Leon Kieres about Honor and Jedwabne

Jan Ordynski's conversation with professor Leon Kieres, the chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance. Honor means facing the truth.

Rzeczpospolita, 2 September 2002

Translated in FORUM, ZNAK - Christian Culture Foundation

Two years ago the IPN started an investigation of the murder in Jedwabne. Below we publish an interview with the chairman of the Institute, Professor Leon Kieres, which appeared earlier in "Rzeczpospolita":

Recently the results (of the investigation) have been announced. Was it worth giving the fact that it explained what had been known from the very beginning? Only the number of victims has been corrected.

I had no doubts that this tragedy had to be exposed. It simply couldn't have been otherwise. Today very important is the fact that the authority of a Polish state prosecutor backs the truth revealed by the proceedings; and this truth to a large extent agrees with the opinion of most historians, although discussions and disputes will continue - this time based on the findings of the prosecutor. Without this investigation Poles could have been accused of avoiding difficult and painful issues from the past.

Do you agree with the view that the investigation cleared the situation and that Poland shall not find itself in the position similar (of course in the right proportions) to that of France with the unsettled legacy of the Vichy regime?

I shall quote Jozef Chalasinski: "The basic value of the national culture is honor, a value both national and personal. A Nation is a peculiar union of people of honor. The essence of this nation as a social-cultural form is the fact that its internal bounds are a result of a shared system of values freely advocated by individuals as autonomous beings, i.e. possessing honor and personal dignity." For me honor means facing the truth. And this is what happened in the case of the Jedwabne tragedy.

Rzeczpospolita 204 (6281), 2 September , 2002, p. A5