Akta śledztwa z lat 1967-1974 prowadzonego przez Okręgową Komisję Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Białymstoku w sprawie zbrodni na ludności żydowskiej w Jedwabnem
Streszczenie
Documents from the Investigation of the Massacre of Jews in Jedwabne Carried out from 1967 to 1974 by the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Bialystok. Selected and introduced by Krzysztof Persak. In May 1967, the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Bialystok began an investigation of the burning of approximately 1600 Jews from Jedwabne in a barn by Germans in July 1941. The inquiry began with the questioning of six witnesses, including Jozef Gradowski, by Judge Zbigniew Ludwiczak and public prosecutor Janusz Morat. In his testimony, he included information about Polish participation in the crime. This theme was not taken up during the investigation. From the start, it was assumed that Germans were the sole perpetrators. Some of the other individuals called as witnesses maintained they had not been eyewitnesses to the crime, which contradicted their 1949 testimony. In November 1967 and April 1968, more people were questioned. It is worth noting that Gradowski, when interviewed again, changed his testimony completely (document 9), undoubtedly because he had been pressured by those around him. After this phase of questioning had been concluded, there were no further activities related to the investigation for three years. In June 1971, public prosecutor Waldemar Monkiewicz took over the case. After three more witnesses were questioned, he closed the investigation and put in a formal request to prosecute the German Amtskommissar and six gendarmes from the post in Jedwabne. His superiors were not satisfied with the results yielded by the investigation. In August 1972, he was ordered to collect missing documents from the case and send them to the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland (Glowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce [GKBZH]). When after a year this still had not been accomplished, the documents were returned to BiaΠystok in order for the missing documents to be provided. It was only in April 1974, however, that the next group of witnesses was questioned. Among them was Julia SokoΠowska – she gave the sensational testimony that there had been as many as 240 gendarmes in Jedwabne (document 25). This figure was several times higher than what SokoΠowska had stated during the 1949 trial. On April 15, 1974, Monkiewicz suspended the investigation – with the justification being that the perpetrators were no longer in Poland. A new request for prosecution included eight gendarmes from the post in Jedwabne and two Amtskommissars. They were accused of killing about 900 Jewish residents of Jedwabne on July 10, 1941, by burning them in a barn, and also of deporting about 100 Jews to the ghetto in Lomza in 1941 or 1942. The case documents show that the prosecutor allowed a great deal of manipulation to take place. From the 23 testimonies given by 15 witnesses, the prosecutor only allowed evidence suggesting it was the Germans who were solely responsible for the crime. The materials from the previous criminal proceedings regarding the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, housed in the GKBZH archives in Warsaw, were not taken into consideration. The results of Monkiewicz’s investigations were used by the director of the GKBZH as the basis for filing a request with the Zentrale Stelle in Ludwigsburg (October 7, 1974) that criminal proceedings be initiated in the case of the murder in Jedwabne of 900 Jews who were Polish citizens. Efforts made by the German side were futile. In reality, it is unlikely that any of the gendarmes included in that prosecution request were in Jedwabne on that day. Published here are all documents from the investigation, including records of witness testimony, requests for prosecution and investigation reports. Most of these materials are not reliable historical sources which would allow us to discover the circumstances surrounding the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, or the exact course of events. This does not mean, however, that the documents here are worthless. The witness testimonies do contain interesting information about the fates of the Jews who survived, for whom the Germans created a ghetto in the old market square, and details about the appearance of the barn and victims’ charred remains after the fire. Some of the witnesses also named specific Jews who had been killed there, or survived. These materials are important for one other reason, as well. In W. Monkiewicz’s texts, published beginning in the early 1980’s, he introduces a version of events suggesting that the Jews in Jedwabne had been killed by the German “Kommando Bialystok”, led by Wolfgang Birkner, comprised of 232 functionaries from the 309th and 316th reserve police battalions. The case documents published demonstrate that this version has nothing whatsoever to do with the investigation conducted by Monkiewicz.
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