On 9 July 2007, the Group Against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia VIRIDARIUM organized a meeting at the headquarters of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights devoted to the anniversaries of two tragic events – the manslaughter in Jedwabne (10 July 1941) and the massacre in Srebrenica (11 July 1995). The meeting was lead by Halina Bortnowska (right). (13-JUL-07)
Written by Marta Smagowicz / VIRIDARIUM and Agnieszka Chmielecka / HRH Warsaw.
The meeting’s guests included: Konstanty Gebert and Adam Balcer from the Centre for Eastern Studies. About 40 people watched Slawomir Grunberg’s film “The Legacy of Jedwabne” and afterwards listened attentively to a fragment of the book by Wojciech Tochman “Jakbys kamien jadla” (“Like Eating a Stone”), a discussion between invited guests and songs by Kasia Szczepanek.
Jedwabne and Srebrenica – similar history
Jedwabne and Srebrenica – the history and present day of these two cities are marked by the blood of neighbors killed by neighbors. In Jedwabne (Podlasie region, Poland) the inhabitants of the city do not wish to talk about the events from 66 years back, when they burned their Jewish neighbors in a barn. The Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamiêci Narodowej, IPN)estimated that the number of victims amounted to at least 340 people. In Srebrenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the second of the cities marked by death, new graves are continuously uncovered as we read in Tochman’s book: “In the spring of the following year women found out from the radio that investigative teams from the Court in Hague are working in the vicinity of Srebrenica. Three and a half thousand bodies were found underneath the newly uncovered soil. The radio gave no mention of the remaining several thousand.”
“Never again”
We met in order to remember, in order to remind ourselves what “never again” could signify. Mr. K. Gebert said: “The circumstances surrounding Srebrenica and Jedwabne are after all exceptional, because the world remembers these crimes and their victims. Does anyone even remember Darfur? And this tragedy is taking place right now, before the very eyes of the helpless world.?”
