Poles end 1941 Jewish massacre probe

[Gość: ELIE WEIZEL]

Poles end 1941 Jewish massacre probe
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WARSAW, Poland
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Prosecutors examining the 1941 massacre of hundreds of Jews by their Polish
neighbors have closed their investigation without charging any new suspects.

Still, Jewish leaders this week praised the three-year investigation into
the massacre in the town of Jedwabne, saying it restored Poles' historical
memory into atrocities long blamed on the Nazis.

The investigation was formally closed last week, a week before the 62nd
anniversary of the July 10, 1941, killings.

Investigators from the National Remembrance Institute, which investigates
Nazi- and communist-era crimes, interviewed 111 witnesses, partially
excavated the massacre site and sketched out the topography of wartime
Jedwabne to reach their conclusions.

The prosecutors, who will sum up their findings in a 203-page document,
determined that at least 340 Jews were killed or burnt alive in a barn by
Poles after the Nazis seized territory in northwestern Poland formerly
occupied by the Soviets.

Communist-era historians blamed Germans for the massacre and insisted Poles
only assisted the occupiers. In 1949, the court gave prison sentences to 12
villagers for assisting German forces in the massacre.

A book by a Polish emigre historian prompted the investigation, and sparked
painful soul-searching among Poles, many of whom were disbelieving that
their countrymen had committed the atrocities.

"One thing is to close the formal investigation, while another is the work
of memory," said Jerzy Kichler, chairman of the board of Jewish communities
in Poland. "The investigation helped Polish memory drop false images."

Prosecutors said this week they were sending the decision about the formal
end of the proceedings to 12 living relatives of the victims. They have the
right to contest it if they consider it incomplete or unfair.

"The investigation has been closed as no new living perpetrators of the
crime were found apart from those who had been prosecuted before," said Leon
Kieres, chairman of the institute.

Investigators said they believe some 30 to 40 Poles participated in the
violence, abetted by the "passive presence" of many more who watched as Jews
were beaten in the market square and led to a barn that was set on fire,
intimidating the victims from fleeing or resisting.

While it was Poles who carried out the crime, "the hypothesis that it was
inspired by the presence of the Nazis is based on many premises," said
Witold Kulesza, the institute's chief prosecutor.

The Nazis ensured that the perpetrators of the crime would go unpunished,
supervised the burying of the bodies of the victims and gave beer to Poles
who dig them in the ground, Kulesza said.

President Aleksander Kwasniewski begged forgiveness for the killings during
the 60th anniversary commemoration in July 2001, but he insisted Nazi
occupiers were behind the bloodshed and said Poles bore no collective guilt.

[Gość: Galinski]