Wąsosz pogrom: Difference between revisions
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==Finkielsztejn's account== |
==Finkielsztejn's account== |
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The only account of what might have happened during the pogrom belongs to a document written by 22-year-old Menachem Finkielsztejn who had lived in the region with his parents [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|under Polish protection]] during [[The Holocaust in Poland|the Holocaust]], before his subsequent emigration to Israel with his family and siblings. The paper, deposited in June 1945 at the Jewish Committee in [[Białystok]], was a rough and unsigned translation from Yiddish, with original, attributed to Finkielsztejn.<ref name=A-K /><ref name="AC">Dr [[Adam Cyra]], Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, [http://www.naszawitryna.pl/jedwabne_186.html Zapomniana relacja] Nasz Dziennik, 2001-03-29</ref> According to Finkielsztejn, the advancing German troops soon moved on leaving behind Nazi police presence. In the second week of the German occupation, a Polish militia was formed on the order of German gendarmerie. It consisted of "local thugs", wrote Finkielsztejn. On 5 July 1941 this unit surrounded Wąsosz to prevent Jews from escaping, and a house to house pogrom began.<ref name="WZKH" /><ref name="MF" / |
The only account of what might have happened during the pogrom belongs to a document written by 22-year-old Menachem Finkielsztejn who had lived in the region with his parents [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|under Polish protection]] during [[The Holocaust in Poland|the Holocaust]], before his subsequent emigration to Israel with his family and siblings. The paper, deposited in June 1945 at the Jewish Committee in [[Białystok]], was a rough and unsigned translation from Yiddish, with original, attributed to Finkielsztejn.<ref name=A-K /><ref name="AC">Dr [[Adam Cyra]], Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, [http://www.naszawitryna.pl/jedwabne_186.html Zapomniana relacja] Nasz Dziennik, 2001-03-29</ref> According to Finkielsztejn, the advancing German troops soon moved on leaving behind Nazi police presence. In the second week of the German occupation, a Polish militia was formed on the order of German gendarmerie. It consisted of "local thugs", wrote Finkielsztejn. On 5 July 1941 this unit surrounded Wąsosz to prevent Jews from escaping, and a house to house pogrom began.<ref name="WZKH" /><ref name="MF" /> |
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As Finkielsztejn writes – on 6 July 1941 the Jews who escaped from Wąsosz arrived in the neighboring town of [[Radziłów]], but the next day pogrom broke out there as well. According to his deposition 1,500 local and refugee Jews were burned there in a barn.<ref name="MF">Translation from Polish translation: [http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/grajewo/gra228.html "Reported by Menachem Finkelsztajn / Born in Radzilow, age 22 / Extermination of Jews in the Districts of Grajewo and Lomza in July, 1941."] The District Jewish Historical Committee Bialystok, 14 June 1946 No. 5/46. ''Publisher makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation.''</ref> However, there's also an early Polish monument on the outskirts of Radziłów which reads, "In August 1941 fascists murdered 800 persons of Jewish descent [undated], 500 of them were burned alive in a barn." The date on the monument is incorrect but historical research confirms that Jews were killed in Radziłów on 7 July how many, and under what circumstances, remains unknown. The pages from Finkielsztejn's paper describing the actual pogrom vanished from the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw in the following years.<ref name=A-K>Andrzej Kaczynski, [http://www.radzilow.com/rzeczpospolita.htm Thou Shall Not Kill] Rzeczpospolita, no. 159, 10 July 2000: "Nie zabijaj"</ref> According to the remaining page, the Germans found later, that allegedly only fifteen Jews were left alive in Wąsosz.<ref name="Pinkas"/> The Jews stayed in the town until June 1942 under the supervision of German gendarmerie who "behaved properly" (whatever it means); and were used by the Nazis for [[forced labor]] purposes. Finkielsztejn insisted that all criminals were Polish, even those who had Russian names, or were driving German tanks, while armed to their teeth by the Gestapo. His paper ends there. In November 1942 the survivors were moved to the [[Bogusze, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship|Bogusze]] transit camp and in January 1943 sent to [[Majdanek]] or [[Treblinka]] [[extermination camp]]s.<ref name="Pinkas"/> |
As Finkielsztejn writes – on 6 July 1941 the Jews who escaped from Wąsosz arrived in the neighboring town of [[Radziłów]], but the next day pogrom broke out there as well. According to his deposition 1,500 local and refugee Jews were burned there in a barn.<ref name="MF">Translation from Polish translation: [http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/grajewo/gra228.html "Reported by Menachem Finkelsztajn / Born in Radzilow, age 22 / Extermination of Jews in the Districts of Grajewo and Lomza in July, 1941."] The District Jewish Historical Committee Bialystok, 14 June 1946 No. 5/46. ''Publisher makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation.''</ref> However, there's also an early Polish monument on the outskirts of Radziłów which reads, "In August 1941 fascists murdered 800 persons of Jewish descent [undated], 500 of them were burned alive in a barn." The date on the monument is incorrect but historical research confirms that Jews were killed in Radziłów on 7 July how many, and under what circumstances, remains unknown. The pages from Finkielsztejn's paper describing the actual pogrom vanished from the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw in the following years.<ref name=A-K>Andrzej Kaczynski, [http://www.radzilow.com/rzeczpospolita.htm Thou Shall Not Kill] Rzeczpospolita, no. 159, 10 July 2000: "Nie zabijaj"</ref> According to the remaining page, the Germans found later, that allegedly only fifteen Jews were left alive in Wąsosz.<ref name="Pinkas"/> The Jews stayed in the town until June 1942 under the supervision of German gendarmerie who "behaved properly" (whatever it means); and were used by the Nazis for [[forced labor]] purposes. Finkielsztejn insisted that all criminals were Polish, even those who had Russian names, or were driving German tanks, while armed to their teeth by the Gestapo. His paper ends there. In November 1942 the survivors were moved to the [[Bogusze, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship|Bogusze]] transit camp and in January 1943 sent to [[Majdanek]] or [[Treblinka]] [[extermination camp]]s.<ref name="Pinkas"/> |
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Revision as of 08:36, 8 May 2018
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The Wąsosz pogrom was the mass murder of Jewish residents of Wąsosz in Nazi German occupied Poland that took place on 5 July 1941, during World War II.
Circumstances surrounding the pogrom
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the village of Wąsosz (Podlaskie Voivodeship) was taken by the Germans in the second week of the war.[1] At the end of September, in accordance with the German–Soviet Boundary Treaty, the area was transferred by the Nazis to the Soviet Union.[1]
The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East two weeks earlier, on 17 September 1939, pursuant to the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Red Army overran 52.1% of territory of Poland with over 13,700,000 inhabitants.[2] The Soviet occupation zone included 5.1 million ethnic Poles (ca. 38%),[2] 37% Ukrainians,[2] 14.5% Belarusians,[2] 8.4% Jews,[2] 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans.[2] There were also 336,000 refugees who escaped to eastern Poland from areas already occupied by Germany – most of them Polish Jews numbering at around 198,000.[2]
Following the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union, German Wehrmacht re-entered Wąsosz on 22 June 1941.[1] At that time, 800 Jews lived in the town according to the one and only one existing deposition.[3][4]
Finkielsztejn's account
The only account of what might have happened during the pogrom belongs to a document written by 22-year-old Menachem Finkielsztejn who had lived in the region with his parents under Polish protection during the Holocaust, before his subsequent emigration to Israel with his family and siblings. The paper, deposited in June 1945 at the Jewish Committee in Białystok, was a rough and unsigned translation from Yiddish, with original, attributed to Finkielsztejn.[5][6] According to Finkielsztejn, the advancing German troops soon moved on leaving behind Nazi police presence. In the second week of the German occupation, a Polish militia was formed on the order of German gendarmerie. It consisted of "local thugs", wrote Finkielsztejn. On 5 July 1941 this unit surrounded Wąsosz to prevent Jews from escaping, and a house to house pogrom began.[3][7]
As Finkielsztejn writes – on 6 July 1941 the Jews who escaped from Wąsosz arrived in the neighboring town of Radziłów, but the next day pogrom broke out there as well. According to his deposition 1,500 local and refugee Jews were burned there in a barn.[7] However, there's also an early Polish monument on the outskirts of Radziłów which reads, "In August 1941 fascists murdered 800 persons of Jewish descent [undated], 500 of them were burned alive in a barn." The date on the monument is incorrect but historical research confirms that Jews were killed in Radziłów on 7 July how many, and under what circumstances, remains unknown. The pages from Finkielsztejn's paper describing the actual pogrom vanished from the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw in the following years.[5] According to the remaining page, the Germans found later, that allegedly only fifteen Jews were left alive in Wąsosz.[1] The Jews stayed in the town until June 1942 under the supervision of German gendarmerie who "behaved properly" (whatever it means); and were used by the Nazis for forced labor purposes. Finkielsztejn insisted that all criminals were Polish, even those who had Russian names, or were driving German tanks, while armed to their teeth by the Gestapo. His paper ends there. In November 1942 the survivors were moved to the Bogusze transit camp and in January 1943 sent to Majdanek or Treblinka extermination camps.[1]
IPN investigation
The crimes committed in Wąsosz are being investigated by Institute of National Remembrance of Poland,[8] under the direction of the IPN prosecutor Radosław Ignatiew who earlier investigated the atrocities in Jedwabne.[9] Ignatiew pointed to the role of the Gestapo agent Mieczysław Kosmowski a.k.a. "Gienek" (born 1913) renamed Walter Krause and paid 250 Deutsche marks per month by the Gestapo for his denunciations of Poles and Jews in the Białystok region. The IPN chief prosecutor in Białystok, Zbigniew Kulikowski, named agent Kosmowski (last seen in Bydgoszcz in 1944), as the main instigator of the Nazi German raid on the Jewish community of Wąsosz.[10]
References
- ^ a b c d e Abraham Wein, ed. (1989). Pinkas hakehillot Polin. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
- ^ a b c d e f g Trela-Mazur, Elżbieta (1998) [1997]. Włodzimierz Bonusiak; Stanisław Jan Ciesielski; Zygmunt Mańkowski; Mikołaj Iwanow (eds.). Sovietization of educational system in the eastern part of Lesser Poland under the Soviet occupation, 1939-1941 [Sowietyzacja oświaty w Małopolsce Wschodniej pod radziecką okupacją 1939-1941]. Kielce: Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna im. Jana Kochanowskiego. pp. 43, 294. ISBN 83-7133-100-2.. Also in: Trela-Mazur 1997, Wrocławskie Studia Wschodnie, Wrocław.
- ^ a b Template:Pl icon Wojewódzka Żydowska Komisja Historyczna w Białymstoku, 14 VI 1946 roku."Relacja Menachema Finkelsztajna: Zagłada Żydów w powiecie grajewskim i łomźyńskim w lipcu 1941 r." Archived from the original on April 20, 2008. Retrieved October 14, 2010.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) (deposition by Menachem Finkelsztajn; commentary by prof. Tomasz Strzembosz) 47. ŻIH. - ^ Translation from Polish: "Reported by Menachem Finkelsztajn / Born in Radzilow, age 22 / Extermination of Jews in the Districts of Grajewo and Lomza in July, 1941." The District Jewish Historical Committee Bialystok, June 14, 1946 No. 5/46. Publisher makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation.
- ^ a b Andrzej Kaczynski, Thou Shall Not Kill Rzeczpospolita, no. 159, 10 July 2000: "Nie zabijaj"
- ^ Dr Adam Cyra, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, Zapomniana relacja Nasz Dziennik, 2001-03-29
- ^ a b Translation from Polish translation: "Reported by Menachem Finkelsztajn / Born in Radzilow, age 22 / Extermination of Jews in the Districts of Grajewo and Lomza in July, 1941." The District Jewish Historical Committee Bialystok, 14 June 1946 No. 5/46. Publisher makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation.
- ^ Template:Pl icon Sprostowanie do artykułu redaktor Anny Bikont „Pięć lat po Jedwabnem” zamieszczonym w „Gazecie Wyborczej” z dnia 4-5.03.2006 r.
- ^ Template:Pl icon "Śledztwo w sprawie zbrodni na Żydach w Jedwabnem zostanie prawdopodobnie umorzone do końca marca" Informacyjna Agencja Radiowa, 2003-01-21
- ^ Template:Pl icon Adam Białous, "Niemcy płacili i za pogromy, i za denuncjację polskich żołnierzy" Nasz Dziennik, Sobota-Niedziela, 11-12 lipca 2009, Nr 161 (3482)
See also