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Jan Tomasz Gross (born 1947) is a Polish-American sociologist and
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society, emeritus, and Professor of History, emeritus, at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
. Gross is the author of several books on Polish history, particularly Polish-Jewish relations during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, including Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001); Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz (2006); and (with Irena Grudzinska Gross) Golden Harvest (2012).


Early life and education

Gross was born in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
to Hanna Szumańska, a member of the Polish resistance (
Armia Krajowa The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
) in World War II, and Zygmunt Gross, who was a
Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' P ...
member before the war broke out. His mother was Christian and his father
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
. His mother lost her first husband, who was Jewish, after he was denounced by a neighbor. She rescued several Jews during the Holocaust, including her future husband whom she married after the war. Gross attended local schools and studied physics at the
University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...
. He became one of the young dissidents known as '' Komandosi'', and was among the university students who participated in the "March events", the Polish student and intellectual protests of 1968. Like many Polish students, he was expelled from the university, and was arrested and jailed for five months. During the antisemitic campaign by the Polish communist government, Gross emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1969.David Herman interviews Jan Gross, chronicler of Polish atrocities
Jewish Chronicle, 22 June 2012
In 1975 he earned a PhD in sociology from
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
for a thesis on the Polish underground state, which was published as ''Polish Society under German Occupation'' (1979).


Career


Teaching

Gross has taught at Yale,
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
, and in Paris. He became a naturalized US citizen. He has specialized in studies of Polish history and Polish-Jewish relations in Poland. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society in the History Department at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
. Gross has held this seat since 2003. He is also Professor of History at Princteon, both positions emeritus."Jan Tomasz Gross"
Department of History. University of Princeton.


Research

Based on documentation on Polish citizens deported to Siberia, Gross and his wife Irena Grudzińska-Gross published ''In 1940, Mother, They Sent Us to Siberia''. In the 80s Gross wrote ''Revolution From Abroad: Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia'' mostly based on Hoover Archive material. His 2001 book about the
Jedwabne massacre The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. At least 340 men, women and children were murdered, some 300 of whom ...
, '' Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland'', caused controversy because it addressed the role of local Poles in the massacre. He wrote that the atrocity was committed by Poles and not by the German occupiers. Gross's book generated controversy and was the subject of vigorous debate in Poland and abroad. The political scientist
Norman Finkelstein Norman Gary Finkelstein (; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a gr ...
accused Gross of exploiting the Holocaust.
Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at ...
described ''Neighbors'' as "deeply unfair to Poles". A subsequent investigation conducted by the
Polish Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
(IPN) supported some of Gross's conclusions, but not his estimate of the number of people murdered. In addition, the IPN concluded there was more involvement by Nazi German security forces in the massacre. Polish journalist
Anna Bikont Anna Bikont (born 17 July 1954) is a Polish journalist for the ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' newspaper in Warsaw. She is the author of several books, including ''My z Jedwabnego'' (2004) about the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom, which was published in English as '' ...
began an investigation at the same time, ultimately publishing a book, ''My z Jedwabnego'' (2004), later published in French and English as '' The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Poland'' (French, 2011; and English, 2015). Gross's book, '' Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz'', which deals with
anti-semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
and anti-Jewish violence in post-war Poland, was published in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in 2006, where it was praised by reviewers. When published in Polish in Poland in 2008, it received mixed reviews and revived a nationwide debate about anti-Semitism in Poland during and after World War II."
Marek Edelman Marek Edelman ( yi, מאַרעק עדעלמאַן, born either 1919 in Homel or 1922 in Warsaw – October 2, 2009 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish political and social activist and cardiologist. Edelman was the last surviving leader of the ...
, one of the leaders of the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's ...
, said in an interview with the daily newspaper, ''
Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
'', "Postwar violence against Jews in Poland was mostly not about anti-Semitism; murdering Jews was pure banditry." quote: The book was first released in the United States in 2006, where it was greeted with warm reviews. In Poland the book was sharply criticized in newspaper editorials and reviews and by historians, accusing Gross of using inflammatory language and unfairly labeling all of postwar Polish society as anti-Semitic...
Marek Edelman Marek Edelman ( yi, מאַרעק עדעלמאַן, born either 1919 in Homel or 1922 in Warsaw – October 2, 2009 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish political and social activist and cardiologist. Edelman was the last surviving leader of the ...
, the last surviving leader of the 1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's ...
, said the postwar violence against Jews was "not about anti-Semitism." "Murdering Jews was pure banditry, and I wouldn't explain it as anti-Semitism," Edelman said in an interview with the daily newspaper, ''
Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
''. "It was contempt for man, for human life, plain meanness. A bandit doesn't attack someone who is stronger, like military troops, but where he sees weakness."
Gross's latest book, '' Golden Harvest'' (2011), co-written with his wife, Irena Grudzińska-Gross, is about Poles enriching themselves at the expense of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Critics in Poland have alleged that Gross dwelt too much on wartime pathologies, drawing "unfair generalizations". The Chief Rabbi of Poland,
Michael Schudrich Michael Joseph Schudrich (born June 15, 1955) is an American rabbi and the current Chief Rabbi of Poland. He is the oldest of four children of Rabbi David Schudrich and Doris Goldfarb Schudrich. Biography Born in New York City, Schudrich lived i ...
, commented: "Gross writes in a way to provoke, not to educate, and Poles don't react well to it. Because of the style, too many people reject what he has to say."


Honors

On 6 September 1996, Gross and his wife Irena Grudzińska-Gross were awarded the
Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Order Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) is a Polish order of merit created in 1974, awarded to persons who have rendered great service to Poland. It is granted to foreigners or Poles resident ab ...
by President
Aleksander Kwaśniewski Aleksander Kwaśniewski (; born 15 November 1954) is a Polish politician and journalist. He served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005. He was born in Białogard, and during communist rule, he was active in the Socialist Union of Poli ...
, for "outstanding achievement in scholarship". As Professor at the Department of Politics, New York University, Gross was a beneficiary of the
Fulbright Program The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
, for research on "Social and Political History of the Polish Jewry 1944-49" at the
Jewish Historical Institute The Jewish Historical Institute ( pl, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny or ''ŻIH''; yi, ייִדישער היסטאָרישער אינסטיטוט), also known as the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, is a public cultural and research ...
, Warsaw, Poland (January 2001- April 2001). In 1982 Jan T. Gross was awarded a fellowship in the field of sociology by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial. Also in 1982, as an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University, he was among thirty-three
Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to: People with the name Rockefeller fa ...
Humanities Fellowship competition entrants awarded, his project entitled "Soviet Rule in Poland, 1939-1941."


Controversies

In an essay published in 2015 in the German newspaper ''
Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...
'', Gross wrote that during World War II, "Poles killed more Jews than Germans". In 2016, Gross said that "Poles killed a maximum 30,000 Germans and between 100,000 and 200,000 Jews."Historian May Face Charges in Poland for Writing That Poles Killed Jews in World War II
Haaretz, Ofer Aderet, 30 October 2016
According to historian
Jacek Leociak Jacek Leociak (born 2 June 1957, in Warsaw) is a Polish literary scholar and historian as well as author. He is a professor of humanities and an employee of the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Cente ...
, "the claim that Poles killed more Jews than Germans could be really right – and this is shocking news for the traditional thinking about Polish heroism during the war." Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski dismissed Gross's statement as "historically untrue, harmful and insulting to Poland." On 15 October 2015, Polish prosecutors opened a libel inquiry against Gross; they acted under a paragraph of the criminal code that "provides that any person who publicly insults the Polish nation is punishable by up to three years in prison". Polish prosecutors had previously examined Gross's books ''Fear'' (2008) and ''Golden Harvest'' (2011), but closed those cases after finding no evidence of a crime. In 2016, the
Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...
said the decision to continue the investigation bore "all the hallmarks of a political witch-hunt," and a "form of alienating minorities and people who were victimized". The investigation was closed in November 2019. Prosecutors stated that "there is no conclusive data on the numbers of Germans and Jews killed as a result of actions committed by Poles during the Second World War. The establishment of such numbers is still the subject of research by historians and the subject of dispute between them." One of the experts consulted was
Piotr Gontarczyk Piotr Gontarczyk (born 29 April 1970 in Żyrardów, Poland) is a poles, Polish historian with a doctor (title), doctorate in history and political science. He is employed by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. He specializes in the W ...
, who said there is no conclusive evidence that Poles killed more Jews than Germans during the war, but such a view is impossible to show as untrue. According to Gontarczyk, such statements, while controversial, are within the limits of academic discourse. On 14 January 2016, because of what he described as "an attempt to destroy Poland's good name", Polish President
Andrzej Duda Andrzej Sebastian Duda (; born 16 May 1972) is a Polish lawyer and politician who has served as president of Poland since 6 August 2015. Before becoming president, Andrzej Duda was a member of Polish Lower House (Sejm) from 2011 to 2014 and the ...
requested a re-evaluation of the award to Gross of the Knight's Cross of the
Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Order Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) is a Polish order of merit created in 1974, awarded to persons who have rendered great service to Poland. It is granted to foreigners or Poles resident ab ...
. The request was met with local and international protests. Gross responded that "
PiS Pis ( oc, Pis) is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. Geography Localisation Hydrography The river Auroue forms most of the commune's eastern border. Population See also *Communes of the Gers department The fol ...
he Law and Justice partyis obsessed with stimulating a patriotic sense of duty. And given that most Poles do not know their own history very well, and think that Poles suffered as much as Jews during the war, the new regime is playing into a language of Catholic martyrology."
Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute f ...
, an American historian noted for his work on European
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
s, said that if the order were taken from Gross, he would renounce his own.Czornak, Michał Czornak (28 February 2016)
"Naukowcy z Francji bronią Jana Tomasza Grossa" (Researchers from France defend Jan Tomasz Gross)
''wMeritum.pl''.


Selected works

;Books * * * * * * * * * * * ;Other * ''"Lato 1941 w Jedwabnem. Przyczynek do badan nad udzialem spolecznosci lokalnych w eksterminacji narodu zydowskiego w latach II wojny swiatowej,"'' in ''Non-provincial Europe'', Krzysztof Jasiewicz ed., Warszawa/London: Rytm, ISP PAN, 1999, pp. 1097–1103.


See also

*
Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946 Anti-Jewish violence in Poland from 1944 to 1946 preceded and followed the end of World War II in Europe and influenced the postwar history of Jews in Poland, history of the Jews as well as Polish-Jewish relations. It occurred amid a period of v ...
*
Lucy Dawidowicz Lucy Dawidowicz ( Schildkret; June 16, 1915 – December 5, 1990) was an American historian and writer. She wrote books about modern Jewish history, in particular, she wrote books about the Holocaust. Life Dawidowicz was born in New York City a ...
*
History of Jews in Poland The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...
*
Kielce pogrom The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence toward the Jewish community centre's gathering of refugees in the city of Kielce, Poland on 4 July 1946 by Polish soldiers, police officers, and civiliansResearch Materials: Max Planck Society Archive *
Raul Hilberg Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust. Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding fath ...


References


Notes


Footnotes


Further reading

* John Connelly
"Poles and Jews in the Second World War: the Revisions of Jan T. Gross"
''Contemporary European History''. Cambridge: November 2002. Vol. 11, Issue 4.


External links


Profile at History Department, Princeton University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gross, Jan T. 1947 births Living people American people of Polish-Jewish descent Polish male non-fiction writers 20th-century American historians University of Warsaw alumni Scholars of antisemitism Polish emigrants to the United States Writers from Warsaw Controversies in Poland American sociologists Knights of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland Polish people of Jewish descent New York University faculty