Nazis May Have Taken Part in Polish Massacre

Spent ammunition of the type used by Nazi soldiers was found during the exhumation of a mass grave of Jews massacred by their Polish neighbors in 1941, investigators said Tuesday.

They said the type and position of the bullets and shells could indicate that Nazis fired at Jews trying to flee a burning barn where hundreds perished. But they emphasized that it would take more forensic work to draw any conclusions about who did the shooting.

The Institute of National Remembrance launched an inquiry after the role of Poles in the pogrom was detailed in a book published last year. The author, Jan Tomasz Gross, said Nazis were present in the northeastern village of Jedwabne at the time, and even photographed the pogrom, but did not participate.

Much of the nation was shocked by descriptions of Poles, rather than Nazi occupiers, beating to death or burning in a barn as many as 1,600 Jews in Jedwabne.

Investigators initially hoped that the exhumation would help determine how many people were killed, but the work was scaled back because of Jewish concerns about desecrating the grave site. Only the first layer was fully exhumed.

The institute’s chief prosecutor, Witold Kulesza, said the partial exhumation indicated that the bodies of 150 to 250 victims could be on or near the site of the barn. He said the completed work in no way indicated how many people were killed in all.

The figure of 1,600 victims stems from a Communist-era monument that says German soldiers burned that many in the barn.

Jewish leaders have expressed concern that debates over numbers and other details might be used to blur the horror of the crime.

Stanislaw Krajewski, Jewish co-chairman of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, said the investigation is “important for documenting facts but changes nothing in the general picture of the situation then.”

Radoslaw Ignatiew, a prosecutor in charge of investigating the pogrom, said he was not bothered by the discrepancies in numbers.

“The figure 1,600 is one among many,” he said. “Whether there were 250 or 1,600 victims, the crime was the same and will be investigated all the same.”

Political leaders appear convinced that Poles were involved in the killing. President Aleksander Kwasniewski has said he will make a formal apology July 10, the 60th anniversary of the pogrom, when a new monument will be dedicated.