Jan T. Gross - Controversy

Controversy

Gross came to public attention on the occasion of his several publications. Then he was in the center of a controversy due to the publication of his 2001 book on the Jedwabne massacre, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, which examined a massacre of the Polish Jews in Jedwabne village in Nazi-occupied Poland. In his book Gross described how the massacre was perpetrated by Poles and not by the German occupiers, as previously assumed. The claims were the subject of vigorous debate in Poland. Norman Finkelstein accused Gross of exploiting the Holocaust. Norman Davies describes "Neighbors" as "deeply unfair to Poles". A subsequent investigation conducted by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance did not support Gross' thesis on issues such as the number of people murdered, and the extent of Nazi German involvement in the massacre.

Gross' Fear - Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, which deals with antisemitism and violence against Jews in post-war Poland was published in the United States in 2006 and had received praise in the United States; its Polish version, published in 2008, got mixed media reception re-starting a nationwide debate about antisemitism in Poland during World War II and after. The book has been welcomed by some Polish historians and criticized by others who do not deny the facts Jan Gross presented in his book, but dispute his interpretation. Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising said in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, "Postwar violence against Jews in Poland was mostly not about anti-Semitism, murdering Jews was pure banditry."

Gross' Neighbors and Fear were subjected to scholarly criticism by historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, whose interpretations directly challenged Gross.

Gross' latest book, Złote żniwa (Golden Harvest), co-written with his wife Irena Grudzińska-Gross and published in March 2011, about Poles enriching themselves at the expense of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, has also attracted criticism that it only shows one side of a complex issue. The Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, 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."

The head of Znak, the book's publisher, stated: "It does not purport to provide a comprehensive overview of Polish rural communities' actions... The authors focus on the most horrid events, on robberies and killings. Those who say the book is anti-Polish make no sense."

Gross's academic critics have argued that Golden Harvest is based on a one-sided interpretation of its sources, the vast majority of them secondary ones. Further, they have taken issue with what they consider a grossly unfair portrayal of marginal wartime social pathologies as an all-national Polish norm. They also see his interpretation of Polish history as "neo-Stalinist" due to its resemblance to postwar Stalinist propaganda alleging mass Polish collaboration and collusion with Nazi Germany, a claim used to justify the Soviet occupation of Poland.