People will have to investigate local histories with a new lens. As that occurs, as Cardinal Glemp said, Poles fear that their country's reputation will suffer, especially in America. But few Poles pay open heed to the far right. And he noted that a Lomza priest had been beatified for his friendship with Jews in the 1930's. New documents found in German archives indicate the presence in the region of an Einsatzgruppe led by an SS Obersturmf hrer, Hermann Schaper, who Mr. Machcewicz, the government historian, says was in Radzilow on the key day of July 7.
Polish distress is tangible in the two towns.
I can invent any story right now. On the square in Radzilow, on the stones where the Jews were forcibly collected, Mariusz Gryczkowski spoke as others tried to hush him. He lives in a formerly Jewish house his father bought after the war from the state, he said. He worries about his title to it. It makes me not want to be a Pole.