Bieganski

Examines the stereotype of the "brute Pole", more broadly of the brute Eastern European immigrant of peasant origin, widespread among Americans. Antisemitism is one of the main traits of this stereotypical "uncouth Pole" (immortalized by William Styron in "Sophie's Choice", in the character of Bieganski); it is presented as an expression of the Polish racial or cultural essence. A derivative of the Bieganski stereotype is the faulty conception that the Poles were perpetrators of the Holocaust, or that they bear responsibility for it to a greater degree than the Germans do. The average American knows nothing more than that the Poles are antisemites and that Poland was the site of the Holocaust. Compares press reactions to the aggressive antisemitic rhetoric of Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, and other Black militants in the 1990s with the reactions to the much milder rhetoric of Cardinal Józef Glemp and other Polish Catholic leaders during the Auschwitz convent controversy. While the press is prone to dismiss Black antisemitism as unworthy of note, it over-emphasizes antisemitism coming from Poland or from the Polish diaspora. Daniel Goldhagen's works, which allegedly defame the Germans, have been met with almost uniform criticism, while works by Jan Tomasz Gross, which allegedly defame the Poles, have been generally acclaimed. Contends that the "brute Pole" stereotype is maintained by Jews who need the image of an antisemitic Poland to uphold their Jewish identity. States that traditional Polish antisemitism is part of a broader widespread phenomenon - rejection of a middleman minority by a peasant people, and that there is nothing exceptional or demonic in it. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)