Jan T. Gross

Jan Tomasz Gross (born 1947) is a Polish-American sociologist and historian. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson Professor of War and Society, and Professor of History at Princeton University.[1] He is known for his work about Polish history, particularly about Polish-Jewish relations during the World War II.

Biography

Gross was born in Warsaw in 1947 to Hanna Szumańska, who was a member of the Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa) in World War II, and Zygmunt Gross, who was a Polish Socialist Party member before the war broke out. His mother was Christian and his father was Jewish. His mother, Hanna, lost her first husband, who was Jewish, after he was denounced by a neighbor.[2][3] His mother rescued a number of Jews from the Nazi extermination, including her future husband whom she married after the war. Jan Tomasz Gross attended local schools and studied physics at the University of Warsaw.[4][5]

Gross was among the young dissidents called Komandosi, and was among the university students who participated in the protest movement known as the "March Events" – the Polish student and intellectual protests of 1968. Like many Polish students, Gross was expelled from the university, and arrested and jailed for five months. Amidst the anti-Semitic campaign by the Polish communist government, Gross emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1969.[6][7][1]

In 1975 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University. He has taught at Yale, New York University, and in Paris. He became a naturalized U.S. 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. Gross has held this seat since 2003.[8] Gross is also Professor of History at Princteon, both positions emeritus.[9]

Honors

On 6 September 1996, Gross and his wife Irena Grudzińska-Gross were awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by President Aleksander Kwaśniewski,[10][11] for "outstanding achievement in scholarship".

As Professor at the Department of Politics, New York University, Gross was a beneficiary of the Fulbright Program, for research on "Social and Political History of the Polish Jewry 1944-49" at the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, Poland (January 2001- April 2001).[12]

In 1982 Jan T. Gross was awarded a fellowship in the field of sociology by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial.[13] Also in 1982, as an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University, he was among thirty-three Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship competition entrants awarded, his project entitled "Soviet Rule in Poland, 1939-1941."[14]

Work

His 2001 book about the Jedwabne massacre, titled 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 polical scientist Norman Finkelstein accused Gross of exploiting the Holocaust.[15] Norman Davies describes Neighbors as "deeply unfair to Poles".[16]

A subsequent investigation conducted by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (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.[17] Polish journalist Anna Bikont 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 and anti-Jewish violence in post-war Poland, was published in the United States in 2006, where it was praised by reviewers, however 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.[18]"[19] 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."[19]

Gross's latest book, Golden Harvest, co-written with his wife Irena Grudzińska-Gross and published in March 2011, is about Poles enriching themselves at the expense of Jews murdered in the Holocaust.[20] Critics in Poland have alleged that Gross dwelt too much on wartime pathologies emerging during wartime, drawing "unfair generalizations".[21]

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."[20]

Controversies

In an essay published in 2015 in the German Die Welt, Gross wrote that during World War 2, "Poles killed more Jews than Germans".[22] Subsequently in 2016, Gross said that "Poles killed a maximum 30,000 Germans and between 100,000 to 200,000 Jews.".[23] Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski described Gross's statement as "historically untrue, harmful and insulting to Poland". He added that Poland's Ambassador to Germany addressed a letter of protest to the editors of Die Welt.[24] However, according to historian Jacek Leociak "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".[25]

On 15 October 2015, Polish Prosecution opened a libel probe against Gross. The office was acting 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 2008 book Fear and the 2011 book Golden Harvest, but not closed those cases after finding no evidence of a crime.[26][23] In 2016, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the decision to continue the investigation against Gross was alarming, bearing "all the hallmarks of a political witch-hunt", and a "form of alienating minorities and people who were victimized".[27]

On January 14, 2016 Polish President Andrzej Duda requested a reevaluation of the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland issued to Gross due to what he described as "an attempt to destroy Poland's good name".[28] Gross in response said that "PiS is obsessed with stimulating a patriotic sense of duty".[29] Duda's decision was met with local and international protests.[30] Timothy Snyder, an American historian noted for his work on European genocides, said that if the order was taken from Gross, he would renounce his own as well.[31]

Publications

Books
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (1979). Polish Society Under German Occupation - Generalgouvernement, 1939-1944. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Irena Grudzińska-Gross, Jan Tomasz Gross: War through Children’s Eyes: The Soviet Occupation of Poland and the Deportations, 1939-1941
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz; Irena Grudzińska-Gross (1984). W czterdziestym nas matko na Sybir zesłali ... London: Aneks.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (1998). Upiorna dekada, 1939-1948. Trzy eseje o stereotypach na temat Żydów, Polaków, Niemców i komunistów. Kraków: Universitas.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (1999). Studium zniewolenia. Kraków: Universitas.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (2000). Istvan Deak and Tony Judt, ed. The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (2001). Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-14-200240-2.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (2003). Revolution from Abroad. The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09603-1.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (2003). Wokół Sąsiadów. Polemiki i wyjaśnienia (in Polish). Sejny: Pogranicze. ISBN 83-86872-48-9.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz (2006). Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. Random House. ISBN 0-375-50924-0.
  • Gross, Jan Tomasz; Irena Grudzińska-Gross (2012). Golden Harvest. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-973167-1.
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

References

Notes

    Footnotes

    1. 1 2 "Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society. Professor of History. On Leave 2015-16". Princeton University History Department. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
    2. ↑ David Herman interviews Jan Gross, chronicler of Polish atrocities, The JC, 22 June 2012
    3. ↑ Samuel Crowell, "The Debate about Neighbors", May/June 2001, archive.org; ISSN 0195-6752.
    4. ↑ Andrzej Kaczyński (6 February 2011). "Jan Tomasz Gross". Culture.pl – via Google translate.
    5. ↑ Jan Tomasz Gross (English version on culture.pl), culture.pl
    6. ↑ David Herman interviews Jan Gross, chronicler of Polish atrocities, Jewish Chronicle, 22 June 2012
    7. ↑ Historian Who Shed Light on WWII Massacres Goes From Honoree to 'Pole Hater', Haaretz, Ofer Aderet, 1 March 2016
    8. ↑ Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professorship in War and Society (2002) -Established by Norman B. Tomlinson '48 in memory of his father, Norman B. Tomlinson '16 for a professorship in the Department of History. 2003 - 2017 J. T. Gross at princeton.edu Accessed 3 February 2018
    9. ↑ Jan Tomasz Gross, Department of History, princeton.edu Accessed 3 February 2018
    10. ↑ Postanowienie Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 6 września 1996 r. o nadaniu orderów i odznaczeń. Order of the President of the Republic of Poland of September 6, 1996 on the awarding of orders and decorations. at isap.sejm.gov.pl Accessed 3 February 2018
    11. ↑ "Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society, University of Haifa, Israel". Bucerius.haifa.ac.il. 12 March 2001. Archived from the original on 1 October 2013. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
    12. ↑ FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR PROGRAM 2000-2001 U.S. Scholar Directory, libraries.uark.edu; Accessed 3 February 2018
    13. ↑ Jan T. Gross Fellow: Awarded 1982 Field of Study: Sociology (John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation) at gf.org/fellows Accessed 3 February 2018
    14. ↑ [http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/uploads/Annual-Report-1982.pdf%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
    15. ↑ Norman G. Finkelstein (20 June 2001). "Goldhagen for Beginners: A Comment on Jan T. Gross's Neighbors" [an abridged version of appeared in the Polish periodical, Rzeczpospolita]. normanfinkelstein.com. Archived from the original on March 23, 2010. Retrieved 31 October 2015 – via archive.org.
    16. ↑ Davies: "Strach" to nie analiza, lecz publicystyka Archived 2008-01-28 at the Wayback Machine., Gazeta Wyborcza, 21 January 2008. (in Polish)
    17. ↑ Postanowienie o umorzeniu śledztwa Archived 2012-11-14 at the Wayback Machine., ipn.gov.pl, 30 June 2003. (in Polish)
    18. ↑ Craig Whitlock, "A Scholar's Legal Peril in Poland", Washington Post Foreign Service, 18 January 2008, p. A14. quote: "The book was first published in 2006 in the United States, where reviewers found it praiseworthy.", "When the Polish-language edition of his book was released here last Friday, prosecutors wasted no time in announcing that he was under investigation."
    19. 1 2 Ryan Lucas (24 January 2008). "Book on Polish anti-Semitism sparks fury". USA Today. quote:The book was first released in the United States in 2006, where it was greeted with warm reviews. In Poland, however, the book has been 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, the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, has 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 Gazeta Wyborcza daily. "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."
    20. 1 2 Jeevan Vasagar; Julian Borger (7 Apr 2011). "A Jewish renaissance in Poland". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
    21. ↑ Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union, Cambridge University Press, Mark Kramer, pages 68-69
    22. ↑ Jan T. Gross: "Flüchtlingskrise: Die Osteuropäer haben kein Schamgefühl." Die Welt, 13 September 2015. (in German)
    23. 1 2 Historian May Face Charges in Poland for Writing That Poles Killed Jews in World War II, Haaretz, Ofer Aderet, 30 October 2016
    24. ↑ Polskie Radio (14 September 2015). "Polish Foreign Min. rebukes Gross over Die Welt refugee article".
    25. ↑ Holocaust scholar who said Poles killed Jews grilled by police, AP (reprinted by Times of Israel), 14 April 2016
    26. ↑ "Warsaw acts over claim 'Poles killed more Jews than Germans", AFP, 15 October 2015; retrieved 31 October 2015.
    27. ↑ Holocaust scholar tests Poland’s freedom of speech, and its WWII narrative, Associate Press (reprint by Times of Israel), Vanessa Gera, 5 November 2016
    28. ↑ "Do the words ‘Polish death camps’ defame Poland? And if so, who’s to blame?", The Times of Israel, February 26, 2016
    29. ↑ Poland turns history into diplomatic weapon, Politico, Jo Harper, 19 Feb 2016
    30. ↑ Polish move to strip Holocaust expert of award sparks protests, Guardian, 14 Feb 2016
    31. ↑ "Naukowcy z Francji bronią Jana Tomasza Grossa" (Researchers from France defend Jan Tomasz Gross), Wmeritum (Poland)

    Further reading

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