Poles Agree on Shrine to Slain Jews
Poland’s government has reached an agreement with a farmer to buy a plot of land for a memorial to Jews massacred by their Polish neighbors in the town of Jedwabne in 1941, a local official said Friday.
Tomasz Surynowicz, spokesman for the governor of Podlaskie province in northeastern Poland, said the farmer signed the agreement Thursday after weeks of haggling.
The farmer had indicated that he was leaning toward a deal with a publisher of anti-Semitic books, who apparently made a higher offer in an attempt to disrupt plans for the monument.
The property and an adjoining plot already owned by the government are the site of a mass grave believed to hold the remains of hundreds of massacred Jewish victims.
Surynowicz said the deal should allow the new monument to be finished in time for the 60th anniversary of the pogrom July 10.
After revelations about Polish involvement in the massacre touched a raw national nerve, authorities in March removed a stone monument that falsely blamed Nazi and Gestapo soldiers for killing 1,600 Jews.
It is to be replaced with a monument listing the names of victims. Officials have yet to decide how far a new inscription will go in acknowledging the role of Poles in the deaths.
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