Pogrom or Revenge The Armed Operation of the Freedom and Independence Association in Parczew on 5 February 1946

The book presents a micro-historical study of the attack on the town of Parczew in eastern Poland, carried out on 5 February 1946 by soldiers from the Polish anti-Communist Freedom and Independence Association (Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość, WiN). By  providing a meticulous analysis of the political, social, and cultural context as well as a detailed account of the incident itself, the author challenges the perception of the Parczew events as an anti-Semitic pogrom, thus far broadly accepted in historical literature. Rather, he argues that the WiN operation was strictly retaliatory in nature, directed not against the local Jewish community per se, but against those who collaborated with the Communist regime imposed on Poland by the Soviet Union. The author broadly analyzes the historical context of the events. Going back as far as the inter-war period, he chronicles the relatively modest involvement of the Jews from Parczew and the surrounding Włodawa county in the Communist movement, and then in the Communist and Soviet partisan forces during World War II. He points out that, for the majority of Jews, survival was the priority during and after the conflict. In the latter time, this meant cooperation with whatever government constituted itself as the enforcer of law and order. Parallelly, the author tells the story of Communist brutality and terror against the Polish Christian population and Polish freedom fighters.