The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. At least 340 men, women and children were murdered, some 300 of whom were locked in a barn which was then set on fire. About 40 Poles carried out the killing, the ringleaders having decided on it with German secret police or intelligence officials beforehand. It was overseen by German military police who according to Jan Gross were "the only ones who could decide the fate of the Jews" at the massacre.Knowledge of the mass murder only became widespread in 1999–2003 due to the work of Polish filmmakers, journalists, and academics, in particular the 2001 English version of Jan T. Gross' book Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. Public interest in the incident prompted a forensic murder investigation in 2000–2003 by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, which confirmed that the direct perpetrators were ethnic Poles. The country was shocked by the findings, which challenged common narratives about the Holocaust in Poland that focused on Polish suffering and heroism, and that non-Jewish Poles had little responsibility for the fate of Poland's Jews.In a 2001 memorial ceremony at Jedwabne, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski apologized on behalf of the country, an apology which was repeated in 2011 by President Bronisław Komorowski. With the rise to power of PiS in 2015, the subject again became contentious, as part of that party's controversial "historical policy"; President Andrzej Duda criticized Komorowski's apology.