I am thinking back to a recent visit to Jedwabne to gather material for a television
report. The town was living in fear. An invasion by journalists from all over the world
was underway, and Jedwabne was consolidating a defense of its honor. Let me add that
externally, the town could be any other town in this part of Poland, in other words: poor,
with rising unemployment, and lost in everyday affairs.
The stories about the "good Jews" they knew in Jedwabne, the friends from school
and from the playground, the outgoing salesmen in yarmulkes, and the honest craftsmen,
sound authentic. Examples were cited of enduring repression together, mutual gestures of
assistance, or at least sympathy. No doubt these are all authentic images; perhaps
repeated many times over, certainly willingly displayed today and presented as evidence
for the defense.
There is no doubt that until the war, and especially until 1937, life in Jedwabne was
calm, which isn't to say by any means that identical values were respected, day and night,
night and day, day in and day out, at open doors and windows.
I will hazard the opinion that the worst offender here was ordinary human envy, and not different speech, a different religion, different clothes or customs. Many Catholics were under the impression that the Jews had things better because they lived in greater harmony and prosperity, were more clever, and found it easier to stray from the straight and narrow to earn a few pennies. Jews more often left to seek their fortune in the wide world, and young Zionists left Poland for good, making no bones about the fact that, for them, Poland was but a temporary, makeshift homeland. So when dark clouds began gathering over Poland, supporters of the National Democracy asked a question which had the force of a ticking time-bomb: Will the Jews not betray us? The inferred response was: yes, they will, you can't trust them. From one month to the next, there was growing suspicion. Meanwhile, the church in Łomża put up no resistance whatever to these trends, and yet so much depended on the attitude of the local priest. Now, before the television cameras, the inhabitants of Jedwabne admit that tragic things did happen in that July 1941, the handiwork of "no one knows who," but most probably of local and out-of-town riff-raff and thugs with whom no decent resident of Jedwabne would associate.
No one remembers being present in the crowd that escorted the Jews to the site of the
atrocity (the most they remember is watching from a distance). However, one hears of
attempts to give water to the suffering Jews: "I tried to give someone a cup of
water, but some thug hit me on the hand with a club..." Therefore, there were
witnesses who knew virtually nothing. No one took part in the murder.
Reports on the conduct of Jews under the first Soviet occupation and their deference to the NKVD are more detailed. That is what happened in
other Polish places "liberated" by the Red Army, when a considerable number of
Jews, especially those who were younger, poorer, and already under communist influence,
severed their neighborly ties with the Poles for good. Today, no one in Jedwabne remembers
anything about any persecution of the Jews by the NKVD, and it is not the done thing to
name traitors from one's own Catholic circles.
Quiet insider discussions are in progress in Jedwabne, and the visitor can only hear
fragments of these opinions, a few facts here and there, and only on the condition that he
switches off his camera or tape recorder and seems trustworthy. Then, he hears the names
of those who forgot their fear of God, were tempted by Jewish property, and allowed
themselves to fall under Satan's power. For example, there is a story of a man who
murdered a Jewish child; God later punished the man by taking away his own children. A
horrible chill blows from these frugal sentences. How could anyone do such a thing to his
fellow man? Germans, too, come up in these tales, because nothing could happen back then
without their permission.
There are bound to have been Germans in the town, but how many? Certainly they approved of
the atrocity, but to what extent? Was it all according to their plans, under their
protection? I am quite sure that they were prepared to contribute to the atrocity and, if
necessary, even finish it off.
A recurring question is about how the Jedwabne affair will end. The overwhelming majority of the Jedwabne residents do not remember the Jews, though they must have heard about July 1941. One local schoolboy said that, if things carry on this way, everyone who was born in Jedwabne will be considered an heir to the atrocity and will be stigmatized because the blood of murderers flows in his veins. From a distance, from beyond the seven seas, and sometimes even from Warsaw, it is easy to hand down only righteous verdicts, applying the principle of collective responsibility. But a local government official sweats over the inscription on the new memorial to the atrocity: "If we write that it was Poles who murdered the Jews, we will have to post a 24-hour watch over the monument. The Poles include my father, my mother and my grandparents."