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

In this 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 Polish anti- Semitism. Bieganski discovers this stereotype in the mainstream press, in scholarship and film, in Jews self-definition, and in responses to the Holocaust. Bieganskis 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 Bieganskiand Shylockare both alive and well among those who have little knowledge of Poles or Poland.