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

“At one time or another city was set against the countryside, workers against peasants, middle peasants against poor peasants, children against their parents, young against old, and ethnic groups against each other. Secret police encouraged, and thrived on, denunciations: divide et impera writ large. In addition, as social mobilization and mass participation in state-sponsored institutions and rituals were required, people became, to varying degrees, complicitous in their own subjugation.”

Gross establishes that an atmosphere of discord immediately overtook one of amity in prewar Poland. The ease with which the Nazis divided people strongly suggests that tensions had been roiling under the surface of polite society for decades, if not centuries, and only needed to be ignited.

“The centerpiece of the story I am about to present in this little volume falls, to my mind, utterly out of scale: 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.”

The author emphasizes how incredulous the Jedwabne massacre seems, though it was a true historical occurrence. It is a simple story, thus presented in a “little volume,” but one that reveals the complexity of Polish-Jewish relations. The stark division between Polish Gentiles and Jews is not one between warring factions but one created by long-held animosity, scapegoating, and dehumanization.

“First and foremost I consider this volume a challenge to standard historiography of the Second World War, which posits that there are two separate wartime histories—one pertaining to the Jews and the other to all the other citizens of a given European country subjected to Nazi rule.”

Gross seeks to dispel the traditional villain-victim dichotomy that has allowed Poland and other nations to overlook their roles in the Holocaust. He also makes it clear that the Jewish experience of World War II isn’t distinct from experiences of other populations but is instead intertwined with them.