The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne

Polish journalist Bikont undertakes a thorough follow-up to Polish-American historian Jan Gross’s 2001 book Neighbors, about the July 1941 pogrom in the rural eastern Polish town of Jedwabne. Bikont spent several years tracking down and interviewing the few eyewitnesses to the event—as well as their children and other relevant parties—in Poland, Costa Rica, Israel, and the U.S. She goes well beyond Gross in marshaling information to counter persistent claims that the Jewish massacre was perpetrated by Germans: overwhelming historical evidence incriminates Poles. In the process of investigating, she learned that the July pogrom in Jedwabne wasn’t an isolated act; killings of Jews by Poles took place “in several dozen towns in the area.” Bikont also notes the near-ubiquity of anti-Semitism in the area at the time—such that protecting Jews was an unpopular, even dangerous act—and the persistence of anti-Semitism throughout Poland to the present day. The narrative is disrupted at times by digressions into relatively tangential matters, especially in more personal sections called “Journal.” Still, Bikont has performed an extraordinary journalistic feat in documenting this terrible, historically contested atrocity. Illus. [em](Sept.) [/em]