At a ceremony marking the 76th anniversary of the Jedwabne pogrom on Monday, a bishop apologised in the name of the Catholic Church for the murder of the Polish town’s Jews in 1941.
Bishop Rafal Markowski, who heads the Council for Religious Dialogue and the Committee for Dialogue with Judaism, was participating in the memorial ceremony in the northeast Poland town for the first time.
“The Catholic Church mourns the death of all those who suffered torture, pain and humiliation, and who died here in vain,” said Markowski, at a ceremony attended by about 100 people. “At the same time, the church strongly feels the pain of the members of the Polish nation, particularly the Catholics who contributed to this pain, to the humiliation and, ultimately, to death,” he added.
Historians who have studied the background to the pogrom were harshly critical of the Catholic Church at the time for not preventing its believers from participating in the massacre, and even contributing to antisemitic incitement against the Jews in the region.
Jedwabne has become a symbol of the rift in Polish-Jewish relations after historical research revealed that the town’s Jews were murdered at the initiative, and with the full cooperation of, their Polish neighbours, without any Nazi intervention or orders.
The precise number of those murdered is unknown, but historians estimate that it ranges from between 800 to 1,600 people.
A representative on behalf of the office of Polish President Andrzej Duda also attended the ceremony, as did Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, and the German ambassador to Poland.
