Up until year 2000, the national consciousness of the wartime was dominated by the “obsession of innocence” and the opinion of “country without Quisling”. The decades of absence of the Jewish voice in the society led to the formation of general conviction that Poles did not collaborate with Nazis at all; the image of the righteous nation that suffered more than anyone else in IIWW. It was only after the publication of Auschwitz findings, that Polish Catholic Primate in 1995 admitted that Jews suffered more than Poles.
Although the belief of “no-Quisling country” is true since, the en lieu underground, and London-based, in-exile government did not collaborate with Nazi Germany (many Poles take pride in it, hence fierce reactions to “Polish death camps”-phrase used in Western media), the myth of innocence was yet to be revised. The first voice which put this myth into question was the article published in Tygodnik Powszechny (“The Common Weekly”), a catholic intelligentsia’s newspaper, written by Jan Błoński in 1987 – 2 years before the collapse of communism – titled “Poor Poles look at the ghetto” where he wrote “I think that in a reference to Polish-Jewish past we should stop defending, justifying, haggling. Stress what we couldn’t do during the occupation or before. […] We should first say “Yes, we’re guilty.” Tygodnik Powszechny continues to be the voice advocating reconciliation and improvement in mutual relations until today. The article set the mood in the public discussion for the next 20 years and opened a box bursting with emotions, memories, accusations, rejections and intentions of reconciliation.
Probably the most important breakthrough moment in Poland were the findings of Jan Tomasz Gross, a Polish-American historian from the University of Princeton, on the murder of 360 Jews in the North-Eastern Poland village of Jedwabne in 1941 which was carried out solely by victims’ Polish neighbors. His research was published in year 2000 under the title “Sąsiedzi” (“Neighbors”) and caused a huge blow to Polish self-perception and historical memory. An incredible, self-imposed attempt to revise the myths of the past was put together in media, academia and among intellectuals and politicians. The storm caused by “Neighbors” resulted in opening the investigation of the “killings of Polish citizens of Jewish nationality”, conducted by the state-owned Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) in years 2000-2003 . The investigators came to a conclusion that the role in carrying out the atrocious plan’ of the 40 Polish men in Jedwabne killings ‘was substantial’, but came out of German inspiration . The investigation was dropped since “it was impossible to discover any living perpetrators, apart from those who were already sentenced by Polish judiciary”. Polish court found 10 men guilty in trials of 1949-1950.
In 2001, by the place of the barn in Jedwabne where Jews were burned alive, an official apology was issued by Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the then President of Poland, in the presence of Shevach Weiss, the Israeli Ambassador to Poland and Rabbi Baker from NYC, a survivor of this tragedy. The official apology brought a major change to the perception of the Polish state, both domestically and in international public opinion. The ceremony was considered to be the first, but the most important step to reconciliation of both peoples.
On the other hand, it also caused a serious rejection from certain groups in Poland, which didn’t feel any responsibility to apologize, and caused an outburst of anti-Semitism, especially in the catholic-nationalist camp. J.R. Nowak, an extreme-right political activist, wrote a book called “100 lies of J.T. Gross” in which he accused him of anti-Polonism, treason and conspiring with “international Jewry” against Poland. A fierce hostility was found among the residents of Jedwabne – the mayor of the village didn’t attend the ceremony and his counter-candidate in elections was threatened by the members of the local council to be fired if he would attend. J.R. Nowak was awarded an honorary citizenship by the mayor for “fighting the lies against the people of Jedwabne”. After the closure of investigation, the city council of Jedwabne demanded a new investigation, but IPN refused.
Other, more moderate voices were raised stating that the head-of-state’s apologies were given too early, since the Institute for National Remembrance’s investigation was still not finished. Consequently the first reaction of Polish society was a hesitance to take the blame. JT Gross was considered an anti-Polish meddler. The perception of Jedwabne in the society is changing every year to more admitting then neutral or rejecting, although changing numbers are small. The shock of Jedwabne is still alive in Polish society and is still being confronted in many ways, especially in the media. The Jedwabne rejectionists are being consequently marginalized from the public debate and there were couple of cases where they were sued for anti-Semitism. In the following years after the ceremony of 2001, a book by Anna Bikont My z Jedwabnego (“We, From Jedwabne”) was published in which she describes the events of 1941 in more or less the same fashion as JT Gross. The book was awarded a Prize of the Great Cultural Foundation and nominated to 2005 NIKE Literature Awards (both Polish prizes) . What is interesting, Anna Bikont was never accused of anti-Polonism and was even ignored by nationalist camp, whereas US-based JT Gross was called the worst names. This phenomenon could be subscribed to the tradition of nihil novi - that the nationalist camp seems to take pride in – ‘nothing about us, without us’, which opposes any foreign interference or judgment on Polish nation. Until this day, the nationalist-fascist groups’ aim is to revise the “lies of Jedwabne”, and revoke the apologies.
The reason for such an opposition, which could be found in a big portion of Polish society, is a vehement denial of being put on the same side as Nazis. The mainstream Polish narrative in the post-war years was always referring to Nazis as barbarians guilty of the genocide of Poles. This narrative obviously had legitimate foundations but failed to acknowledge that at least some Poles, apart from being killed en masse by Germans, also helped their perpetrators kill Jews.
Jedwabne became a symbol in Poland. For some, it is the sign of repentance and catharsis of Polish society, for others - a fell lie which serves Poland’s enemies. Numerous researches show a significant change in the consciousness of Polish society, although not in a way that one could expect.
Sources:
gazeta.pl
rp.pl
wprost24.pl
jcpa.org
gazetaprawna.pl
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