The Wąsosz pogrom was the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

mass murder of Jewish residents of Wąsosz in German-occupied Poland, on 5 July 1941. The massacre was carried out by local Polish residents without participation of Germans.

Background

When

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

invaded

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

in 1939, the village of Wąsosz (

Podlaskie Voivodeship Podlaskie Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in northeastern Poland. The name of the voivodeship refers to the historical region of Podlachia (in Polish, ''Podlasie''), and significant part of its territory corresponds to th ...

) was taken by the Germans in the second week of the war. At the end of September, in accordance with the German–Soviet Boundary Treaty, the area was transferred by the Nazis to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East two weeks earlier, on 17 September 1939, pursuant to the secret protocol of the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

. The

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

overran 52.1% of the territory of Poland with over 13,700,000 inhabitants. The Soviet occupation zone included 5.1 million ethnic Poles (ca. 38%), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees who escaped to eastern Poland from areas already occupied by Germany – most of them Polish Jews numbering at around 198,000.. ''Also in:'' Trela-Mazur 1997, ''Wrocławskie Studia Wschodnie'',

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

. Following the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union, German

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

re-entered Wąsosz on 22 June 1941. The Jews of the town, at that time, were 40% of the town's population -- some 500 people.

Pogrom

On the night of 4 and 5 July 1941, a small group of men armed with axes and iron clubs murdered several dozens of the Jewish inhabitants of Wąsosz. The killings were performed in a brutal manner, regardless of the victims' age or sex.Shared History, Divided Memory: Jews and Others in Soviet-occupied Poland 1939-1941
edited by Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth A. Cole, Kai Struve, essay authored by Andrzej Zbikowski, pages 349-350, Leipziger Universitätsverlag The corpses of the murdered Jews were thrown into a large pit that was dug outside the town. According to the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...

's investigation, the number of victims is at least 70. According to a report date 14 July 1941 by German security division 221/B "After the Russian withdrawal, the Polish populace of Wąsosz filled a barn with Jews, and killed them all before the German force entered he town.

Aftermath

Menachem Finkielsztejn, a resident of Radziłów, described in a post-war testimony how Poles from Wąsosz arrived in Radziłów on 6 July saying that "It was immediately known that those who came had previously killed in a horrible manner, using pipes and knives, all the Jews in their own town, not sparing even women or little children". However, they were chased away by the local townfolk of Radziłów, who then massacred the Jews of Radziłów on 7 July, killing the entire community except for 18 survivors. According to Andrzej Żbikowski the townfolk of Radziłów drove away the Wąsosz killers so that they could kill and steal the property of the Jews for themselves. Fifteen surviving Jews remained in the town until 1 July 1942, when they were moved to the Milbo estate where some 500 Jews were employed in various works. In November 1942 the survivors were moved to the Bogusze transit camp and from there onward to

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Mas ...

and

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

. In 1951, Marian Rydzewski was tried and acquitted for participating in the pogrom before a communist court.

IPN investigation

The crimes committed in Wąsosz were investigated by the

of Poland, under the direction of IPN prosecutor Radosław Ignatiew, who earlier investigated the atrocities in Jedwabne. In 2014, Polish Jewish leaders were reportedly divided regarded exhumation of the bodies of the Jewish victims. Some, such as Poland's chief rabbai Michael Schudrich, are opposed due to the dignity of the dead. Others, such as Piotr Kadicik, the president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, supported the exhumation.Wasosz Pogrom Mass Murder Investigation Sharply Divides Jewish Leaders
5 October 2014, NBC NewsPolish Jews Split Over Plan to Exhume Victims of 1941 Massacre
Haaretz (JTA), 18 September 2014 In 2015, while on vacation, Ignatiew was removed from the investigation and replaced with Malgorzata Redos-Ciszewska. The exhumation was not carried out, and the investigation was closed in 2016. The IPN did not identify any additional perpetrators beyond two Polish men sentenced for their actions shortly after World War II.Polish Institute Stops Investigation Into WWII Murder of 70 Jews
JPost (JTA), 14 March 2016

References

The Crime and the Silence
Anna Bikont, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Background

Pogrom

Aftermath

IPN investigation

References

See also