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Jan T. Gross
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Jan Tomasz Gross (born in 1947) is a Polish American historian and sociologist. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society and Professor of History at Princeton University.
Biography
Gross was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1947 to a Polish mother, who was a member of the Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa) and a Polish-Jewish father who was a PPS member. His mother, risking her own life, helped his father to survive the Nazi occupation in Poland.
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Encyclopedia
Jan Tomasz Gross (born in 1947) is a Polish American historian and sociologist. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society and Professor of History at Princeton University.
Biography
Gross was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1947 to a Polish mother, who was a member of the Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa) and a Polish-Jewish father who was a PPS member. His mother, risking her own life, helped his father to survive the Nazi occupation in Poland. They married after the war. Jan Tomasz Gross studied physics at Warsaw University.
Gross was among the university students involved in the protest movement known as the "March Events," the Polish student and intellectual protests of 1968. He was expelled from the university, arrested and jailed for five months. As a consequence, and because the Polish government permitted the emigration of "people of Jewish origin" at that time, he emigrated with his parents to the United States. In 1975 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University, and has taught at Yale, NYU, and Paris. He acquired U.S. citizenship and currently teaches history at Princeton University.
Gross was also awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in 1996, an award granted to foreigners for their exceptional role in cooperation between Poland and other nations. He was also a Senior Fulbright Research, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, and Rockefeller Humanities Fellow.
Controversy
Gross first came to public attention with the publication of his 2001 book on the Jedwabne massacre, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, which examined a massacre of the Polish Jews in Jedwabne village in Nazi-occupied Poland. In his book Gross described how the massacre was perpetrated by Poles and not by the German occupiers, as previously assumed. The claims were the subject of vigorous debate in Poland. A subsequent investigation conducted by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance moderately supported Gross' conclusions about the massacre. However, it differed on major issues such as the number of victims, the extent of German involvement and whether or not German officers were present, and the extent of any Jewish collaboration with U.S.S.R. which Gross denies.
Gross' most recent book, Fear - Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, which deals with antisemitism and violence against Jews in post-war Poland was published in the United States in 2006. The book had received praise in the United States; its Polish version, published in 2008, got mixed media reception in Poland and began a debate about antisemitism in post war Poland. It has been welcomed by some historians and media, and criticized by others, especially in Poland.
Very few in Poland deny the facts Gross presented in his book, but many dilike the "meticulous case" he documents for the existence of widespread post-war Polish antiSemitism. Marek Edelman, one of the last living leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising said in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, "Postwar violence against Jews was mostly not about anti-Semitism, murdering Jews was pure banditry."
See also
Publications
Books
Other
- "Lato 1941 w Jedwabnem. Przyczynek do badan nad udzialem spolecznosci lokalnych w eksterminacji narodu zydowskiego w latach II wojny swiatowej," in Non-provincial Europe, Krzysztof Jasiewicz ed., Warszawa - London: Rytm, ISP PAN, 1999, pp. 1097-1103
External links
Further reading
- John Connelly, Poles and Jews in the Second World War: the Revisions of Jan T. Gross, Contemporary European History. Cambridge: Nov 2002. Vol. 11, Issue 4
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