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Loading... Neighbors : the destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland (original 2000; edition 2002)by Jan Tomasz Gross
Work InformationNeighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. Gross (2000)
   Books about World War II (113) No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) vlodko62 | Dec 29, 2018 |   ) ShelleyAlberta | Jun 4, 2016 | ( ) ShelleyAlberta | Jun 4, 2016 | The Germans were taken aback at the savagery of the attack and slaughter. The Germans gave permission but from witness accounts did not appear to have guided or participated. In fact, some of the few survivors survived because they were working for the Germans in their custody. One other family hid some of the Jews. A quote: "So it was not only the sight of the massacre of Jews that was unbearable. Also, the screams of the tormented people were numbing, as was the smell of their burning bodies. The slaughter of Jedwabne Jews lasted an entire day, and it was confined to a space no bigger than a sports stadium. Sleszynski’s barn, where the majority of the pogrom victims were burned in the afternoon, was but a stone’s throw from the square in the center of town. The Jewish cemetery, where many of the victims were knifed, clubbed, and stoned to death, is just across the road. And so everybody who was in town on this day and in possession of a sense of sight, smell, or hearing either participated in or witnessed the tormented deaths of the Jews of Jedwabne." Several townspeople near the barn played musical instruments to drown out the screams of the burning people in side. This book analyzes the event and history of the area to provide some understanding of what happened. It's a sad and horrible history that should not be forgotten so we can guard our culture from creating narratives of belief where anything like this could be excused or accepted again. The hardcover version of the this book is almost pocket sized. So it's shorter than you would think based on page count. Not sure why they decided on the small size but still easily readable. (  ) Chris_El | Mar 19, 2015 | This book has been the subject of some controversy both in Poland and abroad. It was one of the first to argue that the Poles were not just victims of the Second World War, but victimizers as well. Whether or not you agree with Gross or his conclusions, it's a very sobering book, and one that needs to be read. ( ) inge87 | May 27, 2013 | no reviews | add a review
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One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town's Jews. Neighbors tells their story. This is a shocking, brutal story that has never before been told. It is the most important study of Polish-Jewish relations to be published in decades and should become a classic of Holocaust literature. Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts and other evidence into an engulfing reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but forgotten by history. His investigation reads like a detective story, and its unfolding yields wider truths about Jewish-Polish relations, the Holocaust, and human responses to occupation and totalitarianism. It is a story of surprises: The newly occupying German army did not compel the massacre, and Jedwabne's Jews and Christians had previously enjoyed cordial relations. After the war, the nearby family who saved Jedwabne's surviving Jews was derided and driven from the area. The single Jew offered mercy by the town declined it. Most arresting is the sinking realization that Jedwabne's Jews were clubbed, drowned, gutted, and burned not by faceless Nazis, but by people whose features and names they knew well: their former schoolmates and those who sold them food, bought their milk, and chatted with them in the street. As much as such a question can ever be answered, Neighbors tells us why. In many ways, this is a simple book. It is easy to read in a single sitting, and hard not to. But its simplicity is deceptive. Gross's new and persuasive answers to vexed questions rewrite the history of twentieth-century Poland. This book proves, finally, that the fates of Poles and Jews during World War II can be comprehended only together. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.53History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War IILC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.86)
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