As Jan Tomasz Gross addressed a crowd Sunday night, a single image was projected behind him.
About 30 Polish peasants and uniformed officials stood with farm tools in a desert-like field. Near the end of his lecture, Gross drew attention to the previously unmentioned image, inviting the crowd of about 50 to look closer. Skulls laid at the feet of the Polish peasants.
He said the desert-like ground was not sand, but rather the ashes of hundreds of thousands of slaughtered Jewish residents. He said the peasants standing above were rifling through the ashes to try to find Jewish gold and jewels.
“Those involved in the crime were opportunists,” he said. “Where the opportunity arose, they were not shy to take it.”
Gross, a Polish-born professor at Princeton University, is known for his work looking into the role of Polish people in the massacre of Jewish Poles during World War II and the Holocaust, said Norman Goda, a professor with the Center for Jewish Studies. On Sunday night in Smathers Library, Room 100, Gross talked about his work and how historians can use first-hand accounts to build their studies.
Goda said he wanted to bring Gross to UF because of the impact of his work. After Gross released his 2002 book “Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland,” which challenged the national narrative about the Holocaust in Poland, he received backlash, including the country filing a criminal libel investigation against him.
The Polish narrative surround- ing the Holocaust was that Germans committed most of the atrocities in the country.
Makaelah Barrett, a 20-year-old UF international studies junior, said she cried while reading Gross’ book. She came to the event to hear more about his reaction to being shunned by his own country and community.
“It’s so exciting just to see him go against the grain of the Polish culture,” she said.
When asked about the backlash he received, Gross shrugged.
“You can’t please them all,” he said.
Contact Romy Ellenbogen at rellenbogen@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @romyellenbogen
Jan Tomasz Gross
