Jedwabne massacre commemoration met by far-right protest

Poland's Jewish community, political leaders and citizens marked the 85th anniversary of the Jedwabne massacre on July 10, while far-right activists protested nearby.

The ceremony was held at the site of a former barn where around 300 Jews, including women and children, were locked inside by local Polish farmers in 1941 and burned to death. Several people at the commemoration wore Israeli and European Union flags as they paid respects at a monument erected in 2001.

Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich urged unity and invited participants to read aloud the names and occupations of Jews murdered in Jedwabne.

Nearby, about 1,000 people attended demonstrations and a Catholic mass organised by far-right parties. The groups reject the finding that Polish villagers were responsible for the killings and say exhumations, halted in 2001 for religious reasons at the request of the Jewish community, should resume.

An official investigation confirmed in 2003 that Poles from Jedwabne carried out the massacre, rather than Nazi German occupiers. Around 40 other Jews from Jedwabne were killed by villagers in other ways, and several other massacres of Jews took place in the region during the German occupation of Poland in World War II.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who did not attend the ceremony, said the anniversary should be a lesson about Poland's national conscience. Schudrich said honest discussion of the massacre was not an attack on Polish identity.