A Massacre in a Forest Becomes a Test of Poland’s Pushback on Wartime Blame (Published 2021)
Two researchers are on trial for writing that a Polish mayor was complicit in a massacre. Critics say the government is trying to emphasize Polish suffering in World War II and downplay complicity in Nazi crimes.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/world/europe/poland-massacre-jews-nazis-blame.html
Polish heroism, however, coexisted with sometimes monstrous acts of violence, a fact that the Law and Justice Party and nationalist outfits have struggled to obscure. In one episode in July 1941, villagers in Jedwabne, northeast of Warsaw, locked more than 300 Jews, neighbors with whom they had previously lived peacefully, in a barn and set it on fire, killing all of them.