On 10 July 2026, the Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance, Mateusz Szpytma, Ph.D., took part in the ceremonies marking the 85th anniversary of the crime in Jedwabne.
In July 1941, a murder took place in which several hundred Jews from Jedwabne were killed. The interrupted exhumation does not allow for determining the precise number of victims. Prosecutorial estimates use the figure of at least 340 murdered Polish citizens of Jewish nationality.
According to prosecutorial estimates from the early 21st century, “at least around forty Poles” participated in the crime. The murder was aligned with the needs of the Germans present in Jedwabne, similarly to mass killings organized by them in other localities on the Soviet side of the Ribbentrop–Molotov line and in the Baltic countries. Each participant in such crimes benefited from the impunity provided by the German Reich – they took place in areas fully controlled by German military and police forces.
The Germans were particularly intent on involving at least part of the local population in acts of violence inspired by them in the occupied territories. On 29 June 1941, Reinhard Heydrich reminded that “it is advisable to initiate local popular pogroms.” He emphasized that “no obstacles should be placed in the way of efforts to carry out purges by anti-communist or anti-Jewish circles in newly occupied areas.” On the contrary: “they should be instigated” and “if necessary intensified and directed onto the proper track.” At the same time, this was to be done without leaving traces of German involvement.
Poland was at war with Germany. Each participant in such acts of violence against innocent fellow citizens became a useful tool in the hands of the German Reich, and at the same time a criminal under Polish law. No circumstances justified active participation in carrying out the criminal intentions of the German occupiers.
In Polish national memory, there is no place for justifying the perpetrators of such crimes.
The ceremony at the monument in Jedwabne, commemorating the murdered victims, was organized by the Jewish Religious Community in Warsaw.