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

Aharon Appelfeld, one of the most important authors in modern Hebrew literature, returned to his hometown near Czernovitz, where he spent the first eight years and six months of his life, in 1996. He left the village in June 1941. He acknowledged that he remembered very little of those years, but his absence of memory “nourished” him and made him feel connected to this place, despite having been a citizen of Israel for many years. He wrote 30 books that drew “directly or indirectly upon the village of [his] childhood, whose name is found only on ordinance maps” (93). He recalled how, on a Saturday, 62 people were terrorized by other villagers wielding “pitchforks and kitchen knives” (93).

When Appelfeld returned, he arrived with his wife and a film crew that recorded his experience. He spoke with locals and asked them where the murdered Jews were buried; no one had an answer. Then, when the villagers found out that he had lived there during his childhood, a schoolmate came to greet him. Later, “a tall peasant came up” (93) and pointed toward the burial site, which was on a hill. Appelfeld learned that the information that the villagers had tried to keep from him was common knowledge throughout the community.