Beyond Jedwabne

This chapter examines the summer 1941 pogroms in what had been the Białystok and Polesie voivodships of Poland before the Soviet annexation. The main ethnic groups inhabiting these areas were Poles, Jews, and Belarusians. Our analysis illustrates that the pogroms were most likely to occur where support for Jewish national equality and the popularity of parties advocating cross-ethnic cooperation were strongest. In these localities Poles seeking a nationally homogeneous state felt most threatened, leading some to commit violence and others less likely to come to the rescue of their Jewish neighbors.