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The country's leading Jewish theologian welcomed the "unambiguous gesture," but criticized church leaders' continued tolerance of anti-Semitism.

At a service on May 27 in All Saints Church, close to the site of Warsaw's wartime Jewish ghetto, Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki, chairman of the Polish church's Commission for Dialogue with Judaism, said his church condemned "all forms of intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism." He referred specifically to the pogrom at Jedwabne where up to 1600 Jewish men, women and children were hacked to death or burned alive on July 10, 1941 during an eight-hour rampage three weeks after the German occupation of eastern Poland.

"We wish to show regret and penance for crimes which occurred at Jedwabne and elsewhere, whose victims were Jews and whose perpetrators included Poles and Catholics, baptized people," Gadecki said. "We are deeply pained by the behavior of those who inflicted suffering and even death on Jews. We recall this crime so we can fruitfully assume responsibility for overcoming every evil occurring today."

Poland's 3.5 million Jews made up a tenth of the national population before the Second World War, although only 100,000 survived the Holocaust. Jewish community groups in Poland now have about 3,000 members, and the country has about 150 religious Jews.

Stanislaw Krajewski, co-chairman of Poland's Council of Christians and Jews, said: "The [Warsaw] service itself left a very positive impression since it was unambiguously stated that guilt for this massacre was shared by Polish Catholics. But the problem lies in how much practical effect this message will have, and whether it will do anything to de-legitimize the activities typified by this church bookstore."

Krajewski was referring to various books on sale at the church during the service, including Jedwabne Geszefty by Henryk Pajak. The book's introduction said revelations about the massacre were "just one step in a world crusade of total discrimination against Poles and Poland." Another book on sale accused Jews of plotting against Poland.

The service, attended by Polish government officials, included a prayer for Jews written in 1998 by Pope John Paul II, as well as an intercession for "those who fail to value the Jewish contribution to world and national culture."

The Polish president, Aleksandr Kwasniewski, is to attend the 60th anniversary memorial ceremony in July at Jedwabne. A communist-era memorial stone in the town blaming the atrocity on "Gestapo and Hitlerite gendarmes" was removed last March.

However, the local Roman Catholic bishop, Stanislaw Stefanek, confirmed that church leaders would not participate, and would instead hold their own memorial services.

Commenting on the Warsaw service, the mass-circulation newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza said the bishops' prayers represented an "unprecedented" acknowledgement of "specific crimes."

The Israeli ambassador, Shevach Weiss, once an inmate at the Auschwitz camp, predicted the gesture would be "a positive step for everyone, as well as for the Polish nation."

However, Krajewski said he believed the service's impact had been damaged by the sale of the anti-Semitic publications at the church, which stands opposite the Polish capital's only remaining Jewish synagogue.

"The contradiction is obvious, and merely highlights the ineffectiveness of the church's gesture," Krajewski said. "If the bookshop was selling a single pro-abortion publication, they would have reacted immediately. But they don't seem to think anti-Semitic books are important enough. Perhaps some bishops consider them acceptable."

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June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45