“The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust,” by Lisa Moses Leff (Courtesy of Oxford University Press) Jonathan Sarna (Uriel Heilman) It is a sobering and compelling account of anti-Semitism, denial and isolated acts of heroism. Bikont’s magnificent work of investigative journalism details her meticulous reconstruction of the massacre and its subsequent decades-long coverup.
I directed Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s “Our Class,” a play loosely based on the events in Jedwabne, at Tufts in 2012, and remain fascinated by this story of greed, treachery and cruelty, a horrific crime in which as many as 1,600 Jewish men, women and children perished. Perhaps because my paternal grandfather was from Łomża, Poland - a city relatively near Jedwabne - I felt a particular connection to this atrocity, as well as gratitude to him for leaving the country years before the Holocaust. I first read about the Jedwabne massacre in Gross’ book and still remember being riveted by the cover image of a barn engulfed in flames. Holocaust Memorial Council board member, also recommended Bikont’s book. It is written in the form of a journal of the author’s travels and conversations with people.īarbara Grossman, professor of drama at Tufts University and former U.S.
Gross’ controversial book “ Neighbors: the Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland” (2000) proved that the local Poles - not the Germans - committed the massive pogrom in that town in July 1941, Bikont went to Jedwabne and its surroundings, interviewing eyewitnesses to the crime in the years 2000 to 2003, shedding new light on the character of the perpetrators, bystanders and the intricate way the crime was concealed for 50 years after the Holocaust. This book, a winner of the 2015 National Jewish Book Award, was written by a Polish journalist who discovered she was Jewish in her 30s and became deeply engaged in the topic of Polish-Jewish relations.
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