''The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne'' is a 2004 book by 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 '' ...

on 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 ...

, a 1941

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...

Polish Jews 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 lo ...

Jedwabne Jedwabne (; yi, יעדוואבנע, ''Yedvabna'') is a town in northeast Poland, in Łomża County of Podlaskie Voivodeship, with 1,942 inhabitants (2002). It is notable for the Jedwabne pogrom of 10 July 1941, during the World War II German occu ...

German-occupied Poland German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration. The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...

Content

The Crime and the Silence (22825504442) (cropped)

The book was first published in Polish as ''My z Jedwabnego'' (2004, "Jedwabne: Battlefield of Memory"). It was next published in French under the title ''Le Crime et le Silence: Jedwabne 1941, la mémoire d'un pogrom dans la Pologne d'aujourd'hui'' (2011) which won the

European Book Prize The European Book Prize (french: Le Prix du Livre Européen) is a European Union literary award established in 2007. It is organized by the association Esprit d'Europe in Paris. It seeks to promote European values, and to contribute to European ci ...

.Barnes, Julian (16 December 2011)
"Judging the European Book prize for 2011"
''The Guardian''. The English translation by Alissa Valles was published in 2015. Other translations include: in Swedish as ''Vi från Jedwabne'' (2015); in Hebrew as ''Anaḥnu mi-Yedṿabneh : ha-peshaʻ ṿe-ha-hashtaḳah'' (2016); in Dutch as ''De misdaad en het zwijgen : Jedwabne 1941, de levende herinnering aan een pogrom in Polen'' (2016); in Chinese as ''Zui xing yu chen mo : Zhi mian ye de wa bu nei you tai ren da tu sha'' (2018); in Italian as ''Il crimine e il silenzio: Jedwabne 1941 - Un massacro in cerca di verità'' (2019), and; in German as ''Wir aus Jedwabne: Polen und Juden während der Shoah'' (2020). In writing her book Bikont was inspired by Jan. T. Gross' pioneering study on the subject ('' Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland'', 2001). One of the novel areas she explores is the reaction of Jedwabne villagers to Gross' revelations, what one of the reviewers called "the early stage of the Jedwabne debate". One of the themes of her book is the lingering antisemitism present in modern-day Jedwabne, where a number of inhabitants were unwilling to take part in her research project and yet others were afraid to be seen speaking to her. Readings of her book in Poland have been picketed by Polish nationalists. The book is structured with interposing chapters of Bikont's diary (written in the years 2000-2003) and journalistic reportage. Pursuing some leads and interviews, Bikont traveled among others to United States, Israel, Costa Rica and Argentina.

Reception

Louis Begley Louis Begley (born Ludwik Begleiter; October 6, 1933) is a Polish-born Jewish American novelist. He is best known for writing the semi-autobiographical Holocaust novel ''Wartime Lies'' (1991) and the ''Schmidt'' trilogy: ''About Schmidt'' (1996 ...

in his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that the book is "beautifully written, devastating and very important". A reviewer for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' likewise called the book "a powerful and important study of the poisonous effects of racism and hatred within a community". Sinclair McKay reviewing the book for ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'' noted that the book "is a hauntingly human study of the nightmare of persecution", though criticized it for insufficient historical background and lacking a map that many readers would find useful.

Joanna Michlic Joanna Beata Michlic is a Polish social and cultural historian specializing in Polish-Jewish history and the Holocaust in Poland. An honorary senior research associate at the Centre for Collective Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Un ...

reviewed the Polish edition, praising it as "a first-class journalistic account" recommended for students, scholars of the 20th century genocides as well as to those interested in the Polish-Jewish history, noting that the book's main contribution is to be found in the "investigation of contemporary memory of these crimes" among the survivors, perpetrators, rescuers and their descendants. She calls the book "an anthropological and a psychological study of a deeply troubling memory of the darkest crimes in the history of Polish-Jewish relations" and notes that while the author is a journalist, it is an exemplary journalistic study that is valuable to scholars pursuing historical studies in this topic area. Yves Gounin reviewed the French edition for ''Médiations''. He compared the book to '' The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million'' by

Daniel Mendelsohn Daniel Mendelsohn (born 1960), is an American author, essayist, critic, columnist, and translator. Best known for his internationally best-selling and award-winning Holocaust family memoir The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, he is curre ...

, noting that Bikont's account in French unfortunately suffers from translation problems. Reviewing the book for the ''

Jewish Quarterly 'The Jewish Quarterly' is an international journal of Jewish culture and ideas. Primarily a UK-based publication until 2021, the journal is now published by Australian publisher, Morry Schwartz, for a global audience. With four issues released a y ...

'', Jennifer Weisberg calls the book a "masterpiece", praising Bikont for her efforts to gather numerous testimonies from surviving witnesses.

References

External links

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Ketola,_Mikko._"The_crime_and_the_silence:[kirja-arvostelu
/nowiki>."_Suomen_kirkkohistoriallisen_seuran_vuosikirja_106_(2016)._(book_review).html" ;"title="irja-arvostelu">Ketola, Mikko. "The crime and the silence:[kirja-arvostelu
/nowiki>." Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran vuosikirja 106 (2016). (book review)">irja-arvostelu">Ketola, Mikko. "The crime and the silence:[kirja-arvostelu
/nowiki>." Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran vuosikirja 106 (2016). (book review) {{DEFAULTSORT:Crime and the Silence, The Books about the Holocaust 2004 non-fiction books Books about Jewish Polish history Polish non-fiction books