Another WWII Grave of Jews Found

[henryk]

https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Ar ... and-report

WWII grave, believed to contain murdered Jews, found in Poland: report

Polish Radio 14.10.2019 14:40

A World War II-era mass grave believed to contain the remains of Jews murdered by Germans has been uncovered in Wizna, north-eastern Poland, the Rzeczpospolita daily reported on its website on Monday.
Photo:facebook.com/stowarzyszeniewizna.1939/

The grave, located in a bomb crater, contains the remains of the town’s pre-war Jewish residents as well as German ammunition casings, and was discovered during research, the daily quoted local historical association “Wizna 1939” as saying. According to Dariusz Szymanowski, the head of Wizna 1939, the research “confirmed accounts of mass, brutal murders of civilians by the Germans in June 1941.”

In June 1941, Nazi Germany began the invasion of the Soviet Union in an operation dubbed “Operation Barbarossa,” which ultimately failed when Adolf Hitler’s forces were overpowered by the Red Army in the 1942 Battle of Moscow. Rzeczpospolita cited historians as saying that Germans entered Wizna soon after Operation Barbarossa had begun. “From the very beginning, coordinated efforts started to murder the local Jews. Many of them managed to escape to Jedwabne or other nearby towns, trying to escape repression and death,” Dariusz Szymanowski was cited by the daily as saying. He added: “In Wizna, two most-remembered tragic events took place: one is the shooting of a group of Jews on the outskirts of town, the second is the murder of women, children and elderly people rounded up in a smithy in Wizna […] The Germans threw a couple of grenades inside the small building, murdering people gathered inside.”

“Thanks to several years of talks with the residents of Wizna, we managed to establish that the Germans threw the murdered Jews into a bomb crater,” Szymanowski was quoted by the daily as saying.The daily quoted the Wizna 1939 website as reporting that Jan Nadolny, a resident of the town, has said that “this field, where the hole is, it used to belong to my father-in-law and he told me that there were 30 or 36 people in that hole.”
(jh/pk)
Source: Rzeczpospolita

[Gorque]

Hmmm...

The summer of 1941, the start of Operation Barbarossa, witnessed the mass murder of Jews in two provinces in north-eastern Poland (Łomza and Grajewo), murders in which local Poles played a significant role, on their own initiative. The murder of the Jews of one of the communities in the region, Jedwabne, was the subject of Jan Gross’s Neighbors, yet thorough research indicates Jedwabne was not the only such case. This essay, based on numerous accounts by both Poles and Jews, seeks to examine the part played by Poles in Jews’ murders in nine additional communities in the area, prior to events in Jedwabne. In order to draw a full picture of events, the essay describes relations between Jews and Poles in the region during the inter-war period, as well as under Soviet rule (1939–41). At the same time it describes the emergence, in both provinces, of the idea of settling the score with the Jews in an attempt to get rid of them once and for all. Since these events were unprecedented and unique in Poland at that period, the essay also addresses the issue of why the murders were committed in this specific region.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 3.11087369

Wizna Jews during the Holocaust
On 22 June 1941, during Operation Barbarossa, most of the houses of Wizna's 600 Jews were burned down following an aerial bombardment. Five German soldiers arrived on 24 June 1941, and local Poles killed three Jews on the same day. Jews fled the town, and local Polish collaborators searched for them in the surrounding villages and turned them over to the Germans after beating up the Jews and their Polish helpers. On 26 June, local Poles locked 20 Jews up in a smithy and a German threw in hand grenades, killing them all. Most of the town's Jews returned by early July, and dozens were killed by the Germans.[5] The Polish mayor ordered the expulsion of the Jews, due to the lack of housing, some traveled to Łomża and some 200-240 traveled to Jedwabne where many perished on 10 July 1941 in the Jedwabne pogrom.[5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizna

[history1]

Why do you call rthis thread "Another WWII Grave of Jews Found" when even your source admits " BELIEVED to contain the remains of Jews"???
German ammunition casings are neither a hint nor proof for the perpetrator. Didn´ty they find in Katyn also German ammo casings, AFAIR? And it´s not a secret that Polish partisans did use the weapons of their enemies. Countless photos are showing them with eg. German sub-machine guns.
Seems that Dariusz Szymanowski needs to learn a lot. I call this case a propaganda-fail.

[henryk]

I don't believe there is a dispute that Jews were in the grave:

A World War II-era mass grave believed to contain the remains of Jews murdered by Germans

The question was whether it was by Germans.
Szymanowski bases his report on the accounts of a number of eye witnesses:

“Thanks to several years of talks with the residents of Wizna, we managed to establish that the Germans threw the murdered Jews into a bomb crater,” Szymanowski was quoted by the daily as saying.The daily quoted the Wizna 1939 website as reporting that Jan Nadolny, a resident of the town, has said that “this field, where the hole is, it used to belong to my father-in-law and he told me that there were 30 or 36 people in that hole.”

I remind you of Gross's standard:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040620211 ... e_en_7.php

Piotr Gontarczyk, a Polish author comments on Gross's book : "The author of 'Neigbors' has used uncritically an extremely poor selection of sources. His book is replete with ill-founded statements; he leaves out or obscures whatever doesn't fit his preconceived thesis, constructing a narrative on the basis of stereotypes, biases, and common gossip. In his reasoning, he doesn't abide by the rules of logic or scholarly objectivity. In short, Gross makes arbitrary metaphysical-ideological statements that have no scholarly grounds whatsoever. Because of all these shortcomings, Gross's book cannot be the basis of any serious discussion on the Polish history in general, and on the Jedwabne crime in particular"


There are thousands of lies, but there is only one truth.

Every murder is a tragedy, one that should not happen.
But every false accusation of committing a murder is also a tragedy - a tragedy for the accused. It should not happen either.
Of course, every investigation of a murder should be conducted with an extreme caution. All the evidence should be scrutinized in the minutest detail. Not only to establish the whole truth, to point the perpetrator and possible accomplices, and to bring them to justice, but also to prevent accusations against innocent people. Especially when a mass murder seems to be the case.
It is evident that in his book on the alleged superpogrom of 1600 (sic!) Jews, allegedly perpetrated by the Poles in the German-occupied eastern Poland, J.T. Gross have not shown due caution, but voiced mere opinions whose basis is the vague testimony of two Jewish "eye-witnesses," Shmul Wasersztajn and Rivka Fogel.
Below are fragments of their testimony.
Rivka Fogel:
"Two sisters, the wife of Avraham Kubrzanski and the wife of Saul Binsztajn, whose husbands fled with the Russians, having endured a horrible punishment at the hands of the Germans, decided to end their own lives and those of their children. They exchanged the children, then jumped together into deep water. Gentiles standing nearby pulled them out, but they managed to jump in again, and drowned."
Shmul Wasersztajn on the same incident:
"That same day I saw a horrible scene. Chaja ("Chaya") Kubrzanska, 28 years old, and Basia Binsztajn, 26, both with babies in their arms, jumped into the pond and drowned, rather than falling into the hands of those hoodlums. First, they tossed the babies into the water, then followed them themselves. Baska Binsztajn went to the bottom instantly, while Chaja Kubrzanska suffered for hours. The bystanders (hoodlums) treated it as a show, enjoying the view and advising her to lie face down in the water, so she could drown quicker..."
It is obvious that these statements seriously contradict one another. Alas, these and numerous other contradictions and ambiguities have been no obstacle to J.T. Gross to fabricate his highly accusatory book.

[Sergey Romanov]

Not sure what your point in quoting criticisms of Gross is. The fact that the Polish neighbors murdered their Jewish neighbors in Jedwabne, including burning women and children alive in a barn, doesn't depend on Gross.

[Poot]

'German ammunition casings' could mean ammunition produced in Germany and likely used by Germans (think of logistics here), or of a caliber (7.92X57mm) typically associated with German rifles and MGs. If it's the latter it's less than diagnostic, as Polish forces also standardized on the same caliber.

[Sergey Romanov]

Yes, as pointed out above, where the ammo was produced doesn't necessarily indicate the perp.

Exclusively German ammo was used in the Katyn forest shootings.

[Sergey Romanov]

> J.T. Gross have not shown due caution, but voiced mere opinions whose basis is the vague testimony of two Jewish "eye-witnesses," Shmul Wasersztajn and Rivka Fogel.

Let's see what actually is the case, from Gross' response to Musial:

"Neighbors is filled to the brim with verbatim testimonies of several participants or witnesses, frequently quoted for stretches of half a page or longer—they are Karol Bardon´, Jerzy and Zygmunt Laudan´ski, Boleslaw Ramotowski, Julia Sokołowska, Leon Dziedzic, and others."

So much for the honesty of the sources you quote.

[henryk]

Not sure what your point in quoting criticisms of Gross is. The fact that the Polish neighbors murdered their Jewish neighbors in Jedwabne, including burning women and children alive in a barn, doesn't depend on Gross.

Jedwabne
I was simply pointing out that eyewitnesses were used by both Gross and Szymanowski.
The truth of the massacre at Jedwabne is generally recognized, following the extensive study by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, or IPN)

[Gorque]

Jedwabne
I was simply pointing out that eyewitnesses were used by both Gross and Szymanowski.
The truth of the massacre at Jedwabne is generally recognized, following the extensive study by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, or IPN)

But there was little mention of Polish complicity by Szymanowski in regards to the Wizna murders in the Rzeczpospolita citing. You cite Gross for his use of selective sources, i.e. pushing a false narrative. So who is the guilty party in the o.p.; Szymanowski or Rzeczpospolita?

[henryk]

Jedwabne
I was simply pointing out that eyewitnesses were used by both Gross and Szymanowski.
The truth of the massacre at Jedwabne is generally recognized, following the extensive study by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, or IPN)

But there was little mention of Polish complicity by Szymanowski in regards to the Wizna murders in the Rzeczpospolita citing. You cite Gross for his use of selective sources, i.e. pushing a false narrative. So who is the guilty party in the o.p.; Szymanowski or Rzeczpospolita?

Szymanowski is relying on eyewitnesses just as Gross did.

[Sergey Romanov]

As does any historian. You mean you posted someone else's false accusations against Gross just to point out that it's ok to rely on eyewitnesses?

[Gorque]

I think I see where this is going: Szymanowski's witnesses are reliable, Gross' are not; i.e. inconvenient data, a.k.a. FAKE NEWS.

[Gorque]

Here's the recollection from another witness:

As German army troops invaded eastern Poland, Ichak Lewin’s family fled their town of Wizna.

On July 10, 1941, the Lewins approached the nearby town of Jedwabne, where hundred of Jews lived and had the means to shelter other Jews. But the Lewins soon realized they had come to the wrong place.

“We were on the cart when we smelled a fire and another bad smell,” said Lewin, recalling the day 75 years ago that has changed how millions in Poland and beyond think of the Holocaust years in that country.

Lewin was 10 when Jedwabne residents massacred hundreds of their Jewish neighbors, including three of Lewin’s uncles and most of his classmates. The townspeople, led by their mayor, rounded up at least 340 Jews and burned them alive inside a barn.

“When the smell reached us, so did word from non-Jewish passers-by that the people of Jedwabne burned the Jews,” Lewin said.

https://www.jta.org/2016/07/12/global/7 ... ity-issues

[David Thompson]

For a previous forum discussion of the Jedwabne massacre and its supposed cause, see:

Crimes by certain Jews against Poles at Jedwabne, 1940
viewtopic.php?t=74763