On January 8, 1949, in the small town of Jedwabne, some nineteen kilometers from Lomza in Poland's historical province of Mazowsze, security police detained fifteen men. They were, to put it simply, a bunch of ordinary men. The opening sentence of their indictment reads, "Jewish Historical Institute in Poland sent materials to the Ministry of Justice describing criminal activities of the inhabitants of Jedwabne who engaged in the murder of Jewish people, as stated in the testimony of Szmul Wasersztajn who witnessed the pogrom of the Jews."
