Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture (Jews of Poland) [Hardcover]

Danusha V. Goska (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1936235153 | ISBN-13: 978-1936235155

In this controversial study, Goska exposes one stereotype of Poles and other Eastern Europeans. In the ''Bieganski'' stereotype, Poles exhibit the qualities of animals. They are strong, stupid, violent, fertile, anarchic, dirty, and especially hateful in a way that more evolved humans are not. Their special hatefulness is epitomized by their Polish anti-Semitism. Bieganski discovers this stereotype in the mainstream press, scholarship, film, in Jews' self-definition, and in responses to the Holocaust. Bieganski's twin is Shylock, the stereotype of the crafty, physically inadequate, moneyed Jew. The final chapters of the book are devoted to interviews with American Jews, which reveal that Bieganski and Shylock are both alive and well among those who have little knowledge of Poles or Poland.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''Stereotypes of Poles have been commonplace in Western society. Danusha V. Goska presents a comprehensive overview of such images in a balanced fashion. She offers no apologetic for genuine instance of Polish anti-Semitism. But she also exposes those rooted in outright prejudice with no foundation in fact. An important contribution to improved Polish-Jewish understanding.'' --John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D., professor of Social Ethics, Director, Catholic-Jewish Studies Program Catholic Theological Union Chicago

'A powerful, provocative, ultimately profound work of scholarship regarding the stereotypification of Poles and its implications not only for Polish-Jewish relations in the Old World and the New, but also for anyone wishing to fathom the interworkings of class and ethnicity in an America that has all too often fallen short of its promise.'' --James P. Leary, folklorist, University of Wisconsin

''In this most important work, Dr. Goska's style incorporates those necessary ingredients that justify writing as an art form: her grammar is impeccable, even while the pathways of her sentences can be unpredictable. Her imagery is robust, but yet it never gets in the way of the underlying premises of her arguments. Moreover, her thinking is crisp, and her knowledge of this very sensitive topic is thoroughly evident. Indeed, the reader cannot help but be persuaded by the logical unfolding of the positions she brings to this necessary work. Above all, she establishes that all-important trust in her readers: that while she may jostle their previously-held constructs, she will also protect them on a literary journey that could be harrowing and dangerous in lesser hands.'' --Dr. Michael Herzbrun, Rabbi Temple Emanu-El, Rochester, NY

About the Author

Danusha V. Goska (Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington) is an experienced teacher and award-winning writer of numerous articles, essays and fiction in Polish Studies.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Academic Studies Press (June 30, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1936235153
• ISBN-13: 978-1936235155
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #413,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some Things Go Together Well, June 26, 2010

By 

Arno Lowi (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture (Jews of Poland) (Hardcover)

Among other things, the Talmud records edited discussions between rabbinic scholars on legal and literary-interpretive topics. Two particular rabbi-scholars frequently appear in tandem, commenting and responding to each other's opinion. These two are named Rava, and Abbaye. One day in Talmud class my Talmud teacher, a devout Polish Jew, commented that "Rava and Abbaye go together like ham and eggs". I saw the jaw of one of my classmates literally drop, nearly hit the floor. "But Rabbi", he stuttered, "what do you know of ham and eggs?". My teacher replied "I never tasted them, but I've heard they go together well". So too Poles and Jews. They seem to go together. Poles and Jews. Jews and Poles. But this taste is bitter, complicated, with a lingering confused finish on the palate.

At least they used to go together. These days, Jews and Palestinians are edging their way into the spot traditionally reserved for Poles and Jews. Israel and the Zionist lobby are making sure of that. Where were Poles will be Palestinians. And some day, sadly, tragically, someone will have to write a book about Jewish-Palestinian relations, stereotypes, etc., and that writer will be called names, variously and such as "anti-Semite", "self hater", "Jew lover", "Zionist spy", "traitor", etc., names such as Danusha Goska will be called for writing "Bieganski".

In "Bieganski" Goska writes a serious book, treading on sacred, crushed bone-, ash- and gold teeth- filled ground, and our journey with her, not surprisingly, is frequently unpleasant. The sites she guides us to in the courageous "Bieganski" are illuminating, and shocking: amazing quotes from current newspaper articles, from the New York Times and Washington Post etc., quoting esteemed, mostly WASP American scholars and commentators saying the most outrageous, nasty things about Poles, Bohemians, Hungarians, 'Bohunks', describing them as brutish protohumans who can only be assumed of eating their own while smacking greasy bulging lips with stupid, sated Slavic simian smiles. Goska points us, with sniper-scope accuracy, to the systematic, disgusting, and pervasive anti-Polish bias in contemporary Hollywood film, literature, and popular major media outlets, television, and newspapers.

But the stuff we read in "Bieganski" is not esoteric; this racism is as mainstream as ham and eggs, as ordinary as Rava and Abbaye doing their intellectual joustings across the centuries of Talmudic discourse. Yet we can barely keep our breakfast down; we want to vomit up that ham, those eggs in disgust. Revulsion. How could we accept such trayf, such unkosher hatred?

And Jews, how do Jews feel about Poles? "Bieganski" incorporates unusual interviews Goska personally conducted with American Jews, speaking off-the-cuff about their stereotypes of Poles. Jews? Poles? We feel what we were taught, and what has been reinforced and encouraged by our WASP overlords and by our Jewish, anti-Polish dayschool teachers; Poles are subhuman, they are fed antisemitism in their mother's milk, we are superior to them. We go to visit modern Poland to see how poor and stupid and undeveloped the Poles are, and to see the Nazi death camps on Polish soil, and we know that the Poles are undeveloped and poor and stupid in cosmic punishment for the so-called "Polish Holocaust", which was a Nazi Holocaust conducted on occupied Polish soil, and which targeted Catholic Poles as much as it targeted Jews. But of course the Poles are to blame. And the mass murder of Poles, Polish Catholics, by Nazis from the west, and by Soviets from the East, is completely ignored, relegated to the ash heap of history, irrelevant, unworthy of mention.

So why will author Dr. Goska likely need to hire a bodyguard now? Why, for writing "Bieganski" will she be reviled, by Jews, by Poles, by African Americans? Why is it that no mainstream publisher would touch her book "Bieganski" for fear that they might lose support from generous financial backers? Why will Goska now be labelled, variously, as an "anti-Semite", a "Polish apologist", a "right-wing whacko", a "racist", a "self-hating Pole", a "Jew lover" and a "Zionist spy", all at the same time?

You'll just have to read the book and figure it out for yourself. It will be an exhilarating ride, eye-opening, jaw-dropping, intellectually rich and deep yet smooth as a Cuban cigar with a glass of dark, dark rum. "Bieganski". Mark my words. This one's a keeper. You'll be talking about it with your friends for years. "Bieganski". An exploration of the brute within.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging and controversial, June 6, 2011

By 

Aleksandra - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture (Jews of Poland) (Hardcover)

"Bieganski..." is one of those thought-provoking and compelling books that left me with a feeling of unease after reading it. It is challenging, well-written and quite significant for the Polish-Jewish dialogue. Personally, it also led me to question my identity as a Polish person, especially in the context of the fact that I am living abroad.

In Poland one rarely encounters chances to become familiarized with the profoundness and influence of the hugely negative stereotype of Poles existing in the Western culture. At first, I felt overwhelmed by the description of the Bieganski stereotype as brute, non-educated and primitive creature. Learning about this image that I was never fully aware of proved to be difficult and intellectually challenging exercise, which was nonetheless generally well-guided in the first chapters of the book, and as I kept reading I realized its purpose and came to value it.

The descriptions of Anti- Semitism elsewhere, Jewish history in Poland and other European countries as well as the analysis of role of Anti- Semitism and Slavs perception in Europe before the Second World War provide a key to understand the context of the Holocaust and the perception of Poles during it and afterwards. The book analyses it very profoundly and considers many aspects, which enables the reader to more fully understand the roots, mechanisms and far-reaching implications and consequences of the Polish-Jewish relations in the past. Current image of Poland and Poles in the US and generally Western culture as depicted in the book seem to logically follow the stereotype and attitudes and prejudices deriving from it.

The narrative challenges the Polish national identity as well as the Jewish one, and it aims to exhaustingly explain the way these identities complement each other and derive their definitions from the dichotomous self-other framework. It demonstrates the far-reaching consequences that the perceptions themselves can bring about. For me, this deep and multi-aspectual analysis of cultural, political, social and historical issues connected with the Polish-Jewish-American relations aids in their deeper and fuller understanding of them, which I treat as the first step to work on changing the present situation. In order to be able to alter the existing perceptions and relations, the awareness of what they are and where they come from is undeniably crucial. The book, in my view, offers a unique and extremely broad insight into these relations between the three societies, so it could serve as a great starting point for an engaging public discussion on the subject.

Moreover, "Bieganski.." critically examines the attitudes to lessons of the Holocaust. Describing the examples such as the Holocaust tourism it makes the reader aware of the dangers posed by ignoring the current reality and instead focusing only on the past, therefore fitting the image of Jewish-Polish relations into the `us' versus `them' construction. The book demonstrates the importance of universalistic lessons that should be taken from the Holocaust - genocide can happen anywhere and we have to be very careful and critical about the interpretations of reality and various events, as it proves to be incredibly easy to simply become blinded by the stereotypes and let them control what we think and how we act.

I would fully recommend the book to anyone who is willing to question their views not only on the Polish-Jewish relations and stereotype of Poles in the US, but also to those who are able to critically consider how we all, as humans, are powerfully influenced by stereotypes and how we tend to draw far-reaching conclusions and oversimplify even without having any knowledge on the particular issue.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Book, October 5, 2010

By 

John Guzlowski (Danville, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture (Jews of Poland) (Hardcover)

Dr. Danusha Goska's book was painful for me to read. The truths she discusses about the way Poles are stereotyped as brutal, filthy, stupid, and anti-Semitic are not easy to hear.

As a child, I grew up as a Displaced Person, a refugee, in Chicago following World War II. My parents had both been Polish-Catholic slave laborers in Nazi Germany, and we came to the US because my parents had lost their families during the war and were afraid of returning to Poland. My parents saw America as a promised land, a place where they would find a haven from the brutally and hatred that they experienced in the camps. What they discovered was that this was to some extent just BS, an acronym for one of the first American words they learned.

We discovered we weren't Poles, and we definitely weren't Polish Americans. We heard in the streets and the factories and the schools that we were Dirty Polaks. We were the people who nobody wanted to rent a room to or hire or help. We were the "wretched refuse" of somebody else's shore, dumped now on the shores of America, and many people we came across here wished we'd go back to where we came from--and that we'd take the rest of the Dirty Polaks with us.

Dr. Goska examines and analyzes this ongoing stereotype of the brutal Pole with the care and precision it deserves but has never received. As a graduate student studying American literature and culture many years ago, I remembering looking for books that would explain why Poles were depicted in this negative way, and I found nothing. It was almost as if America did not recognize that its immigrants were often treated as if they were garbage, dangerous garbage.

I am grateful, therefore, that Dr. Goska has had the courage to pursue and publish her study of this stereotype. I only hope that analyzing and discussing it will provide us with the means of making it go away.