The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne

by Anna Bikont, Alissa Valles (Translator)

Overview

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category

A monumental work of nonfiction on a wartime atrocity, its sixty-year denial, and the impact of its truth

Jan Gross's hugely controversial Neighbors was a historian's disclosure of the events in the small Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10, 1941, when the citizens rounded up the Jewish population and burned them alive in a barn. The massacre was a shocking secret that had been suppressed for more than sixty years, and it provoked the most important public debate in Poland since 1989. From the outset, Anna Bikont reported on the town, combing through archives and interviewing residents who survived the war period. Her writing became a crucial part of the debate and she herself an actor in a national drama.
Part history, part memoir, The Crime and the Silence is the journalist's account of these events: both the story of the massacre told through oral histories of survivors and witnesses, and a portrait of a Polish town coming to terms with its dark past. Including the perspectives of both heroes and perpetrators, Bikont chronicles the sources of the hatred that exploded against Jews and asks what myths grow on hidden memories, what destruction they cause, and what happens to a society that refuses to accept a horrific truth.
A profoundly moving exploration of being Jewish in modern Poland that Julian Barnes called "one of the most chilling books," The Crime and the Silence is a vital contribution to Holocaust history and a fascinating story of a town coming to terms with its dark past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374536374
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/20/2016
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	718,290
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Anna Bikont is a journalist for the Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s main newspaper, which she helped found in 1989. For her articles on the crimes in Jedwabne and nearby Radzilów, she was honored with several awards, including the Press Prize for reportage in 2001 and the Polityka Prize for historical writing. In 2011 she received the European Book Prize for the French edition of The Crime and the Silence. In 2008–2009, Bikont was a fellow at the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library. Alissa Valles is the author of Orphan Fire and the editor and cotranslator of Zbigniew Herbert’s Collected Poems 1956–1998 and Collected Prose 1948–1998.

Table of Contents

Journal 1
Chapter 1
Lord, Rid Poland of the JewsOr, On Polish-Jewish Relations in Jedwabne in the Thirties

Journal 2
Chapter 2
I Wanted to Save her Life, Love Came LaterOr, The Story of Rachela Finkelsztejn and Stanislaw Ramotowski

Journal 3
Chapter 3
We Suffered Under the Soviets, the Germans, and People's PolandOr, The Story of the Three Brothers Laudanski

Journal 4
Chapter 4
You Didn't See That Grief in JewsOr, Polish and Jewish Memory of the Soviet Occupation

Journal 5
Chapter 5
I'll Tell You Who Did It: My FatherOr, The Private Investigation of Jan Skrodzki

Journal 6
Chapter 6
If I'd Been In Jedwabne Then
Or, The Story of Meir Ronen, Deported to Kazakhstan

Journal 7
Chapter 7
A Time Will Come When Even Stones Will SpeakOr, Soliloquies of Leszek Dziedzic

Journal 8
Chapter 8
Your Only Chance Was to Pass for a Goy Or, The Story of Awigdor Kochaw's survival

Journal 9

Chapter 9

Desperately Seeking Something Positive
Or, Soliloquies of Krzysztof Godlewski, Ex-Mayor of Jedwabne

Journal 10
Chapter 10
Only I Knew There Were Seven Of ThemOr, The Story of Antonina Wyrzykowska

Chapter 11
I, Szmul Wasersztejn, Warn YouOr, The Road from Jedwabne to Costa Rica
Journal 11

Chapter 12
They Had Vodka, Guns and HatredOr, July 7, 1941 in Radzilów
Journal 12

Chapter 13
The Dreams of Chaja FinkelsztejnOr, The Survival of a Radzilów Miller's Family
Journal 13

Chapter 14
Decent Polish Kids and Hooligans
Or, On the Murderers of Jedwabne, Radzilów, Wasosz and surroundings
Journal 14

Chapter 15 Strictly Speaking Poles Did ItOr, A Conversation with Prosecutor Radoslaw Ignatiew
Postscript
From the Ruins of a Lost WorldOr, The Names, Surnames and Addresses of the Jews of Jedwabne

Editorial Reviews

The Crime and the Silence is an astonishing act of investigation and documentation . . . A terrifying and necessary book, unsparing in its detail, but deeply heartening as an act of historical reclamation.” —Julian Barnes

“Bikont combines the persistence and energy of a journalist with the humanity and care of a poet.” —Timothy Snyder

“A daring exposure . . . Bikont's fearless research-she even confronted the brothers known to have led the Jedwabne murders-makes this a fantastic book. It was first published in Poland in 2004, and the European Book Prize it won in 2011 (for the French version) should be only the first of many awards for this significant work.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Bikont has performed an extraordinary journalistic feat in documenting this terrible, historically contested atrocity.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Bikont's unflinching assessment of the anti-Semitism that is endemic even now in Poland will appeal not only to those with an interest in Polish-Jewish relations but anyone curious about the difficult process of a country coming to terms with its history of violence against a minority.” —Library Journal

“The quality of [Bikont’s] journalism is something very special. An extraordinary interviewer, she developed relationships with the most unlikely cast of characters.” —Marci Shore, The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

The Polish journalist Anna Bikont's beautifully written, devastating and very important book, The Crime and the Silence (published in Poland in 2004, and now expertly translated by Alissa Valles), details her painstaking reconstruction of this crime, along with the attempt by families and descendants of the perpetrators, right-wing politicians, historians, journalists and Catholic clergymen to cover it up and deflect blame on the victims.

The New York Times Book Review - Louis Begley

★ 07/06/2015
Polish journalist Bikont undertakes a thorough follow-up to Polish-American historian Jan Gross’s 2001 book Neighbors, about the July 1941 pogrom in the rural eastern Polish town of Jedwabne. Bikont spent several years tracking down and interviewing the few eyewitnesses to the event—as well as their children and other relevant parties—in Poland, Costa Rica, Israel, and the U.S. She goes well beyond Gross in marshaling information to counter persistent claims that the Jewish massacre was perpetrated by Germans: overwhelming historical evidence incriminates Poles. In the process of investigating, she learned that the July pogrom in Jedwabne wasn’t an isolated act; killings of Jews by Poles took place “in several dozen towns in the area.” Bikont also notes the near-ubiquity of anti-Semitism in the area at the time—such that protecting Jews was an unpopular, even dangerous act—and the persistence of anti-Semitism throughout Poland to the present day. The narrative is disrupted at times by digressions into relatively tangential matters, especially in more personal sections called “Journal.” Still, Bikont has performed an extraordinary journalistic feat in documenting this terrible, historically contested atrocity. Illus. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

06/01/2015
In Jan Gross's Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, the historian started an acrimonious debate in Poland about past and current Polish-Jewish relations. Journalist Bikont continues the discussion with this translation of her best-selling My z Jedwabnego, which investigates the 1941 massacres of Jewish communities in Jedwabne and Radzilow, Poland. Interwar attitudes of Poles toward Jews deteriorated with the urging of clergy and were further exacerbated by the 1939 takeover of the towns by the Soviet Union. When the Nazis invaded in 1941, many Poles welcomed them as liberators, setting the stage for the grisly mass murder of their Jewish neighbors followed by open looting of their belongings. Interviews with witnesses, perpetrators, and the few survivors and saviors of the genocides combined with an examination of historical documents, prove the long-suppressed truth—the killings were committed by local Poles. Interwoven is the author's own story of discovering her Jewish heritage as an adult. VERDICT Bikont's unflinching assessment of the anti-Semitism that is endemic even now in Poland will appeal not only to those with an interest in Polish-Jewish relations but anyone curious about the difficult process of a country coming to terms with its history of violence against a minority. [See Prepub Alert, 3/23/15.]—Laurie Unger Skinner, Coll. of Lake Cty., Waukegan, IL

Library Journal

★ 2015-04-29
Polish journalist Bikont (editor: And I Still See Their Faces: Images of Polish Jews, 1996) delivers a daring exposure of the crimes of her countrymen in the first week of July 1941. At the time, the deaths of the Jews of Jedwabne and those of Radzilów and Wasosz were glossed over, until a book commemorating them appeared just before the 60th anniversary. Jan Tomasz Gross based her book Neighbors (2001) partly on the Jedwabne Book of Memory, edited by rabbis Julius and Jacob Baker. It was the first time the testimony of eyewitness Szmul Wasersztejn was published, a good first step for Bikont to begin her search for witnesses. Sixty years after hundreds of Jews were herded into a barn that was then burned to the ground, the author found a host of disturbing reactions from the local residents. There are blatant denials that any Poles took part and assurances that it was the Germans who forced locals to participate. Many told Bikont that since it occurred so many years ago, she should just leave it alone. Her persistence in chasing down those who might tell her the facts took her all over Poland and to Israel, the United States, Cuba, and Costa Rica. Her most shocking discovery was the still-virulent anti-Semitism in the area. For years, the Catholic Church had preached against the Jews, so when neighbors were exiled to Siberia during the Russian occupation of 1939-1941, the Jews were the best scapegoats, and it was a good excuse for the beginnings of the pogroms. The elements of competitive suffering that the author uncovered in her interviewees appear to be just more excuses. Bikont's fearless research—she even confronted the brothers known to have led the Jedwabne murders—makes this a fantastic book. It was first published in Poland in 2004, and the European Book Prize it won in 2011 (for the French version) should be only the first of many awards for this significant work.

Kirkus Reviews