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Monday, May 16, 2011
"Bieganski"
details how history is distorted in order to render the Brute Polak stereotype
a canonical element of the worldview of any person socialized in the Western
world. While viewing the world through the prism of ethnic and religious
stereotypes has been thoroughly discredited when it comes to some ethnicities,
in the case of the Brute Polak stereotype, those who insist on its truth often
assume a mantle of moral authority. When they are confronted with their promulgation
of ugly stereotypes, they
assume an air of righteous indignation.
Some insist
that the Brute Polak stereotype is the provenance of only one ethnicity. Some
mistakenly "blame
the Jews." Scapegoating Jews is a moral, ethical, and strategic
failure. The Brute Polak stereotype can certainly be found in products produced
by Catholics; indeed, it can be found in some Poles' worldviews (more on that
in a later post).
Chapter Seven of "Bieganski"
mentions "Constantine's Sword," a very high profile, award-winning book
about anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism in the Catholic church. The book's
celebrity author, James Carroll, is a former Catholic priest.
Carroll uses Poland as his arch example of Catholic anti-Semitism when he
states that he would "remain at the foot of the cross at Auschwitz"
to tell the horrific tale of Catholic anti-Semitism. Carroll shamelessly
distorts Poland's history to make his exploitation of the Bieganski stereotype
acceptable.
Carroll's exploitation of the Bieganski
stereotype may have served this purpose: the really bad Catholics are the
Polish Catholics. Carroll is not Polish. Carroll can be seen as a good
Catholic.
In short: Bieganski can work for Catholics.
***
"In Spite of Darkness: A
Spiritual Encounter with Auschwitz" is a 2008 documentary directed by Christof
Wolf, SJ, a German, Catholic priest. It's made my Loyola Productions, a German, Catholic
production company.
It's a little-seen documentary. The international movie database
page for the movie lists no reviews nor discussions, which is unusual. The
Rotten Tomatoes page also lists no reviews.
"In
Spite of Darkness" is a lovely film. It is entirely professionally produced:
lighting, sound, editing: all are excellent. The soundtrack is the lachrymose
string music, similar to the soundtrack of "Schindler's List," that
we've come to associate with cinematic treatments of the Holocaust. The music is
beautiful and appropriate. The only problem with it is that it has become the
soundtrack of the Holocaust – we are too used to it, and it may lull us into
not thinking, seeing, and feeling afresh.
"In Spite
of Darkness" consists largely of interviews with five people who attended
a spiritual retreat at Auschwitz. One is an older German woman, the
granddaughter of a Nazi. Another is an older Jewish-American woman, the
daughter of a Jewish survivor; she frankly reports that her survivor father was
abusive. One is thirty-something Israeli rabbi. He rejects the "ownership"
of suffering promulgated by groups like MOL. He reports having a conversation
with a Jewish person saying that she didn't want to hear about any suffering of
anyone on "the other side" because that might make her feel
compassion for non-Jews. One participant is a gray-haired Catholic priest from
Dorchester. One participant, a "Zen Peace Maker" and Buddhist-inspired
believer in reincarnation, implied that it is possible that people at Auschwitz
suffered as part of a karmic payback. (I wanted to reach through the screen and
forcibly re-educate him.) This participant was supercilious in the literal
sense of the word – his eyebrows remained high above his eyes in a facial
expression that struck me as the facial expression of one who was trying not to
feel the full horror of what he was confronting.
Because
this movie was so lovely, so carefully crafted, so high-minded, and made by a
priest, no less, because everyone involved very obviously wanted to be part of
making the world a better place, I very much wanted to like it.
The documentary effectively communicated that:
Only Jews suffered at Auschwitz;
Auschwitz
was an extension of previous centuries' gentile persecution of Jews. The Scientific
Racism that targeted handicapped Germans, Polish Catholic priests,
homosexuals, and others, is not mentioned;
Poland is the
country where Auschwitz is located. The film was sure to open in Krakow's stary
miasto or old town square, to focus on the Sukiennice, a distinctive Krakow
icon, and to show a Polish carriage driver with his horse;
Krakow's Sukiennice. When making a documentary about the Holocaust, be sure to include shots of this Polish cultural icon. And be sure not to mention Scientific Racism.
Pope John Paul II cared about Polish Jewish relations out of a sense of
Catholic guilt.
Twenty-eight minutes into the film, the
Catholic priest from Dorchester mentions "there were Polish intelligentsia,
gypsies, and gay people" in Auschwitz. This throwaway comment, this one,
single, reference to Polish Auschwitz victims, reduces Poles to the notorious
phrase "and others." Terese Pencak Schwartz mentions this phrase in
her "Forgotten Holocaust" website.
"In Spite of Darkness" declines to acknowledge the
realities of Poles
at Auschwitz.
For the first 18 months of its
existence, Auschwitz was dedicated to destroying Poles as Poles.
150,000 Poles were imprisoned at Auschwitz. Half died.
These included historical important individuals: Wladyslaw
Bartoszewski, Jan Mosdorf, Zofia Kossak Szczucka, Maximilian Kolbe, Edek
Galinski, Tadeusz Borowski and Witold Pilecki, to mention a few.
There's a reason why Polish suffering at Auschwitz has been
airbrushed out of this documentary. It's not random. It's part of a pattern. This
pattern is described in the book "Bieganski."
Yes, we must focus on Jewish victims. To fail to focus on Jewish
victims at Auschwitz distorts history unforgiveably. But so thoroughly to erase
and distort Polish victimization is more than offensive. It is strategic. It serves
to support the Brute Polak stereotype.
Historical
revisionism becomes more than strange forty minutes into the film. Marian
Kolodziej is introduced. The footage of Kolodziej, an Auschwitz survivor
and one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, is the most
moving portion of the film. This footage alone makes the film worth seeing.
The rabbi says "Marian and [his wife] Halina are shining,
radiating figures. They are living proof that one could suffer a lot and
transform suffering into compassion, beauty, art, and humor, and not be bitter
and complaining and thinking all the time that it's better to close up. Marion
and Halina are open."
The daughter of a survivor
says, "I love Marion and Halina. They are saints. His paintings are like
nightmares. Maybe that is what makes him so peaceful. That gets the horror out
of him. That was something my father could not do. His ability to not have any
anger is really remarkable to me. I love him."
Unless
I missed it – and maybe I did – please watch the film and correct me – the film
never mentions that Marian Kolodziej was a Polish Catholic. The words
"Polish" and "Catholic" are simply never spoken. A student
watching this film, and, indeed, students are among its intended audiences,
would have no way of knowing.
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