Jan T. Gross's Neighbors Essay

The book Neighbors by Jan T. Gross shows how hatred has transformed a Jewish community in Poland. Changing the standardized and religious society during the duration of the Second World War. The book explains the Jews who were living in the town of Jedwabne during the occupancy of Germany, where they were drowned, beaten and burned. Everyone thought it was the German army who started the massacre but it was neither Nazi’s or German but Polish resident. Not only were that but some of these people were the same ones they would by stuff from or saw in the street or even knew each other on a first name basis. Well the thought of these two ethnic groups are untied historically. This Book Neighbors by Jan T. Gross trying to not only identify authors claim but also look into the evidence given in support of these claims.

According to the evidence presented by Gross, the Jedwabne killings happened primarily on a single day, July 10, 1941 (Neighbors 9), just the time when the Germany army began to establish its control of Eastern Poland. It was undeniable that the German army was not going to oppose on the violence against the Jews or taking their property. This was during the prewar years and was set step up in time for the event. The event happened just after the

This is one of the question I still feel that the book does not answer enough. The book also leaves us with challenging question of who were these sources in the book and why did it take them time to speak up. The book does not deliver in developing many of its themes referring the reader to other scholarly articles is in a way aggravating. In the chapter “Social Support for Stalinism” (Neighbors 164) the author assumes that those Poles that had been compromised during German rule, were more likely to be part of post-war Communist Party Regime, even though he offers no evidence for this type of an