"Poland: A Living Deathscape of Diaspora Jewry"

Bieganski, the Brute Polak Stereotype speaks at length about March of the Living and other approaches to Poland that support the Bieganski, Brute Polak stereotype.

This blog has devoted several posts to March of the Living, including March of the Living: A Rabbinical Student's Sermon and March of the Living Responds.

A previous blog post addresses the work of Prof. Jackie Feldman at Ben Gurion University: Why Stereotype Poles? Why Distort WW II History? Here's Why.
Prof. Jackie Feldman's 2010 book, "Above the Death Pits, Beneath the Flag," is summarized on Amazon thus:

"Israeli youth voyages to Poland are one of the most popular and influential forms of transmission of Holocaust memory in Israeli society. Through intensive participant observation, group discussions, student diaries, and questionnaires, the author demonstrates how the State shapes Poland into a living deathscape of Diaspora Jewry.

In the course of the voyage, students undergo a rite de passage, in which they are transformed into victims, victorious survivors, and finally witnesses of the witnesses. By viewing, touching, and smelling Holocaust-period ruins and remains, by accompanying the survivors on the sites of their suffering and survival, crying together and performing commemorative ceremonies at the death sites, students from a wide variety of family backgrounds become carriers of Shoah memory. They come to see the State and its defense as the romanticized answer to the Shoah. These voyages are a bureaucratic response to uncertainty and fluidity of identity in an increasingly globalized and fragmented society. This study adds a measured and compassionate ethical voice to ideological debates surrounding educational and cultural forms of encountering the past in contemporary Israel, and raises further questions about the representation of the Holocaust after the demise of the last living witnesses."

In his review, prolific Amazon reviewer Jan Peczkis states that the book clearly depicts Poles being blamed for the Holocaust in a way that German Nazis are not. Jan Peczkis' review of "Above the Death Pits" is here.

I am grateful to Jan Peczkis for drawing my attention to the book.

New Poem by Christina Pacosz

There's a previously unpublished poem by Polish-American poetess Christina Pacosz on my other blog, here. 

Od Narodzin do Smierci: A Potential Last Minute Christmas Gift

This is real, raw, authentic Eastern European folk music. Most singers are recorded unaccompanied by instruments. There is the occasional fiddle or drum.

I have traveled in Eastern European villages and my older relatives came from there. This is music I remember from the village, and from older relatives in the US. When singing broke out at family reunions, it sounded like this.

The singers are not American Idol material. They are raw and totally committed to each and every lyric.

That's a plus -- their enunciation is superb. I'm able to make out quite a few vocabulary words of their folk poetry. The words are basic Polish words about life and death: Almighty God. Oh, my mother. The town, the cake (in Polish, they rhyme.)

What too many people think of as folk music has been polished beyond recognition in order to make it marketable. That's not what you get with this CD. What you hear here is pure heart, soul, and commitment.

Od Narodzin do Smierci is available for purchase at Amazon here. 

Do You Believe in Evil? Do You Believe in Prayer? Thoughts on the Newton School Shooting

In the US we are all thinking about the Newton School Shooting. I offer my thoughts about that event here. 

Mary Krane Derr: Don't Mourn, Organize!

Photo by Jonathan Hartzell. Source.

"Anti-Polish Jews should be shot at. You've been welcomed here for centuries. Not anymore. Go to hell."

The author of these words, found in response to an article on the internet about Polish-Jewish relations, self-identifies as a Polish Catholic. He gives his name as Daniel.

I reported these words to a group moderator and the author was ejected from the group.

I visited the man's facebook page and saw a fascist symbol and an interest in Wehrmacht motorcycles.

I wanted to rescue this young man from fascism, the way a folklore hero rescues a damsel from the mouth of a dragon. I practiced intellectual arguments against fascism, and thought of sending him these arguments.

But then I realized, people aren't attracted to fascism because of what they think, they are attracted to fascism because of how they feel. I could not communicate to him a sense of self-worth and empowerment, a sense of feeling a valued part of a valued human race, via an internet post.

The Nizkor Project lists the following factors in recruitment of young people by hate groups:

* "Disenchanted youth who are abused, angry, unemployed, dropouts or runaways, and who may be looking for someone to blame for their problems, are prime targets.

* Hate groups prey on lonely youth who are socially isolated by learning their weaknesses and drawing them into a group in which they feel accepted.

* They befriend students and invite them to meetings, making them feel wanted and important, providing membership cards, titles and a sense of belonging."

In other words, if a young person feels competent to address his problems, and if he feels that he is part of a cohesive, effective group, he is less likely to join a hate group.

Daniel said that nothing Poles had done to address negative stereotyping of Poles had worked so far, so more extreme methods had to be tried.

Maybe if Daniel could feel that he was a part of a cohesive, competent, vital, effective group of Poles fighting stereotyping in a civil way, he wouldn't have turned to fascism.

***

In response to a post by me mentioning stereotyping of Poles on National Public Radio, a facebook poster guessed that Jews were responsible.

This blog has repeatedly mentioned the Brute Polak stereotype as expressed by Dennis Miller – not Jewish. By Barack Obama – not Jewish. In a book published by the Catholic Orbis Press – very much not Jewish. And this blog has repeatedly mentioned Jewish support for Bieganski, the Brute Polak Stereotype. I just blogged about being invited to speak at the University of Wisconsin, Madison by the Jewish Studies Department there. Jews have significantly supported "Bieganski."

And yet still this irrational eagerness to blame the Jews.

***

A friend expressed frustration at the many incidences of the Brute Polak in American cultural life. She said that the best Poland could do would be to return to chauvinism. The chauvinism of someone like Roman Dmowski.

***

I said to the editor of a Polish American publication, "You know, I would like to read a Polish American publication, but I don't read yours. It's all about Curie and Chopin. Only about dead heroes I already know enough about. And then you have an article or two about polka dancers. I don't dance polka and I don't know anyone who does. I want to read about contemporary Polish Americans and their real lives, struggles, and accomplishments, on the stage of mainstream American cultural, political, and spiritual life."

He said that contemporary Polish Americans were not "Polish enough."

***

After Bieganski came out, I wrote to all the major Polish American cultural organizations with an offer to speak. None wanted me to speak. Some demanded free copies of the book. Some told me my work was meaningless because it was too dark and depressing and not about Polish heroes.

I used to think that that was just me … that it's me Polonia doesn't like. But then I started getting emails from other Polonian men and women, also working on stereotyping or World War II history or other contributions to Polonian culture, who also couldn't get invitations to speak, or who couldn't get their work published in Polish publications, or who contacted Polish groups in their efforts to protest egregious material like Maus, and got no reply from those Polish groups.

***

School syllabi record what students, from kindergarten to graduate school, are required, not just to know, but also to value. It is an open secret among teachers and students that many mediocre works of literature are on syllabi, indeed, have been admitted to the canon of "great" American literature, because those works are by members of variously defined interest groups who have pressed schools to include them.

If you are a member of one of these organized groups, you will be exposed to work by someone who is identified as a member of your group. You will be told that that work is great literature. You will be told that your group has produced geniuses. You will be told that your pain matters. That your worldview matters.

As far as I know, Polish Americans exercise zero power in determining what books American students read. Or don't read. Or how students react to those works. Polish Americans could organize and remove Maus as a text teaching WW II and holocaust history. Polish Americans could organize and demand that any number of books that present another point of view be included. Polish Americans don't.

***
All the disparate paragraphs, above, are connected.

Polonians are hurt and outraged by the prevalence of the Brute Polak stereotype. People who are hurt and outraged often seek someone to blame, and often seek redress.

Some Polonians choose to blame Jews, even though that blaming makes no rational sense. As "Bieganski" shows, if, God forbid, all the Jews in the world were to disappear tomorrow, the Brute Polak stereotype would still go strong.

Some Polonians, seeking some effective, organized, cohesive, mutually affirming group action, choose chauvinism, or, worse, fascism.

It doesn't have to get that bad. We could engage in the kind of rational, civil, organizing that is recommended in the series of blog posts entitled "The Crisis in Polonian Leadership, Organization, and Vision."

Simple things.

Polonian organizations and Polonian publications could embrace and support contemporary Polonians working on Polonian issues. Polonians could work to get Polonian books on syllabi. Polonians could support Polonian authors. Simple things. Effective things.

Polonia is not engaging in these simple, effective, organizing strategies. And so we are targets. And so some of us conclude that only chauvinism or fascism can work. 

Mary Krane Derr and her beloved pet guinea pig, Gemma. Source

I learned yesterday that Polish American poet and writer Mary Krane Derr passed away. Mary sometimes signed her notes to me Marysia Kiszka, Kiszka, she told me, was her family's original last name before it was changed to "Krane."

Mary was a mother and a loving grandmother. She devoted a great deal of tender loving care to her pet guinea pig. Mary suffered from chronic health problems. She spoke of them openly on facebook. I was grateful to her for her frankness. Her frankness made it possible for me to be frank about my own life struggles.

Mary deeply loved her grandson, and spent a great deal of time with him. He was Polish, Irish, and African American.

Mary is representational of the Polonia I love and cherish.

When I lived in Poland 1988-89, one of my best friends was a gay man. One of my best friends was half Cameroonian, that is, half African, and half Polish. One of my best Polish friends now is a Jehovah's Witness. Two are atheist and leftist.

The Polonia that insists that Curie and Chopin and Catholics and dead heroes are the only Poles worth talking about is not a vibrant, living Polonia and it can't do anything to counteract the Brute Polak stereotype.

Polonia is alive with poets, writers, artists … who need only to be supported by their own.

Reject fascism.

Reject chauvinism.

After you finish reading this blog post, go to Amazon and buy a book or a DVD by a Polonian. And get it on a syllabus.

Don't mourn, organize.

Below please find the full text of a blog posting by my beloved friend, Mary Krane Derr. A Polonian every bit as worthy as Curie or Chopin.

***

Blog post by Mary Krane Derr. Mary's blog is here.

Wherever you have landed from, welcome here. Blessings upon you, of all sizes, shapes, colors, tones.

I am a poet of Polish-Celtic-Germanic descent from the United States, Chicago to be precise. I am not A Big Literary Celebrity. Nor am I a writer of such hip obscurity that hipsters fawn knowingly over the mere mention of me. I am not even in the know enough to know if hipsters still stride about in all-black clothes and behave all cerebral and ironic and anhedonic any more. I don’t even have any all-black clothes, except maybe some big ass cotton stretch pants from the sale bin.

So, what could an unfamous Midwestern dame in stretch pants possibly have to say? And in free verse at that?

Why, plenty.

Poetry writing is a calling that found me early, as a barely verbal, yet to be literate child. Within an often beset, even literally threatened life, one of multiple, serious chronic illnesses, I pursue it as much as I can.

Admittedly, though, I was too slow on the uptake to fully recognize and genuinely accept it until well into adulthood. Those sonorous words and phrases of mysterious origin that regularly emerged and chanted themselves to me? I did not know they counted and qualified as poetry, let alone my own poetry.

But judging from others’ responses, it is not all just my own personal crazytalk I had best keep entirely to my bad self.

I still have not published a chapbook or full-length collection, but am otherwise fortunate. My poems have appeared individually or in small groups in a number of publications from the US, Ireland, Great Britain, and India. I have read in the US, South Africa, and India. My poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Web Award, Best American Poetry, and Best Spiritual Writing, featured on public transit, and translated into Hindi, Farsi (Persian), and (soon) Odia (the prevalent language of Orissa State, India).

Some kindly listening souls have remarked on the “musicality” of my work. As well as a poet-in-transit-and-translation, I am a musician-in-progress. I studied voice for about three years (I’m a mezzosoprano) with the late Jane Sullivan. I am now learning composition and music theory. I have yet to discover any bright line, or dim one, for that matter, between poetry and song.

Much gratitude to the All-and-All, and everyone else on both sides of the veil, who all together now have brought me safe thus far.

Poland: May Its Name Be Blotted Out

"The Hebrew phrase yimakh shemo ימח שמו "May his name be obliterated" [often translated as "May his name be blotted out" from the book of life] is a curse placed after the name of particular enemies of the Jewish people. A variant is yimakh shemo ve zikhro ימח שמו וזכרו "Obliterate his name and his memory." Yimakh shemo is one of the strongest curses in the Hebrew language." From Wikipedia.

This phrase is illustrated with references to "to any abhorrent enemy of the Jewish people" including the biblical Haman, Adolf Hitler, Josef Mengele, and Poland. Here is their text exemplifying use of this curse in relation to Poland:

From Yair Weinstock's "Holiday Tales for the Soul: A Famous Novelist Retells Classic Tales with Passion and Spirit"

"The Poles would ferret Jews out of their hiding places and hand them over to the Nazi SS, beaming with pleasure when the Jews were carted off to the death camps. The words 'yemach shemam' ('may their names be erased!') were frequently on Meyer's lips – referring as much to the Poles as the Nazis themselves. 'There is no forgiveness,' he would declare. 'The Poles are the lowest and most despicable race on the face of the earth.'"

Bieganski on NPR - For the Second Time Today!

"How many Polaks does it take to screw in a light bulb?" is the beginning of a famous Polak joke. I googled the question and found the above image. These kinds of jokes are acceptable on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio. 

Was just listening to the NPR program "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." It's a humorous quiz show. Today's show included a Polak Joke. "How many Poles does it take to tear down a chateau?" Apparently some Polish workers tore down a chateau. Again, NPR is taxpayer funded. 

A previous post mentions another use of the Bieganski stereotype on NPR today, and includes links to previous instances. 

Only Polonian activism will change this.