Hollywood's War with Poland, 1939-1945 [Hardcover]

The author has examined numerous WWII-era Hollywood films, evaluated them for their content on Poland (usually absent, seldom neutral or positive, and frequently negative), compared them with portrayals of other Allied nationalities, and diagnosed the reasons for these developments. It all boiled down to how Poles were seen, who had an interest in belittling Poland, and what little capability the Poles had for getting the truth out.

One factor was racism, which was certainly not limited to blacks: "In general the new immigrants were not well received by American society, which regarded them as inferior to the older stock of Americans. In 1902, Woodrow Wilson described Poles, along with Hungarians and Italians, as `men of a meaner sort' possessing `neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence'. They were a `coarse crew', even less desirable than the Chinese. Such views were widespread in American society." (p. 170). Not surprisingly, films were stilted. Blacks, Hispanics, and Poles were virtually absent, Jews and Italians were present, and the Irish were ubiquitous. (p. 188).

Second, Poland's achievements and sufferings had never resonated with Americans: "There was no conspiracy against Poland in wartime America, in part because none was needed. America, in general, was not concerned with Poland. The Poles in America were insignificant." (p. 230).

Third, leading figures in Hollywood were Jews, especially Polish Jews. (pp. 213-on). Some of them nursed old grudges and, in effect, conducted a vendetta against Poland on film. This was notably true of the Warner Brothers, who had been born in Poland under a different name. (pp. 175-176, 218). When confronted, by Polish-American organizations, with the gross distortions of Poles in their films, the Warner Brothers brushed it off and resorted to lie-and-deny tactics. (pp. 101-104).

Fourth, Communists and other leftists had a strong influence in Hollywood. Their job was NOT to promote Communist ideology, but rather to defend Soviet conduct at all times, and to smear anyone who disagrees. (This led to the awkward situation of defending the Nazi-Soviet alliance of 1939-1941: p.63). The demonization of Poland was consistent with this strategy, as well as with the prevailing slavishly pro-USSR policy of FDR. Biskupski lists specific radical leftists who were leaders in the smearing of Poland. (p. 201).

In addition, the leftists were forward-looking in their Poland-defaming tactics. Biskupski writes: "The Russian war effort was not in any way dependent on Americans' thinking that the pre-1939 Polish government was a band of reactionary friends of fascism or that Polish Americans were an obscure community of misfits and incompetents requiring extended processing before becoming fit company for Irish, Italian, and Jewish Americans." (p. 209). Rather, this served to prepare American public opinion for the imposition of the post-WWII Soviet puppet government on Poland.

The fate of the Poles on film contrasts with that of the Irish. The latter successfully repudiated their earlier portrayals as hooligans and drunks, and forced Hollywood to consistently respect them. (pp. 20-21).

Biskupski provides corrective details for the distortions in war films. For instance, the number of Poles killed by 1939 German bombing of Warsaw, or even of the little town of Wielun, dwarfs that of much-mentioned 1940 Rotterdam. (p. 285). When it comes to aerial fighters, the real eagles were not Americans, but Poles. Polish fliers inflicting 3 times the German losses, at a cost of a quarter of the losses, of the Americans. (p. 280). As for secret agents under the German occupation, there were about 40,000 Polish ones against the much-featured 2,500 French agents. (p. 55). Lidice, an oft-featured village in Czechoslovakia, was destroyed by the Germans. In Poland, there were thousands of American-ignored Lidices. (p. 317). Total Polish losses in WWII are in the 4.5-7.5 million range. (p. 298).[Including 3 million Polish Jews.]

This book has disturbing implications for the present. Much has changed. The once poverty-stricken Polish immigrants have given way to a vibrant Polish-American community that is, economically speaking, among the five most successful ethnic groups in America. On the other hand, nothing has changed. The influence of Poles in politics, and popular culture, remains virtually nil. Poles and Poland continue to be defined by Poland's enemies. Americans form their opinions about Poles and Poland based on the pronouncements of anti-Polish Jews, notably in Holocaust materials. Will the Poles ever learn?

Rest assured, Poland has learned. We were the motor in communism collapse. It was 21 years ago. It takes time to undo hurtful films, publications and stereotypes created by the Soviets.Poland does really care about our reputation, especially regarding our II war era heroism.

Another great publication, which explains soviet propaganda and attepts to discourage Americans from active help to Poland, right after II war is " I saw Poland Betrayed" book by the last US Ambassador, serving its post until 1947- Arthur Bliss-Lane. Russia knew US had influencial American-Jewish organizations, and one of the ways to alienate Poland from international help (especially US), was to smear Poland with antisemitism.
Bliss-Lane made a point, in which the widest known "antysemitic" events were orchestrated by soviet NKWD- same institution responsible for 20K executions style massacre of polish officers and intelligence in Katyn forest.
NKVD-invented "Polish antysemitism", was a fertile ground for Jews, due to their tromendous suffering and psychologcal demage.Unfortunetly, our Jewish friends were misled and fooled and our long friendship dating to XIV century thorn apart.

We will undue all lies and shove it right back to everyone responsible. Wait and see.

MBB Biskupski's "Hollywood's War with Poland: 1939-1945" is a must-buy, must-read and must-keep book for several audiences. Twenty-first century American citizens seeking insight into ethnic jockeying for power will want to read this book. Conspiracy theorists fascinated by the ability of popular culture to twist human minds will find support for their most Orwellian nightmares. Polish Americans who care about the abysmal position of Polonia in the arts, politics, journalism and academia will buy, read, and reread it. Biskupski's style is straightforward, without academic or aesthetic flourishes. The average reader will have no problem.

HWWP is an essential resource that proves, beyond any question, that powerful people, prompted by geopolitical competition and deep hostility worked hard to sully the image of Poles, Polish-Americans, and Poland. They did this during World War II, when Poland was playing a key historical role. World War II began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Nazis located notorious death camps like Auschwitz in Poland; Poland is an essential site of the Holocaust. As part of its treaty with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union invaded as well, and Poland would be central to the Cold War. In short, when Poland was being crucified by two of the most murderous regimes in world history, Hollywood, with US government supervision and approval, did everything it could to convince its audiences that Poles were unworthy of support or even concern - in fact, Hollywood told its audiences that the Poles were deeply flawed people who probably deserved everything they got. This is the Big Lie writ with lightning - not by Goebbels, but by Washington and Hollywood.

HWWP provides another important service for anyone who studies ethnicity in America. Powerful forces in academia, politics, journalism and popular culture have insisted that the American ethnic landscape is literally black-and-white: poor and oppressed blacks struggle against privileged and powerful whites for their piece of the American pie. Perhaps the most notorious and resented example of this worldview are those check-off boxes that ask scholarship applicants and academic job candidates to identify as several different varieties of "persons of color" while offering only one choice for "white" people. In fact the black-white myth has never reflected reality, and American whites have come in varieties of rich and poor, powerful and disempowered. HWWP depicts Polish-Americans as the utterly disempowered, fecklessly looking on while their ancestral homeland was ruined and their ethnicity was degraded.

HWWP is not perfect. Biskupski insists on the distinction between, for example, a Polish American and a Slovak American in an American movie. Biskupski bristles at the word "Bohunk," suggesting that it arises only from American ignorance about and hostility to Eastern Europeans. In fact, the word "Bohunk," and the concept it describes, makes perfect sense in the American context. Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Hungarians, and Yugoslavs shared similar cultural traits in the old country, and occupied similar socioeconomic niches in this country. Two immigration classics: "The Jungle," about a Lithuanian meat packer in Chicago, and "Out of this Furnace," about a Slovak steel worker near Pittsburgh, could just as easily have been written about Poles. Biskupski argues that Victor Laszlo in "Casablanca" had to have been Czech because Czechoslovakia had no territorial grievances with the Soviet Union, while Poland did. Question: Did American audiences make this distinction? Did they care? As Christopher in the television series "The Sopranos" put it, "Czechoslovakian? That's a type of Polak, right?" Scholar Michael Novak, a Slovak American, complains that people tell him Polak jokes; they see those jokes as being about him. This blurring of boundaries does not occur strictly on this side of the Atlantic; poet Adam Mickiewicz began "Pan Tadeusz," Poland's national epic, with lines praising Lithuania, and the Polish folk hero, Janosik, was actually Slovak; Queen Jadwiga grew up in Hungary. Just so, in American films, characters slide between Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, and other Bohunk identities. This book would be of interest to scholars of a variety of Bohunk ethnicities, not just Poles.

The American concept of the Bohunk is significant to American stereotypes of Poles and other Eastern Europeans and the use of films to disseminate and reinforce these stereotypes. In fact an iconic Hollywood production did introduce American audiences to indelible images of Eastern Europe, and that film, more influential than perhaps any Biskupski discusses save "Casablanca," is the 1931 Bela Lugosi film "Dracula." This film opens to Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and peasants repeatedly blessing themselves and invoking the Virgin; there is a roadside cross; a peasant woman gives a British man a crucifix as protection. A British tourist comments that the setting is a relic of "a bygone age." Peasants in authentic costumes, including embroidery, vests, shawls, caps and headscarves are shown in a typical, Eastern European cottage, complete with straw roof. You may as well be in a Skansen. "Dracula," and Maria Ouspenskaya's heavily accented presence in subsequent Wolfman films, communicate loud and clear to American audiences: if you're looking for the scary dark side, the vaguely demonic, the dangerous, the primitive, the irrational, the creepily religious, the superstitious, the sexually perverse, the grotesque, the medieval, Eastern Europe is your go-to location. To this day, every Halloween, Americans wishing to communicate these qualities imitate a vaguely Eastern European accent.

Biskupski's narrow focus on the influence of Hollywood's pro-Soviet Communist Party does not allow for a discussion as to why the Brute Polak image was popular before World War II, after World War II, in print, for example in Nelson Algren's books, or in European films. Andrzej Wajda's "Promised Land" features a Polish aristocrat worse than any to appear in a Hollywood film, and coarse peasants as well. The 1999 Polish film, "With Fire and Sword," features peasants who are drunken, violent torturers and thieves. There are hopelessly stupid and crude peasants in the Czech films "Zelary" and "The Cow," a lengthy scene of cat torture in the critically acclaimed 1994 film "Satantango" set in a Hungarian village, and comically stupid, sexually debased, criminal, violent, and lusty Yugoslav immigrants in the 1981 Swedish film, "Montenegro." In short, Biskupski is correct, and he proves himself correct; communism did inspire Hollywood screenwriters to craft negative Polish characters in World War II era films. But there's more to it than that, and that's why I hope readers will read HWWP and "Bieganski" together. "Bieganski" talks in greater detail about the narratological reasons why storytellers, both on the page and on the screen, often choose to depict Bohunks as brutes.
Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture (Jews of Poland)