Many in the region supported the National Party branch of the National Democracy movement, a right-wing and antisemitic bloc which sought to counter what it claimed was Jewish economic competition against Catholics and opposed the Polish socialist government of Józef Piłsudski and his successors. Prewar Polish-Jewish relations in the town were relatively good before 1939. At their most tense, when a Jewish woman was killed in Jedwabne and a Polish peasant in another town was killed a few days later, a rumor began that the Jedwabne Jews had taken revenge. The Jews anticipated a pogrom, but the local priest and rabbi stepped in, addressing the matter together.
