[2] Bikont was born in a Polish-Jewish family[3] in Warsaw to journalist Wilhelmina Skulska [pl] and Catholic-Polish writer Andrzej Kruczkowski.

[5] She joined Solidarity in 1980, becoming the editor of Informację Solidarności, an internal pamphlet that came out initially daily, then weekly and helped inform many other clandestine publications operating at that time.

[5][6] In 1982, she co-founded and began to edits the Tygodnik Mazowsze weekly, Poland's largest underground publication, continuing to do until 1989,[7] when she became one of the founders of Gazeta Wyborcza, the first legal newspaper published outside the communist government's control.

[9] Bikont began her own journalistic investigation, interviewing numerous people in Jedwabne, including descendants of survivors and persons living in the city when Gross's book was published.

[11] The work chronicles the life of Irena Sendler and other Polish women who provided shelter for Jewish children during the Shoah.