Neighbors turned executioners in occupied Podlasie
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, it occupied territories in northeastern Poland previously under Soviet control. In this shifting landscape of power, antisemitic propaganda and the myth of “Judeo-Communism” found fertile ground. In several towns across Podlasie, local civilians—driven by prejudice and opportunism—turned against their Jewish neighbours in a wave of violence that culminated in the massacres.
The day Jedwabne burned
On July 10, 1941, Polish residents of Jedwabne, acting under the watch of German authorities, rounded up hundreds of their Jewish neighbours in the town square. Victims were beaten, humiliated, and forced to destroy a statue of Lenin that had stood during the Soviet occupation. Later, the perpetrators drove the Jews—men, women, and children—into a barn owned by Bronisław Śleszyński. The doors were barred, and the building set on fire. Approximately 300–400 people perished in the flames.
Jedwabne was one of several pogroms in the Podlasie region in the summer of 1941, where about 1000 Jews were murdered in towns such as Radziłów, Szczuczyn, and Grajewo. For decades, the event was silenced in official history, its truth resurfacing only in the early 2000s after renewed investigation and national debate.
“Marian Karolak, the mayor of Jedwabne, gave us the order to drive all the Jews gathered in the Market Square into the barn belonging to Bronisław Śleszyński, which we did. We drove the Jews to the barn and ordered them to go inside, and they were forced to enter. After they had entered the barn, it was locked and set on fire; I did not see who started the fire. After the barn was set ablaze, I went home, and the Jews burned to death inside the barn. There were more than one thousand Jews in total.”
Testimony of Jerzy Laudański
in Wokół Jedwabnego, t. II, Relacje (2002)