poland in World War II.
Jerzy Orlos, 68, who came to the ceremony wrapped in an EU flag, told AFP he was there “to experience the shock of the terrible division of the nation.” Still, he added, “such a ceremony is, of course, proof that we remember the dead.”
‘National conscience’
Poland’s center-right Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who did not attend the ceremonies, said the 85th anniversary of the massacre should serve as “a lesson concerning Poland’s national conscience.”
“I would like all Poles to take responsibility for the things we are proud of, but also for us to be able to take responsibility for the things that do not honor us,” he said.
The memorial in the town of Jedwabne
(Photo: Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP)
The history of Jedwabne’s Jews returned to public consciousness in 2001, when Jewish-American historian Jan T. Gross exposed the role of Polish villagers in the massacre in his book Neighbors.
The revelations shocked Poland and led to an official apology from then-President Aleksander Kwasniewski. “As a man, as a citizen and as president of the Republic of Poland, I ask their forgiveness, in my own name and in the name of those Poles whose conscience is shaken by this crime,” Kwasniewski told the Jewish community at the time.
After Friday’s ceremony, Schudrich addressed the divisive narratives surrounding the history of the massacre.
“This has nothing to do with an attack on Polish identity,” the chief rabbi, who has dual Polish and American citizenship, told AFP. “When you are honest with yourself, you can be much more honest as you move into the future.”
In Poland, where millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis, thousands of Jews were also killed by Poles, especially in rural areas. At the same time, many other Poles risked their lives to save Jews. More than 7,000 Poles, more than any other nationality, have been recognized by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.