"Bieganski": "Important," "Admirable," "Pioneering," "Incontrovertible to Any Fair Minded Person" Goska "Forces Open the Door"

"Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture," has been reviewed by editor, publisher, and bookseller Daniel T. Weaver in "Upstream Two: A Mohawk Valley Journal." Active and concerned Polonians and those interested in Polish-American culture will purchase, read, disseminate and support Upstream Two, as it focuses on Polish-American life and literature.

Weaver's review of "Bieganski" is one of the most accurate that the book has received so far.

All too often, those who speak about the Brute stereotype are Polish chauvinists or anti-Polish bigots. The Polish chauvinists insist that all Poles are heroes on horseback. The anti-Polish bigots insist that Poles are inherently flawed, or, more crudely, that Poles are all pigs. Neither group is correct. The Polish chauvinists have no use for my work, and neither do the anti-Polish bigots.

This skewed shouting match is worse than farce; it is a tragedy. The Bieganski stereotype is pervasive in elementary school classrooms, on university campuses, in the press and in films, in museums and in formal, state-sponsored "tolerance" efforts to come to terms with atrocity. It is a stereotype that is used to rewrite history, a stereotype that is used to lie to concerned human beings about what we need to do to meet our ethical responsibilities as members of the human race. Indeed, contrary to both Polish chauvinists and anti-Polish bigots, the Bieganski stereotype has deep and universal ethical implications.

Daniel T. Weaver is neither a Polish chauvinist nor an anti-Polish bigot. He is able to see and report with greater acuity than members of either group. He remarks that after the arrival of peasant immigrants to the US, the image of the Pole in America became "a brute, a man existing only slightly above the level of an animal…Goska shows that negative Polish stereotypes, unlike negative stereotypes of other national, racial, and ethnic groups, continue to be acceptable…Goska does an admirable job showing negative Polish stereotypes."

"Goska's book raises two troubling questions. Why, when the Germans planned and carried out the Holocaust, do so many people blame Poland and have a higher opinion of Germany than of Poland? Why, when both Poles and Jews were both victims of Hitler's racist theories, do some from both sides so despise each other?" The Bieganski stereotype, Weaver insightfully realizes, "Can alleviate Nazi guilt."

A reviewer in American Jewish History had the same epiphany as Weaver. Bieganski, this reviewer reported, "gives the illusion of absolving those who failed in their own test of humanity" during the Holocaust.

In his review, mulling over the questions Bieganski raises, Weaver mentions a woman I'd never heard of: Stella Kubler. Kubler was a Jewish woman who betrayed possibly thousands of Jews to the Nazis in Berlin during World War II. Weaver also mentioned the book, "The Cap: The Price of a Life," about Holocaust survivor Roman Frister, who had been repeatedly raped by a Jewish capo, and who stole a cap from a fellow prisoner, in order to facilitate his own survival, while dooming the victim of the theft.

"In the end," Weaver says, "Goska makes an honest attempt to employ [her] theories to explain the baffling reputation of Poland as the perpetrator of the Holocaust and the continued acceptance of negative Polish stereotypes in American culture and elsewhere…[Bieganski] forces the reader to think about issues he or she has not likely been forced to look at…Other writers must force open widely the door Goska has opened."

As much as I am gratified by Weaver's review, he missed a couple of very important points in the book, and his review contains two sentences that are terribly inaccurate. But I'm not going to quibble; I'm not even going to challenge him to a duel.

When I was writing "Bieganski," the hostility I encountered communicated to me that I was treading on dangerous terrain. Indeed, ten years out from my PhD and having published, as expected, in peer-reviewed journals, and garnered positive evaluations from students and peers, I am forced to consider leaving teaching forever. Being a "pioneer," as Weaver called me, writing a "groundbreaking" book, as Shofar Journal of Jewish Studies called "Bieganski," has had a ruinous impact on my life as a wage-earner.

But I learned something else, too. I realized that, eventually, someone would read "Bieganski," and would understand. Daniel T. Weaver doesn't understand the book perfectly, but his review shows that he understood a good percentage of what I was saying, and that is a gratifying feeling.

That's the good news. The not so good news is that Polonia has not yet taken action on the Bieganski stereotype. While I've spoken at Brandeis, at Georgetown, in museums, synagogues and in UU churches, I have yet to speak to a Polish group. The Polish embassy and the Kosciuszko Foundation have not yet addressed the book, Polish language publishers have not yet published it, and Polish-Americans are not purchasing it in significant numbers.

Meanwhile, one or two people do buy the book. I received a very heartening email from a reader of Bieganski who is neither Polish nor Jewish, but, in fact, proudly German-American. This reader understood the book, too. He understood its universal implications. His email:

"Say 'n - - - - r' and you're dead. Say 'Polack' and people stand there, smiling, waiting for the punchline.

Selective outrage against what should be equally immoral.

You know Bieganski isn't a fight for Poles & Jews, it's about evolving people's heads to where they see right and wrong, try to empathize with human beings struggling, past, present and future and learn from past mistakes."

I rejoiced when I received this email from this one reader. He got it. He understood the book. Thank you, one reader, thank you.

***

Upstream Two also contains an essay by me, "My Vow: I Will Never Be an Immigrant," and several poems. It also contains a review of Linda C. Wisniewski's "Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage," identifying it as a memoir the reviewer wished he could have written himself, and many other reviews of, or original contributions to, Polish-American culture. Again, concerned Polonians will buy Upstream Two, read it, and support it, as will anyone interested in Polish-American culture.