Monday, May 24, 2021

Bieganski Lives: Polish History Is Still Important Enough to Rewrite. And It Will Always Be So.

 


People often tell me that my book, "Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype," is already, or soon will be, outdated. After all, Poland is no longer a country where 70% - 80% of the population are peasants, and the stereotype relies on negative images of peasants for its life. 

These folks have not read the book, or, if they have, they have not understood it. Bieganski lives, and Bieganski will not soon die. If you read nothing else from the book, read the chapter dedicated to Bieganski and the Holocaust. This stereotype is doing hard work for the human race in its understandings of its own worst crimes. 

I'm reading a new book, "The August Trials: The Holocaust and Postwar Justice in Poland," by Andrew Kornbluth, published by Harvard University Press. 

I am finding enough to contend with that I paused in my reading to search how other readers are processing Kornbluth's handling of Poland. 

I came across the above-screen-capped page. Specifically, I came across this paragraph from that page. This paragraph is the very first paragraph in a review of a book about Polish crimes and Polish criminals. Note: it's not a paragraph about Polish crimes or Polish criminals. It's a paragraph about stupid, rabid, illiterate Polish janitor anti-Semites -- that is, it's a paragraph about Bieganski. And it's about a Polish Catholic priest.  

In Mad Dreams, Saving Graces: Poland, A Nation in Conspiracy (1989), journalist Michael Kaufman relates a story told to him by an aide to then Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski. “He reminded me that when he was growing up in Warsaw, he would often read to his illiterate grandmother from a rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper,” he writes. “That prewar church paper was edited by Father Maksymilian Kolbe, the priest, who in another sad Polish irony was to join millions of Jews as a Nazi victim at Auschwitz.” Apparently, Father Kolbe hated the Germans more than he detested the Jews; his monastery was the source of anti-Nazi publications, and the Germans arrested him in February 1941. He died in the camp in August after an injection of carbolic acid.

Here's a screencap of the passage mentioned 


It's just too perfect, isn't it? Poles are illiterate. Poles are janitors. Poles are not just anti-Semitic. Poles are "rabidly anti-Semitic." Poles, including Poland's most famous martyred priest, are motivated by xenophobic hatred, never love. Just add some kielbasa and stir. 

Ron Slate's bio is here. I see nothing in this bio that informs the reader as to Slate's motivation for rewriting Polish history, slandering a martyred priest, or revivifying the Bieganski stereotype via that slander. And yet there it is. Bieganski lives. 

Note that in the screencap from Slate's piece at the top of this blog post, there is a severe image of Father Kolbe next to the cover of a book that details crimes committed by Poles during the Holocaust. 

In the photo, to modern eyes, accustomed to smiling selfies, Father Kolbe looks mean. I think this photo was taken during the Nazi occupation of Poland. That may play some role in Kolbe's unsmiling face. 

This juxtaposition of images is doing very hard work. It's teaching you to hate. Poles, all Poles, are evil. This sainted Pole, Father Kolbe, who gave his life for another at Auschwitz, no less, who was previously imprisoned by the Nazis exactly because he was Polish, he was Catholic, and he was a priest, openly invited his own martyrdom by, after his release from Nazi imprisonment, helping Jews. 

Father Kolbe's photograph, and a distorted falsification of his biography, carefully crafted to smear him for being the exact opposite of who and what he was, is used to illustrate comments about a book addressing crimes committed by Poles during the Holocaust. 

Slate's piece is so sick and so twisted I lack the vocabulary to address it. 

I can say this, though. Poles are often bashed for questioning how their history is handled. 

I ask, can you blame them? During the Partitions, that is, colonization by Germans and Russians, 1772-1918, Polish identity was often more or less outlawed. Poland was a political entity again between 1918 and 1939, and then, again, invaded by Germans and Russians. 

People who have lived under hostile, foreign powers, yes, are misrepresented in official histories. And, yes, they come to question official histories. 

People like Slate, for their own reasons, lie about Poles and Poland. I have no idea who Ron Slate is; I stumbled across his page. But there are folks out there invested in disseminating false histories of Poles and Poland. Yes, some Poles react to this by doubting what they hear. 

In any case, below please find a passage from "Bieganski" that addresses Father Kolbe. 

In 1941, Maximilian Kolbe sacrificed his own life for another's in Auschwitz. His 1982 canonization brought the previously obscure Kolbe international fame. As night follows day, this remarkable Pole was roundly denounced as a proto-Nazi.

Accusers included superstar scholar Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Washington Post journalist Richard Cohen, celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens, and the documentary film, "John Paul II: The Millennial Pope," "an all-time bestseller" for PBS (Nash). 

The extreme language and distortion used to besmirch Kolbe was typified by Christopher Hitchens, who wrote that Kolbe was guilty of "stoking the very oven in which he was to perish." Given the Bieganski stereotype, Rabbi Zev K. Nelson choose a very telling word: Kolbe was "unclean" (Finley).

St. Louis University history professor Daniel L. Schlafly, Jr., and Warren P. Green, director of the St. Louis Center for Holocaust Studies, issued an eighteen-page response. Schlafly and Green do not depict Kolbe as without fault. Kolbe was certainly incorrect in some of his beliefs, and the journals he founded did publish a small amount of anti-Semitic material; there is no excuse for this. 

What remains pertinent is that Kolbe's defamers exploit Bieganski to distort the real man. Kolbe criticized his editors for publishing anti-Semitic material, counseling love, not hostility. Nazis arrested Kolbe and other priests, and told them they were "Polish swine" slated for extermination. After his release, Kolbe invited martyrdom by counseling Poles to aid Jews. At his friary, Kolbe sheltered between several hundred and two thousand Jews fleeing Nazism. Kolbe was re-arrested. In Auschwitz he was known as a saint. Sigmund Gorson testified.

He knew I was a Jewish boy. That made no difference. His heart was bigger than persons – that is, whether they were Jewish, Catholic or whatever. He loved everyone. He dispensed love and nothing but love. For one thing, he gave away so much of his meager rations that to me it was a miracle he could live. Now it is easy to be nice, to be charitable, to be humble, when times are good and peace prevails. For someone to be as Father Kolbe was in that time and place – I can only say the way he was is beyond words. I am a Jew by my heritage as the son of a Jewish mother, and I am of the Jewish faith and very proud of it. And not only did I love Maximilian Kolbe very, very much at Auschwitz, where he befriended me, but I will love him until the last moments of my life. (Treece 200)


"You Never Know When the Ax Might Fall" Bieganski Interview # 24

 


I grew up in a middle class suburb of Chicago that was heavily Italian Catholic. I was the only Jew in the neighborhood.
 
I don't remember when I was first told by my peers that I "killed Jesus," but by the time I was four, that was a common refrain in my life. I had no friends throughout my grammar school years.

 

I guess every group likes to have at least one scapegoat; I just happened to fall into that category early on and become the group's permanent focus. Looking back now, I strongly suspect that if there had been a black or Hispanic student in my age-group, I would most likely have been over-looked. Probably never popular, but not THE ONE to be taunted and physically beaten up.

 

To this day, I still feel most Jewish when I hear Judaism being attacked.

 

At home, however, I got somewhat mixed signals about being Jewish. The tragedy of "The Six Million" (Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust) always loomed large. I was told you could never really trust "the goyim" because look what happened to German Jews; they had felt themselves to be Germans first and Jews second. Big mistake.

 

And yet...in my memory, my parents never really practiced Judaism. Every Chanukah was filled with eight nights of presents (wonderful!) and every Passover we had a special family meal, complete with the four questions. But that was it. No Sabbath on Friday nights. No fasting on Yom Kipper. We were like Christians who were really Christian only on Christmas and Easter. About as assimilated as you could get.

 

It seemed that being Jewish was not a thing you practiced; it was a state of being---and a dangerous state at that. You never know when the ax might fall.

 

Informant was a female in her twenties.

 

THE BACKGROUND on these interviews, that is, when they were conducted, who the informants were, and why I post them, see here.

 

"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

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?" # 16

"Goyim Sell Their Children for a Bottle of Whiskey" # 17

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" # 18

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked by Some Kids in Canada" # 19

"You Cannot Get That Job Unless You Are Jewish" # 20

"God Knew the Jews Were Going to Have a Pretty Interesting History." Bieganski Interview # 21

"Why Did You Bring This F---ing Jew Into My Store?" Bieganski Interview # 22

"That Jew B------ Raised the Rate" Bieganski interview # 23

"You Never Know When the Ax Might Fall" Bieganski interview # 24


Thursday, May 20, 2021

"That Jew B------ Raised the Rate" Bieganski Interview # 23

 


I've been around a lot of anti-Semitism. People without knowing I was Jewish make comments, like 'Jew someone down.'
 
I was at Mr. D's [a supermarket in Bloomington, Indiana] not that many weeks ago at the window and Alan Greenspan raised the rate a quarter of a point and there was some well dressed, middle class looking white woman talking to people behind the counter about 'that Jew b------ who raised the rate and he probably doesn't even own stocks, he probably has securities.'

 

You know, she referred to him as 'Jew b------' several times.

 

And with me standing right there, the decision was 'Do I confront this? Or do I just live and learn?' And I decided to live and learn.

 

But that's happening all the time, everywhere. We're talking all day everyday. I would like to put my head in the sand and pretend it's not happening, but it is.

 

It seems that I'm seeing that in the Gentile world, either they're coming to an appreciation of the role that Jews play over time, or there's still the same fear and hatred and distrust and stereotypes. It troubles me. It's always troubled me. It's ignorance. Anything that's divisive troubles me.

 

Informant was a 50 year old man who grew up Jewish in New Jersey and later became a Christian.

 

THE BACKGROUND on these interviews, that is, when they were conducted, who the informants were, and why I post them, see here.

 

"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

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?" # 16

"Goyim Sell Their Children for a Bottle of Whiskey" # 17

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" # 18

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked by Some Kids in Canada" # 19

"You Cannot Get That Job Unless You Are Jewish" # 20

"God Knew the Jews Were Going to Have a Pretty Interesting History." Bieganski Interview # 21

"Why Did You Bring This F---ing Jew Into My Store?" Bieganski Interview # 22

"That Jew B------ Raised the Rate" Bieganski interview # 23


Tuesday, May 18, 2021

"Why Did You Bring This F---ing Jew Into My Store?" Bieganski Interview # 22

 


"I was a university student. I used to work part time at a liquor store. Next door was a convenience store I used all the time and I had a pleasant relationship as a customer with the owner.

Once, when we needed extra people for the Christmas rush, I brought a guy from my neighborhood whom I had known in Hebrew school. He had a hooked nose and a bit of a sing-song voice and frizzy blonde hair.

 

I went into the convenience store with my friend and the formerly pleasant owner asked me what I was doing bringing this f---ing Jew into his store. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

 

It turned out that the guy was an Arab and he started telling me how Jews were causing all of the problems in the world. The store was part of a large chain of franchises and I thought about calling the head office but I didn't do anything. I just never went back to that store."

 

Informant was a male from Toronto whose maternal grandparents were Jews from Poland and whose paternal grandparents were Jews from Hungary

 

THE BACKGROUND on these interviews, that is, when they were conducted, who the informants were, and why I post them, see here.

 

"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

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?" # 16

"Goyim Sell Their Children for a Bottle of Whiskey" # 17

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" # 18

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked by Some Kids in Canada" # 19

"You Cannot Get That Job Unless You Are Jewish" # 20

"God Knew the Jews Were Going to Have a Pretty Interesting History." Bieganski Interview # 21

"Why Did You Bring This F---ing Jew Into My Store?" Bieganski Interview # 22


Saturday, May 15, 2021

"God Knew the Jews Were Going to Have a Pretty Interesting History." Bieganski Interview # 21

 

Hamas rockets launched toward Israel 5/10/21 AP Khalil Hamra 

My grandparents fled pogroms in Europe at the turn of the century, and then fifty years later a lot of our people there was the Holocaust, and now here we are half a century after that and anti-Semitism is on the rise big time, not just in Ukraine, but in a lot of places in Europe and in this country as well.
 
In my neighborhood now in Bloomington, Indiana, some of my neighbors had a Jewish sounding last name, had shots fired at their house, and their barn burnt to the ground.

 

The local temple here had an incident. It was in the paper. I don't know the extent of the damage, but there was damage, and they ended up catching two or three white Aryan supremacists who tried to desecrate it.

 

Anti-Semitism is a spirit and it doesn't go away. Been around for a long, long, long, long time. Even the Bible says that Jerusalem becomes a stumbling block to the nations. The enemy hates Jewish people. It's not gonna stop until after Messiah comes back the second time and the enemy is taken out of the picture completely. And at that point, I believe, from reading the scripture, the Lord will reign and rule from Jerusalem.

 

It's hard not to sound erudite, but the Jewish people were God's first born. Anything that God creates the enemy hates.

 

When God called Abraham out, from the time Abraham covenanted with God, and told him what his seed was gonna be, if you look at Genesis 12, 3, it says, God's saying, 'Those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse.' And I think that God knew that the Jewish people were going to have a pretty interesting history from there on.

 

"By the enemy you mean Satan?"

 

That's who I mean.

 

"So, is anti-Semitism Satanic?"

 

Absolutely. I believe it's a Satanic spirit. Is that a little more metaphysical than we wanted to get with this? [laughs]

 

We're talking about generational spirits. We're talking about familiar spirits. Things that are passed down sometimes people believe and go about things without really knowing why they are doing it. They're inculcated.

 

"The people who shot at your neighbor's house and burned down their barn. Were they ever arrested?"

 

No. I have no idea who it was.

 

Informant was a 50 year old man who grew up Jewish in New Jersey and later became a Christian.

 

THE BACKGROUND on these interviews, that is, when they were conducted, who the informants were, and why I post them, see here.

 

"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

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?" # 16

"Goyim Sell Their Children for a Bottle of Whiskey" # 17

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" # 18

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked by Some Kids in Canada" # 19

"You Cannot Get that Job Unless You Are Jewish" # 20

"God Knew the Jews Were Going to Have a Pretty Interesting History." Bieganski Interview # 21


Friday, May 14, 2021

"You Cannot Get that Job Unless You Are Jewish" Bieganski Interview # 20

 


Last year I accepted a tenure track job at Castleton State College in Vermont. I left that job after one year because I was so unhappy.
 
An example of why I left: I was preparing the Martin Luther King Day talk on peace, and was working on a presentation which compared the strategies of the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements, while editing video footage, I overheard a professor in the business department tell a student that "You can not get a job in graphic design in New York unless you are Jewish."
 

During my undergraduate experience at a top 25 liberal arts college in the Midwest, an assistant editor of the newspaper asked me to write a piece on Kristallnacht because she wanted "an intelligent Jew to do it."

 

Upon hearing that his niece had married a Jewish man, my wife's uncle stated, "They have never done anything to me. I had a Jewish boss once, he was a bit tight with his money, but otherwise he was okay."

 

At my brother-in-law's wedding this summer I overheard one of the guests telling a Jewish joke, while I do not remember the words, it had to do with big noses and being cheap.

 

Informant was in his early thirties. He was a college professor in Ohio

 

THE BACKGROUND on these interviews, that is, when they were conducted, who the informants were, and why I post them, see here.

 

"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

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?" # 16

"Goyim Sell Their Children for a Bottle of Whiskey" # 17

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" # 18

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked by Some Kids in Canada" # 19

"You Cannot Get that Job Unless You Are Jewish" # 20


Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Coming Out as Pro-Israel on Facebook

 Over on my other blog I have a piece outlining my support for Israel. You can read that piece, "Coming Out as Pro-Israel on Facebook," here




Monday, May 10, 2021

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked By Some Kids" in Canada: Bieganski Interview # 19

 

Source

My mother told me that before the war a Jewish man with a beard might get harassed in the street. When I asked for confirmation of that recently … she said that her grandfather was once attacked by some kids. He came to Canada from Poland in 1911. He was an orthodox Jew and wore a beard. He collected scrap metal and drove a wagon through every neighborhood and into what was then the suburbs or even countryside.
 
She did tell me that non-Jewish employers sometimes didn't want to hire you because you were Jewish (in the Toronto of the 1940s).Two versions of what she said came to mind … 1. They would tell you to find work with your own people. 2. That they said "Your own people don't even want to hire you." I suppose she was in her 40s in the 1960s when she told me that.
 
Informant was a male from Toronto whose maternal grandparents were Jews from Poland and whose paternal grandparents were Jews from Hungary

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" Bieganski Interview # 18

 

Photo from a Washington Post article re: 
attacks on Jews in the US

While I was conducting my ethnographic research for "Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype," quite a few American Jews told me that their idea of Poland was a place where Polish Catholics beat up Jews regularly. These beatings, they told me, occurred especially when Poles got drunk, which they assumed was often, or during Easter and Christmas. 

I asked Roman Solecki, a Polish-Jewish professor who emigrated to the US after WW II, about this. 

He wrote back via email: 

There were cases of Jews being beaten on the streets of Polish cities by band of right-wing extremists from "Falanga", "ABC" etc (my father was beaten up by one such gang in 1938 (?). I don't think this had anything to do with Easter or that the participants were drunk.
 
My experiences are only limited to my hometown Lwow (Lviv, Lemberg), city of about 350,000 with population about equally divided among Polish Catholics, Polish Jews and Ukrainians. I know that there were individual cases of Jews being beaten on the streets and actually two Jewish students were murdered at the University (or maybe Polytechnic Institute) in Lwow.
 
But it would be, I think, a gross exaggeration to talk about widespread beating of Jews. After all I went to a state elementary school and then to a state "gimnazjum" (high school) and everything was OK there (except for a couple of anti- semitic bastards).