Jedwabne.

“..situation in Jedwabne ..there is no doubt that it was not hard to find dozens of willing participants of genocidal murder among ..local Poles… After two years of cruel occupation ..local Poles greeted ..Wehrmacht as liberators. They also felt a strong revenge reflex toward Soviet collaborators ..with Jews viewed as such en bloc. ..attitude to ..latter was conditioned by antisemitism ..widespread in ..area. German inspiration ..encouragement in Jedwabne met with favourable conditions.” Krzysztof Persak.

Poland is conflicted, and not just here at Jedwabne where a whole community met up with the type of genocide, the term The Holocaust would formulate. 3,550,000 Polish Jews, Slaughtered in the wake of Hitler’s resolution to destroy them, recognises that Poland looked the other way. In none of what I wish to state do I accuse the entire Polish people of complicity in this. But nowhere can it be denied either that non-Jewish Poles were heavily involved in many areas of the expulsion, expropriation and destruction of Polish Jewish life. Poland, as a governing state, shelved its entire responsibility in saving their own 3,550,000 Polish Jews, and millions of other non-Jewish Poles beaten, beleaguered, and murdered. It is certain too that with the Jews of Jedwabne, they had suffered less harshly under Russian rule, as Hitler further conspired to exact his own vengeance on Soviet Russia. For the Jews of the Town, they were still seen as benefactors of such less harsh treatments.  This is reflected then, when on July 10^th 1941, inhumanity here marks a formidable escape from humanity, even morality and certainly any grace ever held by this Polish Towns Jedwabne people of. Largely accused are some 102 participating local Poles, including Jerzy Laudanski and Karol Bardon, Jews from other districts too, and all led by the mayor Marian Karolak. All of which does not abrogate the responsibility of the remaining 400 or 500 other non-Jewish Poles of the Town who were willing sightseers in the tragedy here. As we look back in search of any reasoning, where estimates as high as 1,600 Jews of the Town were betrayed by their non-Jewish Neighbours, we find nothing that will hold to any ethical morality that we would ever choose to define. Here, Jewish Men, Women, and Their Children were massacred in various ways, but by the Polish, non-Jewish locals of the town of Jedwabne, a polish town now synonymous with human betrayal. So we begin by exploring what led us to a situation where non-Jewish Poles felt they were at liberty to Slaughter their own communities Jews, simple because they were Jews.

“..Freedom of ..spirit is our life-blood. By that I mean freedom in questions of ..spirit ..freedom of conscience ..freedom of ..Church ..freedom of instruction ..freedom of ..Word of God ..freedom to bear witness.” Jan Rudolph Slotemaker de Bruine.

It is worth pointing out, that in the years preceding 1939, the World was building a collapsible bridge between itself and the Jewish People. For instance, there were American, though Protestant ministers, trawling through the rising contempt for Christian morals with exclamations which sourced the very hatred for the Jews. It was to those religious, non-religious and others all looking in, who could not reconcile with acceptance of difference, they balked at artefacts clearly on display within Polish Catholic Churches. These obviously religious commodities could range from the usual religious detritus of Bibles, Rosaries, and Prayer Books. There were the Capulets of veneration and all manner of fervency, and with all of that, there could be assigned to this expression of devotion, a trove of antisemitic pamphlets and papers.

“..it is clear Jewish residents of Jedwabne ..had been raped ..and burned.” Szymon Datner.

Of course, all of this fully appealed to the latent and yet distorted view of an exclusive morality, which all haters harvest so as to exclude many others. In Jedwabne, this manifested itself in a period of anti-Jewish feelings which was not without extremes of frenzied and physical outbursts. It belies here the Christian morality supposedly entrenched into all Christian promoted practices of human contractual unity. Also, the legitimacy of any truth assigned to any religious order, which must promote equality of the human spirit, over the perversion of its ethical probity, must represent the sanctity of all community connection. It is essential in any community, which promotes any version of religious understanding, the community must command the respect of others that it should ensure as is morally expected.

“..Party lays total claim to ..soul of ..German People ..and hence we demand ..last German ..whether Protestant or Catholic.” Robert Ley.

Of course they are those within political persuasions who wish to draw people away from religion and religious understanding so as to avoid competing aims. Even before Hitler’s Invasion of Poland in 1939, the Churches ethos within Poland was somewhat aligned to the vile diatribe entering mainstream views from across the border with herr Hitler. Such as history can now identify as antisemitism, which was barely hidden, was riven in pews, along aisles, and was resonating through entire congregations. The sheer stench of hypocrisy which was infected by church teachings, particularly in Poland, could not then become acceptable to the very tenets of any church teachings opened to what commanded it. To this day though, the very truth to fully emerge will not countenance the distortion many will seek to disguise the truth. The facts which distances Church, State and Citizenry from its culpability in Pogroms, and particularly as we will meet it, at Jedwabne, shows the inability of all concerned to distance themselves from the truth they would wish to deny.

“..not true that during ..German occupation ..Poles were of ..opinion that Poland has two enemies ..an external one ..Germans ..and an internal one Jews. It is only owing to ..unremitting contempt of Hitler for ..Poles that he did not consciously seek ..by means of various promises and gratification ..massive collaboration of ..Poles in ..extermination of ..Jews.” Stanislaw Musial.

This priest wishes to suggest that acquiescence is neither complicity nor does it emerge as duplicitous, simply because it does not fit with any moral efficacy. Though not all Poles serviced the needs to furnish the furnaces of the Death Camps in Poland with Polish Jews, they certainly contributed to the stillness of protest surrounding the gravest atrocity ever to face humanity, and attempting to dos o over Jedwabne, further accuses the community wholly implicated in the overall trauma of hatred inflicted upon the Jewish People. While it is conscionably true that Poland did not act as collectively as some European nations did in prosecuting its Jews, it did not act in the least compassionately as all of Denmark did. Certainly too, and in Jewish circles in particular, and not without good reason, the Church is seen as responsible for a good measure of the antisemitism with which Poland is to be identified. It should also be pointed out that in recent years there have been a number of episodes that have further embittered the Jewish perception of the Church in Poland. The belief that the Church has been engaged in a deliberate attempt to appropriate memory of The Holocaust is entirely widespread.

“..No obstacles should be made for ..efforts aimed at self-cleaning among anti-communist and anti-Jewish circles in ..newly occupied territories. ..they should be instigated without leaving a trace ..intensified and directed on ..right track  ..local self-defense circles could not refer to ..orders or political promises made to them.” Reinhard Heydrich.

This culminated in the sickeningly erection of a Carmelite Convent to caste its shadow over the extreme Jewish losses here Auschwitz. The ramifications of imposing any spiritual assertion over such a Jewish Catastrophe, which are still felt today, does not discern the imbalance of Jewish devastation versus other People’s losses to be expanded upon here. On the eve of War, and of a population of over 2,000 people, the Jewish People made up some 80% in Jedwabne and these Jews faced a constant barrage of sanctions of edicts directed against them. The town was situated in an area that was a hotbed of the racist antisemitic grouping, the Endecja, NDP or National Democratic Party. After the German Russian Pact, Jedwabne came under the Russian sphere of influence and as such, the NDP compelled its agenda, from a distance. But individual responsibility could be still be waved aside, while Poland pointed to those other countries which festered a kinship to Hitler’s Reich, and its full-blooded dimension of Jewish extermination.

“..In Poland ..phenomenon of collaboration as a means of realizing a national interest under foreign rule did not exist. There were no people who would fill ..role of a Petain or Quisling. In other countries occupied by ..Germans ..antisemitic pogroms were announced by collaborationist governments and parties, but ..underground was generally anti-Fascist ..democratic ..an enemy of antisemitism. Antisemitism belonged to ..syndrome of betrayal. Paradoxically ..Poland was ..only country in which antisemitism preserved its patriotic and national legitimacy ..but also its democratic legitimacy. Exactly because this Polish antisemitism did not have ..stigma of collaboration with ..Germans ..it could very well prosper during ..War not only on ..Street ..but also in ..underground press ..in political parties and in armed units.” Aleksander Smolar.

All the while, Hitler’s main aim, instilled within his Weltanschauung was, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question. To this end, all effort in Poland was promoted to ensure acceptance, complicity, collaboration, duplicity and participation. Expected, and from local community’s in ensuring their own Jewish Neighbours were terminally treated, this all celebrated itself in accordance with Hitler’s edicts. It is not contrite enough today to even suggest that one country acted less intolerant than another, while intolerance, or even indifference led fully to the destruction of 1,600 Jews of Jedwabne, all adding to what we recognise as some 6,000,000, as a conservative estimate of those Jews Slaughtered during the entire Slaughter of The Holocaust period.

“..Let us tell ..hole truth ..change must occur on both sides ..and not just one. For dialogue applies to both sides. By blaming one side ..we will always be biased. When ..two totalitarian states divided Poland between themselves ..they took advantage of ethnic minorities in order to set them at odds with each other. Here ..Jews and ..Poles co-existed well. Things began to deteriorate only after ..outbreak of ..war, and ..conflict reached its peak when the Germans attacked ..Soviet Union. We must admit ..whole truth ..young Jews supported Communism ..and ..Soviets used ..Jews against Poland. Later when ..Germans came ..they tried to use ..Poles against ..Jewish community. One cannot say that ..crime was committed by ..Poles. What happened in Jedwabne happened all over Europe. However ..it cannot be excluded that some Poles were compelled to take part in this crime ..others felt like exacting vengeance on ..Jews ..and some may have been downright criminals. It is also difficult to accept that Polish society as a whole treated ..Jews so cruelly. If it is only individuals who did so ..then they did it as part of German operations.” Edward Orlowski.

As we look back to the massive murder mill that is Jedwabne, we recognise that the demolished statue of Lenin was taken to a nearby Barn. Here, in sight of the local Church, there was Father Orlowski, the parish priest presiding over the church in Jedwabne itself was the celebrant. Across the road too, and from an historical view that the Jews had previously presented to Jedwabne, was the Jewish Cemetery. This Barn would be where the vast majority of the Jews would be burned alive. Rabbi Awigdor Bialostocki, and Mendel Nornberg the local kosher butcher, led the procession of the dismantled Lenin statue. All of this was much to the amusement of the locals who insisted the Jews either recited Russian songs, or were forced to dance. After much of the abuses had been raged against the Jews, what then subsided into bestiality, all led to the complete evisceration of the Jewish Community in that barn. Alongside what the locals considered was a Soviet destruction site, the mass murder of these 1,600 Jedwabne Jews could not be distilled into revisionism without denying its very truth. Also, and what those like Orlowski proposes as a denial of Poles acting as agents of Hitler while acting ‘as part of German operations’, does not encourage history’s truth. Those who choose to ignore in this, the very fact that Pogroms in Poland were directed against Polish Jewry for millennia, both deliberately, and cruelly, persisted well before Hitler envisaged his view with any Jews within it.

“..no proof whatsoever ..uncovered during ..investigation of any armed German unit coming to Jedwabne on July10th. From ..morning hours ..routing of ..Jewish populace from their homes for assembly in ..Town square went on. ..ordered to pull out the grass protruding from between the stones with which the square was paved and dismantle a monument of Vladimir Lenin.” IPN.

This priest Orlowski who promotes his lies too that Hitler’s intervention was any such turning point in the hatred of the Poles toward their Jewish neighbours. The truth also, in relating who herded the Jews into a Barn in Jedwabne, there can be no blame afforded to these Jews of Jedwabne. Literally forced into a space that these Jewish People were yet to Recognise was to be an inferno, why should the Jews of Jedwabne think anything else. It is apparent that shortly after the Soviets retreated, the Polish non-Jewish townspeople rounded up hundreds of their Jewish neighbours and forced them to remove every emblem of the Soviet presence that had been installed. From there the Jews were forced into that barn, and they were burned to death without a moment’s consideration from an un-Christian gathering. It is hard to imagine the conflagration that ensued, let alone the impact such a human betrayal would have had upon 1,600 innocent Jewish People.

“..murders carried out through ..burning alive of ..Jewish population driven into ..barn by Poles are an undeniable fact. It was a crime carried out by a group of believers ..who had morally descended into barbarism. ..facts of ..murder and ..group of killers are known. ..only current that systematically persecuted Jews was Nazi totalitarianism.” Josef Glemp.

As I attempt lay the ground work of identifying here the cementing of that growing hatred for the Jews, and with its burgeoning architecture of design escalating within Poland, we approach Polish Pogroms with a seriously underlined, and Polish understanding. Some of you may not know the story of Jedwabne, but as it features in the annals of Polish hatred for Polish Jewry, it is to be recorded as reflective of the hatred that had been pressurising the Jews of Poland for Century’s. So let me enlighten you upon the very denial which seeks to submerge this incontrovertible truth. At Jedwabne there are estimates which are widely ranging, with a truth that suggests 1,600 Polish Jews were Murdered here, on July 10^th 1941. All the time we are demanded to understand, that this was not any expression of the hatred that had already been festering in Poland. Here, and incrementally increased with every breath of Hitler’s verbalised and evoked hatred for the Jewish People, it was met with a fervency that tipped 3,550,000 Polish Jews into an annihilatory abyss.

“..In ..1990s several more or less demonstrative apologies took place and they didn’t change anything. On ..contrary ..created a specific fashion for apologies and fashions tend to trivialize ..meanings of serious messages ..a one-sided ..humiliating repentance of Poles does not help in ..development of a dialogue. A true reconciliation is difficult because it also requires an honest look at ..future and genuine participation on ..Jewish side. Reconciliation has a very important meaning. ..in order to reach it ..lasting change in ..mutual perception on both sides is absolutely necessary. Reconciliation implies reciprocity. Not because ..faults of Poles ..Jews are identical or even comparable ..but simply because faults did exist on both sides.” Waldemar Chrostowski.

From as early as 1919, Hitler was determined to utilise his hatred for the Jewish People to gain a platform for power so as to pursue his intention for them. Then, and once he had consolidated his power base within Germany, he was not only convinced of his reliance upon the cooperation of non-Jewish Poles in killing the Jews, within Poland, he expected it. Also, he had 3,650,000 Polish Jews in situ so as to prove his point could be translated into the most unprecedented, unparalleled and unique slaughter in all of history. The extremes of hatred inflicted upon the Jewish People were met along the contours of a 2,000 year old series of resentments. That these then present Hitler with the power to exploit them, and gave Poland the choice to either confront their own past hate filled discrepancies, or simply adopt even more prejudices. All told, the Jews of Poland would pay a very heavy penalty for emerging onto a stage that was designed to destroy every each one of them.

“..those who were capable of actions unworthy of being called Christian. There were those who not only blackmailed ..but also gave away Jews in hiding into German hands.” Polish Episcopate Commission for Dialogue with Judaism.

We move on and into 1995 when reflection and this Polish effort to reconcile Jewish Polish relations, it not only reaches a hiatus, it extols the virtues of apology. But clearly, 1995 was both a watershed moment in Poland for all those seeking to reconcile the past, but was an intention by other false actors who were pacifying the truth surrounding any form of acceptance of the complicity within Poland against its Jewish population. Of course, the narrative would often shift to not blaming the Jews themselves, but more or less insisting that the Jewish People were ‘forced to hand over their brothers’. This diffusion of responsibility is played out to this day as varying groups stoked the same flames of anti-Jewish sentiment. For Poland to promote equal responsibility for the actions raged against the Jews, and at the same time, denying any real responsibility being placed upon the non-Jewish element of Polish society, it placed its own accusation ahead of its own acceptance of any guilt.

“..Nothing can justify such an attitude ..though ..inhumane time of war and ..cruelty of ..Nazis ..at times led Jews ..themselves tormented by ..occupant ..being forced to hand over their brothers into ..hands of ..Germans.” Polish Episcopate Commission for Dialogue with Judaism.

And still, many years later it was clearly acknowledged by both Church and State, that Poles acted in symmetry with the wishes Hitler projected for the diminishing rights of Jews to life. This is not only the truth of what actually happened, it is the fact of the recognised evidence that has persisted to this day. And still Polish denial’s over the acceptance of that very truth to emanate from both State and Church, conflicts the truth with a demand to excuse the truth from any accusation whatsoever. Despite a hierarchy of both State and Church, seemingly cognizant of the facts, any integrity remaining in Poland is drawn into confusion. We cannot have the adopted truth in history bound by its scientific assuredness and then betrayed by a doubtful reliance upon the connivance of excusing itself from its well defined evidence of its testimony.

“..burning alive of ..Jewish population ..forcibly herded by Poles into a barn ..is indisputable.” Josef Glemp.

This Bishop of Rome, the authority of the church is either eroded completely, or diminished totally when such as Josef Glemp then ignores what he has stated. The Jews of Jedwabne were herded into a barn and set alight by their non-Jewish, but Polish Neighbours and that argument persists between two poles, one of truth and the other upon the reliance upon distortion and bias. On March 4^th 2001 of course, and while some in history still seek to prove a Catholic Cardinal mistaken, and though the proof of the Slaughter within Jedwabne remains indisputable, lies are more focused as are susceptible to untruths. In 2000, and with the publication of Neighbours, about Jedwabne, by Jan T. Gross, we open further the crimes of non-Jewish Poles against their Jewish Neighbours. It is essential in understanding the polemics of the hatred Poles shared for their Jewish Cousins, that we aim to see it in clearly defined terms. The jealousy, the enmity, the envy and the disturbing immoral usage of ages old bitterness combined to ensure, Hitler had a platform upon which to work from. While Hitler in Germany and Austria developed such levels of Jewish hatred, in Poland, the more sinister and intractable irrational mind-set of the Polish people, set them upon a vicious trajectory that played into, and directly fed The Final Solution of The Jewish Question for Hitler. There are many excuses raged which wish to stifle the accuracy of debate but, what was all previously Jewish owned in Poland was completely envied by the non-Jewish population. In every sphere where the Jews proved influential in Polish society, they were marked for mistreatment and severe abuse. Educated Jews were despised for being educated, and holding education as a position of choice for them to be able to seek. However, the truer lessons from History itself fell short of educating so many of the Polish masses, and their Church regaled in the simplification of Polish ignorance. With being swayed into outright and murderous acts against a more learned Jewish Community within all of Poland, and here in Jedwabne in particular, and within the confines of a Town that was set to consume them, the Poles acted with their own form of impunity.

“..It would be insane to suggest that there could be any justification for ..collective burning of human beings in barns. ..Jedwabne drama carries a bitter ..true lesson about mankind. It is especially bitter for those who would like to treat Nazi barbarism as a local manifestation of genocide ..frighteningly foreign to ..commendable remainder of ..human family. ..evil spiral does not recognize any ethnic boundaries and we cannot treat any environment as insensitive to ..emission of primitivism. That bitter truth guards against ideological delusions in which some attempt to elevate to supremacy ties of blood or a common culture. We do not look for some imaginary historical documents that would change ..Jedwabne tragedy into a trivial incident. Such documents cannot exist because ..death of innocent beings cannot ever be reduced to ..rating of an incident. Today it is necessary for us to pray for ..victims of that murder ..demonstrating ..spiritual solidarity which was lacking at ..hour of their departure from ..soil of their fathers ..on which they live.” Jozef Zycinski.

The archbishop tragically spoke for the human Family, while the Jews were to be excluded from this communion, amidst a frailty of moral assurance which the catholic ethos fully ignored. For the Jews, they too held firm to a religious belief, but which has bound them tightly together for 5,000 years, and beyond the bounds of any Christian prejudicial belief system. Jews were clearly recognized by the Christian Churches for over 2,000 years as The Chosen People, definitely belonging to The Promised Land, which was and has been epitomised as The Holy Land of Israel. Elements of all within Christianity though, had firm beliefs that this should not be the case and more alarmingly, sanctioned antisemitism as a weapon of dissent. Politically, the Jewish People were cut adrift as capitalist’s of a communist ideal and this contradiction never quite reached the reasoning of any of those to be consumed by the very hatred which would devour the Jews of Europe.

“..One cannot be surprised that after ..publication of ..truth about Jedwabne ..that public opinion has split into two camps. One ..undoubtedly ..more numerous ..is situated on ..centre and ..political right of ..spectrum ..thinking nationalistically. It either negates ..participation of Poles at Jedwabne ..or tries to play it down. ..second small camp sees in ..publication of ..truth about Jedwabne a chance for ..cleaning of Polish memory of ..period of ..occupation ..and a stimulus toward fighting antisemitism in Poland today.” Stanislaw Musial.

Both contradictory and equated to all people having any political beliefs whatsoever, truth was to become subservient to the bigotry of the time. Within Poland, Church sponsored outpourings of such immoral charges against the Jewish community bred alarm, which heightened on important Christian festivals. This day too, March 4^th 2001 and with Cardinal Glemp though, all has not finished with his distortion of the very facts surrounding Jedwabne. But in July 2001, the memorial stone to the Jews of Jedwabne was erected and omits the clear totality of the crimes here. With regard to the 1,600 Jedwabne Jews who were Slaughtered within the Town, and though the monument is ascribed with:

“To the Memory of Jews from Jedwabne and the Surrounding Area, Men, Women, and Children, Co-inhabitants of this Land, Who Were Murdered and Burned Alive on This Spot on July 10^th 1941.”

The truth is sadly lacking in the emotional deficit which sees such an immense loss related to who those Jews were, as individual People, Neighbours and former Community members. On December 19^th 2001, having completed almost 3 years of deliberation and investigation, Poland’s Institute of National Memory the IPN, it is clear from its investigative team, they had founded the certain consensus that the Jews of the Town were made to work, exercise and even dance for the pleasure of non-Jewish observers all the way toward their destruction. Jews were killed immediately within the Town square, many of them were drowned in a local pond just past the Barn itself, with nothing left to chance in denying any of these Jews life.

“..once again we condemn all signs of intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism which we know are sinful.” Stanislaw Gadecki.

The is the case of Professor Kieres who led the IPN, who sought to defend the immeasurable loss, and obviously could not distinguish between the morally indefensible and legal responsibility to be accurate with the truth. It matters in many ways as to how we treat the wider Jewish Victims here, as to whether we endorse the truth with some immoral abridgment seemingly deflecting the truer total of loss the Jews of Jedwabne suffered. Seemingly it matters little when we discuss the mass murder of these Jews, as to whether we are descriptive of 1,600 losses, and what about 6,000,000 losses.

“..crime is ..same whether 200 ..250 ..1,600 people were murdered. I am talking in both moral and legal terms.” Leon Kieres.

While it is necessary to distinguish between differences ranging from 200 to 1,600 Jews who were Slaughtered, it is an abhorrence that we can all so easily discard 1,400 Jews. That this was as easily done with the pen, as we seem to have eased through such a number with flames, and killings of many descriptions, adds to the weight of bias and bigotry used in consuming words which negate the very truth they are meant to endorse. It matters to history that no matter how grim the assessment is, the fuller truth must be conveyed in order not to dissuade history from the very truth we are meant to secure.

On July 10^th 2001 “..We can have no doubt that here in Jedwabne Polish citizens were killed at  ..hands of fellow citizens.”  Aleksander Kwasniewski.

President Kwasniewski, and though we cannot recognise the full horror here, we certainly do recognise the deeds of Poles against Polish Jewry. What this particular Polish president presents is a weakened acceptance of the grave wrongs perpetrated. Within Poland itself, and in just 6 such Churches, a short distance from Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka, the very truth of what was to happen to 3,550,000 Polish Jews and 1,000,000 or so other Jews of Europe, was recognised. What would filtered through the noses of entire Polish Villages, Towns, and City’s, and into their churches, all parishioners were awakened to the raft of measures weighted against the Jewish People.

“..wholesale participation by their fellow citizens their neighbours in ..persecution of ..Jews is very much neglected and still largely suppressed in most of ..European nations who were conquered by or allied with ..Nazi regime. The Holocaust was not solely a German affair. ..ceremonies today at Jedwabne is a welcome and important step in ..confrontation with ..truth by ..Polish nation. ..that much remains to be learned and taught.” Elan Steinberg.

To diminish such awareness, and denounce any complicity, whatsoever, and negates those treatments handed out to non-Jewish Poles, was to be argued over and above the ritual Slaughter of Polish Jewry. Later years would see further diminishing of this horrific tragedy diluted in symbolisms such as would compare a Swastika with the Hammer and Sickle. Crimes committed by Russians on Polish soil was no less catastrophic to all those concerned but was in no way comparable to what was evidenced by the Jews in any of the 6 Death Camps erected upon Polish soil. On July 11^th 2011, many voices were raised, including the Polish President Komorowski, who asked for forgiveness for the Jedwabne Pogrom, and here too Elan Steinberg who sought to eulogise their loss echoed a Jewish grief at the ceremony that was marking the 70th anniversary of the Massacre. In line with the acceding to Polish complicity, it is worth considering too that the Polish Jewish Slaughtered were victims of the Polish nation, themselves victims also, and in as many as 3 million ways.  

“..Poland can still hear ..never fading cry of its citizens. Once again ..I beg forgiveness. In ..name of those who believe that one cannot be proud of ..glory of Polish history without feeling ..at ..same time ..pain and shame for ..evil done by Poles to others ..nation of victims was also ..nation of perpetrators ..once again ..I beg forgiveness.” Bronislaw Komorowski.

Despite the compelling evidence to the contrary, especially within nationalist circles, Jedwabne is widely seen as a crime for which Poles bear no responsibility whatsoever. Regardless here of whether responsibility is clearly accepted by a Polish President, a Chief Rabbi of Poland, or indeed a Jewish Poet, the factual truth and its integrity can never be sidelined in favour of a position which denies all elements of a truths certainty. Of course, the Chief Rabbi of Poland saw things in a differing way and afforded his own perspective as to why there was an endemic reach within Europe which cast a wider net across Poland and secured for Hitler as many as 50% of all Jewish victims of The Holocaust.

“..Holocaust Survivors view Jedwabne as a symbol of ..widespread ..but little acknowledged ..collaboration by ..local population in ..Countries occupied by ..Nazis in ..Slaughter and ..plunder of ..Jews during World War II.” Michael Schudrich.

Elan was poetic, and careful to note that the Town’s lord mayor was absent from the proceedings, which Elan perceived accurately as a ‘disgraceful failure’ to even acknowledge the wrongs done here. As such, Elan reiterated the concern which exists over acceptance, learning and even teaching of the truth. It remains an uncomfortable truth that must ensure is being learned, that is not being distorted by revisionism, or is simply a token denial of all that is integral to the Catastrophe for the Polish Jews. Indeed for non-Jewish Poles who died as a consequence of serving righteousness in the face of state ambiguity, any distortion removes the cloak of humanity from around non-Jewish Poles also. Perhaps as many as 125 Jewish People managed to Survive Jedwabne, secure in the knowledge that they were lucky enough to survive what their former neighbours and fellow countrypeople had in store for them. Tragically though, all too many of these Survivors could not then Survive what Hitler had always intended for all the Jews of Poland, through gassing and destruction within the Death Camps.

“..Who can be sure ..now that Pope John Paul II has celebrated mass at Auschwitz ..and Carmelite nuns have established a convent just outside ..death camp ..that even this ultimate Jewish abattoir may not be in process of becoming a Christian holy place.” Edward Alexander.

This professor is quite apt in his assessment of the churches lean toward ownership of all it perceives within its own scope of view. A large part of the stain transmitted through all time is a history of the Catholic churches very effort to convert wherever it saw fit and even within the realms of The Holocaust, Children of many nations were converted beyond belief. Here within Poland, Jewish Children who were handed over to safe-guarding, were stolen away, reluctantly handed back, or simply adopted into a compacted World where 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews once belonged. The truth in Poland now secures for posterity that nothing in Poland ever belonged to 3,550,000 perished Polish Jews, except perhaps the ashes of their extermination. All that is fulfilling of an ecological need to secure the soil to the blood, sweat and tears of a destroyed nation is trodden underfoot, drained away in streams and rivers across Poland, remains Jewish till time immemorial.