Jan T. Gross

Jan Tomasz Gross (born 1947) is a Poland-born American historian and sociologist. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson Professor of War and Society, and Professor of History at Princeton University, on leave in 2015–16.

Gross was born in Warsaw to Hanna Szumańska, who was a member of the Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa) in World War II, and Zygmunt Gross, who was a PPS member before the war broke out. His father was Jewish and his mother was Christian. His mother, risking her own life, helped his father survive the German Nazi occupation of Poland. They married after the war. Gross studied physics at the University of Warsaw.

He was among the young dissidents called Komandosi, and consequently among the university students involved in the protest movement known as the "March Events" – the Polish student and intellectual protests of 1968. Gross was expelled from the university, arrested and jailed for five months. As a consequence, and because the Polish government permitted the emigration of "people of Jewish origin" at that time, he emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1969. In 1975 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University; and has taught at Yale, New York University, and in Paris. He acquired U.S. citizenship and currently employed as Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society (Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professorship in War and Society was established by Norman B. Tomlinson '48 in memory of his father, Norman B. Tomlinson '16 for a professorship in the Department of History. Gross has held it since 2003); Professor of History history at Princeton University.

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