¶ … atrocities happening in recent modern history of civilization. The two World Wars in the first part of the 20th century have demonstrated the human capacity to inflict harm and destruction on its peers. Perhaps one of the most significant event in the history of the Second World War is that of the genocide that took place on the Jewish community. During the war and immediately afterwards more than six million Jews are reported to have been massacred by the Nazi forces
However, despite the fact that the holocaust that took place during this time is mostly attributed to the Nazi forces and Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jewish population, there are numerous accounts of historians that point out the fact that the SS German troops would have been unable to achieve this great atrocity without the assistance of the local populations such as the Polish or the French. One such account is provided by Jan T. Gross in his book "Neighbors: the Destruction of the Jewish Community at Jewabne, Poland." The book describes the way in which Jewish communities in Poland were massacred with the full cooperation of the local Polish population.
The book raises several important questions related to the relationships between human beings and their connection with their origin. From the very title of the book, the author provides the nature of the aspects under discussion. Aside from a very emotional and revealing account of the massacres of the Jewish communities in Poland, the author points out the relationship between those massacred and those that, at best, refused to provide any assistance to the victims. The term "neighbors" suggests the close relation the Jews had with the Polish communities; yet, the events depicted in the book reveal a type of behavior that sets the question on the limit of human behavior towards its peers and the reasons for which people that knew each other rebel against one another and enabled its neighbors to become victims of slaughter and tragedy.
The book can be analyzed from the point-of-view of the subject as well as from the perspective of the questions it raises. In this sense, the holocaust has become common knowledge in the history books and throughout civilized world as one of the greatest atrocities of human kind. The book further points out the particularities of these atrocities in the Polish community. This particular subject can be seen as a "case study" of genocide. The controversy of the subject has determined a controversial view of the book. However, the main point of the writing points out the fact that communities in which the social relations were constructed by force eventually reveal inhumane attitudes and behaviors that may lead to such events, in favorable historical conditions
. Therefore, the role of the Polish community, in which the Jews had been living and integrating for decades, may be, according to the evidence provided in the book, more significant that initially believed. Thus, on June 10, 1941, the massacre of the Jews did not take place with the help or even the assistance of the Nazi rule, but rather by Polish means.
The book is significant in the sense that it draws the attention on genocide as a means of human destruction and as a result of dehumanization. Some passages reveal the atrocities that took place at the time by providing detailed description of events. In one instance, "Around the tortured ones [they included a 90-year-old rabbi] crowds of Polish men, women and children were standing and laughing at the miserable victims who were falling under the blows of the bandits."
This is however a common image in such cases and has been seen in other examples of genocide actions.
One of the more significant points the book makes is to consider the nature of the actions and what determines humans to act differently in given historical moments. It can be said that until the Second World War Poland was not seen as a society that does not offer tolerance...
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