Tuesday, September 22, 2020

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?"

 

Six Polish civilians moments before death by firing squad. Photograph of six Polish civilians moments before death by firing squad. Dated 1939. (Photo by: Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In Gary, we had Polish, Catholic neighbors who had been in concentration camps. They'd rather put it out of their mind completely than talk about it. They ignore it. They try to forget it. The Nazis came and took my mother's brother. He was never seen or heard from again. We have no idea what happened to him. We don't talk about it. Better to leave it alone. Why get your hopes up? Better not to get your hopes up. Better to just not know.

My grandfather died in Poland. My mother couldn't attend the funeral. She couldn't get the time off from work.

 

I'm very proud of my parents. They have good jobs. My mother is a cleaning woman in a hospital. She works with hazardous waste. My father works in a steel mill. I am in the army to pay for school.

 

Some people say we have white privilege. I completely blow up. I get really mad. I end up bashing people. I don't want to. It just happens. I feel comfortable around all races. But I have to be really cautious around non-whites about what I can and cannot say. They don't understand what my parents went through. African Americans want to blame all whites. We weren't even here ... My parents pulled themselves up and made a great life for their kids. They can, too. There are jobs. But nobody knows what we went through. There's nothing on TV and it's hard to find books that tell our story.

 

My mother cries because she says the czarni destroyed Gary.

 

Informant was an eighteen-year-old student and solider

 

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9

"My Grandfather Let Anastasia Escape" #10

"I No Longer Practice Anything Except Reciting Yizkor and Lighting Yahrzeit Candles for My Parents"# 11

"I Have Always Been Afraid to Get Close to Any 'Real' Jews"# 12

Shiksa # 13

"Germans. I don't Like Hearing the Language" #14

"Those Shoes Kick My People to Death" #15



"Those Shoes Kick My People to Death"

 

Source

When I was in high school, my mom was more into my dad being Jewish than he was. We would celebrate the holidays – like my mom would go out and buy the menorah and the candles for it. And buy gefilte fish and things like that. My dad just sorta went along with it.

But one time we were in a store looking for shoes, and I wanted the Doc Martens. They were really popular at the time. They were black boots laced up real high.

And my dad refused to buy them for me, walked out of the store, and I followed after him and I was like Dad, what's going on? He just *turned on me* and he said 'Those are the shoes that are used to kick my people to death.' And that was the first time I ever saw my dad associate with being Jewish at all and it scared me and I dropped the subject and I never spoke of the shoes again. I just thought they were shoes.
 

Informant was a 22-year-old female from the Midwest with a Jewish father and a Protestant mother. Her ancestors came from Germany and Austria. 


Monday, September 21, 2020

"Germans. I don't Like Hearing the Language"

 


Living in a town in Indiana with many German-Americans was very hard for me. Especially the Germanic part. And that's another prejudice that I have. That I had. Because I don't think that I have it anymore, but maybe I do. Germans. I don't like hearing the language.

My husband says endearing things to me in German and I can't stand it. He does that just to make fun and I don't like it. It turns me off totally.

 

I lived in Germany and Austria. I was a hippie and I was traveling around. It was awful. When we were in Austria the woman who was our landlord hated Jews. She stole our passports. She was very cold and mean. [in the home of an acquaintance] They had pictures of SS soldiers all over their walls. A doctor wouldn't even examine [a Jewish acquaintance]. When we got to Bremen, they instigated a bunch of people at this tavern where everybody hung out at to beat up on my brother. He got beat up on.

 

[Informant has also lived in Israel.] The Israelis have an attitude towards the different nationalities that are there. They categorize every nationality. And make jokes about 'em, too. They have a derogatory word about the Germans. They call them 'Yekkes.' My mother talked about how cold Germans are. And how regimented. And this [German Jewish] woman was sitting there and I felt so bad.

 

Informant was a fifty-year-old housewife who had lived most of her life in the Midwest. Her ancestors came from Hungary and Lithuania.


Sunday, September 20, 2020

Shiksa

 

Source

Thanks for the yiddish lesson, Keith, My grandmother used "Shiksa" to refer to any non-jewish woman. Though it was always said with an unmistakable shading of contempt I never suspected that it means vermin. O yes she also used shvartza - (yiddish for n____). The constant need to discern who is and who is not jewish (and therefore contempible) is one of those cultural traits that made me run several thousand miles from my home-town jewish community.

***

Message was posted to an online conversation by a woman in her forties, from the East Coast, now living on the West Coast.

 

***

 

NOTE: As mentioned, the research I conducted twenty years ago had one goal: to hear from Polish people and from Jewish people how they understood their own identities and how they understood the other's identity. For me, as an ethnographer, data was key. There was no such thing as good data or bad data. This post contains material that many will find offensive. Again, for an ethnographer, this data is as valid as data that provides a warm, fuzzy feeling. Too, what this person wrote is not meant to be representational. We can't conclude from this post that most Jews feel this way, or even that this woman would feel this way two weeks after posting this message.

 

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9

"My Grandfather Let Anastasia Escape" #10

"I No Longer Practice Anything Except Reciting Yizkor and Lighting Yahrzeit Candles for My Parents"# 11

"I Have Always Been Afraid to Get Close to Any 'Real' Jews"# 12


Thursday, September 17, 2020

"I Have Always Been Afraid to Get Close to Any 'Real' Jews"

 

Source

I think that I have always been afraid to get too close to any “real” Jews because I didn’t have the sufficient knowledge base. I still have this experience. Like I’ll actually do something with other Jews every once in a while (Passover Sedar or dinner on the eve of Rosh Hashannah) and I always find that I am missing some things that I should know. I don’t know if the other people fully realize it … but I always end up feeling somewhat uncomfortable because I know that I don’t know stuff.

Informant was a woman in her early thirties who came from New York and the American South. Her ancestors came from Russia and Poland.

 

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9

"My Grandfather Let Anastasia Escape" #10

"I No Longer Practice Anything Except Reciting Yizkor and Lighting Yahrzeit Candles for My Parents"# 11

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

"I No Longer Practice Anything Except Reciting Yizkor and Lighting Yahrzeit Candles for My Parents"

 

Source

My parents spoke Yiddish, and the one thing I resent about my upbringing is that they did not teach me Yiddish. In fact, they spoke it when they wanted me not to understand what they were saying. I believe it’s important to keep the language alive and am a contributor to the National Yiddish Book Center.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and moved to _____ when I was five, and spent my formative years, until my first year in college, in _____, a suburb of the capital. It was a mostly Jewish neighborhood, and my friends were mostly Jewish, though not entirely.

 

I was brought up in a Conservative home and went to a “Conserva-dox” synagogue and was bat mitzvahed. We lived down the street from the rabbi and walked to and from shul with him on shabbos. The rabbi was a jovial man large of build and kind spirited. His wife was the consummate rebbitzen and made us kids feel at home whenever we visited and was a happy presence at synagogue.

 

I enjoyed how the family celebrated the traditional holidays and have always been proud of my heritage, though I no longer practice anything but reciting yitzkor and lighting yahrzeit candles for my parents.

 

My mother was a wonderful cook and baker, having learned from her mother. I remember visiting Philadelphia and watching my grandmother (who came to America in 1905 from Odessa) make kishka from scratch and gefilte fish and blintzes.

 

Mom used to make ruggelach and absolutely fabulous sponge cake and nut cake and wonderful little Passover rolls and delicious kugels and excellent chicken soup and vegetable-pea soup. As you see, Jewish food was an important part of my life! I hardly bother to cook or bake such things now, as I live alone and have basically become a calory- and fat-watching (though overweight) vegetarian.

 

From my early childhood I was made very aware of Jewish identity. My mom lit Shabbos candles every Friday night, as did my grandmothers, and we had a delicious Shabbos dinner, from homemade chicken soup with knedlach or noodles, to roast chicken or roast beef with vegetables, and of course challah.

 

My cousin and I went to Hebrew school two or three days a week after regular school. On Friday afternoons we often stopped at Elaine’s grandmother’s. Baba Sara made her own challah every week, and we helped her braid the bread and apply the egg wash before it went into the oven. I realized what we were doing was part of being a Jew.

 

My dad, who was president of the synagogue for several years, was extremely proud of our Jewish heritage. You could almost see his chest swell when he pointed out--actually kvelled at how many Jews there are in the arts (considering our small representation in the total population).

 

Again, my dad was quick to point out how many Jewish actors and directors and studio heads there are in film, and I too am proud of our impact on the arts. The most obvious Jewish character in film, to me, is Woody Allen, whose early movies I found hilarious. However, the schlemeil character has been overdone. Moreover, I must say I wasn’t pleased to hear he married his stepdaughter.

 

Though proud of our impact on the arts, I share the current extreme distaste that the Hollywood (and Detroit) moguls are offering such trash to youngsters in the form of gangsta rap and violence and sex in video games, on TV and in the movies. If we used to take pride in the impact of Jews in the arts and entertainment, then we ought to be ashamed if it is they who are presenting such ugliness. In fact, I think that fewer movie chains would go out of business if the film industry would present excellent movies for the public.

 

Of course, I was proud that Lieberman was selected to run for vice president, though it was an obvious ploy by Gore to separate himself from the sinful Clinton. I clipped from The New York Times Lieberman’s address in Congress when he was the first Democrat to condemn the President for his reprehensible behavior, though he wisely did not believe it to be an impeachable offense.

 

I admit feeling slightly uncomfortable when Lieberman injects so much religion into his stump speeches. But who knows if our society wouldn’t improve if people truly adopted their religion’s precepts and became more tolerant and caring instead of so intent on accumulating more wealth and stuff? Then again, religion may not be the path to tolerance and caring. Look at what’s happening in the Middle East now. Look at Yugoslavia. Look at Iran. Look at how religion has led the call for wars throughout history.

 

Informant was 57, was from New York, and was living in Georgia

 

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9

"My Grandfather Let Anastasia Escape" #10


Tuesday, September 15, 2020

My Grandfather Let Anastasia Escape

 

My maternal grandparents were from Ukraine. Probably Odessa, but I’ve also been told Kiev. They left that part of the world during the Revolution. My grandfather had been in the Bolshevik army, one of very few Jews, they always said. This is the story my grandfather told me one Thanksgiving – I was probably 12 or 13 – about why they left:

As an army soldier, probably in his late teens or early twenties, he had been assigned to the unit responsible for guarding the palace after Czar Nicholas and his family were captured. My grandfather in particular had some responsibility for guarding Nicholas’ youngest daughter, Anastasia.

 

At some point, she asked him to get her a drink because she was very thirsty. He knew he shouldn’t, but he felt bad that she should be thirsty.

 

When he went to fetch her a drink, he accidentally left the door unlatched and she escaped. This would make him the person responsible for the fact that for most of the 20th century, there were nearly a dozen women all claiming to be Anastasia.

 

Fearing for his life, as he explained it, both because he had let her go and he was a Jew, he headed for the woods, firing at the soldiers chasing him. Somewhere in this, he managed to grab my grandmother and head for the mountains.

 

They walked through the mountains for some period of time. During this trek, my grandmother gave birth to her first son, my Uncle ___. There’s another story in here that my grandfather used to tell – half in English, half in Yiddish – about how my grandmother kept my uncle swaddled close to her bosom. But they had so many clothes on and were traveling so hard that somewhere along the way, he popped out and they didn’t realize it.

 

They had to go back down the mountain to find him. Anyway, somehow they managed to get to a coast – I’m not sure where – and board a boat bound, I believe, for Canada. At a stop in Belgium, my Aunt ____ was born. After coming through Canada, they settled in Brighton Beach, NY, a haven for immigrants from Odessa.

 

Informant was a Jewish American female in her early thirties from the American South


"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9


"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid."

 

Polish peasants 1937 Source

I was reading Slavoj Zizek's book, Sublime Object of Ideology.

In it, he tells a joke.


A Jew and a Pole are traveling on a train. The Pole badgers the Jew to reveal the secret to Jewish wealth. The Jew plays the Pole for a fool. … The joke is coercive. It makes me think of the Jew as clever and the Pole as obnoxious, loud, and stupid enough to get duped.


***

Informant was a 26-year-old, American, male graduate student, neither Polish nor Jewish

 

Slavoj Zizek is a superstar academic who self-identifies as a Communist. See here. A screencap of the page featuring the joke is below. 






 

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

Monday, September 14, 2020

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free"

 

I was arrested in April 1952 for alleged sabotage. My war-time WRN membership didn't help. [The WRN was part of Poland's anti-Nazi resistance.]

I was sent to prison on Rakowiecka Street.

 

The 10th Pavilion was supposedly the worst of all prison buildings there. I was placed in cell number 13. It was about 7' x 10' with six other inmates. One bed plus six straw matrasses and a toilet bowl serving also as a lavatory.

 

The whole cell was painted black, including the cement floor, and had one tiny window through which you couldn't see anything. The food was delivered three times a day by a couple of inmates (former Nazis).

 

I was in investigated day and night (usually several times a night). No physical torture but enough of psychological torture.

 

The investigation stopped after three or four months and I was transferred to a much bigger cell with thirty people in it. Stalin and Beria died (or were killed) in the meantime, which possibly helped, because soon thereafter there was a process during which the accusations were dropped and I and 10 other "co-conspirators" were set free. I was called to the office of Warsaw Polytechnic's Security Police Office where they reminded me that I'm not allowed to talk to anyone about my prison experience.

 

Tue, 26 Feb 2002

Roman Solecki

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

 

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

 

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

 

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

 

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

 

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7


Saturday, September 12, 2020

"They'd Lynch Us on the Same Tree" Bieganski Interview # 8

Source 

My father worked a lot with blacks – Negroes, in the parlance of the time. Sometimes called schwartzes. He had a foreman who was often at the house. A light-skinned Negro we all liked very much. He relied on him, and then he had some very lower class black workers some of whom were very reliable. We would see them from time to time. Others were really transient. He didn't have much respect for them [for the transient workers].

 

But the Jews and the Blacks in our time had a good relationship. Of course, this was in the 1950's. I can't say it was symmetric. You know, it was more a matter of patronage because there was almost no black middle class. Jews were very liberal, and strongly opposed any discrimination against blacks.

 

I was very friendly [with a black man]. Well, I won't say very friendly. There was a limit. But, um, in terms of being outwardly friendly, with them, willing to talk, willing to play ball, I think the Jews were more friendly to the blacks, and very unaccepting of prejudice in any form. Because we knew that we were the next ones, you know? They'd lynch us on the same tree.

 

Our attitude was that blacks were fighting the same sorts of things that we were fighting. And they were decent people just trying to make a living, and we wanted fair treatment.

 

Now it's not that you'd marry one. There was certainly racism involved in that. We thought as most whites still think that blacks are not as intelligent, as self-restrained. I think most whites really think that. I think I think that.

 

I don't think it's a genetic thing. But I think that black culture is different than white culture. One of the results is that Blacks are less interested in intellectual pursuits, and things of the mind, than are whites, by and large. Of course that doesn't justify any ill treatment or discrimination. But it seems to be, it's a fact. A broad statistical fact. So I have a lot of black friends. I really love them. We would have them home for Thanksgiving. I like black people. But, as a statistical thing, people who come out of black culture are not going to be as smart.

 

-- Informant was an Ivy-League-educated professor who was around sixty at the time of the interview (twenty years ago.)

 

***

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

 

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

 

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

 

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

 

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

 

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

 

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

Thursday, September 10, 2020

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Americans developed production methods that were both highly productive and often very dangerous … Accidents Were 'Cheap.'" Source

"The steel industry produced some of the most violent accidents … Streams of hot metal poured down on the workmen, engulfing and literally cooking some of them … The explosion shook buildings in the town and caused panic among the populace. Thousands turned out to watch the huge fire that ensued … Two employees at a steel plant in Youngstown, Ohio were sent to clean out the dust underneath the blast furnaces. Suddenly there was a slippage of tons of molten fuel and ore inside the furnace, causing large amounts of very hot dust to fall on them. One of the men was completely buried in it and died in great agony." Source

Dushan was a middle-aged male. His mother was a Croatian immigrant. His Croatian grandfather, like many Bohunk immigrant workers, worked in a mill, and died young. After her father's death, Dushan's destitute mother sang Croatian folksongs in a bar for nickels. Dushan's father was a poor tenant farmer, but a WASP, and a step up for a Croatian immigrant. His family hailed from the Midwest.

Why did your family come to America?

In Croatia, "My uncles would be overrun by enemies, who'd grab them, give them guns and uniforms, and tell them to fight. Then the other enemy would advance and say, 'Okay, the other side already gave you your guns and uniforms, now you can fight for us, or we'll shoot you. You're really pretty nice guys. We don't want to shoot you.' So, they'd say, 'Looks like you guys feed pretty well. We'll fight for you.'"

Emigrating, they traveled "third class," "It was inconvenient and they were rudely treated" at Ellis Island. "They were the kind of people who would sacrifice a lot. They would play under anybody's rules. They'd rationalize: 'These people must have good reasons for putting us through this hell.'"

Like many Bohunk industrial laborers, Dushan's grandfather died young. On paydays, Dushan's mother would sing "I'm a Little Orphan Girl," a Croatian folksong, at a bar called "Janko's Four Deuces." Men would toss nickels and she would buy potato chips to ease her hunger.

Dushan's grandmother would attempt to buy throwaways from the butcher, who would give them to her for free. His mother and aunts had to quit school and go to work; at the factory they would slow work down in order that their quotas not be raised. Eventually Dushan's mother married a WASP, and, "You only need to look at the wedding photos to see the extreme distaste on my [WASP grandmother's] face."

Dushan said, "My dad [a tenant farmer] couldn't even afford glasses. I am extremely attracted to the idea of populism. Power to those lower on the scale...It's a Croat thing. I stand up for the rights of the little guy. I heard from my uncles and aunts about how they felt being ruled by strangers: Austrians, Turks, Russians. 'Just another asshole coming in to make our lives miserable'... " Dushan invokes narratives of his grandfather helping out fellow mill workers, African Americans, as an example of this.

I asked Dushan how he feels when people tell him he's enjoyed white privilege. "I laugh. Sometimes I confront them. 'Oh, give me a break.' I argue with fools to taunt them."

Dushan enthusiastically spoke of the positive side of the Croatian culture he inherited, including sharing a recipe for Croatian tomato wine.

Dushan has children. Will they carry on with the Croatian customs Dushan values? "I would love it if my kids carried on. Will it happen? Naw."

***
"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6