Jan Tomasz Gross's research focuses on modern Europe, with a comparative approach to totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Soviet and Eastern European politics, and the Holocaust
Having grown up in Poland and begun his studies at Warsaw University, he emigrated to the USA in 1969 and obtained his doctorate in sociology from Yale University (1975). His first book, Polish Society under German Occupation, was published in 1979. Revolution from Abroad (1988) analyzes how Soviet rule was imposed in Poland and the Baltic States between 1939 and 1941. Neighbors (2001) recounts the events that took place in July 1941 in the small Polish town of Jedwabne, during which virtually all the town's Jewish inhabitants were killed in a single day.
Using direct testimony, Jan Tomasz Gross demonstrates that the Jews of Jedwabne were killed by their Polish neighbors, not by the German occupiers, as had previously been claimed. This shocking story has given rise to an unprecedented reassessment of relations between Jews and Poles during the Second World War, and led to passionate debate. In 2004, many of the Polish words spoken during this debate were published in a collection, The Neighbors Respond
After dealing with anti-Semitism in Poland after 1945 (Fear, 2006; French translation: La peur, 2010), in 2011 he published a book on the looting of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe (French translation: Moisson d'or: le pillage des biens juifs, 2014). Jan Tomasz Gross joined Princeton's history faculty in 2003, having previously taught at New York University, Emory (Atlanta) and Yale (New Haven), as well as holding teaching posts in Paris, Vienna and Krakow. He is now Professor Emeritus.