The Legacy Of Jedwabne Outline

JONAH FOUCHé

Grade 12-M

History - RESEARCH TASK

Question/Topic

How does the documentary film The Legacy of Jedwabne (2005) blur the boundary between the killing fields of Jedwabne and the bureaucracy of Nazi Germany, thereby shifting the identity of both victim and perpetrator?

16.2

1. Introduction to Essay

2. Sources

3. Summary of Sources

20.4

1. Revised Introduction

2. Detailed Sources

3. Evaluation of Sources

18.6

1. Revised Introduction

2. Detailed Sources

3. Evaluation of Sources

4. Processing of Findings

23. 7

1. Revised Introduction

2. Detailed Sources

3. Evaluation of Sources

4. Processing of Findings

5. Corrections

6. Bibliography

Introduction

Holocaust historian Christopher Browning proposes that “at the core of the Holocaust was a short, intense wave of mass murder.” Through a historical examination, The Legacy of Jedwabne, a 2005 documentary, elucidates the complexity of this mass murder to which Browning refers. This documentary presents

an argument that by shifting the predominant focus of Holocaust analysis from the bureaucracy of the Nazi regime and its institutionalised killing centers, to an inspection of informal mass killings and executions, scholars can fundamentally redefine and broaden our understanding of the Holocaust. Investigation of these informal killings, occurring against the backdrop of the ‘double occupation’ of Poland, first by the Soviet Union and later by Germany, enables scholars to unpack the tensions and complex dynamics of the relationships between German gentiles, Polish gentiles and Jews, as well as those between Polish gentiles and Polish Jews.
The Legacy of Jedwabne is concerned with a singular expression of mass murder that occurred during the Holocaust, namely the planned massacre and violent slaughter of 1 600 Jewish men, women and children that was carried out by the residents of Jedwabne, a town in Poland. The documentary’s investigation represents the movement toward what King terms the “disaggregation” of the Holocaust. This entails viewing the Holocaust “as a macro-historical matrix of highly variable forms of mass killing, resistance, and survival.” The Nazi regime created a vast and powerful network of concentration camps designed to silence and terrorise opponents of Hitler’s regime. Slave-labour camps became an indispensable part of the war economy and thousands of camps serving different purposes were scattered throughout German-occupied Europe. While these camps offered no respite and are, as such, symbols of Nazi brutality, equally appalling were fragmented heinous murders and killings across Europe’s landscape, incidents that disembodied the spirit of society and community but which are inseparable from the larger killing fields. This documentary of the wholesale slaughter of Jedwabne’s Jewish residents explores exactly this.

Jan Gross’s 2001 book, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland prompts a profound understanding of the Holocaust not solely as a German phenomenon. Rather, it stimulates exploration of the overlapping and blurred borders between perpetrator, victim and bystander, Similarly, Christopher Browning’s analysis investigates how ‘ordinary men’ became perpetrators of Hitler’s racial and colonial project and evolved into dehumanised killing machines.
The Jedwabne massacre as portrayed in the documentary dramatically alters our understanding of the Holocaust as it steers a view that the Holocaust was a ‘heterogeneous phenomenon’ constituted by both its technologically advanced organised bureaucracy and the equally heinous informal killings. This prompts the joint operation of two contrasting systems, blurring the boundaries between victim and perpetrator.

Summary of Evidence
Source 1 – Grunberg, S. 2006. The Legacy of Jedwabne.
Interviewees throughout the film comprise numerous survivors of the massacre, together with their family members and offspring, and former residents of Jedwabne. The film additionally features the previous mayor of Jedwabne, the current Parish priest of Jedwabne and journalists and authors (Ana Bikont and Jan Gross). Amongst those interviewed, descriptions of prewar Jedwabne uniformly portray an intimacy, normality and civility of relationships between Poles and Jews. Leon Dziedzic, a former resident of Jedwabne, emphasises these everyday cordial relations. Herewith, he reminisces that one could buy three buns for five cents from a Jew and two buns for five cents from a Pole, thereby illustrating the proximity that existed between Jews and Poles in all aspects of life. Additionally, Rabbi Jacob Baker expresses his love for prewar Jedwabne, stating that it was a “living beautiful town.”
The mayor, Krzyfstof Godlewski, is a central figure in the documentary. He presents his position on what happened in Jedwabne and what he feels his role is in the preservation of its memory. He openly and unyieldingly expresses that the brutal killings were conducted and executed by the Polish residents of Jedwabne and not by German authorities. It appears that Godlewski believes his duty, as mayor, is that of acknowledgement. This acknowledgement is two-fold. It involves both the admission that Poles indeed did commit these atrocities and the recognition that Jews were an essential component of Polish society and of the Jedwabne community. Herewith, he states that “they [Jews] lived here, were part of this town and its history.”

Source 2 – Browning, C.R. 1998. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Browning’s 1992 book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the
Final Solution in Poland, is an intense study of the German Ordnungspolizei
(Order Police) Reserve Unit 101, recognised for their notorious round-ups of
Jews for deportations to the Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland in
1942. Browning reinforces that the men of Unit 101 were not Nazi SS Officers
but simply ordinary middle-aged men of working-class background from
Hamburg, who had been drafted but found ineligible for regular military duty.
Following their return to Poland in June 1942 these men were ordered to
terrorise Jews in the ghettos during Operation Reinhard, and moreover
committed fullscale deplorable wholesale massacres of Polish Jews – men,
women and children – namely in the towns of Józefów and Łomazy. These
men were allowed to opt out of duty if they found the murders too arduous a
task but few exercised that option. Browning argues that the men of Unit 101
killed not out of blind hatred but out of a basic obedience to authority and peer
pressure. Browning proposes that ordinary people, when placed in a cohesive group environment, will adhere to the commands set upon them, even if not in
agreeance to the moral implication thereof. Browning’s analysis represents a
marked shift from the monolithic historical approach which regards ‘the
concentration camp as the quintessential experience’ of the Holocaust. He
presents the camps as symbols of Nazi brutality yet equally appalling
presents the fragmented heinous murders and killings across Europe’s
landscape, incidents that disembodied the spirit of community. These events are ultimately inseparable from the larger killing fields.

Source 3 - Gross, J.T. 2001. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gross’ book Neighbors is concerned with a singular expression of mass murder carried out by the residents of Jedwabne, a Polish town.

Gross discloses the ‘major but largely silent dimension of the Final Solution.’ He affirms that half of the six million Jews who were shot, gassed or starved did not ever see a concentration camp. He thus shows the multiplicity of ways in which the victims of the Holocaust perished. The carnage that took place ruptured the social landscape. Gross’s historical investigation proves how “the entire town council participate in this murder of the Jews.” Supported by personal testimonies, he shows how the Polish population bestially massacred the town’s Jewish residents. He further adds that “everybody who was in the town that 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.” Herewith, “a bunch of ordinary men” catapulted, with a sense of immediacy, to perpetrators and

bystanders.
Source 4 - Bergen, D.L. 2006. Experiments in Brutality, 1939-1940: War against Poland and the So-Called Euthanasia Program in, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
This source constitutes one chapter in Bergen’s historical exploration of the Holocaust. This source concerns itself with Germany’s euthanasia program and as the title of the chapter indicates, Nazi experiments in brutality. Additionally, this chapter examines the role and importance of Poland to Hitler’s imperial and racial program, culminating in Germany’s September 1939 invasion or blitzkrieg of Poland. Herewith, Source 4 notes how Jews in the conquered territories, Poland included, became victims of Nazi persecution and were subjected to humiliation, oppressive restrictions and grotesque brutality. Furthermore, Poland and the Polish people, both Jews and gentiles alike, were integral to the twofold “Nazi quest for race and space.” This source additionally engages with the particularities of the Polish situation. When German forces occupied Poland in 1939, they immediately initiated and implemented their German Anti-Polish Campaign. In terms of race, Polish gentiles were ranked equally with Slavic people on the Nazi hierarchy of racial superiority. Herewith, although seen of a higher quality of specimen than that of Jews, both Polish gentiles and Polish Jews were regarded as “Untermenschen, subhumans.” They were thus treated with contempt and prejudice, classified as a subordinate and inferior people to Hitler’s master Aryan race. Additionally, Poles were victims to Lebensraum, Hitler’s imperialist and expansionist campaign. This source therefore presents a Polish national history of victimhood under the German occupying outfit.

Evaluation of Sources

Source 1 - Grunberg, S. 2006. The Legacy of Jedwabne.
USEFULNESS - This source is useful to a large extent as it shows that the
massacre of Jedwabne was not an isolated incident but one of many pogroms
that occurred within the region. This demonstrates that the brutality witnessed
was not exclusive to Jedwabne, but rather endemic of atrocities committed by
everyday people who became perpetrators of unimaginable depravity. Among
those interviewed what is portrayed is the normality and civility of relationships
between Poles and Jews during prewar Europe and the horrific turn of events
and redefining of perpetrators.
VALIDITY - The source’s primary objective is to emphasise the tensions and
complex dynamics of the relationships between German gentiles, Polish
gentiles and Jews, as well as those between Polish gentiles and Polish Jews.
This prompts a profound understanding of the Holocaust not solely as a
German phenomenon.
RELIABILITY – This source utilises one-on-one interviews with journalists,
survivors and contemporaries so there is a proximity of experience to the events discussed.
LIMITATION - This source is limited as it is a filmmaker’s/historian’s account
and review of a massacre that could be refuted by others and while the
interviews documented are true and real, a different perspective could unveil
a different truth.

Source 2 - Browning, C.R. 1998. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

USEFULNESS – This source is largely useful as it offers perspective on the
interaction between ordinary civilians evolving into mass murderers and
integrating this into the history of massacres on an unparalleled scale. 

VALIDITY – The source’s central objective is to understand the ideology of
the perpetrators and to accurately explore the factors shaping the
collaboration of citizens with governing authorities.

RELIABILITY – Browning successfully merges facts with a deconstruction of
those facts by interweaving the actions of the perpetrators and their
separation from human suffering. He ploughs the minds of the perpetrators as
they bought into the Nazi program of establishing a master race through the conquering of European territories and the annihilation and elimination of populations who did not suit Hitler’s Aryan vision.
LIMITATION – Browning’s account and analysis could be regarded as limiting
in its single-mindedness; skeptics could regard this as erroneous information.

Source 3 - Gross, J.T. 2001. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
USEFULNESS – Gross’s examination of one of a series of violent pogroms
that occurred on non-German territory outside of Nazi labour and
concentration camps is largely useful as he discloses another dimension to
the killing of the six million Jews, namely that of a series of informal mass killings. 

VALIDITY – Gross shifts the geographic focal point of the Holocaust away
from Germany to the war-torn affected territories – he thus shows what numerous scholars refer to as ‘the Holocaust without the Germans.’ He therefore foregrounds the actions of those who were not German Nazis but rather ordinary men and women who desired the annihilation of world Jewry and who used informal killings as the mechanism in order to further their quest.

RELIABILITY – Gross’s interviews are largely reliable as sources as he
quotes individuals, many of whom were first-hand witnesses to the Jedwabne massacre. Moreover, these accounts have never refuted the claims made in Neighbors, namely that the Polish citizens of Jedwabne carried out these violent murders. The book thus transcends a traditional interpretation of the Holocaust epoch. 

LIMITATION – The book is limiting in that it could be interpreted as an
obfuscation of clear facts as its unshackling of personalities and events
obscures the traditional approach to Holocaust research, namely an approach which firstly concentrated solely on Nazi concentration camps, and secondly, an approach that recognised German Nazis as the sole perpetrators in this historical period .

Source 4 - Source 4 - Bergen, D.L. 2006. Experiments in Brutality, 1939-1940: War against Poland and the So-Called Euthanasia Program in, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

USEFULNESS – Bergen’s investigation is extremely useful as this source is an in-depth case study of occupied Poland during the overlapping period of World War II and the Holocaust. Furthermore, it is useful as it documents the Nazi ideology and its accompanying behavior towards those of Polish and Slavic descent.
VALIDITY – This source primary aim is an analysis of the German invasion and conquest of Poland in 1939. Through this examination, Bergen discloses and highlights the German-Anti Polish Campaign. This source, read together with the other sources, expose the convoluted Polish wartime experience, namely the brutality and persecution inflicted on Polish gentiles and Jews alike.
RELIABILITY - Bergen’s thorough inspection is reliable as she supports her claims and unpacking of the Nazi ideology through detailed case studies. She therefore explores the themes of the division of Poland, competing authorities and German plans for the Poles, ethnic Germans and resettlement schemes and the German policies of divide and conquer. Through an interrogation of these numerous themes as discussed above, Bergen communicates a holistically accurate picture of the Polish experience during the Holocaust.
LIMITATION – This source could be considered limiting in that it relates solely a narrative of Polish victimhood during this period, whilst failing to acknowledge the role Polish gentiles performed in furthering Hitler’s racial objectives. It therefore views Polish gentiles as victims and not as perpetrators.

Processing of Findings

Holocaust historian Christopher Browning proposes that “at the core of the Holocaust was a short, intense wave of mass murder.” Through a historical examination, The Legacy of Jedwabne, a 2005 documentary, elucidates the complexity of this mass murder to which Browning refers. This documentary shifts the predominant focus of Holocaust analysis from the bureaucracy of the Nazi regime and its institutionalised killing centres to an inspection of informal mass killings and executions, thereby redefining and broadening our understanding of the Holocaust. Herewith, by blurring this boundary between the killing fields of Jedwabne and the bureaucracy of Nazi Germany, this fundamentally alters and complicates the identities of both perpetrators and victims during this historical period.
Browning’s work examines the German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) Reserve Unit 101. This unit was responsible for the round-ups of Jews for deportations to Nazi death camps in German occupied Poland in 1942 (Source 2). These reserve battalions were not Nazi SS Officers but were comprised of simple ordinary middle-aged men of working-class background from Hamburg, who had been drafted but found ineligible for regular military duty. This reserve battalion was responsible for monstrous and horrific crimes such as terrorising Jews in the ghettos during Operation Reinhard whilst additionally committing fullscale deplorable wholesale massacres of Polish Jews – men, women and children in the towns of Józefów and Łomazy (Source 2). These men were allowed to opt out of duty if they found the murders too arduous a task but few exercised that option. Source 2 therefore unequiviocally positions these German middle-aged men as perpetrators, acting in order to further achieve and implement Hitler’s Final Solution. Furthermore, it communicates that the targets of these violent campaigns, namely Polish Jewish residents, were the victims (Source 2).
In contrast to the clarity and lucidity that Source 2 arrives at in establishing the identities of perpetrators and victims during this historical period, when exploring other informal mass killings, this distinction between perpetrator and victim is not as clear-cut. Herewith, the documentary film The Legacy of Jedwabne is concerned with a singular expression of mass murder that occurred during the Holocaust. This documentary examines the planned massacre and violent slaughter of 1 600 Jewish men, women and children that was carried out by the residents of Jedwabne, a town in Poland (Source 1). Investigation of these informal killings, occurring against the backdrop of the ‘double occupation’ of Poland, first by the Soviet Union and later by Germany, unpacks the tensions and complex dynamics of the relationships between German gentiles, Polish gentiles and Jews, as well as those between Polish gentiles and Polish Jews. In this documentary, comprised of numerous interviews, the mayor, Krzyfstof Godlewski, a central figure in the documentary, presents his position on what happened in Jedwabne and what he feels his role is in the preservation of its memory. He openly and unyieldingly expresses that the brutal killings of this massacre were conducted and executed by the Polish residents of Jedwabne and not by German authorities (Source 1). It appears that Godlewski believes his duty, as mayor, is that of acknowledgement. This acknowledgement is two-fold. It involves both the admission that Poles indeed did commit these atrocities and the recognition that Jews were an essential component of Polish society and of the Jedwabne community (Source 1). Source 3 further supports these findings. In Source 3, Gross unequivocally emphasises that on the 10th of July 1941, local Polish residents readily carried out the murder of the Jews of Jedwabne. Gross additionally states that the “entire town council [all Polish residents], participated in this murder of the Jews.” Personal testimonies further strengthen Gross’s assertion. Julia Sokolowska, a cook for the gendarmes in Jedwabne during the time of the decimation of the town’s Jewish population expresses that “Germans did not beat the Jews; the Polish population bestially massacred the Jews” (Source 3). The above-recorded statements in Source 3, together with the documentary film (Source 1), clearly identify the Polish gentile residents of Jedwabne as perpetrators, as they willingly carried out this massacre of the town’s Jewish residents.
However, in addition to the conclusions of Source 1 and Source 3, Source 4 highlights that Poland and the Polish people, Jews and gentiles alike, were integral to the twofold Nazi quest for racial supremacy and colonial expansion (Source 4). When German forces occupied Poland in 1939, they immediately initiated and implemented their German Anti-Polish Campaign. In terms of race, Polish gentiles were ranked equally with Slavic people on the Nazi hierarchy of racial superiority (Source 4). Herewith, although seen of a higher quality of specimen than that of Jews, both Polish gentiles and Polish Jews were regarded as “Untermenschen, subhumans” (Source 4). They were thus treated with contempt and prejudice, seen as a subordinate and inferior people to Hitler’s master Aryan race (Source 4). Bergen thus notes that “German nationalists commonly contrasted what they considered their culture’s unique achievements with the supposed primitivism and barbarism of their neighbors to the east” (Source 4). Additionally, Poles were victims to Lebensraum, Hitler’s imperialist and expansionist campaign. The German occupation of Poland therefore presents a Polish national history of victimhood. This historical understanding of Polish gentiles as victims under German occupying forces contrasts starkly with the events that occurred in Jebwabne as discussed above, whereby Polish gentiles are presented as being perpetrators (Source 1 and Source 3). The above-paragraph therefore illustrates the contradictory nature of Poland’s national history and the difficulty in delineating perpetrator from victim.
In conclusion, from the above analysis and interpretation one can deduce that the Holocaust was a heterogeneous phenomenon constituted by both its technologically advanced organised bureaucracy and the equally heinous informal killings. In line with this, Source 2 identifies the German Ornungspolizei (Order Police) Reserve Unit 101 as unmistakable and outright perpetrators. However, Source 1 and Source 3 prompt a profound understanding of the Holocaust not solely as a German phenomenon, foregrounding the actions of those who were not German Nazis in either furthering or obstructing the Nazi plan, that being the total annihilation of world Jewry. Herewith, these two sources (1 & 3) identify the Polish gentile residents of Jedwabne as perpetrators, as they willingly engaged in the indiscriminate massacre of the town’s Jewish residents. This narrative is however complicated by Source 4, which positions Polish gentiles as victims of German prejudice and Hitler’s colonial and racial program. One can thus conclude that by investigating the blurred boundaries between the killing fields of Jedwabne and the bureaucracy of Nazi Germany, as has been achieved above, this fundamentally alters and highlights the overlapping, blurred and complicated identities of both perpetrators and victims during this dark and complex period of the Twentieth Century.

Bibliography
Bergen, D.L. 2006. Experiments in Brutality, 1939-1940: War against Poland and the So-Called Euthanasia Program in, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Browning, C.R. 1998. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Gross, J.T. 2001. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Grunberg, S. 2006. The Legacy of Jedwabne.