“The Legacy of Jedwabne” – Short International version – 56:40
Time code listed below begins at 0:00:00:00, and corresponds to the BEGINNING OF THE FILM (56 frames after the end of the “2” flash in the countdown).
0:00:11:06 – 0:00:16:13
Title Card:
Polish TV News
0:00:11:00 Voice:
This stone marks the site of a massacre where on July 10th, 1941, the Germans burned 1,600 Jews alive. Now it’s clear that poles also participated in the crime, but the number of victims is still unknown. The monument was removed so the site can be memorialized in a new way. Construction will start in early April. Jewish communities were consulted about the reconstruction. The old stone will be kept in the Polish Military Museum in Bialystok.
0:00:46:26 – 0:00:51:17
Title Card: The Legacy of Jedwabne
0:00:52:15 – 0:00:56:10
Title Card: A film by Slawomir Grunberg
0:01:01:00 Narration 1:
In the small town of Jedwabne in Northeast Poland, Jews lived side by side with Poles for over two centuries until July 10, 1941. Just weeks after the Germans occupied Jedwabne, almost the entire Jewish population was rounded up into a barn and burned alive. For decades, this crime was attributed to the NAZIs, but recent evidence indicates that Polish townspeople were actually responsible.
0:01:43:29 – 0:01:48:12
Title Card:
Rabbi Joseph Baker
former Jedwabne resident
0:01:39:28 Baker:
Jedwabne was a living, beautiful town.
The majority of the people in this city, in town were Jews
But around the town lived gospodari, the farmers. Wonderful people, I remember
We lived on the street “Przytulska ulica.” It was lively and on the road to Lomza would walk boys and girls and couples and singing…
0:02:36:13 Baker (cont’d):
I found out about Jedwabne, what happened in 1945 by the end of the war.
But we knew clearly, we knew that thousands of children shoes are spread on the streets.
Where are the children?
It was the most horrible day, because people were dragged out from the houses, men, women, infants, children. They were beaten on the way, bloodshed on the way.
In the barn they were locked up and they spilt gasoline from the roof.
And this fire, this scream was terrible. People screamed so much but bojowki had music to extinguish the noise of cry. The cry should be heard even after their death.
0:03:59:17 – 0:04:02:28
Title Card:
Krzysztof Godlewski
Mayor of Jedwabne
0:03:55:18 Godlewski:
I am neither an historian nor an investigator, I don’t have the competence or the information to discuss in detail what happened in Jedwabne. Nevertheless, my knowledge was profound enough to state that genocide took place in Jedwabne. Several hundred people, mostly women and children, were brutally murdered, burned alive.
A strength and determination grew in me to persist in my conviction and at least to fence off the area in a dignified manner so that any visitor could clearly see that here lie people murdered by other people. It ought to be a warning.
0:05:00:11 – 0:05:03:23
Title Card:
Anna Bikont
Author, journalist
0:05:03:26 Narration 2:
Anna is a Polish newspaper journalist who has been working on a book about the Jedwabne Pogrom.
0:05:10:21 Bikont:
First and foremost I feel Polish.here are my roots, my friends, the literature I am attached to. There are moments in which I feel that my identity is Jewish. It happens in Jedwabne where, regardless of how Polish I felt, my children would have been burned in the barn.
0:05:52:07 – 0:05:55:23
Title Card:
Leon Dziedzic
0:05:58:12 – 0:06:00:23
Title Card:
Leszek Dziedzic
Leon’s son
0:06:17:04
Narration 3:
Leon and Leszek are two former residents of Jedwabne who now live in America. They go with Anna to Rabbi Baker's apartment in Brooklyn, NY, to meet him for the first time.
0:06:09:16 Baker:
Would you like some vodka?
0:06:11:10 Leon:
No, I cannot. I’m sick so I’m on medication.
0:06:17:04 Narration 4:
Leon's family saved one of the Jedwabne Jews. They later were persecuted for testifying to the Polish media about the recollections of the Jedwabne massacre.
0:06:29:02 Leon:
The neighborhood was Jewish… all the way to Lomzynska Street. I know, I was friend with young Jews…
Did you know the smith, by the cemetery, on the corner…
0:06:48:13 Baker:
Yes… they were my cousins.
0:06:53:13 Leon:
A Jewish baker… he had a bakery… at the corner. We’d buy 3 buns for 5 cents from the Jew, and 2 for 5 cents from the Pole.
The pharmacist was Zuckerbrand… on Lomzynska Street.
0:07:23:00 Baker:
…apothecary.
0:07:26:11 Leon:
I knew three blacksmiths in Jedwabne…
I know, next to Kosaki… I knew them all.
0:07:39:22 Baker:
They were all murdered.
0:07:49:23 – 0:07:53:09
Title Card:
Buenos Aires, Argentina
0:07:49:16 Narration 5:
Ironically, there are a handful of Jedwabne survivors on the opposite side of the world, in Argentina.
0:08:04:05 – 0:08:08:05
Title Card:
Berek Olszewicz
Jedwabne pogrom survivor
0:08:00:21 Narration 6:
Mietek and Berek are among the few Jews to survive the Jedwabne pogrom. Elsa, Mietek's wife, escaped another pogrom only a few miles away in the town of Szczuczyn.
0:08:15:01 – 0:08:17:15
Title Card:
Elsa Olszewicz
Pogrom survivor
0:08:14:26 Elsa:
We were at home: my mother, father and myself, and we heard the screams at night. So I told my mother, I think they’re beating the Jews.
0:08:34:00 Mietek:
It was the Poles.
0:08:35:20 Elsa:
I didn’t see anything, I only heard the screams. I hid with my parents. Next morning , I heard that all the Jews were killed and I ran away. I went to my aunt’s house in Jedwabne, and told her that they killed all the… I don’t want to say who did it, I can say how it happened. I told my aunt that she should go to Lomza, because it’s a bigger town. It’s not safe here. Her family had a feeling something bad was going to happen there, too. He had sons, five children… and grandchildren, 20 members of my uncle’s family were murdered. They were all burned.
0:09:38:23 Rabbi Baker:
They asked me if I liked Jedwabne. I certainly loved Jedwabne, loved with a “D”.
Means I loved then, when I was a child. What can I love there know. They dismantled the Jewish houses and they built their own on the Jewish blood. How can I love it?
0:10:14:04 – 0:10:16:15
Title Card:
Krzysztof Godlewski
Mayor of Jedwabne
0:10:17:03 Godlewski:
It took me a long time to understand what is that the Jews want. Their biggest worry and source of pain is that any trace of them in Jedwabne has been obliterated, although they lived here as a part of the society for 200-300 years. They constituted about half of Jedwabne’s population; they created history. But any trace of them was totally wiped out, nothing remains, absolutely no memory… this is unthinkable to the Jews. Why did it happen? The answer is simple… it was done deliberately. One should try to understand them. They didn’t ask for a lot. They just wanted the inscription on the monument to acknowledge that they lived here, were part of this town and its history.
0:11:24:01 – 0:11:26:20
Title Card:
Father Edward Orlowski
Parish Priest of Jedwabne
0:11:26:29 Narration 7:
A local priest in Jedwabne continues to deny Polish participation in the Jedwabne massacre.
0:11:33:18 Father Orlowski:
The bells were ringing that day when the Jews were walking – it was right at noon. A New York paper wrote that the church tower played beautifully. A different paper complained that the bells playing were disrespectful. How do you satisfy them?
0:11:57:12 Father Orlowski (cont’d):
It is all being done to obscure the real picture, make it unclear, to make it look as if the Poles were the murderers. It’s not true, the Poles did not murder. The Germans decided to shoot or kill anywhere from 40 to 50 young Jews based on an official order which was read to them. All remaining Jews, going back three generations, were to be burned. And that’s what happened everywhere. It happened here, in the synagogue in Bialystok, and all around the area. Young Jews were shot, all others burnt.
0:12:47:18 – 0:12:49:24
Title Card:
New York City
0:12:52:05 Narration 8:
A book titled "Neighbors" was essential in exposing eyewitness accounts of the massacre to the general public. If not for this publication, the incident in Jedwabne would still be attributed to the NAZIs.
0:13:12:28 – 0:13:17:15
Title Card:
Jan Gross
Author, “Neighbors”
0:13:12:19 Jan Gross:
I was reading systematically through a collection of depositions that were left by Jews immediately after the war. One of the deposition I read was story that Wasserstein has written about his experience in Jedwabne, and it just stock with me it is so striking.
The story that Wasserstein recounts essentially describes what has been going on in Jedwabne on July 10th, 1941. First of all of the killings that go on for the whole day there in the most brutal manner. And then he says at the conclusion of this narrative: “…and everybody else was then rounded up and people were kind of marched from the square of the town to a barn that was standing at the edge of the town. And then they were putted in to this barn and burned.”
0:13:55:21 – 0:13:58:28
Title Card:
Warsaw, Poland
0:13:57:19 Narration 9:
On the 60th Anniversary of the massacre, Jewish survivors and their families are returning to Jedwabne for a memorial ceremony. But they arrive in the middle of controversy: the old monument that was removed placed the blame on the NAZIs. The new monument which replaces it, however, fails to state that the Poles were responsible for the crime.
0:14:23:03 – 0:14:26:09
Title Card:
Ty Rogers (USA)
Descendant of Jedwabne residents
0:14:22:23 Ty Rogers:
There going to be 3000 people there tomorrow.
0:14:27:28 – 0:14:31:02
Title Card:
Laura Klein (Argentina)
Daughter of Jedwabne residents
0:14:28:21 Laura Klein:
3,000 people?
0:14:29:29 Ty Rogers:
3,000 people. The town is not even 3,000. I’m gonna be saying that the families are all deeply opposed to this monument that is incomplete, it doesn’t tell the whole truth.
0:14:49:18 Ty Rogers (speech in room):
Hello everybody. For those who doesn’t know me yet, my name is Ty Rogers and I’ve been organizing the trip in behalf of the landsmen of Jedwabne. Since our time may be limited, there’s busses probably gonna be coming in a few minutes. I just want to briefly tell you about this press conference and what I was expecting. The purpose of the press conference is to make it clear to the world through the media that are presence here is not an endorsement of an incomplete monument that doesn’t tell the full truth, that doesn’t live up to what the polish authorities have said for several months, that they willing to confront all the black spots in their history.
0:15:40:12 Narration 10:
Father Orlowski shares his theory of how the Jews of Jedwabne were murdered.
0:15:45:12 Orlowski:
Himmler was staying in Warsaw. He was summoned by the Wehrmacht to come to Bialystok. An agreement was made between the two headquarters and Himmler to take action in all the towns in the east inhabited by the Jews who collaborated with the Communists. A retaliation was to be carried out. Here is a list of German soldiers who were in Jedwabne. July 10th was arranged by the local German soldiers but the liquidation itself was carried out by Gestapo.
0:16:32:01 – 0:16:38:00
Title Card:
Father Orlowski’s findings were never confirmed by historians or eyewitnesses.
0:16:41:20 – 0:16:46:13
Title Card:
Mietek Olszewicz
Jedwabne pogrom survivor
0:16:40:15 Narration 11:
A day before the massacre, one of Mietek's Catholic friends revealed to him the secret meeting between Poles and Germans, where the fate of the town's Jews was decided.
0:16:52:01 Mietek:
When they had the meeting, he overheard what they were saying, so he told me: listen, it’s going to be the end for them (the Jews) tomorrow...they will be burned. Yes, he told me about it.
0:17:05:27 Elsa:
…burned?
0:17:07:01 Mietek:
Yes! The boy said that they’re going to burn all the Jews. They prepared the gasoline…
My father, my sister and my mother all went to Lomza, early in the morning. I told them they’ll murder, burn the Jews tomorrow…if nothing happens, you’ll return… But if something does happen and we are here, they’ll kill us all. So, you should escape to Lomza.
0:17:40:00 – 0:17:47:21
Title card:
14 months later, Mietek’s entire family, who had escaped the Jedwabne pogrom, was killed when Jews from the Lomza ghetto were sent to Auschwitz.
0:17:49:23 Narration 12:
Anna, a journalist, goes to visit a Polish woman named Antosia, whose family hid seven Jews on their farm. They remained in hiding for almost two and a half years.
0:18:02:09 Bikont:
It’s Anna Bikont
0:18:18:00 – 0:18:20:21
Title Card:
Antosia Wyrzykowska
Jedwabne resident
0:18:13:20 Wyrzykowska:
Mietek Olszewicz came with his brother and asked my husband to take them in. But obviously we were afraid to hide them… Mietek said to him: I will dig a shelter. If you can’t find us, will you let us stay? My husband agreed. Then he went to Jedwabne. The two of them dug the shelter in a flash. My husband searched everywhere but couldn’t find them. So he said: All right, let it be, you can stay. That’s how it all began. They made a good shelter.
0:18:57:06 Elsa:
It was big enough for a person to sit, and lay down… about 1.8 meters wide.
0:19:16:23 Mietek:
That’s how slim I was in 1945, we didn’t look like we do now when we left the hiding place.
0:19:27:13 Wyrzykowska:
And then came Shmul, we called him Stasiek… I brought him in because the hiding place was ready… So he came, then Elka, and Grondowski. We had to make one more shelter. One was in the chicken coop… The other was with the sheep.
0:19:59:19 – 0:20:03:19
Title Card:
En route to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Warsaw, Poland
0:20:05:03 Ty Rogers:
Earlier today I found out that they were limiting it to the polish press. They were not allowing foreign press there. After I informed the families about this they’ve now changed their mind and they’re going to allow the foreign press there. I thought I’d let you know, maybe there is someone else in Warsaw who’d be interested from A.P. in covering this.
0:20:36:18 Judith Kubran:
She saved my parents, I love her.
0:20:43:07 Bikont:
In Antosia’s case, it wasn’t about her opinion of the Jews, she is just a very good person who would help anybody in need. Her goodness derives from her faith. Because she is a warm, good human being, she rescued seven Jews and a German. But if seven Germans were being chased she would have hidden them in the pig sty and the Jews in the chicken coop. she has an infinite goodness in her.
0:21:33:08 – 0:21:37:26
Title Card:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Warsaw
0:21:39:02 Polish Diplomat:
First of all, let me introduce to all of you our wonderful guest, Ms. Wyrzykowska. How are you? If you have any other questions, you are free to ask this questions half-privately, after we stop standing in one place and after we mingle together on our way to the other room where there are some sandwiches, some of them kosher, some of them non-kosher.
00:22:13:19 – 0:22:18:18
Title Card:
Gary Lucas (USA)
Grandson of former Jedwabne resident
0:22:11:00 Gary Lucas:
For years in my family, whenever I’d asked whatever happen exactly to the Jews and how come we have no relatives left in Europe, they’d say “well, they were all, the Jews in that town were all putted into a barn and it was set on fire.
So, they knew this in my family and it was like a story for years but I had no details about it. And then about 5 years ago I read a letter by accident to the New York Times that Ty Rogers had sent, and it described this burning and massacre. So I called him up, he gave me this Yizkor book, that came out originally in Israel. And from reading that book I found the family name which was Piekarz, and a list of Jews who had died in that barn. And it gave me a complete chill to see the name of the family there.
0:23:07:12 – 0:23:12:11
Title Card:
Burton Segelin (USA)
Son of former Jedwabne resident
0:23:02:12 Segelin:
My mother left Jedwabne in 1927. and she left her mother, and her step grandfather, her brother, and his wife and they eventually had two children.
We always thought that they were killed by the Nazis, we never really knew what happened, until the book came out.
0:23:36:10 Red-Haired Woman:
She and her mother were burned in Jedwabne.
0:23:40:04 Godlewski:
In my squabbles with the Town Council, I said: Gentlemen, 1000 to 1500 people lived here. The only items they took to the barn were those they could carry. Everything else remained here. The Germans didn’t take their belongings. People who lived in Jedwabne were poor, so were the Jews. So everything remained here with us. Houses, as modest as they were, plots of land, bedding, furniture… The Germans didn’t take it, it all stayed here. Naturally people took it. It would be wasted otherwise. Spending a few pennies on this monument will not be a great expense for us. It will be our way of compensating.
0:24:35:19 Bikont:
The true fear in Jedwabne is that the Jews could come and take back their houses. I hear it all the time: They’ll come to get what’s theirs. They’ll take it away. A woman in Jedwabne told me that her friend said to her: We can’t admit that the Poles did it because then the Jews will take our homes away from us. I know that as long as I reside here, it’s mine but I won’t be able to pass it on to my daughter; where is she going to go? The woman was terrified; they are really scared.
0:25:20:15 Narration 13:
Schmul Wasserstein was another Jedwabne survivor. At the onset of the massacre Schmul first found refuge on Leon's family's farm.
0:25:30:01 Leon:
My brother went to Antosia to let her know that Shmul was with us. He stayed maybe a week longer… as soon as the hiding place was prepared. We walked him out of Jedwabne and he continued on to Janczewko on his own. We urged him not to tell anybody, under any circumstance, where he stayed. He kept his word.
0:25:58:15 Wyrzykowska:
We cooked whatever we had… Grondowski and the one that’s now in Costa Rica, ate what we had… The other five ate from the pot. They got bread every evening, too. They lived. It wasn’t paradise for them, but we didn’t have it easy either.
0:26:23:25 – 0:26:29:15
Title Card:
Press Conference
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw
0:26:27:02 Ty Rogers:
This has been an emotional time for all the families, who’d come to Poland for the ceremony. We have family members from United States, Israel, Argentina, Mexico, I believe from Urugway someone is coming. And this journey has not been made easier by some of the decisions the polish government made regarding the exhumation of bodies and the text that has been put on the monument that will be rededicated tomorrow. The first text that was announced was frankly an insult to the memories of the victims. It denies any polish responsibility and that could be read as blaming the Jews for their own deaths.
0:27:24:20 – 0:27:29:22
Title Card:
Judith Kubran (USA)
Daughter of Jedwabne survivor
0:27:22:09 Judith Kubran:
It is truth that many polish people risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews during the war. I am here today only because of Polish Christian woman who saved my parents lives. There is still hatred and animosity towards those brave people. They must continue to protect themselves or live in fear for themselves and their families.
It is also truth that Polish Christian murders in Jedwabne killed their Jewish neighbors. I know this because my father escaped to hide in the fields. There he heard the awful screams and smelled the burning flesh of his family, friends and neighbors.
0:28:01:29 – 0:28:05:07
Title Card:
Jacob Tzofan (Israel)
Jedwabne survivor
Jacob Tzofan:
They herded more than 2,000 people into the barn, children, older people, they didn’t care. They threw everyone in. they locked them in, poured the gasoline and burned them alive. What can I say? This is what really happened.
0:28:29:22 Mietek:
So I escaped and hid in the field behind the church. And as I laid there, I heard as all the Jews were being gathered to sweep the streets. The Germans were coming to town. It needed to be clean. Since I knew what was going on I ran away to hide. So I stayed until the morning. I was afraid to come out. Then I didn’t hear anything after they were gone. Some people ran away, the other way. They screamed: God, hear us! Please hear us God! I heard the scream… as if a bomb exploded… And I saw fire. Nothing else.
0:29:39:25 Leon:
This is my mother. She was in charge of everything. Whatever she decided had to be done. After the liberation… my brother came and told our mother: They are gathering around to kill al the Jews in hiding. My mother said: Go, warn anyone you can.
I swear on my life… Poles did it. That’s it.
0:30:32:28 Wyrzykowska:
They came, knocked at the door. We had to open it. They said: You Jewish lackeys! You hid them! They killed Christ, but you saved them anyway! They ordered me to lie on the floor. They beat me until I was purple. They hit my father too. I was beaten really badly.
Voice:
What did they hit you with?
Wyrzykowska:
A club.
0:31:16:02 Narration 14:
To this day, Antosia has never spoken to the Polish media about her role in saving Jedwabne Jews. She is so fearful of persecution that she refused to be interviewed in front of her house. She preferred to talk more, once she was out of town
0:31:31:00 Wyrzykowska:
I don’t want anybody to see...
0:31:38:20 Voice:
I wonder… why are you so modest?
0:31:42:08 Wyrzykowska:
If you lived here, you would be the same, or more…
Voice:
Why?
Wyrzykowska:
… because.
Voice:
Somebody like you, who saved seven people...
Wyrzykowska:
And now you have to be afraid. What can you do?
Voice:
Why do you have to be afraid?
Wyrzykowska:
Because you hear people talk…That no good will come out of it. That’s why.
0:32:26:13 Bikont:
I wasn’t trying to get names of the murderers from Antosia. She won’t say. Just as she won’t point the ones who beat her. She knows their names. She won’t tell anybody. She’ll only discuss hiding the Jews. You won’t hear from her about July 10th, but she must know all about it. Everybody who lived there must know. They must have talked about it. She won’t even tell you that it was Poles, not Germans who did it. Antosia is so scared that she won’t reveal anything that goes beyond her personal involvement with the seven Jews she hid.
0:33:06:22 Father Orlowski:
The Poles couldn’t have done it. The Germans devised the plan. Five units of Gestapo, of about 700 men each, they carried out the orders. It was a sentence.
0:33:33:28 – 0:33:38:13
Title Card:
Rabbi Lester Miller:
Rabbi Baker’s son-in-law
0:33:28:01 Miller:
Rabbi Baker as some of us know will be invited to speak tomorrow at the memorial.
Jedwabne, Rabbi Baker feels was not truly polish history. Rabbi Baker feels that hatred that was spawned by the Nazis and that hatred cannot be allowed to continue. And tomorrow he will propose that we as world citizens should take the lesson from Jedwabne and learn that unless we teach our children and our grandchildren not to hate, there’d be other Jedwabnes, another hatred and that can lead only to destruction.
0:34:15:18 Ty Rogers:
My own personal opinion what needs to happen is Jews need to feel ability to live their lives here without hiding their identity.
0:34:56:15 Bikont:
When I go to Jedwabne and I have to listen to all those horrible people who shout and scream at me: You hate Poles! And other horrible things… then my visits to Antosia are like a breath of fresh air.
0:35:16:25 Bikont (cont’d):
I have an embarrassing feeling… a feeling of invulnerability. I can walk around in Jedwabne, they won’t hurt me, because I have an established reputation. I represent Gazeta Wyborcza (the Polish daily paper). If somebody slashed my tires, I’d call the police and they’d be found. I have immunity. The ones who are persecuted, who are harassed in Jedwabne… whose normal lives are made impossible… are the ones who are weak and helpless. They are the elderly who recall what really happened. I expose them to danger by listening to their stories. But I myself never feel at risk.
0:36:11:12 – 0:36:18:13
Title Card:
Day of Monument Rededication Ceremony
60th Anniversary of Jedwabne Massacre
0:36:57:00 Woman on bus:
They were our grandparents, yours and mine.
0:37:06:29 Boy on bus:
I talked to my grandma, she sits over there, and she remembers a lot of her town of Jedwabne. It meant a lot to her for grandson to come and visit with her. And she also told it will be a bit difficult for her. So me, my sister and my mother we went along and it was also important to see where my roots came from. And also maybe a little bit to show that we exist.
0:38:20:04 Ty Rogers:
This sign says “We’re not apologizing. The Germans murdered the Jews in Jedwabne. Let them apologize to Polish people. The Germans murdered Jews in Jedwabne.
0:38:34:20 Jan Gross:
Television has funded a film about it. And yet the fact that in September of this year, after anniversary ceremonies in July that were televised, after all this huge debate, we still have almost 1/3 of the polish population believing that Germans were the exclusive authors.
0:38:54:12 Godlewski:
In my talks with the journalist I tried to clear things to show Jedwabne as a regular town. What happened here took place in many towns… not only in Poland, but all around the world, not to mention the destruction of Native Americans, Aboriginals, or other peoples.
0:39:15:13 – 0:39:19:09
Title Card:
Alberto Aronowitz (Switzerland)
Relative of former Jedwabne resident
0:39:14:16 Aronowitz:
This is the house of the Friedmans, of kaddish Friedmans, my great grandfather who was the szames of the synagogue of Jedwabne, and where he and his wife Tzivia, and his daughter Estergito, her husband and two sons were killed exactly 60 years ago.
0:40:22:07 Godlewski:
The day was unbearably hot. There were no trees in the town square… it was like a frying pan. Many people ran away from Jedwabne that day. They didn’t want to participate. They knew that somebody would make them guard the Jews. Some men would hide away in the basements.
0:40:55:18 – 0:40:58:13
Title Card:
Address from
Aleksander Kwasniewski
President of Poland
0:40:56:08 President:
We cannot have any doubts. Here in Jedwabne Polish citizens were murdered at the hands of other Polish citizens. People for people, neighbors for neighbors, prepared this fate. Because of this crime, we should beg the shadows of the murdered for their forgiveness. Today, as a man, and as a citizen, and as the President of the Republic of Poland I apologize. I apologize in my own name, and in the name of the Poles whose conscience has been touched by that Wednesday, in the name of those who believe that we cannot be proud of the grandeur of the Polish history not experiencing shame and pain at the same time caused by the harm that Poles have inflicted on others.
0:41:49:29 Godlewski:
Nobody from the Town Council attended the ceremony, except the Chairman and myself. Some people watched the event from their windows.
0:42:05:02 Jan Gross:
There is a woman by the name Adamkiewicz, her name is Adamkiewicz. She is from Jedwabne. And she says “you know I was a little girl my mother did not let me out at that time, but how they killed them I know and I remember that scream”. And she just pulls her hands over her ears.
0:42:31:24 Bikont:
I think that a case such as the one of Jedwabne may cause the anti-Semites to become even more anti-Semitic… but those who used the word Jew in a derogatory way without reflecting on it, or fundamentally had a bad opinion of Jews, undergo an inner change. The best example of that process of change is Krzys Godlewski, the mayor of Jedwabne, who, not long ago, and like everybody else in Jedwabne, read Pajak’s anti-Semitic books and believed in the existence of a Jewish conspiracy, because nobody told him otherwise. He changed, through the knowledge…
0:43:32:19 Godlewski:
I’ve received letters… They cold me a traitor, a fool, a Jewish lackey. It was painful. But the truth has its price. You need to bear the consequences of staying your beliefs. There were only few of those unpleasant letters, a minority. There were more serious threats, too. “You’ll end up with a bullet an your head”, said one. I feel that I’ve closed a chapter in my life. I’ve worked for 20 years in Jedwabne. I would like to begin a new life. A life away from politics. I’ve suffered enough emotionally.
0:45:05:17 – 0:45:11:01
Title Card:
Rabbi Jacob Baker
Former Jedwabne resident
0:44:41:09 Rabbi Baker:
If the bandits would ask me advice, what to do? How to plead to Ashem? How to ask forgiveness? I would advise them to come to this place, as the Talmud says, to the place whenever you come here to pray. Tell the world that Poland, our Poland is asking forgiveness, and Hashem should accept it.
0:45:21:27 Speaker:
Now the rabbis will pray for those who have perished here.
0:47:53:29 Godlewski:
The monument is still standing only because it doesn’t mention that the Poles committed the crime. There are skinheads and radical people in Poland who wouldn’t hesitate to spill a bucket of paint on the monument. If the inscription said that the Poles did the monument wouldn’t be standing now. There would be no monument. That would be even worse.
0:48:25:03 – 0:48:31:12
Title card:
Leon Dziedzic was one of several Poles forced by the Germans to bury the bodies of Jews killed during the Jedwabne pogrom.
48:32:09 Leon:
We were told to dig out a ditch. So we did it. There were about 30 of us… they ordered us to remove the barn ash from on top of the bodies, and throw them all into a ditch. It’s hard to talk about it… the bodies were piled up, all entangled… So when it came to the burial, it wasn’t like you could pick up a body. You had to tear the pieces and throw them into the ditch…
Leszek:
It wasn’t a simple thing…
Leon:
Burned, carbonized bodies were on top, the second layer was partially burnt. You couldn’t recognize the bodies in the top layer, they were burnt.
0:49:19:21 Rabbi Baker:
Was it hard identifying them?
0:49:22:17 Leon:
The bodies were carbonized. The ones that were deeper, you could recognize by their clothing. It was a massacre.
0:49:46:22 Godlewski:
I announced my decision to resign in June. But I needed to finish what I’ve started. Nobody asked me to stay when I submitted my resignation. After the Council took a vote on my leave and the majority was in favor, there was applause in the room. It was painful… but bearable.
0:50:31:03 Leszek:
I am very happy to met you, Rabbi, that good people brought me to you. Thank you, it was a pleasure meeting you. And just one thing: I apologize. I apologize in the name of those who lacked the courage when it was most needed.
0:50:57:21 Burton Segelin:
It’s probably Raiza the daughter of our Rabbi, Naftali Katz. May her soul be bound up in the bound of life.
0:51:19:06 Rabin Baker:
What cause them to be so hateful? What was their dream, the fantasia?
They should ask themselves, not to me, who am I? For the youth, for the children. They should tell them: We are terribly sorry by covering up until now, 60 years that they did a terrible sin. And I was afraid whole it may go under again for the end, completely the punishment of G.O.D. Hashem.
0:52:04:04 Mietek:
… and that’s how it was. And if you ask me how I survived all of it, I will answer you: I am not religious, I don’t believe in God. If I did, god would have watched over me… Do you know where God died for me? God died in Auschwitz.
0:52:48:14 Rabin Baker:
This is the family of Rivka Stern. They had a brother here in New York.
0:52:57:12 Narration 15:
There are so few Jews alive today that remember Jedwabne before the massacre. Many of the names and faces of the victims will be forgotten forever, unless effort is taken now to identify them, and to honor their memory.
0:53:49:28 Narration 16:
Poland's Institute for National Remembrance established a commission to investigate the Jedwabne incident and other similar crimes. After two years of study, the commission concluded that the Jedwabne pogrom was not an isolated incident during this period. Hundreds of other Jews were murdered in similar attacks by Poles in more than twenty towns in the same region.
The story of the Jedwabne massacre continues to be a painful wound in the hearts and minds of both Polish Christians and Jews. One can only hope that true history reveals itself in all of our lives, even if this occurs several generations later.
Title card:
Anna Bikont’s book titled “We, from Jedwabne” has generated an intense public reaction in Poland. She is currently considering permanent immigration to New York.
Title card:
Jan Gross became a professor at Princeton University, and completed a book about Jews who survived Russian pogroms and faced anti-Semitism when returning to post-war Poland.
Title card:
Rabbi Baker remains in Brooklyn, NY, and is interested in writing his own memories on Jewish life and culture in pre-war Jedwabne.
Father Orlowski continued to preach in the local church and to defend his theories on the pogrom until his death in 2003.
Title card:
Antosia Wyrzykowska received the “Righteous Among the Nations” medal from the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.
But continuing fear of persecution in her home town has ked her to decline any more interviews on the subject.
Title card:
Mietek, Elsa and Berek Olszewicz in Argentina have also declined any subsequent interviews about their Jedwabne experience.
Title card:
Leon Dziedzic and his family settled in western Massachusetts, and Leszek is awaiting the approval of his request for political asylum in the US.
Title card:
The former mayor of Jedwabne, Krzysztof Godlewski, received the Jan Karski Prize “for courage in opposing stereotypes and prejudices”.
He decided to leave Poland for the United States, and is now employed as a construction worker.
Credits:
Producer & Director
Slawomir Grunberg
Editors
William C. Doll
Christopher Julian
Monika Reder
Erika Street
Original Music
Gary Lucas
Photography
Slawomir Grunberg
Associate Producer
Stephanie Steiker
Production Manager
Erika Street
Production Assistant
Lyla Miller
Post-Production Assistant
Tomasz Gniadek
Web Design
Dane Ewald
Co-Producer (Poland)
Krzysztof Piotrowski
TV Partner
Special Thanks
Suzana Amado
Alberto Aronovitz
Anna Bikont
Moira Fradinger
Jan T. Gross
Gary Hochman
Laura Klein
Judith Kubran
Pawel Bakowski
Ty Rogers
Vlady Rozenbaum
Linda Sametz
Burton Segelin
Stanlee J. Stahl
www.jedwabne.net
Time code listed below begins at 0:00:00:00, and corresponds to the BEGINNING OF THE FILM (56 frames after the end of the “2” flash in the countdown).
0:00:11:06 – 0:00:16:13
Title Card:
Polish TV News
0:00:11:00 Voice:
This stone marks the site of a massacre where on July 10th, 1941, the Germans burned 1,600 Jews alive. Now it’s clear that poles also participated in the crime, but the number of victims is still unknown. The monument was removed so the site can be memorialized in a new way. Construction will start in early April. Jewish communities were consulted about the reconstruction. The old stone will be kept in the Polish Military Museum in Bialystok.
0:00:46:26 – 0:00:51:17
Title Card: The Legacy of Jedwabne
0:00:52:15 – 0:00:56:10
Title Card: A film by Slawomir Grunberg
0:01:01:00 Narration 1:
In the small town of Jedwabne in Northeast Poland, Jews lived side by side with Poles for over two centuries until July 10, 1941. Just weeks after the Germans occupied Jedwabne, almost the entire Jewish population was rounded up into a barn and burned alive. For decades, this crime was attributed to the NAZIs, but recent evidence indicates that Polish townspeople were actually responsible.
0:01:43:29 – 0:01:48:12
Title Card:
Rabbi Joseph Baker
former Jedwabne resident
0:01:39:28 Baker:
Jedwabne was a living, beautiful town.
The majority of the people in this city, in town were Jews
But around the town lived gospodari, the farmers. Wonderful people, I remember
We lived on the street “Przytulska ulica.” It was lively and on the road to Lomza would walk boys and girls and couples and singing…
0:02:36:13 Baker (cont’d):
I found out about Jedwabne, what happened in 1945 by the end of the war.
But we knew clearly, we knew that thousands of children shoes are spread on the streets.
Where are the children?
It was the most horrible day, because people were dragged out from the houses, men, women, infants, children. They were beaten on the way, bloodshed on the way.
In the barn they were locked up and they spilt gasoline from the roof.
And this fire, this scream was terrible. People screamed so much but bojowki had music to extinguish the noise of cry. The cry should be heard even after their death.
0:03:59:17 – 0:04:02:28
Title Card:
Krzysztof Godlewski
Mayor of Jedwabne
0:03:55:18 Godlewski:
I am neither an historian nor an investigator, I don’t have the competence or the information to discuss in detail what happened in Jedwabne. Nevertheless, my knowledge was profound enough to state that genocide took place in Jedwabne. Several hundred people, mostly women and children, were brutally murdered, burned alive.
A strength and determination grew in me to persist in my conviction and at least to fence off the area in a dignified manner so that any visitor could clearly see that here lie people murdered by other people. It ought to be a warning.
0:05:00:11 – 0:05:03:23
Title Card:
Anna Bikont
Author, journalist
0:05:03:26 Narration 2:
Anna is a Polish newspaper journalist who has been working on a book about the Jedwabne Pogrom.
0:05:10:21 Bikont:
First and foremost I feel Polish.here are my roots, my friends, the literature I am attached to. There are moments in which I feel that my identity is Jewish. It happens in Jedwabne where, regardless of how Polish I felt, my children would have been burned in the barn.
0:05:52:07 – 0:05:55:23
Title Card:
Leon Dziedzic
0:05:58:12 – 0:06:00:23
Title Card:
Leszek Dziedzic
Leon’s son
0:06:17:04
Narration 3:
Leon and Leszek are two former residents of Jedwabne who now live in America. They go with Anna to Rabbi Baker's apartment in Brooklyn, NY, to meet him for the first time.
0:06:09:16 Baker:
Would you like some vodka?
0:06:11:10 Leon:
No, I cannot. I’m sick so I’m on medication.
0:06:17:04 Narration 4:
Leon's family saved one of the Jedwabne Jews. They later were persecuted for testifying to the Polish media about the recollections of the Jedwabne massacre.
0:06:29:02 Leon:
The neighborhood was Jewish… all the way to Lomzynska Street. I know, I was friend with young Jews…
Did you know the smith, by the cemetery, on the corner…
0:06:48:13 Baker:
Yes… they were my cousins.
0:06:53:13 Leon:
A Jewish baker… he had a bakery… at the corner. We’d buy 3 buns for 5 cents from the Jew, and 2 for 5 cents from the Pole.
The pharmacist was Zuckerbrand… on Lomzynska Street.
0:07:23:00 Baker:
…apothecary.
0:07:26:11 Leon:
I knew three blacksmiths in Jedwabne…
I know, next to Kosaki… I knew them all.
0:07:39:22 Baker:
They were all murdered.
0:07:49:23 – 0:07:53:09
Title Card:
Buenos Aires, Argentina
0:07:49:16 Narration 5:
Ironically, there are a handful of Jedwabne survivors on the opposite side of the world, in Argentina.
0:08:04:05 – 0:08:08:05
Title Card:
Berek Olszewicz
Jedwabne pogrom survivor
0:08:00:21 Narration 6:
Mietek and Berek are among the few Jews to survive the Jedwabne pogrom. Elsa, Mietek's wife, escaped another pogrom only a few miles away in the town of Szczuczyn.
0:08:15:01 – 0:08:17:15
Title Card:
Elsa Olszewicz
Pogrom survivor
0:08:14:26 Elsa:
We were at home: my mother, father and myself, and we heard the screams at night. So I told my mother, I think they’re beating the Jews.
0:08:34:00 Mietek:
It was the Poles.
0:08:35:20 Elsa:
I didn’t see anything, I only heard the screams. I hid with my parents. Next morning , I heard that all the Jews were killed and I ran away. I went to my aunt’s house in Jedwabne, and told her that they killed all the… I don’t want to say who did it, I can say how it happened. I told my aunt that she should go to Lomza, because it’s a bigger town. It’s not safe here. Her family had a feeling something bad was going to happen there, too. He had sons, five children… and grandchildren, 20 members of my uncle’s family were murdered. They were all burned.
0:09:38:23 Rabbi Baker:
They asked me if I liked Jedwabne. I certainly loved Jedwabne, loved with a “D”.
Means I loved then, when I was a child. What can I love there know. They dismantled the Jewish houses and they built their own on the Jewish blood. How can I love it?
0:10:14:04 – 0:10:16:15
Title Card:
Krzysztof Godlewski
Mayor of Jedwabne
0:10:17:03 Godlewski:
It took me a long time to understand what is that the Jews want. Their biggest worry and source of pain is that any trace of them in Jedwabne has been obliterated, although they lived here as a part of the society for 200-300 years. They constituted about half of Jedwabne’s population; they created history. But any trace of them was totally wiped out, nothing remains, absolutely no memory… this is unthinkable to the Jews. Why did it happen? The answer is simple… it was done deliberately. One should try to understand them. They didn’t ask for a lot. They just wanted the inscription on the monument to acknowledge that they lived here, were part of this town and its history.
0:11:24:01 – 0:11:26:20
Title Card:
Father Edward Orlowski
Parish Priest of Jedwabne
0:11:26:29 Narration 7:
A local priest in Jedwabne continues to deny Polish participation in the Jedwabne massacre.
0:11:33:18 Father Orlowski:
The bells were ringing that day when the Jews were walking – it was right at noon. A New York paper wrote that the church tower played beautifully. A different paper complained that the bells playing were disrespectful. How do you satisfy them?
0:11:57:12 Father Orlowski (cont’d):
It is all being done to obscure the real picture, make it unclear, to make it look as if the Poles were the murderers. It’s not true, the Poles did not murder. The Germans decided to shoot or kill anywhere from 40 to 50 young Jews based on an official order which was read to them. All remaining Jews, going back three generations, were to be burned. And that’s what happened everywhere. It happened here, in the synagogue in Bialystok, and all around the area. Young Jews were shot, all others burnt.
0:12:47:18 – 0:12:49:24
Title Card:
New York City
0:12:52:05 Narration 8:
A book titled "Neighbors" was essential in exposing eyewitness accounts of the massacre to the general public. If not for this publication, the incident in Jedwabne would still be attributed to the NAZIs.
0:13:12:28 – 0:13:17:15
Title Card:
Jan Gross
Author, “Neighbors”
0:13:12:19 Jan Gross:
I was reading systematically through a collection of depositions that were left by Jews immediately after the war. One of the deposition I read was story that Wasserstein has written about his experience in Jedwabne, and it just stock with me it is so striking.
The story that Wasserstein recounts essentially describes what has been going on in Jedwabne on July 10th, 1941. First of all of the killings that go on for the whole day there in the most brutal manner. And then he says at the conclusion of this narrative: “…and everybody else was then rounded up and people were kind of marched from the square of the town to a barn that was standing at the edge of the town. And then they were putted in to this barn and burned.”
0:13:55:21 – 0:13:58:28
Title Card:
Warsaw, Poland
0:13:57:19 Narration 9:
On the 60th Anniversary of the massacre, Jewish survivors and their families are returning to Jedwabne for a memorial ceremony. But they arrive in the middle of controversy: the old monument that was removed placed the blame on the NAZIs. The new monument which replaces it, however, fails to state that the Poles were responsible for the crime.
0:14:23:03 – 0:14:26:09
Title Card:
Ty Rogers (USA)
Descendant of Jedwabne residents
0:14:22:23 Ty Rogers:
There going to be 3000 people there tomorrow.
0:14:27:28 – 0:14:31:02
Title Card:
Laura Klein (Argentina)
Daughter of Jedwabne residents
0:14:28:21 Laura Klein:
3,000 people?
0:14:29:29 Ty Rogers:
3,000 people. The town is not even 3,000. I’m gonna be saying that the families are all deeply opposed to this monument that is incomplete, it doesn’t tell the whole truth.
0:14:49:18 Ty Rogers (speech in room):
Hello everybody. For those who doesn’t know me yet, my name is Ty Rogers and I’ve been organizing the trip in behalf of the landsmen of Jedwabne. Since our time may be limited, there’s busses probably gonna be coming in a few minutes. I just want to briefly tell you about this press conference and what I was expecting. The purpose of the press conference is to make it clear to the world through the media that are presence here is not an endorsement of an incomplete monument that doesn’t tell the full truth, that doesn’t live up to what the polish authorities have said for several months, that they willing to confront all the black spots in their history.
0:15:40:12 Narration 10:
Father Orlowski shares his theory of how the Jews of Jedwabne were murdered.
0:15:45:12 Orlowski:
Himmler was staying in Warsaw. He was summoned by the Wehrmacht to come to Bialystok. An agreement was made between the two headquarters and Himmler to take action in all the towns in the east inhabited by the Jews who collaborated with the Communists. A retaliation was to be carried out. Here is a list of German soldiers who were in Jedwabne. July 10th was arranged by the local German soldiers but the liquidation itself was carried out by Gestapo.
0:16:32:01 – 0:16:38:00
Title Card:
Father Orlowski’s findings were never confirmed by historians or eyewitnesses.
0:16:41:20 – 0:16:46:13
Title Card:
Mietek Olszewicz
Jedwabne pogrom survivor
0:16:40:15 Narration 11:
A day before the massacre, one of Mietek's Catholic friends revealed to him the secret meeting between Poles and Germans, where the fate of the town's Jews was decided.
0:16:52:01 Mietek:
When they had the meeting, he overheard what they were saying, so he told me: listen, it’s going to be the end for them (the Jews) tomorrow...they will be burned. Yes, he told me about it.
0:17:05:27 Elsa:
…burned?
0:17:07:01 Mietek:
Yes! The boy said that they’re going to burn all the Jews. They prepared the gasoline…
My father, my sister and my mother all went to Lomza, early in the morning. I told them they’ll murder, burn the Jews tomorrow…if nothing happens, you’ll return… But if something does happen and we are here, they’ll kill us all. So, you should escape to Lomza.
0:17:40:00 – 0:17:47:21
Title card:
14 months later, Mietek’s entire family, who had escaped the Jedwabne pogrom, was killed when Jews from the Lomza ghetto were sent to Auschwitz.
0:17:49:23 Narration 12:
Anna, a journalist, goes to visit a Polish woman named Antosia, whose family hid seven Jews on their farm. They remained in hiding for almost two and a half years.
0:18:02:09 Bikont:
It’s Anna Bikont
0:18:18:00 – 0:18:20:21
Title Card:
Antosia Wyrzykowska
Jedwabne resident
0:18:13:20 Wyrzykowska:
Mietek Olszewicz came with his brother and asked my husband to take them in. But obviously we were afraid to hide them… Mietek said to him: I will dig a shelter. If you can’t find us, will you let us stay? My husband agreed. Then he went to Jedwabne. The two of them dug the shelter in a flash. My husband searched everywhere but couldn’t find them. So he said: All right, let it be, you can stay. That’s how it all began. They made a good shelter.
0:18:57:06 Elsa:
It was big enough for a person to sit, and lay down… about 1.8 meters wide.
0:19:16:23 Mietek:
That’s how slim I was in 1945, we didn’t look like we do now when we left the hiding place.
0:19:27:13 Wyrzykowska:
And then came Shmul, we called him Stasiek… I brought him in because the hiding place was ready… So he came, then Elka, and Grondowski. We had to make one more shelter. One was in the chicken coop… The other was with the sheep.
0:19:59:19 – 0:20:03:19
Title Card:
En route to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Warsaw, Poland
0:20:05:03 Ty Rogers:
Earlier today I found out that they were limiting it to the polish press. They were not allowing foreign press there. After I informed the families about this they’ve now changed their mind and they’re going to allow the foreign press there. I thought I’d let you know, maybe there is someone else in Warsaw who’d be interested from A.P. in covering this.
0:20:36:18 Judith Kubran:
She saved my parents, I love her.
0:20:43:07 Bikont:
In Antosia’s case, it wasn’t about her opinion of the Jews, she is just a very good person who would help anybody in need. Her goodness derives from her faith. Because she is a warm, good human being, she rescued seven Jews and a German. But if seven Germans were being chased she would have hidden them in the pig sty and the Jews in the chicken coop. she has an infinite goodness in her.
0:21:33:08 – 0:21:37:26
Title Card:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Warsaw
0:21:39:02 Polish Diplomat:
First of all, let me introduce to all of you our wonderful guest, Ms. Wyrzykowska. How are you? If you have any other questions, you are free to ask this questions half-privately, after we stop standing in one place and after we mingle together on our way to the other room where there are some sandwiches, some of them kosher, some of them non-kosher.
00:22:13:19 – 0:22:18:18
Title Card:
Gary Lucas (USA)
Grandson of former Jedwabne resident
0:22:11:00 Gary Lucas:
For years in my family, whenever I’d asked whatever happen exactly to the Jews and how come we have no relatives left in Europe, they’d say “well, they were all, the Jews in that town were all putted into a barn and it was set on fire.
So, they knew this in my family and it was like a story for years but I had no details about it. And then about 5 years ago I read a letter by accident to the New York Times that Ty Rogers had sent, and it described this burning and massacre. So I called him up, he gave me this Yizkor book, that came out originally in Israel. And from reading that book I found the family name which was Piekarz, and a list of Jews who had died in that barn. And it gave me a complete chill to see the name of the family there.
0:23:07:12 – 0:23:12:11
Title Card:
Burton Segelin (USA)
Son of former Jedwabne resident
0:23:02:12 Segelin:
My mother left Jedwabne in 1927. and she left her mother, and her step grandfather, her brother, and his wife and they eventually had two children.
We always thought that they were killed by the Nazis, we never really knew what happened, until the book came out.
0:23:36:10 Red-Haired Woman:
She and her mother were burned in Jedwabne.
0:23:40:04 Godlewski:
In my squabbles with the Town Council, I said: Gentlemen, 1000 to 1500 people lived here. The only items they took to the barn were those they could carry. Everything else remained here. The Germans didn’t take their belongings. People who lived in Jedwabne were poor, so were the Jews. So everything remained here with us. Houses, as modest as they were, plots of land, bedding, furniture… The Germans didn’t take it, it all stayed here. Naturally people took it. It would be wasted otherwise. Spending a few pennies on this monument will not be a great expense for us. It will be our way of compensating.
0:24:35:19 Bikont:
The true fear in Jedwabne is that the Jews could come and take back their houses. I hear it all the time: They’ll come to get what’s theirs. They’ll take it away. A woman in Jedwabne told me that her friend said to her: We can’t admit that the Poles did it because then the Jews will take our homes away from us. I know that as long as I reside here, it’s mine but I won’t be able to pass it on to my daughter; where is she going to go? The woman was terrified; they are really scared.
0:25:20:15 Narration 13:
Schmul Wasserstein was another Jedwabne survivor. At the onset of the massacre Schmul first found refuge on Leon's family's farm.
0:25:30:01 Leon:
My brother went to Antosia to let her know that Shmul was with us. He stayed maybe a week longer… as soon as the hiding place was prepared. We walked him out of Jedwabne and he continued on to Janczewko on his own. We urged him not to tell anybody, under any circumstance, where he stayed. He kept his word.
0:25:58:15 Wyrzykowska:
We cooked whatever we had… Grondowski and the one that’s now in Costa Rica, ate what we had… The other five ate from the pot. They got bread every evening, too. They lived. It wasn’t paradise for them, but we didn’t have it easy either.
0:26:23:25 – 0:26:29:15
Title Card:
Press Conference
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw
0:26:27:02 Ty Rogers:
This has been an emotional time for all the families, who’d come to Poland for the ceremony. We have family members from United States, Israel, Argentina, Mexico, I believe from Urugway someone is coming. And this journey has not been made easier by some of the decisions the polish government made regarding the exhumation of bodies and the text that has been put on the monument that will be rededicated tomorrow. The first text that was announced was frankly an insult to the memories of the victims. It denies any polish responsibility and that could be read as blaming the Jews for their own deaths.
0:27:24:20 – 0:27:29:22
Title Card:
Judith Kubran (USA)
Daughter of Jedwabne survivor
0:27:22:09 Judith Kubran:
It is truth that many polish people risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews during the war. I am here today only because of Polish Christian woman who saved my parents lives. There is still hatred and animosity towards those brave people. They must continue to protect themselves or live in fear for themselves and their families.
It is also truth that Polish Christian murders in Jedwabne killed their Jewish neighbors. I know this because my father escaped to hide in the fields. There he heard the awful screams and smelled the burning flesh of his family, friends and neighbors.
0:28:01:29 – 0:28:05:07
Title Card:
Jacob Tzofan (Israel)
Jedwabne survivor
Jacob Tzofan:
They herded more than 2,000 people into the barn, children, older people, they didn’t care. They threw everyone in. they locked them in, poured the gasoline and burned them alive. What can I say? This is what really happened.
0:28:29:22 Mietek:
So I escaped and hid in the field behind the church. And as I laid there, I heard as all the Jews were being gathered to sweep the streets. The Germans were coming to town. It needed to be clean. Since I knew what was going on I ran away to hide. So I stayed until the morning. I was afraid to come out. Then I didn’t hear anything after they were gone. Some people ran away, the other way. They screamed: God, hear us! Please hear us God! I heard the scream… as if a bomb exploded… And I saw fire. Nothing else.
0:29:39:25 Leon:
This is my mother. She was in charge of everything. Whatever she decided had to be done. After the liberation… my brother came and told our mother: They are gathering around to kill al the Jews in hiding. My mother said: Go, warn anyone you can.
I swear on my life… Poles did it. That’s it.
0:30:32:28 Wyrzykowska:
They came, knocked at the door. We had to open it. They said: You Jewish lackeys! You hid them! They killed Christ, but you saved them anyway! They ordered me to lie on the floor. They beat me until I was purple. They hit my father too. I was beaten really badly.
Voice:
What did they hit you with?
Wyrzykowska:
A club.
0:31:16:02 Narration 14:
To this day, Antosia has never spoken to the Polish media about her role in saving Jedwabne Jews. She is so fearful of persecution that she refused to be interviewed in front of her house. She preferred to talk more, once she was out of town
0:31:31:00 Wyrzykowska:
I don’t want anybody to see...
0:31:38:20 Voice:
I wonder… why are you so modest?
0:31:42:08 Wyrzykowska:
If you lived here, you would be the same, or more…
Voice:
Why?
Wyrzykowska:
… because.
Voice:
Somebody like you, who saved seven people...
Wyrzykowska:
And now you have to be afraid. What can you do?
Voice:
Why do you have to be afraid?
Wyrzykowska:
Because you hear people talk…That no good will come out of it. That’s why.
0:32:26:13 Bikont:
I wasn’t trying to get names of the murderers from Antosia. She won’t say. Just as she won’t point the ones who beat her. She knows their names. She won’t tell anybody. She’ll only discuss hiding the Jews. You won’t hear from her about July 10th, but she must know all about it. Everybody who lived there must know. They must have talked about it. She won’t even tell you that it was Poles, not Germans who did it. Antosia is so scared that she won’t reveal anything that goes beyond her personal involvement with the seven Jews she hid.
0:33:06:22 Father Orlowski:
The Poles couldn’t have done it. The Germans devised the plan. Five units of Gestapo, of about 700 men each, they carried out the orders. It was a sentence.
0:33:33:28 – 0:33:38:13
Title Card:
Rabbi Lester Miller:
Rabbi Baker’s son-in-law
0:33:28:01 Miller:
Rabbi Baker as some of us know will be invited to speak tomorrow at the memorial.
Jedwabne, Rabbi Baker feels was not truly polish history. Rabbi Baker feels that hatred that was spawned by the Nazis and that hatred cannot be allowed to continue. And tomorrow he will propose that we as world citizens should take the lesson from Jedwabne and learn that unless we teach our children and our grandchildren not to hate, there’d be other Jedwabnes, another hatred and that can lead only to destruction.
0:34:15:18 Ty Rogers:
My own personal opinion what needs to happen is Jews need to feel ability to live their lives here without hiding their identity.
0:34:56:15 Bikont:
When I go to Jedwabne and I have to listen to all those horrible people who shout and scream at me: You hate Poles! And other horrible things… then my visits to Antosia are like a breath of fresh air.
0:35:16:25 Bikont (cont’d):
I have an embarrassing feeling… a feeling of invulnerability. I can walk around in Jedwabne, they won’t hurt me, because I have an established reputation. I represent Gazeta Wyborcza (the Polish daily paper). If somebody slashed my tires, I’d call the police and they’d be found. I have immunity. The ones who are persecuted, who are harassed in Jedwabne… whose normal lives are made impossible… are the ones who are weak and helpless. They are the elderly who recall what really happened. I expose them to danger by listening to their stories. But I myself never feel at risk.
0:36:11:12 – 0:36:18:13
Title Card:
Day of Monument Rededication Ceremony
60th Anniversary of Jedwabne Massacre
0:36:57:00 Woman on bus:
They were our grandparents, yours and mine.
0:37:06:29 Boy on bus:
I talked to my grandma, she sits over there, and she remembers a lot of her town of Jedwabne. It meant a lot to her for grandson to come and visit with her. And she also told it will be a bit difficult for her. So me, my sister and my mother we went along and it was also important to see where my roots came from. And also maybe a little bit to show that we exist.
0:38:20:04 Ty Rogers:
This sign says “We’re not apologizing. The Germans murdered the Jews in Jedwabne. Let them apologize to Polish people. The Germans murdered Jews in Jedwabne.
0:38:34:20 Jan Gross:
Television has funded a film about it. And yet the fact that in September of this year, after anniversary ceremonies in July that were televised, after all this huge debate, we still have almost 1/3 of the polish population believing that Germans were the exclusive authors.
0:38:54:12 Godlewski:
In my talks with the journalist I tried to clear things to show Jedwabne as a regular town. What happened here took place in many towns… not only in Poland, but all around the world, not to mention the destruction of Native Americans, Aboriginals, or other peoples.
0:39:15:13 – 0:39:19:09
Title Card:
Alberto Aronowitz (Switzerland)
Relative of former Jedwabne resident
0:39:14:16 Aronowitz:
This is the house of the Friedmans, of kaddish Friedmans, my great grandfather who was the szames of the synagogue of Jedwabne, and where he and his wife Tzivia, and his daughter Estergito, her husband and two sons were killed exactly 60 years ago.
0:40:22:07 Godlewski:
The day was unbearably hot. There were no trees in the town square… it was like a frying pan. Many people ran away from Jedwabne that day. They didn’t want to participate. They knew that somebody would make them guard the Jews. Some men would hide away in the basements.
0:40:55:18 – 0:40:58:13
Title Card:
Address from
Aleksander Kwasniewski
President of Poland
0:40:56:08 President:
We cannot have any doubts. Here in Jedwabne Polish citizens were murdered at the hands of other Polish citizens. People for people, neighbors for neighbors, prepared this fate. Because of this crime, we should beg the shadows of the murdered for their forgiveness. Today, as a man, and as a citizen, and as the President of the Republic of Poland I apologize. I apologize in my own name, and in the name of the Poles whose conscience has been touched by that Wednesday, in the name of those who believe that we cannot be proud of the grandeur of the Polish history not experiencing shame and pain at the same time caused by the harm that Poles have inflicted on others.
0:41:49:29 Godlewski:
Nobody from the Town Council attended the ceremony, except the Chairman and myself. Some people watched the event from their windows.
0:42:05:02 Jan Gross:
There is a woman by the name Adamkiewicz, her name is Adamkiewicz. She is from Jedwabne. And she says “you know I was a little girl my mother did not let me out at that time, but how they killed them I know and I remember that scream”. And she just pulls her hands over her ears.
0:42:31:24 Bikont:
I think that a case such as the one of Jedwabne may cause the anti-Semites to become even more anti-Semitic… but those who used the word Jew in a derogatory way without reflecting on it, or fundamentally had a bad opinion of Jews, undergo an inner change. The best example of that process of change is Krzys Godlewski, the mayor of Jedwabne, who, not long ago, and like everybody else in Jedwabne, read Pajak’s anti-Semitic books and believed in the existence of a Jewish conspiracy, because nobody told him otherwise. He changed, through the knowledge…
0:43:32:19 Godlewski:
I’ve received letters… They cold me a traitor, a fool, a Jewish lackey. It was painful. But the truth has its price. You need to bear the consequences of staying your beliefs. There were only few of those unpleasant letters, a minority. There were more serious threats, too. “You’ll end up with a bullet an your head”, said one. I feel that I’ve closed a chapter in my life. I’ve worked for 20 years in Jedwabne. I would like to begin a new life. A life away from politics. I’ve suffered enough emotionally.
0:45:05:17 – 0:45:11:01
Title Card:
Rabbi Jacob Baker
Former Jedwabne resident
0:44:41:09 Rabbi Baker:
If the bandits would ask me advice, what to do? How to plead to Ashem? How to ask forgiveness? I would advise them to come to this place, as the Talmud says, to the place whenever you come here to pray. Tell the world that Poland, our Poland is asking forgiveness, and Hashem should accept it.
0:45:21:27 Speaker:
Now the rabbis will pray for those who have perished here.
0:47:53:29 Godlewski:
The monument is still standing only because it doesn’t mention that the Poles committed the crime. There are skinheads and radical people in Poland who wouldn’t hesitate to spill a bucket of paint on the monument. If the inscription said that the Poles did the monument wouldn’t be standing now. There would be no monument. That would be even worse.
0:48:25:03 – 0:48:31:12
Title card:
Leon Dziedzic was one of several Poles forced by the Germans to bury the bodies of Jews killed during the Jedwabne pogrom.
48:32:09 Leon:
We were told to dig out a ditch. So we did it. There were about 30 of us… they ordered us to remove the barn ash from on top of the bodies, and throw them all into a ditch. It’s hard to talk about it… the bodies were piled up, all entangled… So when it came to the burial, it wasn’t like you could pick up a body. You had to tear the pieces and throw them into the ditch…
Leszek:
It wasn’t a simple thing…
Leon:
Burned, carbonized bodies were on top, the second layer was partially burnt. You couldn’t recognize the bodies in the top layer, they were burnt.
0:49:19:21 Rabbi Baker:
Was it hard identifying them?
0:49:22:17 Leon:
The bodies were carbonized. The ones that were deeper, you could recognize by their clothing. It was a massacre.
0:49:46:22 Godlewski:
I announced my decision to resign in June. But I needed to finish what I’ve started. Nobody asked me to stay when I submitted my resignation. After the Council took a vote on my leave and the majority was in favor, there was applause in the room. It was painful… but bearable.
0:50:31:03 Leszek:
I am very happy to met you, Rabbi, that good people brought me to you. Thank you, it was a pleasure meeting you. And just one thing: I apologize. I apologize in the name of those who lacked the courage when it was most needed.
0:50:57:21 Burton Segelin:
It’s probably Raiza the daughter of our Rabbi, Naftali Katz. May her soul be bound up in the bound of life.
0:51:19:06 Rabin Baker:
What cause them to be so hateful? What was their dream, the fantasia?
They should ask themselves, not to me, who am I? For the youth, for the children. They should tell them: We are terribly sorry by covering up until now, 60 years that they did a terrible sin. And I was afraid whole it may go under again for the end, completely the punishment of G.O.D. Hashem.
0:52:04:04 Mietek:
… and that’s how it was. And if you ask me how I survived all of it, I will answer you: I am not religious, I don’t believe in God. If I did, god would have watched over me… Do you know where God died for me? God died in Auschwitz.
0:52:48:14 Rabin Baker:
This is the family of Rivka Stern. They had a brother here in New York.
0:52:57:12 Narration 15:
There are so few Jews alive today that remember Jedwabne before the massacre. Many of the names and faces of the victims will be forgotten forever, unless effort is taken now to identify them, and to honor their memory.
0:53:49:28 Narration 16:
Poland's Institute for National Remembrance established a commission to investigate the Jedwabne incident and other similar crimes. After two years of study, the commission concluded that the Jedwabne pogrom was not an isolated incident during this period. Hundreds of other Jews were murdered in similar attacks by Poles in more than twenty towns in the same region.
The story of the Jedwabne massacre continues to be a painful wound in the hearts and minds of both Polish Christians and Jews. One can only hope that true history reveals itself in all of our lives, even if this occurs several generations later.
Title card:
Anna Bikont’s book titled “We, from Jedwabne” has generated an intense public reaction in Poland. She is currently considering permanent immigration to New York.
Title card:
Jan Gross became a professor at Princeton University, and completed a book about Jews who survived Russian pogroms and faced anti-Semitism when returning to post-war Poland.
Title card:
Rabbi Baker remains in Brooklyn, NY, and is interested in writing his own memories on Jewish life and culture in pre-war Jedwabne.
Father Orlowski continued to preach in the local church and to defend his theories on the pogrom until his death in 2003.
Title card:
Antosia Wyrzykowska received the “Righteous Among the Nations” medal from the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.
But continuing fear of persecution in her home town has ked her to decline any more interviews on the subject.
Title card:
Mietek, Elsa and Berek Olszewicz in Argentina have also declined any subsequent interviews about their Jedwabne experience.
Title card:
Leon Dziedzic and his family settled in western Massachusetts, and Leszek is awaiting the approval of his request for political asylum in the US.
Title card:
The former mayor of Jedwabne, Krzysztof Godlewski, received the Jan Karski Prize “for courage in opposing stereotypes and prejudices”.
He decided to leave Poland for the United States, and is now employed as a construction worker.
Credits:
Producer & Director
Slawomir Grunberg
Editors
William C. Doll
Christopher Julian
Monika Reder
Erika Street
Original Music
Gary Lucas
Photography
Slawomir Grunberg
Associate Producer
Stephanie Steiker
Production Manager
Erika Street
Production Assistant
Lyla Miller
Post-Production Assistant
Tomasz Gniadek
Web Design
Dane Ewald
Co-Producer (Poland)
Krzysztof Piotrowski
TV Partner
Special Thanks
Suzana Amado
Alberto Aronovitz
Anna Bikont
Moira Fradinger
Jan T. Gross
Gary Hochman
Laura Klein
Judith Kubran
Pawel Bakowski
Ty Rogers
Vlady Rozenbaum
Linda Sametz
Burton Segelin
Stanlee J. Stahl
www.jedwabne.net