Mayor Resigns in Wake of Massacre Tribute
The mayor of a town where Poles killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors in 1941 said he has resigned because town councilors failed to support efforts to memorialize the wartime massacre.
The resignation of Jedwabne’s mayor, Krzystof Godlewski, followed a July 10 commemoration in which President Aleksander Kwasniewski begged forgiveness for the massacre but said Nazi occupiers had incited it.
Research published last year revealed that Poles, not Nazis, killed the Jews of Jedwabne.
The mayor said he had threatened to resign even before the ceremony because of councilors and townspeople “who cannot acknowledge the truth.”
Stanislaw Michalowski, head of the town council, said he was also resigning in solidarity with the mayor.
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