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

On August 23, 1939, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov—“respectively foreign ministers of the Third Reich and the USSR” (36)—signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The ministers acted as proxies for their respective leaders, Hitler and Stalin. The pact, which “divided the territories that lay between” (36) Germany and the USSR, gave Hitler the leeway to invade Poland without offending the Soviet Union. By the time Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, the Soviet Union occupied half the country. On September 28, 1939, Germany and the USSR signed the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, which cemented an “approximate demarcation line between the two occupations” (36). This approximation of boundaries resulted in Jedwabne briefly being occupied by the Germans in the fall of 1939 before being ceded to the Soviets.

During Soviet rule, relations between Jews and Poles were no worse in Jedwabne than they were in any other town. However, many people in Soviet-occupied Polish territories believed that the Jews had “privileged [relationships] with the occupiers” (38). Bronislaw Sleszynski’s daughter claimed in an interview that the Jewish proprietors of a local bakery “put out a table” (39) covered with a red tablecloth to welcome the invading Soviet soldiers. Another two families, she claimed, greeted the soldiers with a “welcome” banner. Gross reminds the reader that both Jews and Gentiles emerged from their homes when the Soviets arrived, but only Jews were portrayed as “sycophantic.” People used any local detail to confirm their biases, whether “a group of Jewish children cheerfully marching down the street” or a “Jew [working] in the post office” (39). Though there were Jews who worked as NKVD agents, this group was not exclusively made up of Jews. In Jedwabne, Gross notes, most NKVD agents were not Jewish at all.

A large anti-Soviet underground resistance group was established in Jedwabne. In June 1940 the NKVD discovered the organization in Kobielne and destroyed it. Shortly thereafter the Soviets announced amnesty for all surviving members of the organization, “on condition that they identify themselves and come out of hiding” (43). By Christmas of that year, 106 people identified themselves as dissidents. From that group, 25 people were recruited to carry out intelligence work for the Soviets. Gross wonders whether there is any connection between the destruction of the anti-Soviet group in June 1940 and the mass murder of Jews at the hands of Poles in July 1941.

The Russo-German War began on June 22, 1941. Historians are uncertain about what transpired during the two weeks between the outbreak of the war and the pogrom in Jedwabne on July 10. Wasersztajn’s deposition is the primary source of information about this brief period, though there are a few other testimonies. The main threats against local Jews during this time were “beatings, confiscation of material property, and humiliations,” such as random people being apprehended and forced “to clean outhouses with their bare hands” (44).

The Soviets occupied Jedwabne for 20 months, from September 1939 to June 1941. The “process of sovietization” (44) was difficult on all Eastern Europeans subjected to it. However, “the brunt of propaganda and Soviet repressions was directed against the Polish state” (44). In Poland, “[l]ocal elites were arrested or deported” (44), and Soviet authorities eventually seized all private property. Next the Soviets initiated a “vigorous campaign of secularization [that] targeted all religious institutions and personnel” (44). Offended by the attacks against their religious institutions, the Poles happily welcomed the Nazis in summer 1941. The obvious exceptions were the Jews, “who feared the Nazis more than the Bolsheviks” (44).

Upon their arrival the Germans rounded up local communists. Karol Bardón, who was later sentenced to six years in prison and then death “for serving as a uniformed German gendarme beginning in 1942” (169), witnessed the event. Local communist Czeslaw Kupiecki was among those killed. Kupiecki, who used to be a volunteer within the Soviet militia, stood with five other men who were clubbed by “a few civilians” (46) directed by the Germans to conduct beatings. The Germans ordered the civilians to make the men suffer slowly.

Rumors of killings and pogroms in nearby towns swirled around the Jewish community in Jedwabne, which became increasingly afraid of being next. In Radzilów around 1,500 Jews were murdered on July 7, 1941. Just two days earlier, 1,200 were killed in nearby Wasosz. Menachem Finkelsztajn, a Jew from Radzilów, provided these numbers and probably inflated his figures “by a factor of two” (46). He also claimed that, in Jedwabne, 3,300 Jews were murdered during a pogrom that lasted three days. Though Finkelsztajn’s figures are too high, Gross defends his estimates for their symbolic value, as the numbers “properly reflect the scale of these dramatic events” (46). In other words, they emphasize that many people were killed, far more than “a dozen or so” (46).

Radzilów awoke to the sound of artillery fire on the morning of June 22. There were “[h]uge clouds of dust and smoke on the horizon, from the direction of the German border” (46). There were 800 Jews living in the village who immediately became frightened. A few escaped the next day to the nearby village of Bialystok. The attitude of the Gentile peasants was notoriously antisemitic. Some ridiculed frightened Jews by “motioning across their necks” and saying that it was time to “cut up Jude” (47).

The Poles quickly established their affinity for the Germans. They even “built a triumphal arch to greet the German army decorated with a swastika, a portrait of Hitler, and a sign” that advocated for the longevity of the German army, which they believed had “liberated [them] from the horrible grip of the Judeocommune” (47). Local thugs asked the Germans if they could kill local Jews, and they received an affirmative response. The Germans conducted beatings of Jews and took their property, which they then distributed among the Gentile citizenry. The Germans then attempted to starve the Jewish population. They seized their livestock and gave that, too, to the Poles. To humiliate the Jewish population, German soldiers conducted “lessons of good manners” in front of “assembled Poles” (47). Part of these “lessons” involved demanding that the Jews “bring out all the holy books and Torahs from the synagogue and the prayer house and burn them” (48). They then demanded that the Jews “sing and dance around the huge burning pile” while “a jeering crowd was assembled that beat them freely” (48). The Jews were next harnessed to carts that they were forced to pull throughout town. The final destination was “a swampy little river near the town” (48). The tormenters forced their victims “to undress completely and to get up to their necks in the swamp” (48). Those who were too old or ill to submerge themselves were beaten and thrown into the water.

According to Finkelsztajn, Poles were the Jews’ “main tormentors” and were indiscriminate about whom they attacked. Germans were sent to Jews’ homes. They took materials of value and destroyed personal items by stomping over them with “their heavy boots” (48), and doused food items with kerosene. Polish leader Henryk Dziekónski, a man noted for his “barbarity,” accompanied the Germans on their rampages of pillaging. The Jewish inhabitants had hoped that “the local priest, Aleksander Dolegowski, whom [they] knew well,” would “influence the believers not to take part in persecution of the Jews” (50). The priest balked, claiming that all Jews were communists and, therefore, unworthy of his assistance. He then said that “he could not say anything good about the Jews, because his believers would throw mud on him” (50). Other Christian leaders whom the Jews approached for help replied in a similar manner.

Occasionally bandits forced the Jews out of their homes and beat them in the town square. Crowds of Polish men, women, and children stood and laughed as the victims collapsed under the thugs’ blows. Each day things worsened. The Jewish population became increasingly vulnerable. The Germans had already evacuated, leaving no one in power. The priest was the only viable authority and seemed to use his influence, particularly within the Polish upper class, to settle ancient scores. Propaganda circulated which blamed Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. According to rumor, it was best to “cleanse Poland of these pests and bloodsuckers” (51). The clergy was motivated not by religious dominance but by their desire to usurp the Jews’ material goods.

On Sunday afternoon, July 6, Poles from the nearby village of Wasosz entered Radzilów. They arrived with pipes and knives, and killed all the Jews in town, including children. Those who survived fled “for neighboring fields and forests” (52). Those who sought assistance from local Christians were turned away. They were, after all, instructed to believe that the Jews were natural enemies to Christianity.

A delegation was sent to “the newly established Polish municipal authorities made up of the priest, the doctor, a former secretary of the gmina […], and a few other prominent Poles” (54) to beg them to conduct an intervention. Instead the clergy sent the Jews to members of the underworld for help, particularly Wolf Szlepen. The mobsters claimed that, as long as they were compensated, “everybody’s lives would be spared” (54). Believing this, the Jews brought Szlepen their valuables, including china, sewing machines, silver and gold, and the “last cows that they had hidden” (54). Yet this was all for naught: Everyone in Radzilów “knew one day ahead when the Jews would be liquidated and in what manner” (54).

Radzilów’s Jewish community was destroyed after existing for 500 years. This included not only its inhabitants but its village, including “the study house, the synagogue, and the cemetery” (54). In Wizna the Germans entered the village and immediately slaughtered “scores of Jewish males” (55). Many Jews in Wizna, however, “were not Chasidic and looked very much like their Polish neighbors,” so the “German executioners needed help from local Polish informants to identify their victims” (55).

Meanwhile, in Jedwabne all remained temporarily quiet. To prevent what had occurred in Radzilów and Wizna, the Jewish community in Jedwabne “delivered candlesticks to the Catholic bishop of Lomza” (55) in exchange for his assurance that he would protect them from a pogrom. The bishop agreed to this and, for a time, kept his word. The Jews’ Gentile neighbors, however, warned them that the bishop’s promise would not hold for long.