Thursday, October 10, 2019

Decent People Reject Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories.



A website called Poland IN is running a conspiracy theory about the Bieganski, Brute Polak Stereotype. The article is entitled "British Historian Unveils How Anti-Polish Holocaust Narrative Was Initiated." The article says it is recapitulating an account by Norman Davies in his autobiography. 

The article can be summarized thus: Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer is single-handedly responsible for negative stereotypes of Poles in relation to WW II. Bauer began the anti-Polish stereotype at a 1974 meeting at the Israeli embassy in London.

First: like every person of Polish ancestry, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Norman Davies. He wrote God's Playground, and we all love that book.

But the article's argument is nonsense. The argument, taken at face value, is also anti-Semitic.

I'm not saying that Norman Davies is anti-Semitic. I'm saying that this article is. It's also simply factually false.

Anti-Polish stereotypes have been promulgated by non-Jews. Some Jews have worked very hard against anti-Polish stereotypes. In fact there are plenty of Jews who have worked against these stereotypes more than many Poles.

The idea that one man, Yehuda Bauer, has the power to tell every newspaper, every magazine, every TV broadcast, every movie, every joke-teller, every teacher, how to depict Poles is by definition an anti-Semitic stereotype. It's the old idea that Jews are so superhuman that no one can resist them.

Finally, what about the Poles? Poles in Poland, Poles in America, Poles in England, Australia, Brazil? There are almost forty million Poles in Poland. There are about ten million Poles in the US. There are Poles in Canada, Brazil, the UK, France.

Poles can read and write and speak and make TV broadcasts, films, magazines, newspapers, textbooks, school curricula, novels, talk show appearances, syllabi, university lectures, no less than anyone else.

Poles can endow university chairs, can buy books, can put books on school curricula, can support their historians and story-tellers. 

I pity anyone who believes that one Jewish man was able to brainwash the entire world to believe negative stereotypes about Poles.

I pity those Poles who feel so impotent that they cannot tell their own story on campuses, in front of cameras and microphones.

The belief that one Jewish scholar could or would want to brainwash the world to think negatively about Poles is on its face an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

11 comments:

  1. I don't think it does us any good to run away from all the vile things that Jews (not only Bauer!) have written about us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "I don't think it does us any good to run away from all the vile things that Jews (not only Bauer!) have written about us."

    I'm offended by this comment, and I'm also bored. I've responded to so many comments like this over the years I grow weary of having to respond yet again.

    But I must respond yet again.

    Jews have published wonderful work about Poland. Jews published my book, Bieganski.

    Non-Jews have said horrible things about Poles. Hitler, for one.

    Poles need to unite, organize, support their own storytellers and scholars, and get their story in the education system, media, and daily life.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jews are not my enemy. Haters are. Lazy people are who do nothing to support their own scholars and authors.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Holocaust has been described using triade "Perpetrators Victims Bystanders". I don't know who and when introduced the description, but it was used in many texts. It was a simplification, unacceptable for many Poles who lost their families during the war, like me. Later the bystanders become more and more guilty, so now it is rather Jews versus non-Jews, see books by Gross or Grabowski. Any academic model should use tens of roles and one person played frequently many roles eg. a Nazi killed Jews but saved a Jewish friend or lover, a Polish anti-Semite helped Jews, a smalcownik was a victim of Germans. Polish poet Baczynski had Jewish mother, they did not die during the Holocaust, but Baczyski died as a Home Army soldier. The world is complicated.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Perhaps it is a good place and moment to discuss definition of the Holocaust.DO you know a precize definiotion? "The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators." https://www.ushmm.org/learn/introduction-to-the-holocaust A Polish definition "ludobójstwo około 6 milionów europejskich Żydów[a] dokonane w czasie II wojny światowej przez III Rzeszę Niemiecką i wspierane w różnym stopniu przez uzależnione od niej państwa sojusznicze" https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zag%C5%82ada_%C5%BByd%C3%B3w The USHMM definition is unprecize - what was "Nazi regime", who were the "collaborators"? I find the Polish definition much better. It ignores contribution of collborators, so it should be extended. However Romania murdered the Jews as Romania, not as a puppet state. Ukrainian nationalists murdered non-Ukrainians according to their fascist ideology, not only because they collaborated.

    ReplyDelete
  6. A conspiracy theory by HAARETZ - Polish nationalists cooperate in English Wikipedia with American left to distort Holocaust history. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-fake-nazi-death-camp-wikipedia-s-longest-hoax-exposed-1.7942233

    ReplyDelete
  7. If I may gently correct you all. I think you will find that WW2 began when the Evil Bystander Axis of Poland, Poland and Poland invaded and occupied... well.... er... Poland. Shocked and horrified by the continuing occupation of Poland by the Poles, the Gallant Allies (Hitler and Stalin), with one mighty bound...

    Anyway, that's this week's version. I can't compute next week's.

    But re Conspiracy theories, is it surprising that so many people believe them? Don't we all feel someone destructive pulling the strings? Why are we in the process of destroying the very planet we live on? The only one we have to live on?

    So doesn't this underline the importance, the urgent importance, of the preaching work that Jesus left for his followers to do?

    The Christian Greek Scriptures tell us clearly that "we have a struggle, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places." - Ephesians 6:12

    Our struggle is not against each other - "against blood and flesh" -it is a spiritual struggle against "the world rulers of this darkness" -Satan and the demons - the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.

    They rule the system of things on earth, and are very effective at setting us (the children of Adam) against each other. We have to resist And isn't this why we pray for God's Kingdom to come, so that his will can be done on the earth?

    We need that heavenly Kingdom so much, and it alone can restore the link so fatally broken in Eden.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Sue,

      Have You ever heard of Israeli actress Gal Gadot?
      She will star as the title character in a movie "Irena Sendler". According to the press:
      "Gadot's upcoming feature dates back to WWII and is set to narrate the story of a woman's defiant stand against Polish Nazi occupation"

      Yes, Sue. Polish Nazi occupation. Link below.

      https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/gal-gadot-turns-businesswoman-to-star-in-her-first-production-as-irena-sendler/articleshow/71552234.cms

      This article first appeared on deadline.com, but they have changed "Polish Nazi occupation" to "Nazi Germany’s occupation of Poland".

      Delete
    2. I have googled the part "story of a woman's defiant stand against Polish Nazi occupation". This article is also on sites of other newspapers.
      Yep, seems that Poland was indeed occupied...by Nazi Poles.

      Delete
    3. Hello Lukasz. Yes I had noted that in the Hollywood version Irena Sendler makes her stand against "Polish Nazis".

      If you read Dr.Goska's Bieganski chapter on Hollywood you would say "No surprise there, then".

      And my supposed satire above is overtaken by events.

      Yes, they have changed it, after there were protests. But to me this clearly signals the agenda of this movie. I hope I'm wrong of course, but I won't be watching it to find out.

      I shall be interested to read Dr.Goska's review though - if you see it and review that is Danusha.

      In the meantime, I plan to be off to the Kingdom Hall for some refreshing and comforting Bible teaching - a lovely contrast to "the world".

      Delete

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.
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