Jedwabne pogrom

The Jedwabne pogrom (pronounced [jɛdˈvabnɛ]) was an atrocity committed on July 10, 1941, during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. Described as a massacre or a pogrom by postwar historians, it resulted in the death of at least 340 Polish Jews of all ages, locked in a barn later set on fire. A group of 23 Polish males was involved, after being summoned in Jedwabne by a German paramilitary group known as the Ordnungspolizei. These are the official findings of the Institute of National Remembrance, "confirmed by the number of victims in the two graves, according to the estimate of the archeological and anthropological team participating in the exhumation," wrote prosecutor Radosław J. Ignatiew, who headed an investigation in 2000–2003 ordered by the Polish government.

In 1949 the Communist People's Republic of Poland launched a treason and murder trial which was later condemned as a miscarriage of justice because suspects had been tortured during interrogation. After a fresh investigation, concluded in 2003, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance stated that the pogrom was committed by Polish inhabitants of the town, with the complicity of the German Ordnungspolizei. The involvement of German paramilitary forces of the SS and Gestapo remains the subject of debate, especially the role of the Einsatzgruppe Zichenau-Schroettersburg. According to some later commentators, many people were shocked by the findings, which contrast with the rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust.

Jedwabne

Jedwabne ([jɛdˈvabnɛ]; Yiddish: יעדוואבנע‎, Yedvabna) is a town in Poland, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, in Łomża County, with 1,942 inhabitants (2002).

History

First mentioned in 1455, Jedwabne received city rights on July 17, 1736, from the Polish king August III, including the privilege to hold weekly markets on Sundays and five country fairs a year. A wooden Catholic church with two steeples was built in 1737–1738, and a synagogue around 1770. The Jedwabne synagogue was a fine example of the unique Polish Jewish architectural tradition of wooden synagogues. At the end of the 18th century new textile factories opened. In 1851 there were as many as 17 weaving establishments employing 36 workers in the town. In terms of its cloth production Jedwabne was already the eleventh-largest manufacturing centre in the Kingdom of Poland. By 1862, 11 mechanical and 13 manual weaving machines had been installed at Jedwabne. The town's cloth production fell into decline only after the January Uprising of 1863, due to Russian repression against Polish and Jewish entrepreneurs. The town was the center of a large Jewish community; its population in 1900 was 1,941.