My
book, Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype argues
that stereotypical brutal, superstitious, primitive, Polish, Catholic peasants
are often labeled as the most significant authors of the Holocaust, while stereotypically
clean, rational, modern German Nazis are whitewashed. This process occurs in
academia, in popular culture, in journalism, and on discussion boards.
Perhaps
the most shocking redemption of German Nazis occurs in the film Decision before Dawn. You can read a
blog post about that film here.
The whitewashing of German Nazis can be found in more recent films, such as Black Book, The Reader and The Exception.
In
the 2016 film Allied, Marion
Cotillard plays a French woman spying for the Nazis. She marries Brad Pitt.
Pitt's superiors discover that she is a Nazi spy. They order him to shoot her
dead. In a final, noble, heart-wrenching gesture, after kissing her and Pitt's
baby goodbye, Cotillard shoots herself dead, sparing Pitt the nasty deed. The
scene takes place in an airport. It is meant to evoke the final scene of Casablanca. That final scene was all
about noble self-sacrifice. The most noble person in this film is a Nazi spy.
At no
point does the movie make any effort to explain why spying for the Nazis was a
rotten thing to do. The only heartless killing in the film is carried out by
Pitt, an Allied soldier, and Cotillard, when aiding Pitt. They murder nice
Nazis with whom they had previously socialized. The nice Nazis are shown to
look quite sad on camera before they die.
The
only human suffering shown in the film is a British soldier, Guy Sangster,
played by Matthew Goode. Goode wears gruesome face make-up to indicate the cost
of war on soldiers. He cries alone in the hospital, and says he feels betrayed
by Great Britain.
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Bieganski the Blog exists to further explore the themes of the book Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture.
These themes include the false and damaging stereotype of Poles as brutes who are uniquely hateful and responsible for atrocity, and this stereotype's use in distorting WW II history and all accounts of atrocity.
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