Analysis Of Anna Bikont's Book 'Neighbors'

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During World War ll there was a small town in Poland by the name of Jedwabne made up of Polish, Jewish, and Catholic residents. Unfortunate circumstances in 1941 lead to a massacre of Jewish people. The debate of this incident lies in the exact number of residents killed and the culprit who committed this crime and the intention behind it. Historians across the world have debated all aspects of this horrific event, especially after the release of Jan T. Gross’s book ‘Neighbors’. Historians have all agreed on the occurrence of the massacre but have not on the reasoning and the offenders behind it. In Gross’s book the Polish are examined and put to blame for the heinous crime of burning their fellow neighbors alive, but other historians argue …show more content…

It is more of a memoir type of book that plays to the reader’s emotional response and connects with them on a more personal level. She uses historians, journalists, clergymen, and other sources in order to uncover the unfortunate events that took place that day in 1941. Julian Barnes writes a riveting review and analysis to Bikont’s book. Barnes looks at how Bikont’s book has added to the detail and taken away some of the confusion about the massacre in Jedwabne. “Bikont’s book is more than a book of memory. It is also a book about forgetting, about the pollution of memory, about the conflict between the easy, convenient truth and the awkward, harder truth. It is a work that grows from its journalistic manner and origins into the powerful writing of necessary history”(Barnes, 12). Barnes describes how detailed and horrific Bikont’s book is, and how hard it is to get through. However, it is important to understand as Barnes stated above, that even though it is horrific it is history that needs to be uncovered and told. All of Bikont’s sources reveal an argument towards the cover-up of this horrific event through oral histories, testimonials, and archives. Barnes states “her text is dense with names—some of them confusingly similar, yet whose owners had diametrically opposed destinies—with places and details to remember, and several overlapping timescales”(Barnes, …show more content…

It is easy to get caught up in the details of the event itself, however, it is a challenge to look past the cover of the controversy and really understand the underlying importance of this event. Yes a massacre of Jewish residents took place in 1941, yes it was a horrific event, yet even as horrific as it was it changed the history of Polish and Jewish relationships forever. This history between the two groups have been overlooked for years and these books now give the opportunity to uncover another aspect of World War ll history in reference to Polish character and Jewish

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