Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland

As noted by Joshua D. Zimmerman in his book about contested Polish history, Neighbors inspired a wide-ranging debate in Poland on its release in 2000. While the mainstream Polish press expressed consensus regarding the basic accuracy of Gross's findings, specific details and questions about Gross's methodology were debated by Polish scholars.[22]

According to Jaroslaw Anders, although the book has been criticized in Poland, it has also generated acknowledgment from leading Polish figures such as Józef Cardinal Glemp, who described it as "incontestable", and from Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who asked Poles to "seek forgiveness for what our compatriots have done."[23] Polish News Service is said to have reported that other Polish publications such as Nasz Dziennik, Głos, Mysl Polska, and Niedziela accused the book of being a "part of international campaign aimed at damaging the image of Poland and preparing ground for restitution of Jewish property."[24]

Tomasz Strzembosz criticized the fact that the often contradictory testimonies on which the book was based were extracted from Polish witnesses in pre-trial beatings conducted by the Security Office (UB) in 1949[25] as well as selection (and exclusion) of specific testimonies.[26]

Stanisław Musiał, who had been a leading figure in advocating a Catholic-Jewish dialogue and Polish-Jewish reconciliation, wrote that Gross' book had shattered the myth that Poles were solely victims who "themselves never wronged anyone."[27] Agnieszka Magdziak-Miszewska, a former deputy editor-in-chief of the Polish Catholic magazine Znak and Polish consul-general, wrote "I am convinced that Neighbors is a book which had to be written and which is needed. Facing up to the painful truth of Jedwabne is, in my conviction, the most serious test that we Poles have had to confront in the last decade."[28]

According to Joanna B. Michlic, "Gross and his supporters referred to the Polish version of the notion of Judeo-communism (see żydokomuna) as an antisemitic cliché, whereas Gross's opponents, to varying degrees, treated it as an actual historical fact. In the latter group, Judeo-communism served the purpose of rationalizing and explaining the participation of ethnic Poles in killing their Jewish neighbors and, thus, in minimizing the criminal nature of the murder."[29]In the introduction to "The Neighbors Respond", Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic state about the that the harshest critics of Gross, such as Tomasz Strzembosz: "Many of those who have espoused what Andrzejowski describes as a "defensive open" stance in the controversy came to adopt quite extreme positions, as has been the case with Tomasz Strzembosz. They seem to have great difficulty abandoning the self-image of the Poles as heroes and victims and use strongly apologetic arguments." [30]

Gross defended the conclusions he drew from his use of testimonials, and insisted that he differentiated between types of testimony. He pointed out that Neighbors contained "an extensive justification why depositions produced during a trial conducted in Stalinist Poland, extracted by abusive secret police interrogators, are credible in this case."[31][32]

Neighbors was a 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a 2001 National Book Award Finalist.[33][34] The publication of Neighbors was credited with launching a debate about the Polish role in the Holocaust.[35][36] Bernard Wasserstein described the book as having "played a productive role in refreshing Polish collective memory of this aspect of World War 2."[37]

Alexander B. Rossino, a research historian at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., wrote: "while Neighbors contributed to an ongoing re-examination of the history of the Holocaust in Poland, Gross' failure to examine German documentary sources fundamentally flawed his depiction of the events. The result was a skewed history that did not investigate SS operations in the region or German interaction with the Polish population."[38] ' Dariusz Stola writing in Holocaust and Genocide Studies states that the book "deserves careful reading and serious critique" and that "if Neighbors were simply poorly researched and written, as some of Gross's critics charge, it would not have been so influential. However, this does not mean the book is flawless." Stola writes that the available evidence is far from sufficient to confirm exact number of victims and a number of eyewitness accounts raise doubts. The postwar accounts of some Jewish survivors, which were contradicted later; and records from the 1949-53 interrogations and trials of the Polish perpetrators by the communist "Security Office", which were often obtained by use of torture, have limited value and can be open to interpretations. Likewise the context of the crime—the unfolding Nazi Holocaust is missing largely from the publication. Stola questions Gross' assumption about lack of Jewish collaboration with the Soviets and the unorganised, spontaneous, "grassroots" nature of the pogrom.[39]