POLSCI 329S Chapter Notes - Chapter All: Totalitarianism, Collective Responsibility
11 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Politics of Violence
11.02.16 Reading Notes – Neighbors
x Totalitarianism – Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin
x Institutionalization of resentment
x German-Soviet nonaggression pact – agreement that either side would not take military action for 10
years
o Allowed Stalin to build up Soviet military
o Allowed Hitler to invade Poland without any opposition
o Agreed to partition Poland
x Jedwabne massacre
o Narrative that the Jews had a friendly relationship with the Soviets during Soviet occupation
and that they teamed up against the Polish
x Perpetuators-victims-bystanders axis
x Jedwabne massacre
o Before the war, city had 1,600 Jews
o Trials against perpetrators of violence had the purpose of minimizing the events and the extent
of their own involvement
x Stereotypes that the Jews had a sycophantic attitude towards the Soviets
x City had a history of anti-Soviet organization
x The Polish anti-Soviet organization was destroyed by the Soviet secret police
o Testimony found no links from this event to the massacre
o No Jews were involved in betrayal or were at all implicated
x 20 months of Soviet occupation – local people subject to sovietization, secularization of religious
institutions, confiscation of private property, propaganda
x Subsequently, the Germans were welcomed as new occupiers
o With the German invasion of the city, Polish people worked together with the Germans to
identify communist sympathizers
x June 22, 1941 – outbreak of Russo-German war
x July 10, 1941 – the Jedwabne massacre
o Religious motivation – a holy mission
o During German occupation and even after the Germans left, the Poles took initiative in
persecuting and committing atrocious acts of violence against the Jewish residents
o Testimony claim: Reactionary clergy that preached racial hatred?
x In other cities, Poles helped Germans identify Jewish people
x Jewish people were aware of the impending pogroms
x Who murdered the Jews of Jedwabne?
o The Polish population murdered the Jews, while the German authorities took pictures
x The day of the massacre
o July 10
o Rumors of the plan had circulated as evidenced by people gathering in town early that day
o Random acts of violence against the Jewish people and even volunteers that guarded at night
to make sure the Jewish people did not escape to neighboring fields
o Town council had general supervision in enlisting volunteers to guard or improvise violence
o Testimony also shows some fear of the murderers
o Random acts turned into systematic, organized acts of mass violence
o Felt that priitie ethods of staig, et. ould e too slo to kill all the Jes, so they
decided on burning the Jews in a barn (Sleszynskis barn)
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