Polonophobia in Academia and Media DEFINITIVE WORK Goska

Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype  in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture, by Danusha V. Goska. 2010

The Well-Substantiated Hostility, in Academia and Media, Towards Poles and Poland

Despite the fact that I had studied anti-Polonism for a long time (see the Amazon Wish List: Exposing Polonophobia…), even I was shocked at the extent and acceptability of such rank bigotry among influential Americans. Goska cites hundreds of sources to present her case, and space limitations permit mention of only a few themes.

THE MEDIA STRIVES TO AVOID PROMOTING STEREOTYPES…UNLESS THEY ARE OF POLES

After the publication of NEIGHBORS and FEAR, by Jan T. Gross, several respected publications ran articles that, in dead seriousness, made transparently racist statements suggesting that Poles are innately and inevitably brutal and anti-Semitic. (pp. 101-104). [Imagine how long a writer would last if s/he were to make “___are innately and inevitably___” statements about any other group!]

In terms of historical development, much has been said about how African-Americans had been thought of as innately inferior. However, as Goska shows, similar “scientific” attitudes were long held about Slavs. Some scholars went as far as asserting that Pulaski and Kosciuszko must have been misclassified Nordics! (p. 117). (This is reminiscent of the Nazi view that all successful Poles are actually Polonized Germans. Nowadays, the “redeemed” Pole is the one who agrees, or professes to agree, with the cultural Marxist version of events.)

In later years, “nationalism” became a dirty word. Goska writes: “The left’s rejection of Polish peasants’ insistence on clinging to their identity would find echoes decades later in lefts academics’ and journalists’ rejections of Polish and other Eastern European nationalisms as primitive and needing to evolve into Western liberalism…” (pp. 105-106).

IS POLAND EFFECTIVELY A BOGEYMAN FOR ACCUSATIONS OF ANTI-SEMITISM?

Far from being some kind of Polish disease, anti-Semitism, which historically had been much stronger and more developed in western Europe than in eastern Europe, is part of a much broader global phenomenon. Consider the Middleman Minority Theory (Jews in Europe, Indians in Uganda, Chinese in Thailand, etc.). In each case, the middleman “outsider” is resented for not having to do manual labor, and thought of as filling an exploitative niche, etc. (pp. 178-180). Likewise, Amy Chua’s “market dominant minorities” position suggests that market-controlling ethnic minorities attract conflict whenever previously-disenfranchised locals gain strength and attempt to gain parity with the ethnic minority. This was realized, for example, by Roman Dmowski and his Endek movement’s boycotts of Jews, etc. (pp. 186-188).

The blood libel, far from being some kind of Polish or Christian complex directed against Jews, is much, much broader. Goska uses her background in folklore to show how blood-consumption tales occur all over the world (pp. 188-189). For instance, pagans believed that early Christians drank baby blood, modern Tanzanians widely believe that Europeans consume Africans’ blood, and extant Third-World peoples believe organ-theft-ring stories that blame Americans.

SELECTIVE INDIGNATION ON ANTI-SEMITISM

When prominent atheist Richard Dawkins (p. 32) and Nation of Islam member Khalid Abdul Muhammad (pp. 65-80) made vile anti-Semitic remarks, they were ignored and apologized-for, respectively. But when Cardinal Glemp made relatively mild remarks in the wake of the Auschwitz Carmelite controversy (well described in this book: pp. 80-95), he was practically crucified by the press, which did much more shouting than accurate analysis of what he had actually said and why. [Muhammad was considered to have sufficient “impact and authority” to be censured the U.S. Senate in a 97-0 vote. However, American issues and personages are normally much more newsworthy than distant Polish ones, so one would expect Muhammed’s statements to be deemed more newsworthy than those of certain Poles].

However, Goska could have taken this matter further. Jews have, to one extent, long been allied with African-Americans. For this reason, it is not surprising that Jews usually, though not always, look the other way when there is African-American anti-Semitism.

Some accusations of Polish anti-Semitism are frankly ridiculous. For instance, we learn that the Polish term “black kitchen”, contrary to conventional suppositions, had nothing to do with any Jews=devil anti-Semitic construct. (p. 57). It simply referred to the soot caking of a room in the typical peasant hut.

Polish-Jewish prejudices always went both ways. “The Baal Shem Tov himself, the founder of Hasidism, was called upon to exorcise the Polish soul from the Jewish body.” (p. 62). For more on this, see my review of: HASIDISM AND THE JEWISH ENLIGHTENMENT.

WHY IS BASHING POLES SO FASHIONABLE AMONGST LEFTISTS AND CERTAIN JEWS? IN PART, A DIALECTIC OF NEGATION

Considering the fact that, on the world stage, Poland is inconsequential (p. 148), why does Polonophobia exist at all? Goska shows how it fulfills the accuser’s needs. Consider Jewish Polonophobia. Many American Jews know very little about Judaism, and instead define themselves not as who they are, but who they are NOT (those dumb, primitive Poles.)(e. g., p. 154). In fact: “`Poland’ became a metonym for anything negative in the Jewish makeup.” (p. 160).

Let’s analyze Jewish identity further. “According to Israeli politician Zevulun Orlev, who cites studies to support his position, Holocaust education is primary in creating Jewish identity. Poland is a SINE QUO NON for Holocaust education…’cursed’ Poland is central to building Jewish identity.” (p. 151). Finally, “One reason why some Jews refuse to acknowledge Polish suffering, and why some Jews express more rage against Poles than the Nazis, becomes clear. If it becomes more widely known that Poles were victims of World War Two, rather than its perpetrators, the new Jewish identity based on victim status, typified the Holocaust, is threatened.” (p. 213). For more on all this, see my review of: SPARKS AMIDST THE ASHES, by Rabbi Byron Sherwin.

Now consider German Polonophobia. In the past, it had served the purpose of excusing/justifying German imperial ambitions against Poland. It persists today. Goska comments: “A 1990 survey revealed that eighty-seven percent of Germans regarded Poles as `less desirable than themselves, Russians, or Turks.'” (p. 165). [This needs to be taken further, Perhaps German anti-Polonism persists, to this day, because Germany, as exemplified by Angela Merkel, wants to be enshrined as the unquestioned “boss” of the European Union. In addition, the putdown of Poles serves the purpose of Germany feeling less guilty for the Nazi German genocide of Poles during WWII, and it makes it easier for Germany to “pay her dues” to the Jews but not to the Poles.]

THE COMMON MINIMIZING OF WWII POLISH RESCUES OF JEWS

Goska notes that disproportionately many Poles are honored at Yad Vashem. Contrary to critics, this owes not to the large number of Polish Jews–quite the opposite. Western European Jews were relatively few, assimilated, geographically scattered, and thus relatively easy to disguise or hide. By contrast, the overwhelming majority of the huge numbers of Polish Jews were unassimilated, confined by the Germans to ghettos, and thereby inaccessible to potential Polish rescuers. Finally, Poles faced the death penalty for the slightest aid to Jews: Western European rescuers didn’t. Thus the Polish rescuers actually compare even more, not less, favorably to their western European counterparts, than their already-disproportionate raw numbers would suggest.

Danusha Goska could have taken this further. Notice, for example, when Polish rescuers are brought up, so almost always are the Polish denouncers and killers of Jews. Notice that this seldom happens when the famed Danish rescuers are brought up. The media almost never mentions the Danish Nazi Party and the Danish Waffen SS (FRIKORPS DANMARK).

JEWS IN COMMERCE AND USURY

The author (pp. 57-58) cites Botticini and Eckstein (THE CHOSEN FEW), who pointed out that Jews had, in the 1st Millennium A.D., massively abandoned farming in favor of skilled, urban work. (This could be mapped unto Martin Luther’s later complaint that Jews are privileged in that they don’t have to do sweat-causing work, and foreign observers’ suggestions that the poverty of late 19th-early-20th century Polish Jews owed, in large part, to the fact that they, having been displaced from their middleman positions, generally refused to take jobs that involved heavy, manual labor).

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A superb book! It must be repeatedly studied in order to be fully appreciated.