Posted on 07/09/2002 11:29:22 AM PDT by RCW2001
Probe: Poles Played 'Decisive Role' in 1941 Pogrom
Tue Jul 9,11:47 AM ET
By Justyna Pawlak
BIALYSTOK, Poland (Reuters) - A probe into a World War II pogrom in the Polish town of Jedwabne found Tuesday that it was a local mob -- and not occupying Nazi forces -- who played a "decisive role" in the massacre.
But, revising earlier conclusions, Ignatiew said German special forces at the scene had incited the killings, although there was no clear evidence they had played an active role.
"We have to conclude that the role of the local population was decisive in the perpetration of this criminal act," Ignatiew told a long-awaited news conference.
"We can say that the crime in Jedwabne was committed with German inspiration."
The Jedwabne case hit the headlines last year after emigre historian Jan Gross blamed the deaths of up to 1,600 Jews on their Polish neighbors, challenging the official version which pinned responsibility solely on the Nazis.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski apologized on behalf of his nation at an emotional ceremony on the pogrom's 60th anniversary, breaking with Poland's long-held self-image as a nation of wartime victims, not collaborators.
CLOSING THE CASE
Despite interviewing nearly 100 surviving witnesses, their accounts were often contradictory and did not provide sufficient evidence to launch new prosecutions, Ignatiew, of the Institute for National Remembrance, told reporters.
He said he would close the case, noting that several convictions handed down after the war, before Poland's communist rulers launched a cover-up, still stood.
Gross' book "Neighbors," while winning praise for breaking the silence about the killings, has been criticized by other historians for its treatment of evidence. Ignatiew said Gross' estimate of the death toll was "improbably high."
Exhumation work found the remains of 40-50 victims in one mass grave, while the number of victims in a second measuring 25 feet by six feet could not be ascertained, meaning the final toll may never be known.
NO GERMAN SHOTS FIRED
Investigators presented harrowing photos of human remains, personal belongings and bullet cases found at the barn's site near Jedwabne, in northeastern Poland.
Analysis of the cartridges found some to be from German weapons used in the area in World War One, while others could have only been shot later in World War II, contradicting some witnesses' claims that German troops had fired into the barn.
Ignatiew said it had not been possible to establish the exact role of Nazi killing units -- the notorious Einsatzgruppen -- which moved into the area after Hitler reneged on a 1939 deal with Stalin to partition Poland and attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
All that remains is circumstantial evidence, such as SS chief Reinhard Heydrich's orders to encourage local people to massacre Jews and others suspected of collaborating with the Soviets.
Ignatiew's recent questioning of former SS officer Hermann Schaper, acquitted in the 1970s in Germany on charges of participating in mass killings behind the eastern front, also failed to yield insights after doctors broke off the interview with the frail 90-year-old.
Most Jews living in what became eastern Poland during the interwar period were born in what had been Russia and were raised as Russians since Poland still did not exist prior to WWI. They probably did welcome the Russians back because the area had long been Russian and they did not think of themselves as Polish. My mother came here in 1910 from an area that was then in Russia but was in Poland between the wars. She always thought of herself as Russian.
Piece of work. I like that. I frequently call him far worse. But it's polite.
I may use it with your permission, though probably not, it's undeserved politeness.
No love was lost between the Jews and the Polish Resistance. The latter invariably KILLED any Jews they came across in the forests who might have evaded the German roundups. They also BETRAYED to the Nazis many of the Resistance units that were Jewish. Escaped Jews soon learned that to survive they had to make contact with the Russian Resistance units, which accepted them.
By the way, there were Poles who took considerable risks to save Jews. A family of four that I know, cousins, were hidden out by a Polish farmer in his barn for the entire duration of the war. The guy had guts.
So many shows dealing with history twist and warp facts. In fact it's very difficult to really know what happened in any past event, as everyone has a different perspective, and different agendas. Truth and honesty cease to be highly regarded in our modern day society, and especially in our media. I'm not saying that show you saw was false as I didn't see it, and I wasn't around decades ago when the event occured, but I have learned to take anything I see on TV claiming to be factual with a grain of salt.
It looks like we are heading in that direction again, and I don't think there is anything we can do to head it off because unfortunatly, that is the nature of humans. We just haven't evolved enough to get past that sort of thing.
Gross's book claimed that practically the entire Polish population of the town rose up and killed all of its Jewish neighbors. It now turns out that massacre was the work of about 40 Poles, with armed Nazi soldiers present, and the death toll was in the hundreds. Obviously Gross' account is highly inaccurate. Is it fair to blame an entire town for the deeds of 40 people?
Or likewise is it fair to make a sweeping statement that "Poles helped kill Jews" based on the actions of 40 people?
Poland used to have 3 million Jews but now it has none
And that is the fault of Poles?
but this is not good enough for you so you insult the memory of Jews killed off in WW2 by Nazis and in this case by Poles.
Why is it acceptable to point out to Poles the misdeeds of their countryman yet unacceptable to do the same with Jews? Why is that not "insulting the memory of Poles killed off in WW2 by Nazis?" Yes, many Jews killed in WW2 were totally innocent, but many were also communists. That is especially true in the case of Jedwabne, where Jewish leaders of the town welcomed the Soviets with bread and salt and erected a statue of Lenin. The leadership Polish Communist Party in the 1940's was entirely made up of Jews.
Your logical deduction skills are... how shall we say... impaired? Poles didn't consider Jews to be Poles. Consequently, they led pogroms against them for hundreds of years. The idea that Jews were somehow oppressing anybody in Poland is laughable. Your Holocaust revisionism is as offensive as it is unhistorical. Your anti-Semitic agenda colors all your propoganda.
Happened in America also. Rep. Samuel Dickstein (D-NY) was on the NKVD payroll at $1250 a month in the 1930s. Boris Morros, producer the Laurel and Hardy films Flying Deuces, was the longest run Soviet spy we know of in American history.
Bwahahahaha. If the Poles hadn't exterminated the Jews, Laurel and Hardy would have destroyed the United States from within. Get a life.
Please do not confuse Ukrainians with Poles. Ukrainians hate Poles and have a history of brutality toward them. During WW2, in parts of the Ukraine formerly controlled by Poland, bands of armed Ukrainian hulligans would attack Polish homes and kill everyone, including infants. A common practice of theirs was to smash the skulls of Polish babies against the floor.
This I know from my Father who spent much of the war in Lwow, a Polish city which is today, unfortunately, located within the Ukraine's borders. Before the war the countryside surrounding Lwow was largely populated by Ukrainians. Generally, Poles owned the farms and Ukrainians worked them.
While it is true Ukraininas aided the Nazis in large numbers, the same is not true of Poles. While every country had its collaborators, on the whole Poles resisted Nazi rule like few other nations. The Nazis were unable to establish a puppet government in Poland the way they did in nearly every other country they occupied. They had to rule it directly. While a small number of Poles did give away Jews to the Nazis, far more, including members of my own family, hid them.
Most death camps were in Poland because of Poland's large Jewish population. But there were death camps outside of Poland, as you should know.
Also, if Poland was so bad to Jews throughout history, why is it that so many Jews lived there?
Yes. The few Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust were the subject of vicious Pogroms in 1945 and 1946, in which thousands were murdered. These were not Germans or Litvaks, but ordinary Poles.
Those pogroms were staged by the Soviets. Read your history .
So which is it? Weren't you folks just arguing the Jews had it coming for being the vicious Communist oppressors of the poor Poles? Now you're saying they weren't really Communists after all? Get with it, man! Your denial of Polish anti-Semitism is as dishonest as it is bizarre.
With all due respect, what are you smoking? I suppose you also think that Ukrainians and Germans were also historically kind to Jews, because so many Jews lived there too.
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