Bieganski at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

On Thursday, October 18, 2012, I had the honor of presenting a talk about “Bieganski” at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I was a guest of the Mosse-Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. There was a lively and heartfelt discussion after the talk. I enjoyed this trip tremendously, and this post will include a bit about Polish-Jewish relations, and a bit of the personal, as well.

I flew not long after surgery. I was a bit worried – would I measure up?

So far, everything has gone off without a hitch. I thank the many good people who sent prayers my way. I have felt no fatigue, neither while traveling nor while delivering the talk.

Prof. James P. Leary was key in inviting me to Madison. Prof. Leary is an Irish-American scholar who is a great friend to Polonia. After he became aware of my work several years ago, Prof. Leary contacted me and has been a stalwart supporter and warmhearted friend ever since. Unfortunately he is currently in Iceland, so we were unable to meet.

I was met at the airport by Prof. Herbert S. Lewis, a scholar I greatly admire. Prof. Lewis is the author of “The Passion of Franz Boas.” I first contacted Prof. Lewis several years ago to ask him a question about Franz Boas, a scholar mentioned in “Bieganski.” We stopped for a delicious lunch of humus and couscous, and we talked about roots and identity. Prof. Lewis, like me, is from New Jersey, and he has some ancestry from Poland, and also England.

I mentioned that I tear up when I mention the Polish national anthem. Herb said the Hatikvah moves him to tears. I said it moves me to tears, as well, and of course we mentioned that it comes from a tune used by Bedrich Smetana, from my mother’s birthplace of Czechoslovakia.

The Jewish Studies Center’s very charming Kesha Weber shepherded me from the hotel to the speaking venue. I was introduced by Rachel Brenner, who was born in Poland. She is the author of “Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust.”

I’ve spoken enough about Polish-Jewish relations to know that I needed to tell the audience that I was not going to say what they might have expected me to say.

The speaker on Polish-Jewish relations faces two challenges:

1.) Most people have never heard of Polish-Jewish relations, don’t care about the topic, and don’t realize that it has any significance to them whatsoever.

2.) Those who have heard about Polish-Jewish relations are, all too often, rabid partisans of one side or another.

I see my job as doing two things:

1.) I must address those in the audience who may not realize that the Polish-Jewish interface has universal significance. Not just because Auschwitz is in Poland. But because it is part of our job here as humans to figure out how to get along with each other, including those we define as “other.” The Polish-Jewish interface offers lessons on that, and this story is all too often distorted and abused, rather than used in the best way it could be.

2.) I must let those in the audience who are familiar with Polish-Jewish relations know that I am not going to say the predictable things that they may want me to say.

What predictable things do people expect?

One side will want me to say that Jews have suffered more than any other people on earth, and that Poles are the world’s worst anti-Semites.

I don’t say that.

The other side will want me to say that Poles are the most gloriously heroic people on earth, that they have suffered more than anyone, and that Polish anti-Semitism is no big deal. Oh, and: Kosciuszko! Pilsudski! Chopin!

I don’t say that.

If you’ve read, and understood, the book, and if you read this blog, you know exactly what I said. And you know that parts of it are hard to hear. Hard for Poles to hear. Hard for Jews to hear. Hard for anyone to hear.

I very much liked the reaction I received from the audience. From reading facial expressions, I had a sense that they hadn’t heard all this before, but they were following me, with open, intelligent minds, and with interest.

I asked how many people identified as Jewish, and how many identified as Polish. About a third of the audience raised their hands to the first question, and about a third to the second, leaving about a third identifying as neither.

That was very heartening to me. I was saying the same, hard things to Polonians, to Jews, and to members of neither group, and all were ready to listen, understand, care, and engage.

Given that reaction, I can’t help but think that the time is ripe and the opportunity is there for us – all of us who care about this – to seize this moment and CHANGE things. To name the Bieganski stereotype for what it is, understand it, and get past it. I can only hope that Polonia will consider doing this.

The question and answer period was lively and rewarding to me. People asked key questions.

A young lady with a slight Polish accent reported shock at what young Americans learn about Poland – that the Poles were more or less a minor version of the Nazis, that they never fought or suffered, that they murdered Jews just as the Nazis did.

A man wearing a yarmulke said that when he goes to baseball games in Chicago Polish fans throw popcorn at him and the police do nothing to intervene.

Mrs. Lewis chided me for making a sarcastic comment about my reaction to Germans. In my answer to her, I said that a post on this blog, Otto Gross’ “Ripples of Sin,” helped to change, not so much my mind, but my heart, about Germans.

Mrs. Lewis also mentioned that, just as we should not stereotype by ethnicity, we should not stereotype by socioeconomic class. I agreed strongly and mentioned the Ulma family, peasants, who sacrificed their lives and the lives of their children for saving Jews.

Two people asked similar questions Their gist: if more people encounter decent, white-collar Poles in real life, will that weaken the stereotype?

I said that when I was younger, like many people, I invested in the notion of human progress – that, as time goes on, people get better and better, and nasty things like stereotypes are defeated. Now that I’m older, I see that that is not the case. There is genocidal anti-Semitism loose in the world again today. One need only listen to the statements by the leader of Iran. Too, one of my informants told me clearly that the Poles she knows in real life are white collar professionals, but when she hears the world “Pole” she thinks of a working class person in rumpled clothing, dirt under the fingernails, no education.

After the lecture, I enjoyed Ethiopian food at Buraka with John Cash, an old friend from my days at IUB. John and I had not seen each other in seven years, and yet eating a meal with him felt completely natural. I thought about my essay “Never Be An Immigrant,” and reuniting with old friends in Poland in 2011 whom I had not seen in over twenty years. Those reunions, too, felt … natural. I guess the heart does not possess a stop watch.

The photo, above, is of an unexpected, surprising delight on this trip. I had a layover in Detroit. The photo is of a tunnel in the Detroit airport. The tunnel is lined with a curved screen on which amorphous, floating shapes in blues, pinks, purples, and occasional flashes of yellow flicker and dance. New Age music accompanies the visual display. It takes about five minutes to walk through this tunnel.

I applaud the airport for including this brief foray into a trance, dreamlike state for its travelers. I liked the tunnel so much I went back and walked through it a couple of more times, and I felt de-stressed and revived each time.

Human decisions and human will make up the human world. Polonia can decide to play its cards differently regarding the Bieganski stereotype. The audience in Madison showed the readiness of many Poles, Jews, and others for civil dialogue and a rejection of the Bieganski stereotype and a confrontational, enemy-approach. Those who would like to take action on this matter might want to read the three-part blog post on the Crisis in Polonian Leadership, Organization, and Vision.