ABSTRACT
The article discusses the Kielce pogrom on 4 July 1946, during which forty-two Jews were brutally murdered by their Christian neighbours. Using police interrogations recorded shortly after the pogrom, Tokarska-Bakir illuminates the events from the perspective of the victims, the perpetrators, the militia, and the Office of Public Security. The pogrom took place after rumours that the town’s Jews had kidnapped and killed Christian children, and the article traces the transmission and reception of the blood libel in Poland before concluding with a valuable discussion of religious anti-Judaism v. nationalism-inspired modern antisemitism.
