The Tragicomic history of King Władysław VII Niestety

 Władysław VII Niestety (Władysław the Unfortunate), also known as Władysław Nieznany (Władysław the Obscure) and Władysław Beznadziejny (Władysław the Hopeless) is perhaps the least-known and most justly-overlooked King of Poland (reigned 1677-1682). Of him, the poet Adam Mickiewicz wrote “we never did see such a hapless man/since Poland, Christendom, or the world began.” Described by the historian Norman Davies as “a blight on the already benighted 17^th century”, and by Jarosław Kaczyński as “almost as bad as Donald Tusk,” this controversial King’s reign was subject of recent revisionist re-examination lasting almost 15 minutes, which has changed his historical reputation from something akin to Ulysses S. Grant, to something more akin to James Buchanan.   

 

Pictured: the only known engraving of Władysław VII, in his coronation robes.

 

He was born Ladislaus Hansen Benson Yansen Vasa Bathory Potocki Sturm und Drang und Thurn und Taxis in the Swedish city of Gothenburg on February 29^th, 1625. His long name belied his origins, which were on a withered, humble, and somewhat beetle-infested cadet branch of the royal House of Vasa. After a typically misspent youth marked by an extraordinary inability to assemble furniture even when provided with pictorial instructions, he was called away to Poland by his distant cousin, King Jan II Kazimierz of Poland (with Jan Kazimierz frequently emphasizing the distance of their relation), as a favor to their aunt Bertha. Ladislaus was appointed Castellan of Białystok: Jan Kazimierz had wanted to appoint him Castellan of the Moon in order to get him as far away from Warsaw as possible, but it was pointed out to him that Poland could not yet into space, and so there was a small problem of jurisdiction. Władysław was a kind and indulgent Castellan, and known to entertain the locals through his periodic attempts to wrestle with the European bison found in nearby forests, and attempting to construct castles in the nearby swamps. 

 

From such unpromising beginnings, Władysław would appear to be an unlikely candidate for election as King of Poland. His was brought about largely because of the machinations of two key magnates, Janusz Potopopodobny of the Gozdawa coat of arms and Castellan of Guzik, and Marian Marcin Brzoskwinkowski of the Brzęczyszczykiewicz coat of arms and Prince of Fereteren Zabudowany.[1] Both of these magnates had attempted to promote Władysław as a spoiler candidate in the election of 1677, voting for him in the first round and thereby hoping to divide the Sejm sufficiently that no one candidate would win a majority, enabling either Potopopodobny or Brzoskwinkowski to win the election after it had been thrown to the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, this was also the plan of every other magnate present. In a spectacular miscalculation, this resulted in Władysław securing a substantial majority of those szlachta who were not voting for themselves. 

 

Pictured: Potopopodobny reacts to hearing news of Władysław VII's election

The reign of Władysław set the stage for future tragedy and disappointment. For instance, the Polish National Soccer Team was founded at this time. Owing to a possibly-misplaced comma, there is some controversy over whether “The Unfortunate” is the appropriate cognomen or not. The contemporary chronicler Maciej Oszustchowicz wrote of “Władysław Niestety, Król Polski” (Władysław the Unfortunate, King of Poland), but he may have meant to write “Władysław, Niestety, Krół Polski (Władysław, Unfortunately, King of Poland). This controversy was so hot, an argument began in favor of introducing definite and indefinite articles into the Polish language. This argument continues to this day, as anyone familiar with Poles will not be surprised to learn.

Aside from this contribution to historiography, Władysław VII both coined and promoted the use of the cognomen "Łokietek" (The Elbow-High) for King Władysław I Łokietek (r. 1320-1333), because he was afraid that otherwise people would apply that cognomen to him. When asked what cognomen he wanted, Władysław let it be known that he wanted to be remembered as Władysław VII Jagiełło. When it was pointed out to him that 1) he was not of the Jagellonian dynasty and 2) that this name was already taken, Władysław replied that that neither of these things had been an impediment for Tsars False Dimitry I and False Dimitry II.

Jan Matejko did a portrait of Władysław VII that was long thought lost, but a recent X-ray spectroscopic study conducted at the National Museum in Kraków has found that the canvas of the portrait was reused by the painter for his painting Hołd Pruski (The Prussian Homage). It is possible that Matejko found that this canvas was simply not large enough to realistically capture Władysław VII’s famous girth.

Curators at the National Museum in Kraków unroll the painting Hołd Pruski following X-ray analysis that found an incomplete portrait of Władysław VII that had been painted over.

Alas, Właysław would not get a planned literary portrait either: Henryk Sienkiewicz intended to write a fourth book of his trilogy focused on Władysław’s reign, tentatively titled either “Z Dupem i Jasiem” or “Cur vadis?”, but was dissuaded from doing so for reasons of good taste.

As with most kings of this period, Władysław had some of his legislation vetoed by the Sejm. Unlike most kings, Władysław managed to have his legislation vetoed by every member of the Sejm simultaneously, with several duels being fought over who would have the honor of casting the first veto. Some of Władysław’s proposals were needed, forward-looking, but derided, such as the elimination of the Liberam Veto, and the idea that the szlachta would have to actually pay their taxes occasionally. Other legislative proposals were downright bizarre, such as his proposal to limit Polish kings to serving two consecutive terms, and the adaptation of the Euro, though this former proposal would be put into limited execution in the 18^th century.

The Revocation Sejm attempted to depose Władysław in 1680. Władysław supported this move, stating all he wanted to do was retire and return to his native Sweden. On hearing this, Sweden immediately declared war. The short-lived Little Northern War resulted in the Treaty of Toruń (1681), the terms of which were remarkably generous to Poland given the circumstances: Władysław was forced to remain on the throne of Poland, but at the urging of the local businessmen of Toruń, Polish gingerbread was allowed tariff-free access to the Swedish market.

However, it must be noted that the legacy of Władysław was not entirely negative. He was a key patron of many artists, such as Wacław z Samotuł, Jan Kochanowski, Veit Stoss, and Marcin Kober. The fact that these artists had been dead for many years before his reign did not discourage his patronage. He also remodeled Wawel Castle, which was at this time falling into neglect as the royal capital had moved to Warsaw. While many needed repairs were completed, his idea to place a large neon sign on the side facing the river raised more than a few eyebrows. The other major public work begun at this time was the construction of what would eventually be known as Unity Centre, whose bold and spare construction would eventually inspire the design of the comic-book character Skeletor.

In sport, Władysław has cemented his legacy in the hearts of his countrymen by introducing ski jumping to Poland. In his celebrated “Skok Wawelski” (The Wawel Leap), the King had a jump ramp constructed on Wawel Hill in Kraków, and attempted, perhaps unwisely, to jump across the Vistula River. Then, as now, there was a pathway or road on the far embankment. As the King took off, a great cry was heard from the crowd that had assembled, “niech go szlak trafi!” (May he hit the road!) Miraculously, the King landed on the far bank, but was prevented from re-crossing the river by the assembled throngs. He was only able to attain the Wawel bank of the river by walking all the way to Tyniec, some 8 miles distant, and crossing there.

Finally, after a night of drinking, Władysław fell into the Vistula and drowned near Warsaw on May 3^rd, 1682, an event known as the “Zatop Szwedski” (the Swedish Sinking) or the “Cud pod Wisłą” (The Miracle under the Vistula). May 3^rd remains a national holiday in Poland today.

Władysław’s remains were returned to Kraków, and rather than being buried in Wawel Cathedral, were conveyed to the outskirts of town. The Cracovians then buried Władysław under a massive mound of earth erected above a crossroads, to ensure he was thoroughly covered and would not rise again. His successor, King Jan III Sobieski, gave him a heartfelt, touching eulogy, praising Władysław’s love of his people, his fundamental honesty, and his recipe for meatballs with lingonberry relish. He concluded his remarks by saying “let the memory of Władysław VII always be forgotten.”

Pictured: a 20th century reenactment of the burial of Władysław VII

The Kopiec Władysława, as the earthen mound that covered his remains was called, stood as a silent reminder of this king’s reign. It was said that the best views of Kraków were from the Kopiec Władysława, because from there, one did not have to see the Kopiec Władysława. The mound was demolished during the construction of the Nowa Huta steel works after World War II, which, it was unanimously agreed, greatly beautified the landscape.

 

The Nowa Huta steelworkds

I hope you have enjoyed this brief, dramatic, and utterly fictitious history of Władysław VII. I was thinking of writing a companion piece concerning the forgotten American president Alexander “The Rock” Johnson, but was finding his history to be too similar to that of Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan. Perhaps inspiration will strike….

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[1] The Brzęczyszczykiewicz coat of arms is described as “Gules parted quarterly with five argent zeds rampant.”

Poland's Decade in Review

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything: getting a PhD at Caltech in chemistry tends to take up a lot of time! I graduated in June 2019, and the last six years have been full of stage plays, choral concerts, marriage....with the end of the year and decade upon us, I'm taking some time to look back on this year, and on the last 10. However, considering you are viewing a blog about a Fulbright Fellowship in Poland, you, dear reader, are probably more interested in how things have been going in Poland!

I first traveled to Krakow in 2011 with my then-girlfriend, who was herself be a Fulbright Fellow the in the country then called Macedonia (now North Macedonia, the formerly Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. But don't tell anybody in Macedonia that you ever called it that, because they'll yell at you. And don't tell anybody in Greece you ever called it just regular Macedonia, because then they will yell at you. It's a long story). I was delighted by the visit, so much so that I decided to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship myself, to that same city. I lived in Krakow from 2012-2013, visited by myself in 2015, visited with my then-girlfriend-now-wife in 2016, and most recently, with my then-wife-now-wife in September 2019. The changes I saw over that almost 9-year span have been remarkable, but not granular, so I'm not going to go year-by-year but rather discuss some of the changes I've observed thematically rather than chronologically. I should also point out, I haven't gotten outside of Krakow much since 2013, so it's hard for me to talk about the whole country. But I'm going to try anyway. After all, it's my blog.

Economics and the obvious stuff

These are the changes that are the most obvious, in Krakow and other large cities in Poland.  While Poland was not exactly poor in 2011 (and while it was by appearances anyway, a lot shinier than Macedonia-now-North Macedonia), there were little reminders that you weren't in Western Europe anymore. Sidewalks, particularly towards the outskirts of town, would look beaten up. You would occasionally see Maluchy (Communist-era clown-car looking things) being driven around unironically. Granted, this was infrequent, but it did happen. The Krakow Airport looked like a Greyhound Bus terminal (the domestic terminal looked like a converted warehouse), and all you saw around it was some junkyards and some beat-up farmhouses, some abandoned, some still holding on. The main square, the Rynek, was very shiny, but if you either looked in the courtyards behind those facades, or walked away from the central square a bit, you very quickly came upon buildings that were in bad repair, with metal gratings over the sides of buildings to catch falling masonry, for instance. There was also this kind of Eastern Bloc dinginess that hung over parts of the city. It's very hard to describe if you haven't seen it in person, but it's a kind of gray haze Instagram filter, a combination of graffiti, tired old paint, gray exhaust stains on gray buildings....and we're talking about buildings that were built before the communist era! Krakow also had a smell to it that was like that of Macedonia, but not as aggressive: a vague smell of mildew, cleaning solvent, diesel fumes, wet wool, and especially in the winter, the sharp tang of burning coal and whatever crap some Cracovians were shoveling into their furnaces. The smell would be more or less prevalent depending on where you were, but it was always kind of there.

You would see some buildings that were completely abandoned, one of them in particular even being in sight of Wawel Castle (the Cracovians reading this familiar with the Zwierzyniec distric will know the one I mean: you know, next to the Jubilat, behind the kebab stands). And of course, the tallest building in Krakow was known as "Szkieletor" (Skeletor), a 330-foot tall structure about a mile east of the main square that was entirely composed of steel girders, which you could look right through, and which had been in that state since the 1970's. Eventually they put a big tarp or bag over it, so it didn't look as obviously unfinished. I remember walking under one railroad viaduct in Kazimierz that had a spider's-web of wire underneath the crumbling concrete, with a sign prominently posted that said "Caution! Viaduct is in a poor technical state!" We weren't exactly sure what to do about that, but we certainly didn't want to cross under the viaduct when a train ran over it. The trains themselves were interesting: there was some more modern rolling-stock, but a lot of the wagons/cars looked vintage 1980's. My favorite feature was the toilet in the bathroom, which would flush and dump its contents directly onto the rails. There was a sign above the toilet asking you not to flush when the train was in a station.

Now, I'm reading back over this description, and realizing it sounds like a dystopian landscape, but it didn't really feel like it at the time. A lot of the old stuff worked reasonably well when it wasn't crumbling. Beyond the grayness, the buildings were historic and charming: while I saw four apartments I was not at all interested in living in (one of them hilarious, two alarming, one pretty nice except for the smell of cat pee), the one I ended up renting was very comfortable if a little on the older side. But the thing that made Poland a really cool place to live in 2012-2013 was this exciting feeling that things were changing, and on the move: new construction, old buildings getting facelifts, KFC....Aside from soccer hooligans, the streets were safe, and I would walk around at midnight without too much concern. The people you saw on the street looked pretty well-fed, well turned-out, and dare I say it, maybe even optimistic, or at least as optimistic as Poles ever get. And change did come, at a pace that would astonish most Americans. It certainly astonished me.

In broad strokes, every time I went back to Poland, that grayness got a little bit lighter, and the buildings looked a little newer and better-scrubbed. You started seeing fewer of those cement-catchers on buildings. The city doesn't quite smell the way it used to, (though in fairness I haven't been in winter), and where you once would notice the lifting of the smell, nowadays you tend to notice when it crops up. I've lost some of the old landmarks I used to recognize, because those landmarks were abandoned buildings that aren't there anymore.There are new businesses outside of the old city, sometimes in vacant lots, sometimes in refurbished buildings (food trucks, cafes, etc.) run by a set of young entrepreneurs. There are new business parks, and the prosperous district of Wola Justowska, which used to be semi-rural, has many new luxury houses and apartments.

The transformation of Poland can be seen in a nutshell in The Galeria Krakowska, a shopping mall just east of the main square. The Galeria was relatively new when I first visited in 2011. It's always been a very sleek and chic place, a high-end mall that would not look out of place if you set it down in an affluent part of Los Angeles or Chicago. What was remarkable about it in 2011 was, first, that it looked so sleek (and featured exhibits that were pretty classy, like replicas of stuff in Jules Verne novels), and second, in retrospect, that it looked so empty. Sure, people would go there to hang out or window-shop, but a fair number of the shoppers looked like befuddled tourists, because they were.

By the time my wife and I visited in September 2019, you felt jostled and a little claustrophobic. Some of this increased traffic comes from the decision of the city to integrate the train station and, more importantly the train shed, with the Galeria Krakowska, meaning that you have to talk through the mall to catch a train. Previously, the train station was an Austrian-era building adjacent to the Galeria, which is now empty, and I think there are talks of turning it into a museum. But if you look closely at those rushing through the mall, they clearly aren't all travelers, and a lot of them are carrying shopping bags. Whereas Poles once came to the Galeria almost as tourists, today most of them come for business. And that business, for a lot of them, means shopping at H&M. This is perhaps the most visible evidence for increased prosperity in Poland, that people have disposable income not just to buy jeans, but to buy designer jeans.

Now, before this post sounds like "well, things used to really suck, and now it's like Disneyland", these changes have come at a price. First and foremost, things have become a little too much like Disneyland, particularly in the main square. The square was always bustling on weekends, as that's the bar, restaurant, and entertainment district, and the square would roar on a Saturday night in June or July. What was different in 2019 was that the square was packed, and loud, at 10:30PM on a Tuesday in September. What's also different is that most of the people on the square are speaking English these days, and you see fewer Poles hanging out. Go into a restaurant, and at one table you'll hear a bunch of Liverpudlians, at another, some New Yorkers, at yet another, Spaniards or Brazilians. This was really not the case in 2012-2013. Sure, there were tourists, but it didn't seem like they were the only people you saw. My friend Staszek also pointed out that none of the windows in apartments facing the square were lit at 10:30, because nobody lives in those apartments regularly. It used to be pretty normal to meet my friends in the square. Now, when I set up a meeting, they usually say something like "I haven't been there in years." In a sleazier turn of events, in 2012-2013 you'd certainly run into people passing out leaflets or hawking some bar or club or event, but never was I ever approached and asked if I wanted to go to a striptease club. In 2015 I was stunned when a young woman (who looked a little too young to be doing this kind of thing), approached and asked me if I wanted to go to a strip club. By 2019, any time I've walked into the square without my wife, I'm asked this question three or four times enroute, in English. In 2013 I distinctly remember thinking I was glad to see the square as it was then, because in 10-15 years it was all going to be a tourist trap. I underestimated the amount of time it would take.

Another problem is that a lot of the newer buildings were designed and built in a hurry, and/or the builders underestimated just how much the buildings were going to be used. We've already seen this effect at the Galeria Krakowska, but it is also evident at the Airport. The airport was brand spanking new in 2016, complete with that "new airport smell." I was stunned as I stepped off the plane, as it had gone from Greyhound Bus Terminal to Starship Enterprise, though the basic layout of the terminal was still recognizable (and for some reason, they still didn't believe in escalators, opting instead for a sloped moving walkway). By 2019, the building was already not aging well, the gate areas were crowded to the point of claustrophobia, and the circulation path in the gate area is very badly designed. Considering that this was a new building, there really shouldn't have been any excuse, though apparently this is just the first phase of a much larger expansion. What seems to be the problem is, there was a demand for more shop space, and the ability to fly more passengers out of more gates....without a corresponding increase in the square footage of the building.

This is the change in the economy of Poland that I saw in one city. But economic progress is never even, and it clearly wasn't even when I lived there in 2012-2013: while Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan and Wrocław (the capital, the second city, and two cities in Western Poland) seemed to be on the move, Radom, Lublin, and Łódź were still cleaning up damage from World War II, and didn't seem to be going anywhere. This economic inequality is affecting Polish politics, which also underwent upheaval and consolidation in the 2010's.


Politics

Poland is still a developing democracy, as the current Third Republic, with free elections and a free press, dates to the collapse of communism in 1990. The present Constitution was adopted in 1997. Unlike in Romania, the communist ruling class was not lined up against a wall and shot. Unlike East Germany, communist Poland was not swallowed up by a prosperous and democratic neighbor. And unlike in Russia, the economy, and political power, didn't end up in the hands of a connected oligarchy. And like many of the countries in Central Europe, but unlike Western Europe or the US, Poland was dismembered by its neighbors, Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary, and did not exist on the map for 123 years. It existed only as a nationalist idea. These are all things to keep in mind when trying to make sense of Polish politics today.


Communism fell after a series of semi-free, then free elections in Poland, which led to a government dominated by the activists of the Solidarity trade union. While the peaceful transition of power was certainly unexpected and worth celebrating, it created a couple of problems. First, the new government needed experts to run government departments, staff the supreme courts and the bureaucracy, and so forth. But Poland had been a one-party state. The only people who knew how to do any of those things had been loyal followers of the communist government. So, while the leadership at the top changed, the functionaries that ran the government stayed more or less put. Poland also made the decision to not really delve into the crimes of the previous government, or prosecute former police or secret police: there was a half-hearted effort to prosecute General Jaruzelski, who was effectively a military dictator from 1981-1989, but he died a free man.

The second problem the members of the new government had was, of course, how to differentiate themselves from other members of the new government. After all, what held Solidarity together was opposition to the communist government, but within its ranks were trade unionists, socialists, religious people, reactionaries, liberals....it was a very big tent with factions certain to fight amongst themselves for the spoils of power. And fight they did. From 1990 to about 2005-ish, Poland did its very best impression of Italy, with a succession of short-lived governments, a dizzying array of political parties that would appear and disappear suddenly. By the late 2000's, all of this had gradually settled down to a more-or-less two-party system. When I got to Poland in 2012, The left-wing was an impotent rump, leaving the country divided between the center-right Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform, or PO, which is classically liberal, argues for smaller government, and is pro-EU) and the right-wing Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, or PiS, which is socially conservative, nationalist, argues for an expanded welfare state, and is Euroskeptic). There were four other minor parties in the parliament, PO was in power and had been for some time, enough that it was kind of selling itself as "the natural party of government", even though it relied on a coalition for a majority, as all governments had up to that point. Yet for all that seeming sense of calm, the country was about to be hit by a political earthquake.

The country had already been hit by what would end up being the most important, and perhaps the defining, event of the 2010's in Poland: the Smolensk air disaster of 10 April 2010. I wrote an entire post about this back when, but in brief, Lech Kaczyński, the Polish president (a member of PiS, it's important to remember), was going to a commemoration of the Katyn Massacre, which is when the Soviet NKVD shot up to 40,000 Poles in the forests outside of Smolensk in 1940. Vladimir Putin was also supposed to be at the ceremony, and it looked like Poland and Russia would be headed for an era of improved relations. But the plane crashed near the runway in a fog, killing Lech Kaczyński and everyone else on board, including a number of other prominent Polish officials. The Polish government (a PO government, i.e. the opposing party to Kaczyński) seemed to drag its feet on the investigation, and let Russian officials handle most of the investigation.

Because the Russians were somewhat less than transparent about the investigation, the Smolensk Disaster quickly became a source of conspiracy theories. The most common was that the Russians had simply shot down the plane with a missile. Others were more outlandish, such as the theory that the Russians had set up an enormous fog machine, and switched it on as the plane came in to land. Essentially, it's the JFK assassination all over again, but with PiS actively pushing and promoting these conspiracy theories, saying that their political opponents, PO, were Russian stooges, or weak, or trying to damage PiS's chances at electoral victory by killing the president. Basically, it's "Barry Goldwater really shot JFK." Echoing for 10 years on repeat.

As you might imagine, this has ushered in an era of politics in Poland that is as nasty, if not nastier, than what we are experiencing in the US since the 2016 elections. In fact, there are a number of parallels. The party in power in 2010 (Democrats in the US, PO in Poland), pretty much saw their future dominance of political power as assured, which bred a certain complacency. Meanwhile, people living outside of the big cities felt like they were being ignored or taken for granted. While the benefits of economic growth accrued to the larger cities, other regions were being left behind. These same people didn't like the changes in culture that seemed to be imposed on them from on high, along with increasing diktats of what you can and cannot say in public (political correctness). Both parties previously in power underestimated the effect nationalism might have on their populations. And finally, both PiS and Trump Republicans have complained at length about the Deep State, i.e. government bureaucrats, and how this Deep State is holding back needed reforms, and/or trying to sabotage the country, often with a conspiracy theory twist to it.

PiS won a sweeping victory at the polls in 2015, giving them the first majority government in the history of the Third Republic. PiS repeated this feat in the recent elections of October 2019, and had the highest vote total of any party since 1990.  PiS claims that since they won the elections, that means they should be able to do what they want, as they have a strong mandate for change, and a mandate to root out all the old communists in the Polish Deep State. And if that means packing the Supreme Court, or changing its composition, then so be it.

Now, there are a number of things that I think the Western/American press has failed to understand about PiS, and about politics in Poland in general. First and foremost, concerns about press freedom or freedom of speech in Poland I think are, so far, misplaced. While the state-owned media has become a mouthpiece of PiS in recent years, I remember the state-owned media under the PO government being definitely pro-PO, if a little less nakedly partisan. The independent press in Poland is as noisy and raucous as ever, both for and against the government. Unfortunately, that makes it harder to find a truly independent voice that will actually report the news without spin.

Second, there's the temptation to lump PiS in with the Republicans in the States, both as right-wing governments. That's not entirely accurate, as PiS has overseen a major expansion of the welfare state, and policies that supporters of PO have decried as socialist. The economic policies of PiS are actually closer to those of the Democrats, while their social policies (opposition to gay marriage, for instance) would be somewhere on the right wing of the Republican party. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats would be viable political parties in Poland. In the US, PiS would be led by Pat Buchanan, and PO would be led by.....uh......Paul Ryan? The ghost of John McCain? Maybe? And we both know how relevant those politicians are in our present day.

Third, "nationalism" is a handy, catch-all word, but it's a little different in Poland. I would argue that the appeal of nationalism is actually stronger in Poland than it is in the US, partly because "nationalism" has had a concrete meaning in Poland for a long time, namely, a Poland free of foreign influence, or at least, a Poland where Poles are calling the shots. Remember, that wasn't a thing at all from 1795-1918, and has only intermittently been a thing since then. I would further argue that almost all Poles, in general, are what we would call nationalists in the US. In the US, we've gotten used to a certain ritualized reflection on our nation's sins, such as slavery, Jim Crow, our mistreatment of Native Americans, and so forth. In Poland, I don't really hear anyone other than wacky left-wingers publicly decrying, say, Polish mistreatment of Ukrainians in the 17th century and at other times, or antisemitism. Just mentioning these things can get people to jump all over you as a traitor. So, when a party says that they are the guardians of true Polishness, and everybody who disagrees with them is likely a traitor in the pay of the Russians, or the European Union (read "Germans"), this kind of talk is going to find an audience, and not just on the fringes of society.

So in brief, Polish politics has gotten more consolidated over the last 10 years, the right wing has mounted a revival and returned to power, and above all, it's gotten nasty in a way very familiar to my American readers.

 Social Habits

Grandmothers still occupy their place as the Police Auxiliary, and The Social Police. Older people, older women especially, will observe and report conditions to whoever is interested, and to many people who aren't interested. Breaches in social decorum are met with scoldings from older people, to an extent which is very unusual in large cities in the United States. What I have noticed, however, is that the grannies seem to look a lot less "grannyish." Fashion and trendiness looks like it's catching up to the older set. Now, I haven't been there in the winter, but I also saw fewer older women wearing berets. Unfortunately, that's the limit of my fashion acumen, both in Poland and in the US, really.


What was also notable in 2011 was how many people smoked, and how you see many fewer smokers today. 

On the other hand, in 2011, while you didn't see people who were going hungry, you didn't really see overweight people. Last time I was in Poland, in 2019, it seemed like people in general, and young people in particular, have gotten larger. KFC has made inroads indeed.

So, thank you for reading! It's been a long post, but then again, it's been a long decade.

Berlin

When buying a ticket to leave Europe, it turned out that the cheapest option was actually to have a one-day layover in Berlin. I certainly didn't mind this, as I had never been to Germany before. In fact, for as much as I have gone around Eastern and Southern (and South-Eastern) Europe, I haven't really spent any time in Western Europe aside from a long afternoon in Helsinki and a few days in Scotland. In a weird way, West Berlin was more exotic to me than Bulgaria, which was familiar.

The most striking thing about Berlin is the difference between East and West, even years after the fall of the wall. Odder still is that the transition between East and West is not at the wall itself, but rather in the Alexanderplatz, under the tallest building in Germany about a mile east of the Brandenburg Gate. This is actually a pretty stark contrast, with buildings on the west end of the plaza looking western, and those on the east end looking like Nowa Huta, the Communist Epcot district of Krakow. These differences extended not only to the buildings, but also to the people walking the streets. I typically wear jeans and a t-shirt or turtleneck and sweater depending on the temperature. In West Berlin I felt too informally dressed, and in the East, I felt formally dressed. In East Berlin it seems like everybody has a tattoo or three, but not in the West. East Berlin looks an awful lot like Poznan or Warsaw. West Berlin looks vaguely like parts of Chicago and parts of Wichita, Kansas. I knew I had been in Poland for a long time when East Berlin felt more like home than West Berlin.

If you'll pardon the expression, I had a "blitzkrieg" tour of the city itself, seeing a lot of the more touristy stuff and dropping in on the fantastic German History Museum, which had some beautiful old manuscripts, armor, the hat Napoleon wore at Waterloo, money from the Weimar era, and some of the grimmest electoral posters I've ever seen: "Vote Catholic Center and maybe the Nazis won't cause a World War" is the tone of some of them. Unlike our current heated political rhetoric, I can't say that those posters were too wide of the mark. For one thing, calling your opponents a bunch of racist Nazi fascists wasn't a slur, it was descriptive. The Tiergarten was a very nice, leafy park, and I was tempted to board a rowboat and paddle around one of the ponds. I didn't, not knowing if it was allowed or if the boat was sound.

The most offensive thing I saw in Berlin was the city's Holocaust Memorial, across the street from the U.S. Embassy. It is comprised of a bunch of black blocks of varying heights, but there is no clear label telling you what, exactly, you're looking at. It is one of those terribly avant-garde installations that could commemorate anything from genocide to the founding of the Lego company. And unfortunately, it is treated as something frivolous, a sculpture of ambiguous meaning that can be used as a playground. I saw couples making out while seated on some of the blocks, high schoolers giggling and taking photos of themselves straddling the blocks, people jumping from block-to-block, all the things that would be outrageous at any Holocaust memorial, but are especially repugnant when taking place in the capital of the nation that made such memorials necessary.

However beautiful the city was, and however much I enjoyed my tour, I could not help but feel uneasy in Berlin. It is a city built on conquest. Prussia was a backwater of the Holy Roman Empire until Frederick the Great made it relevant militarily. It became a capital of world stature after the German Confederation was put together In that city, some of the ghastliest crimes in history were planned and implemented. Reminders of that abound: you can still visit the stadium Hitler built for the 1936 Olympics, and it's still called the Olympic Stadium. The Reichstag is the same one that was burned in 1933, leading to the Enabling Act that gave Hitler dictatorial powers. The Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Monument are both celebrations of Prussian militarism, and the tree-lined boulevard between them (Strasse 17. Juni) was to be the centerpiece of Albert Speer's re-imagined, monumental Berlin. You can get to Wannsee on the U-bahn (subway) and see where they put together the Final Solution. Much as I respect Ronald Reagan, I think it was an exaggeration on his part during his speech at the Berlin Wall to call that city a place of freedom. 

I also realized that, had the Germans not blown up, burned down and looted Warsaw in 1944-45, not to mention not started the war in the first place, Warsaw could have been just like Berlin, a hip place to go for American cosmopolitans. In fact, before the war, Warsaw was called the Paris of the West. After the war the Allies dumped all kinds of money into the reconstruction of Berlin, and the Soviets spent lavishly on East Berlin too, in order to keep up. All Warsaw got was a Palace of Culture from the Soviets and Socialist architecture from the same, after having 80% of its buildings destroyed and 60% of its population killed during the war. Of course, Berlin was destroyed by the war too, and the Soviets were unbelievably nasty when taking the city. Berlin is also a tribute to Communism, and all the suffering that brought on everything east of the Elbe. Had World War II never happened, perhaps that catastrophe could have been avoided. 

Back in Wilmette: One year and some-odd months later

I have taken a bit of a sabbatical from writing on this blog, largely because in the last few months I have been busy readjusting to the United States. I returned home in August, and since then have been re-adjusting to life in the United States and starting a PhD program at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). I do, however, want to finish up this blog in an orderly fashion, a desire I am reminded of by the end of the year, which one year ago was an occasion for me to take stock of how the start of the grant was going.

My reflections and memories of my time spent in Poland bring out mixed feelings, even after I have moved on in my life. The experience was both less and more than I had expected, but on balance I am glad I had a rare opportunity to spend a year abroad, something I think every American should do at some point in their lives.

Poland is a fascinating country because it is not sure what kind of country it wants to be. Extremely capitalist? Euro-socialist? Inclusive and open? Homogenous? Free-wheeling? Wedded to tradition? Religious? Irreligious? Statist? Libertarian? These are all questions that, in the U.S. at least, have kind-of default answers, and it's a matter of degree and political orientation. A Republican and a Democrat will have very different answers as to what kind of country they want America to be, but at least they have answers. In Poland, it wasn't so clear, at least to me, that anybody could tell you clearly what kind of Poland they wanted.

However, the consensus was that what the average Pole wants is different than the Poland of today, but is not sure how to accomplish it. The most frustrating part of Poland was this seeping and serious Polish fatalism: some things suck, but we can't do anything to change them, so why even bother. We can make some sardonic jokes, and while life may be miserable, but at least it's familiar. This attitude is understandable considering Poland's history: for the last 200-plus years, there wasn't a whole lot you could do to improve your situation aside from moving to Chicago. Poland's decisions were made for her in Vienna, Berlin, and especially Moscow. Under the Communists, displaying individual initiative to improve your own station made you an enemy of the state. The resulting attitude of stoic, learned helplessness is not something that can be extirpated by 20 years of freedom and self-determination, particularly when other aspects of the culture (a fearsome bureaucracy, respect for and deference to authority) are fundamentally opposed to change.

What needs to be changed? First, bureaucracy. It seems like you can't do anything without the approval of half a dozen people with overlapping authorities, all of them jealous of their own prerogatives and suspicious of other departments. Second, that deference to authority. I'm not arguing that The Man should have it stuck to him whenever and wherever possible, but there's a difference between a healthy respect for authority and blind obedience to it. There is a Polish saying: "the egg cannot be smarter than the chicken." If you are lower on the totem pole, it is assumed that you know less than your boss does, and should listen to his words of wisdom even when you know that your boss is wrong. I once disagreed with my boss on a point of chemistry, which led one of the other students to let out an audible gasp. This is in contrast to the approach I've seen so far at Caltech, where it is expected that you know more than your boss does about your particular project. In fact, if you don't know more than your boss does, that means you aren't doing your job.  
I think, however, there is reason for optimism. Poland is increasingly in contact with the West, not only through television and the internet but also through travel, outsourcing of jobs to Poland, and study abroad. These last three hold the brightest hope: foreign firms bring foreign know-how and foreign attitudes. Most importantly, they bring jobs: as Poland becomes more prosperous,  people may become more dissatisfied with the status quo. As more Poles have contact with the West, they will begin to realize that society can be different than the one to which they are accustomed. Finally, ever-more Poles will be exposed to these trends, while not having lived under Communism. And the young generation is composed of the biggest bunch of smartasses you ever did see.  

Częstochowa

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

A few weeks ago I participated in my first pilgrimage, to the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa. This is perhaps the most important religious site in Poland, and every year people walk to it from around the country, sort of like Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Others, of course, don't have that much time or religious devotion and take a bus instead, as I did.

The funniest thing that happened to us happened within minutes of our stepping off the bus. We saw a "Bureau of Youth" or some such which featured a giant fiberglass shark biting into the facade. The three of us started taking pictures, and a completely random woman who had to have been at least in her mid-sixties walked up to us. She started telling us about the courtyard of a particular building that was in horrible condition despite the fact that the landlord was getting money to fix it up. She also said there were a number of "ladies of the night" who could be seen there all the time, sometimes with skirts, sometimes with no skirts at all. Would we please take a picture of all this so that it could be written up in whatever newspaper we worked for?

In a Polish context, this actually isn't a weird experience, which tells you something about Poland. If this were, say, a 20-something woman, that would be weird, but older people are expected to be busybodies and generally keep everybody honest. Grannies form a kind of Police Auxiliary, as well as a Politeness Gendarme, and are Overt Agents. I don't think this woman actually lived in that building, but just knew about it and thought it was outrageous. And here were three people taking photos, two of whom spoke decent-enough Polish. It seemed logical enough that we worked for the papers, and we did say the photos would appear "someplace." Of course, that someplace is Facebook, but we didn't want to disappoint. We did check out the address we were given, and the courtyard was actually in excellent condition by Polish standards (and trust me, I've seen quite a few that weren't). We didn't see any shady dealings either. Maybe we had the wrong address.

The monastery is clearly the most important thing in town. Polish cities tend to have three basic layouts. Kraków is arranged around a central square, with the city radiating out from what was once the city hall. Radom and Częstochowa have a church, and the city is focused on a big boulevard that forms a straight line from said church. In Częstochowa that straight line unfortunately goes right through a power plant. The third city layout is Warsaw's, where you have three centers that sort of bleed into each other, because Warsaw is special, just ask the residents.

The centerpiece of the entire monastery complex is the painting of the Black Madonna, to which miracles have been attributed. The biggest miracle of all was the successful defense of the monastery against the Swedes in 1655. There is a side-chapel dedicated entirely to this painting, which is covered at noon and uncovered at 1:30 every day amidst great solemnity. This hour and a half gives the staff time to clean up the chapel, which is a little bit gritty as more or less every single person in Poland has been there at least once. I was there for the covering of the painting, which was done to the blaring of trumpets and booming of tympani. Security ultimately had a hard time ushering everybody out of the chapel. The walls are decorated with all sorts of plaques, memorials, and trinkets left by various visiting groups. The main church is also spectacularly Baroque, though the proportions of the church do feel more Gothic (tall and skinnny).

As I have previously noted, while Poland officially has a separation of Church and State, and while the Church does not have much actual temporal power (to its frustration), Polish national identity is tied up in the Catholic Church. Częstochowa is not just a religious shrine but a patriotic one. Many of those plaques read something along the lines of "Dedicated to the men of the Xth Regiment, who with their faith in God, honor, and country, fought for a Free Poland." "To the patriots murdered by the Nazis, who today sit at the right hand of God."  The Black Madonna is the Queen of Poland. I cannot stress enough, Jasna Góra receives pilgrims who come for religious reasons, but also many who come for patriotic ones.

Two statues have pride of place at the monastery or right in front of it, one of Jerzy Popiełuszko, a priest murdered by the Communist secret police, and Stefan Wyszyński, Primate of Poland from 1948-1981 and a big anti-Communist. I think there was a statue of John Paul II there someplace, and I would be stunned if there weren't. The thing is, all three of these men are national heroes and patriots. 

Aside from the monastery, there doesn't seem to be much going on in Częstochowa. There are some souvenir stands right outside the monastery entrance, some cafes along the main drag, but it seems like most people do their pilgrimage and then blow town. What we saw of the city looked nice enough: it reminded me of Radom but more extensively remodeled. All told, a most interesting experience.

The Warsaw Uprising, 69 years later

The Kotwica, symbol of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army)

On August 1st, 1944 at 17:00, the German occupiers of Warsaw received a nasty surprise in the form of the largest uprising in Occupied Europe. And today, at 17:00, air-raid sirens wailed for a full minute as some held aloft red flares, commemorating that event.

As the Red Army advanced and it became increasingly clear that the Germans were about to lose the war, the Polish Government in Exile in London found itself at a crossroads. If the Red Army were to take all of Poland, there was no reason to think that they would agree to an independent, democratic Poland after the war was over. If, however, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army, henceforth AK), the Polish resistance army, were to take and control major cities such as Warsaw before the Red Army arrived, the Government in Exile might just have a chance to influence post-war Poland. In July 1944, the London government ordered General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski to launch the uprising at his discretion.

This is not as far-fetched an idea as it seems: Yugoslavia, for example, was essentially independent from Moscow during the Cold War, to the point where Stalin tried to assassinate Marshal Tito a couple of times. This was only made possible by the fact that Tito's partisans were largely responsible for clearing Yugoslavia of Nazis and Nazi collaborators, with the Red Army providing some support. The Soviets more or less promised similar support, broadcasting on Moscow radio that the time to rise was now. 

The initial stages of the Uprising were very successful. In the first four days the Germans were largely expelled from the city, and the insurgents waited for relief from the approaching Red Army and support from the Western Allies.

But no support came.

The problem was that the AK, unlike Tito, was not in the least interested in Communism. Stalin already had a Polish puppet government set up and ready to go, and feared that if the uprising were to succeed, not only would that hand a political coup to the Western-oriented London government, it would leave behind an organized, victorious fighting force opposed to Soviet domination. So, Stalin cynically let the Germans finish off the AK for him.

The Red Army had been engaged in heavy fighting to the east of Warsaw in July, but by August the advance stalled. I don't want to wade into why as that's disputed, but many Poles will tell you that Stalin more or less ordered the advance to stall. By mid-September the 1st Polish Army (of the Red Army) took Praga on the east bank of the Vistula. By this time the situation in Warsaw was growing desperate as German reinforcements slowly re-took the city in house-to-house fighting. The AK used the sewer system to connect the disparate pockets of resistance, but those pockets gradually shrank. The Red Army did launch a couple of assaults to try to cross the river, but they were wholly inadequate. Stalin also did not allow British or American cargo planes to land at Soviet airfields, which prevented supply drops to the embattled insurgents. The RAF did try regardless, but it simply wasn't enough.

By October the uprising had largely been put down. The Germans fortified the city and did not withdraw until January 1945. As they withdrew, Hitler ordered the complete destruction of the city. By the end of the war, Warsaw looked like this:

The Old City of Warsaw

General Eisenhower in the main square of Warsaw's Old City

80% of the city was destroyed, between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Warsaw Uprising, and the vindictive German destruction of the entire city as they withdrew. The Uprising killed around 16,000-20,000 Home Army soldiers and around 100,000 civilians out of Warsaw's pre-war population of 1.3 million.

Ultimately, the Uprising was a catastrophe for Poland. The London government was more or less shunted out of any kind of influence in deciding the future of Poland. The Communist (PRL) government first hunted the surviving members of the AK as counter-revolutionary elements, then tried their level best to stamp the AK out of history. Imagine that instead of your granddad getting a medal and the praise of windbag politicians for storming Omaha Beach, he had to flee the country like Edward Snowden, and be regarded as such by the folks at home. That's what my grandfather had to do. He was an officer in the Polish army and a member of the AK though I don't know if he took part in the Warsaw Uprising or not. At the end of the war he ended up in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. It was not safe for him to return home as the Soviet authorities were busy arresting people with that kind of background. He met my grandmother in that camp, and they moved to Chicago in 1950. My dad was born 4 months later. This is by no means a unique story, or even an unusual one. A portion of my youth was spent listening to similar stories, which is why the Polish Diaspora contains some of the most rabid anti-Communists you'll ever find.

The Polish dislike and distrust of the Germans and the Russians baffle some Americans, including some who should really know better. All I have to say on that score is, look at that picture of Warsaw, and imagine that's New York. We hate the movie aliens who do that to our cities on the silver screen, and they're not even real. Or heck, if you're from the South, tell me how you feel about General Sherman. 

The Uprising changed the face of Warsaw. That entire city is at most 70 years old, including the "Old" City, which had to be completely rebuilt. Skyscrapers are a relative rarity in Poland, but Warsaw's city center is full of them. Warsaw has always felt a little bit like Chicago to me: the streets are broader, the buildings are in a more modern style and if you go to certain parts of Milwaukee Avenue, the people walking around look exactly the same.

Another legacy of the uprising and what came after is this sudden rush to talk all about it. In the last 20 years, those counterrevolutionary elements of the AK suddenly became great Polish heroes. Like all great Polish heroes, they fought for the freedom of Poland against overwhelming odds, held on longer than they had any hope of doing, and ultimately failed at great cost. This transition happened just as the survivors of the uprising got old and started dying off.  It was bittersweet to see some of the veterans of the AK at St. Mary's Church today: as boys, girls, men and women they engaged in street fighting that no less a figure than Heinrich Himmler compared to Stalingrad. They lost friends to that fighting, 69 years ago. I fervently hope that the likes of it are never seen in Poland again.

Poland and Religion Part II: Poland and its Jews

I would like to preface this post by saying that I'm hesitant to write it. Everybody seems to have an opinion on what the attitudes towards Jews is, was, or should be in this country where millions of them once lived and thrived and where millions of them were murdered by the Nazis. I've heard Poland called an antisemitic country, but I don't think that's fair. I've heard some intimate that Polish antisemitism doesn't exist. That isn't fair either. The fact of the matter is, as with so much else in this country, the truth is complicated and unclear. Which is what makes this an important post to write.

The problem is, people get very defensive about this particular issue. Polish people in general often feel under attack here, that they've all been unfairly tarred with the same brush. Unfortunately, I think that underpins continuing antisemitic sentiment: the Jews hate us, so we hate them right back, so there. Many Jewish people have heard family stories about Polish antisemites, or Poles who weren't sympathetic or helpful to Holocaust survivors in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. So, trying to defend Poland against accusations of widespread antisemitism is often met with "don't call my family a bunch of liars!" which is understandable. So if you are on one side or the other of this issue, please read this post in its entirety before sending me a bunch of hate mail about how I'm either slandering Poland or I'm whitewashing history.

Poland was once one of the most (if not the most) enlightened countries in Europe when it came to Jewish rights and privileges. In 1264, Bolesław V Wstydliwy granted privileges to Jews in Poland, which were expanded upon by Kazimierz III Wielki in 1334. Meanwhile, in 1290 Edward I kicked the Jews out of England, and they were not allowed to return until the time of Oliver Cromwell. During the Polish Renaissance, however, if you said that Jews used Christian blood in making Passover matzohs (a topic that triggered serious investigations in Germany), you had better be applying for the position of court jester. Many Jews who were kicked out of Spain in 1492 immigrated here, where conditions were better, and by the 16th century Poland was perhaps the center of the Jewish world. This is not to say that antisemitic riots didn't happen, but it is important to note that these happened everywhere, often with State sponsorship that was largely absent in Poland. From what I understand the situation in Poland changed for the worse in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it is important to note that the whole entire Polish state gradually started to unravel at this time as well. The problem is, there is very little stress or emphasis placed on this history in the West, or worse, the Polish government's attitude towards Jews is often conflated with the Russian government's attitude towards Jews, which was never very good.

Of course, the biggest bone of contention is the Holocaust, the majority of which took place in Nazi-occupied Poland. The camps still cast a long shadow here: Auschwitz is only a hour bus ride from here, and the Kraków Ghetto was located just across the river centered on a street that is creepy to walk down even today.

The camps were here because the Jews were here, not because the Poles welcomed the Holocaust. The phrase "Polish Death Camp" is one that causes a lot of anger here, as it implies that Poles were responsible for setting them up and operating them. They weren't. Even had they wanted to work as concentration camp guards, the Nazis would not have let them as Slavs were low on the racial totem pole, supposed to be nothing more than a slave race. Of the people recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, the largest number of them are Polish. The Polish Underground State was very involved in the rescue of Jews. Those who say that the Poles didn't do enough to prevent the Holocaust often forget that 1) the General Government was not a collaborationist regime. Hans Frank ruled with an iron fist. 2) Helping Jews in any way, shape, or form, such as giving or even selling them a loaf of bread, was punishable by the summary execution of you and your entire family. Poland was the only country where this was the case. And the Nazis weren't kidding about that. 3) The Poles actually did launch a massive uprising against German occupation in August 1944, focusing on one city with the Red Army on the other side of the Vistula. It didn't work, and Warsaw was burned to the ground. Active resistance to something like the Holocaust was probably impossible. Oh, and 4) the Roosevelt government knew about Auschwitz, thanks to the efforts of Poles who got themselves deliberately arrested, sent there, and then escaped. The American and British governments knew what was going on, and it was thanks to the efforts of Poles.

This is not to say that there weren't pogroms perpetrated by Poles during WWII: there was at least one, at Jedwabne. Some people snitched Jews out to the Nazis, or blackmailed Jews for their own personal gain. After the Holocaust, there definitely were Poles who were glad the Jews were gone or who didn't help those who had survived. Many Poles during the war just tried to keep their heads down and survive. German occupation in Poland forced people to make impossible decisions every day, so before we condemn those who were passive, we have to remember, we weren't there and don't know what it was like. This entire history does not reduce itself to something as simple as "the Poles helped the Nazis murder Jews" or "every single Pole helped Jews escape." Too few people, in my opinion, consider both sides of the question.

But what about Polish-Jewish relations today? This is, again, complicated. When a film about Jedwabne came out last year, it was extremely controversial: a Polish film that showed Poles in an unflattering light. Some suggested that this was tantamount to treason, and the starring actor occasionally appeared on placards or something, in the middle of a Star of David, with the word "Żyd" or "Jew" in big letters across his forehead. Apparently he also got death threats. Antisemitic graffiti is fairly common here, largely the work of soccer hooligans and similar hoodlums. These people are actually just about the most feared and despised people in Poland, and do it in order to provoke a reaction. I've also heard that the hooligans are in teams of "Jews" and "anti-Jews." In a way, it's kind of like gangsters playing Cowboys and Indians.  

The problem is, I see a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding, both from the West and from Poland. On the Polish side, the typical stereotypes about Jews abound. I once heard two guys settling accounts, and they insisted on settling to the last penny, saying "we're settling up like Jews." Many shops or businesses will have a painting of a Hassid or several carved figures of Jews behind the counter, as it is said to bring good luck with business and money matters. I saw a stupid slapstick play on the Rynek that featured a stock character who was supposed to be Jewish, though he was portrayed in just as unflattering a light as the other yokels in the play. People actually didn't find the show all that funny, though here that's sometimes hard to tell.

In terms of visceral, open antisemitism (as in, actual Jews being called nasty names or being bothered in any way), I have not seen or heard of any of it. The one Jewish guy I know who was born and raised in Kraków says he's never had any problems, and he's very open about his ethnicity. The Fulbrighers who are Jewish haven't reported any problems because of their faith, and at least one of them is actually planning on settling down here. Another has a steady Polish girlfriend. While you do hear and see things that make you cringe, that does not seem to extend to anything more than just words.   

The West also displays ignorance in judging Poland harshly without considering circumstances. In many cases people probably don't think they're behaving in an antisemitic fashion. Stereotypes are often times the only way Polish people have to relate to Jews, as they haven't really met any. It's easy for us to say "well, why don't they overcome these stereotypes," but let's draw an analogy. Say that there had been a serious effort to exterminate black people in the United States in the 1940s, let's say that it had largely succeeded, and let's say that those who survived mostly moved to Liberia. A number of people at the time, and later, would have thought this was a darn good idea. Several generations grow up not really meeting any black people, so the current generation's perception of blacks is instead shaped by the popular culture of the 1920's and 1930's. That would mean most Americans' only experience of black people is filtered through Al Jolson in blackface, Gone with the Wind, The Birth of a Nation, stories your great-grandfather told and the notion that blacks are unusually afraid of ghosts, and that rubbing a black guy's head is good luck. What do you think attitudes would be towards black people if this were the case? Would people be aware that all of this was racist? Probably not. As a side-note, I should also point out that the 30's weren't a great time to be Jewish in America, either.

To continue with the analogy, if you think white guilt is bad now, imagine what it would have been had a Holocaust happened in the United States. Imagine, also, the culture we would have lost. There would have been hardly any Duke Ellington or Count Basie, no John Lee Hooker, B.B. King or Howlin' Wolf, no Miles Davis, no Ray Charles, and probably no Elvis, Janis Joplin, or Eric Clapton either. There would have been no Martin Luther King Jr. or Ralph Ellison or August Wilson. We would have no idea what we had lost, only that it would have been remarkable had it happened.

I see a similar thing in Poland: there's this nagging sense of guilt and gradual realization that Polish culture suffered a huge loss with the loss of the Jews. In the Kazimierz district of Kraków, where the Jewish Cultural Festival is currently underway, there is some effort to re-create Jewish culture, but it's always felt a little artificial to me, down to the guys trying to get you to come into their restaurant by talking like an Alter Kocker, but in Polish. There is an effort to keep the culture alive, but because so few Jews are left in Poland that has to be done by people who are not of that culture, i.e. Polish Catholics. It's a "Jew-ish" experience. The end effect is rather like the white kids in the States who try to be "gangstas": it can be funny. But again, imagine that those white wannabes were the closest thing that we had to, say, P Diddy or whatever his stage name is these days, and suddenly that same thing becomes tragic.

There is a Jewish revival going on in Poland, and a number of our Fulbright fellows are a part of it. Indeed, my colleague Denise Grollmus has done podcasts for The Guardian on exactly this topic. Kraków still has an active synagogue, though the only kosher grocery store in town shut down for lack of customers. Kazimierz, and all things Jewish, are kind of hipster-y. I understand Warsaw has a burgeoning Jewish population as well. A number of Poles are discovering that their maternal grandmothers were Jewish, making them Jewish as well, and some people in that situation take up the faith and the ethnic identity. There are immigrants from abroad who are gradually coming back to Poland, and cultural festivals such as the one in Kraków are well-attended. Dara Weinberg, one of our Fulbright Scholars, said that this revival is vital for changing the narrative, of how Jews view Poles and how Poles view Jews. Until or unless the two sides start talking to each other, and understanding each other, I'm afraid there's still going to be a lot of unwarranted mutual hostility.