On a summer day in 1941 in Nazi-occupied Poland, half of the town of Jedwabne brutally murdered the other half: 1,600 men, women, and children-all but seven of the town's Jews. In this shocking and compelling study, historian Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts as well as physical evidence into a comprehensive reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but hidden to history. Revealing wider truths about Jewish-Polish relations, the Holocaust, and human responses to occupation and totalitarianism, Gross's investigation sheds light on how Jedwabne's Jews came to be murdered-not by faceless Nazis, but by people who knew them well.
"One day, in July 1941, half of the population of a small east European town murdered the other half--some 1,600 men, women and children." This short sentence summarizes the subject of Neighbors, historian Jan Gross's account of a massacre that occurred in Jedwabne, in northeastern Poland. Gross describes the atrocities of Jedwabne in almost unbearable detail. Men and women were hacked to death with knives, iron hooks, and axes. Small children were thrown with pitchforks onto a bonfire. A woman's decapitated head was kicked like a football. Historians before now have blamed the massacre on the Nazis--whose participation in and responsibility for these crimes has been exaggerated, Gross says. In fact, he argues, a virulent Polish anti-Semitism was liberated by German occupation. Instead of explaining the horrors of Jedwabne, which would be impossible, Neighbors sets the record straight as to the identity of the criminals. In doing so, Gross has ensured that future histories of the Holocaust, particularly in Poland, will be more honest, because future historians will be answerable to his argument that the evil of the Nazis was not only forced on the Poles. In places such as Jedwabne, it was welcomed by them. --Michael Joseph Gross
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
two-faced people--finks:
This book is very informative and depressingly good. I read it twice, doing lots of underlying of important parts during the 2nd reading time.
I sent the book to a friend. Everyone should read this book. A must read Ben Butler
A NOVEL WITH FOOTNOTES; GROSS REFUSES TO RECOGNIZE RECENT FINDINGS: APPROX 1-200 BODIES EXHUMED,IE.PROVEN GERMAN CRIME PERIOD:
A couple of years ago or so, Israel and Poland organized a joint exhumation at Jedwabne. Nearly 200 bodies were exhumed. Ashe was also weighed per average to small body size,i.e., slightly overestimating the count up to approx. 200 bodies. The bodies in this 2 foot deep grave were drenched with German bullets, Germans knives, German bayonets, German gas cans and German pistols and German rifles were also exhumed. The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After This was and always... more info
Book written with the scientific accuracy, uncovers what everybody in Poland knows and denies...:
Poles did not need the Nazi's prodding to killed 1600 Jews". According to the evidence provided in the book, Poles needed no prodding, a permission at the best. The criminals exterminated Jews happily with the support of the MAJORITY of population. The few Jews who escaped the murder, were caught by the local peasants and brought back to Jedwabne to be murdered. The Polish woman hero, Pani Antonina Wyrzykowska, who saved a few Jews, was after the war beaten by the Polish antisemites and chased out of town,... more info
The Fear That Still Haunts Poland:
This slim volume, and Professor Gross' fuller, follow-up book, "Fear," are a graphic portrayal of the specter that still haunts eastern Europe - not Marx, not Stalin, but its own heart of human darkness. Like another reviewer, I feel "Neighbors" is too short, and I disagree somewhat with Prof. Gross' historiography. But this little book delivers a devastating punch out of all proportion to its size. Professor Gross has done his country a great service in unflinchingly exposing the soulless criminality... more info
