Abstract
My initial interview with Jan T. Gross took place on a Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, while he was in the process of translating/rewriting Fear in Polish. He would publish Strach in Poland in January of the following year. We took some time to review the sequence of events around the publication of Sąsiedzi, Neighbors , and Fear, paying particular attention to the dialogue that developed between the Polish- and English-language contexts. Gross also discussed his motivations and methods in writing these books, while trying to anticipate the upcoming reception of Strach in Poland.
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Notes
The Institute for National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, IPN) was founded in December 1998 and tasked with “collecting and administering the archives of the communist security organs, investigating Nazi and communist crimes against the Polish nation, and conducting educational activity” (Marci Shore, “Conversing with Ghosts: Jedwabne, Żydokomuna, and Totalitarianism,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, no. 2 (2005): 360). Very much in response to the debates provoked by Sąsiedzi, the commission conducted an in-depth, follow-up investigation of the Jedwabne massacre, after which a much more widespread pattern came to light, and many of Gross’s claims were confirmed if not amplified. However, by the mid-2000s, the leadership of IPN became very strongly identified with the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), and the government of Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński, and took a much harder line against Gross’s second book, Strach.
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© 2012 Kristin Kopp and Joanna Niżyńska
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Labov, J., Gross, J.T. (2012). Interviews with Jan T. Gross (2007/2009). In: Kopp, K., Niżyńska, J. (eds) Germany, Poland, and Postmemorial Relations. Europe in Transition: The Nyu European Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137052056_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137052056_9
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