Polonophobia, also referred to as anti-Polonism, ( pl, Antypolonizm), and anti-Polish sentiment are terms for negative attitudes, prejudices, and actions against
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...
as an ethnic group,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
as their country, and
their culture. These include
ethnic prejudice
Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to notions and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group in varying degrees.
There are multiple origins for ethnic hatred and the resulting ethnic conflic ...
against Poles and persons of Polish descent, other forms of
discrimination, and mistreatment of Poles and the
Polish diaspora
The Polish diaspora comprises Poles and people of Polish heritage or origin who live outside Poland. The Polish diaspora is also known in modern Polish as ''Polonia'', the name for Poland in Latin and many Romance languages.
There are roughly 20, ...
.
This prejudice led to mass killings and
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
or it was used to justify atrocities both before and during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, most notably by the
German Nazis and
Ukrainian nationalists
Ukrainian nationalism refers to the promotion of the unity of Ukrainians as a people and it also refers to the promotion of the identity of Ukraine as a nation state. The nation building that arose as nationalism grew following the French Revol ...
. While
Soviet repressions and massacres of Polish citizens were ideologically motivated, the negative attitude of Soviet authorities to the Polish nation is well-attested.
Nazi Germany killed between 1.8 to 2.7 million ethnic Poles, 140,000 Poles were deported to
Auschwitz where at least half of them perished.
Anti-Polish sentiment includes
stereotyping
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
Poles as unintelligent and aggressive, as thugs, thieves, alcoholics, and
anti-Semites
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
.
Etymology
According to Adam Leszczynski, the term ''antypolonizm'' was coined by journalist
Edmund Osmańczyk in 1946. Osmańczyk condemned
anti-Jewish violence in postwar Poland
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
, and concluded:
Features
Forms of hostility toward Poles and Polish culture include:
* Organized persecution of the Poles as a nation or as an ethnic group;
* A
xenophobic
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
dislikes of Poles, including Polish immigrants;
* Cultural anti-Polish sentiment: a prejudice against Poles and Polish-speaking persons or their customs, language and education;
*
Stereotypes about Poland and Polish people in the media and other forms of
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
.
A historic example of anti-Polish sentiment was ''polakożerstwo'' (in English, "the devouring of Poles") – a Polish term coined in the 19th century in relation to the
dismemberment and annexation of Poland by
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
, the
Habsburg monarchy and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
. ''Polakożerstwo'' described the forcible suppression of Polish culture, education and religion in historically Polish territories, and the gradual elimination of Poles from everyday life as well as from owning property. Anti-Polish policies were implemented by the
German Empire under
Otto von Bismarck, especially during the ''
Kulturkampf'', and enforced up to the end of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Organized persecution of Poles raged in the territories annexed by
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
, mainly under
Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
.
Liudmila Gatagova Liudmila Sultanovna Gatagova (russian: Людмила Султановна Гатагова) is a Russian historian, essayist, and the Research Fellow at the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences of Lezgin descent, specializing in ...
"THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF ETHNIC IDENTITY IN THE PROCESS OF MASS ETHNOPHOBIAS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. (The Second Half of the 19th Century)."
The CRN E-book[Matthew F. Jacobson, ]
Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish ...
' Page 34, Social Science, Publisher: University of California Press, 2002; 340 pages. Historic actions inspired by anti-Polonism ranged from felonious acts motivated by hatred, to physical extermination of the Polish nation, the goal of which was to eradicate the Polish state. During World War II, when most of Polish society became the object of
genocidal policies of Nazi Germany, anti-Polonism led to an unprecedented campaign of mass murder in German-occupied Poland. In the modern day, among those who often express their hostile attitude towards the Polish people are some
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n politicians and their far-right political parties who search for a new identity rooted in the defunct Russian Empire after the collapse of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.
Anti-Polish stereotypes
In the Russian language, the term ''mazurik'' (
мазурик), a synonym for "pickpocket", "petty thief", literally means "little
Masovian". The word is an example how
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
's liberal
use of colloquialisms has been gaining media attention from abroad.
The "
Polish plumber" cliché may symbolize the threat of cheap labor from poorer European countries to "steal" low-paying jobs in wealthier parts of Europe. On the other hand, others associate it with affordability and dependability of European migrant workers.
Before the Second Polish Republic, 1918
Anti-Polish rhetoric combined with the condemnation of Polish culture was most prominent in the 18th-century
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
during the
partitions of Poland. However, anti-Polish propaganda begins with the
Teutonic Order
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...
in the 14th century. It was a very important tool in the Order's attempt to conquer the Duchy of Lithuania which eventually failed because of Lithuania's
Personal union
A personal union is the combination of two or more states that have the same monarch while their boundaries, laws, and interests remain distinct. A real union, by contrast, would involve the constituent states being to some extent interlink ...
with the
Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the
Christianization of Lithuania
The Christianization of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos krikštas) occurred in 1387, initiated by King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Władysław II Jagiełło and his cousin Vytautas the Great. It signified the official adoption of Christianity b ...
to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. The first major thinker to openly call for the genocide of the Polish people was the 14th century German Dominican theologian
Johannes von Falkenberg who on behalf of the Teutonic Order argued not only that Polish pagans should be killed, but that all Poles should be subject to genocide on the grounds that Poles were an inherently heretical race and that even the
King of Poland,
Jogaila a Christian convert, ought to be murdered. The assertion that Poles were heretical was largely politically motivated as the Teutonic Order desired to conquer Polish lands despite Christianity having become the dominant religion in Poland centuries prior.
Germany, becoming more and more permeated with Teutonic Prussianism, continued to pursue these tactics. For instance, David Blackbourn of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
speaks of the scandalised writings of German intellectual
Johann Georg Forster, who was granted a tenure at
Vilnius University
Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...
by the Polish
Commission of National Education
The Commission of National Education ( pl, Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN; lt, Edukacinė komisija) was the central educational authority in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created by the Sejm and King Stanisław II August on October 1 ...
in 1784. Forster wrote of Poland's "backwardness" in a similar vein to "ignorance and barbarism" of southeast Asia.
Such views were later repeated in the German ideas of
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
and exploited by the Nazis. German academics between the 18th and 20th centuries attempted to project, in the difference between Germany and Poland, a "boundary between civilization and barbarism; high German Kultur and ''primitive Slavdom''" (1793 racist diatribe by J.C. Schulz republished by the Nazis in 1941). Prussian officials, eager to secure Polish partition, encouraged the view that the Poles were culturally inferior and in need of Prussian tutelage.
Such racist texts, originally published from the 18th century onwards, were republished by the
German Reich
German ''Reich'' (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from german: Deutsches Reich, ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty ...
prior to and after its
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
.
Frederick the Great
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the S ...
of
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
nourished a particular hatred and contempt for the Polish people. Following his conquest of Poland, he compared the Poles to "
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
" of Canada.
In his all-encompassing anti-Polish campaign, even the nobility of Polish background living in Prussia were obliged to pay higher taxes than those of German heritage. Polish monasteries were viewed as "lairs of idleness" and their property often seized by Prussian authorities. The prevalent Catholicism among Poles was stigmatised. The
Polish language
Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...
was persecuted at all levels.
After the
Polish–Russian War in early 1600s, Poland was greatly antagonized by the Russians as the cause of chaos and tyranny in Russia. The future
House of Romanov
The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastacia of Russia, Anastasi ...
, who would found the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
after taken power from the
Rurik dynasty
The Rurik dynasty ( be, Ру́рыкавічы, Rúrykavichy; russian: Рю́риковичи, Ryúrikovichi, ; uk, Рю́риковичі, Riúrykovychi, ; literally "sons/scions of Rurik"), also known as the Rurikid dynasty or Rurikids, was ...
, used a number of distortion activities, describing Poles as backward, cruel and heartless, praising the rebellion against Poles; and heavily centered around the
Orthodox belief. When
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Rus' also externally referenced as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I ...
invaded Poland at the
Russo-Polish war of 1650s, the Russians caused a number of atrocities, and destroyed most of Eastern Poland, sometimes joining destruction with its Ukrainian ally led by
Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Bohdan Zynovii Mykhailovych Khmelnytskyi ( Ruthenian: Ѕѣнові Богданъ Хмелнiцкiи; modern ua, Богдан Зиновій Михайлович Хмельницький; 6 August 1657) was a Ukrainian military commander and ...
and the Swedes in the parallel
Swedish invasion. The war was held as a Russian triumph for its attempt to destroy Poland.
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, which developed anti-Polish sentiment due to previous
Polish–Swedish wars
The Polish–Swedish Wars were a series of wars between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden. Broadly construed, the term refers to a series of wars between 1563 and 1721. More narrowly, it refers to particular wars between 1600 and ...
in hope to gain territorial and political influence, as well as dispute with the Polish Crown because of
Sigismund III Vasa
Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632
N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to ...
, launched an invasion known as the
Deluge
A deluge is a large downpour of rain, often a flood.
The Deluge refers to the flood narrative in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Deluge may also refer to:
History
*Deluge (history), the Swedish and Russian invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Com ...
. Swedish invaders, joined force with Russian invaders in the east, together destroyed Poland and took away many of the Polish national treasures, as well as causing atrocities against Poles. The Poles were treated very brutally by Swedes, and as a result, Poland lost its wealth and was reduced in its development. Similar to Russia, Sweden hailed the destruction of Poland as a national triumph.
At 18th century, Russia as an empire attempted to make Poland disintegrate by using
liberum veto, creating chaos and prevented reforms, as by Russian accords, was against the ideal of Imperial Russia's future plan to partition Poland. Russia often sent troops and carried out atrocities on Polish civilians. When Poland adopted its first ever
Constitution of 3 May 1791
The Constitution of 3 May 1791,; lt, Gegužės trečiosios konstitucija titled the Governance Act, was a constitution adopted by the Great Sejm ("Four-Year Sejm", meeting in 1788–1792) for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual mo ...
, the first Constitution in Europe, Russia sent troops and brutally suppressed Polish people.
When Poland lost the last vestiges of its independence in 1795 and
remained partitioned for 123 years, ethnic Poles were subjected to discrimination in two areas: the
Germanisation under Prussian and later German rule, and
Russification
Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...
in the territories annexed by
Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
.
Being a Pole under the Russian occupation was in itself almost culpable – wrote Russian historian
Liudmila Gatagova Liudmila Sultanovna Gatagova (russian: Людмила Султановна Гатагова) is a Russian historian, essayist, and the Research Fellow at the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences of Lezgin descent, specializing in ...
. – "Practically all of the Russian government, bureaucracy, and society were united in one outburst against the Poles." – "Rumor mongers informed the population about an order that had supposedly been given to kill
..and take away their land."
Polish culture
The culture of Poland ( pl, Kultura Polski ) is the product of its geography and distinct historical evolution, which is closely connected to an intricate thousand-year history. Polish culture forms an important part of western civilization and ...
and religion were seen as threats to Russian imperial ambitions. Tsarist
Namestniks suppressed them on Polish lands by force.
The Russian anti-Polish campaign, which included confiscation of Polish nobles' property, was waged in the areas of education, religion as well as language.
Polish schools and universities were closed in a stepped-up campaign of russification. In addition to executions and mass
deportations of Poles to
Katorga
Katorga ( rus, ка́торга, p=ˈkatərɡə; from medieval and modern Greek: ''katergon, κάτεργον'', "galley") was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (see Katorga labor in the Soviet Union). Prisoner ...
camps,
Tsar Nicholas I
, house = Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp
, father = Paul I of Russia
, mother = Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Gatchina Palace, Gatchina, Russian Empire
, death_date =
...
established an occupation army at Poland's expense.
The fact that Poles, unlike the Russians, were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic gave impetus to their religious persecution. At the same time, with the emergence of
Panslavist ideology, Russian writers accused the Polish nation of betraying their "Slavic family" because of their armed efforts aimed at winning independence. Hostility toward Poles was present in many of Russia's literary works and media of the time.
Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
, together with three other poets, published a pamphlet called "On the Taking of Warsaw" to celebrate the crushing of
the revolt. His contribution to the frenzy of anti-Polish writing comprised poems in which he hailed the capitulation of Warsaw as a new "triumph" of imperial Russia.
In Prussia and later in Germany, Poles were forbidden to build homes, and their properties were targeted for forced buy-outs financed by the Prussian and subsequent German governments.
Bismarck described Poles, as animals (wolves), that "one shoots if one can" and implemented several harsh laws aimed at their expulsion from traditionally Polish lands. The Polish language was banned from public use, and ethnically Polish children punished at school for speaking Polish. Poles were subjected to a wave of forceful evictions (''Rugi Pruskie''). The German government financed and encouraged settlement of ethnic Germans into those areas aiming at their geopolitical germanisation. The Prussian Landtag passed laws against Catholics.
Toward the end of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
during Poland's fight for independence,
Imperial Germany
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
made further attempts to take control over the territories of
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
, aiming at ethnic cleansing of up to 3 million Jewish and Polish people which was meant to be followed by a new wave of settlement by ethnic Germans. In August 1914, the German imperial army
destroyed the city of Kalisz, chasing out tens of thousands of its Polish citizens.
Interwar Period (1918–39)
After Poland regained its independence as
the Second Republic at the end of World War I, the question of new Polish borders could not have been easily settled against the will of her former long-term occupiers. Poles continued to be persecuted in the disputed territories, especially in
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
. The German campaign of discrimination contributed to the
Silesian Uprisings
The Silesian Uprisings (german: Aufstände in Oberschlesien, Polenaufstände, links=no; pl, Powstania śląskie, links=no) were a series of three uprisings from August 1919 to July 1921 in Upper Silesia, which was part of the Weimar Republic ...
, where Polish workers were openly threatened with losing their jobs and pensions if they voted for Poland in the
Upper Silesia plebiscite
The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out on 20 March 1921 to determine ownership of the province of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and Poland. The region was ethnically mixed with bot ...
.
At the
Versailles Peace Conference
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
of 1919, British historian and politician
Lewis Bernstein Namier
Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (; 27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were '' The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' (1929), ''England in the Age of the Amer ...
, who served as part of the British delegation, was seen as one of the biggest enemies of the newly independent Polish state in the British political sphere and in the newly-independent Poland. Namier modified the previously-proposed
Curzon line
The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. It was first proposed by George Curzon, 1st Marque ...
by detaching the city of
Lwów
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
from Poland with a version called Curzon Line "A". It was sent to Soviet diplomatic representatives for acceptance. The earlier compromised version of Curzon line which was debated at the
Spa Conference of 1920
The Spa Conference was a meeting between the Supreme War Council and the government of the Weimar Republic in Spa, Belgium on 5–16 July 1920. The main topics were German disarmament, coal shipments to the Allies and war reparations.
Attendees
...
was renamed Curzon Line "B".
In the politics of inter-war Germany, anti-Polish feelings ran high.
[Gerhard L. Weinberg]
''Germany, Hitler, and World War II: essays in modern German and world history''
Cambridge University Press, 1995, page 42. The American historian
Gerhard Weinberg
Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg (born 1 January 1928) is a German-born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his studies in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. Weinberg is the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Histo ...
observed that for many Germans in the Weimar Republic, "Poland was an abomination", Poles were "an East European species of cockroach", Poland was usually described as a ''Saisonstaat'' (a state for a season), and Germans used the phrase "Polish economy" (''polnische Wirtschaft'') for a situation of hopeless muddle.
Weinberg noted that in the 1920s–30s, leading German politicians refused to accept Poland as a legitimate nation, and hoped instead to partition Poland, probably with the help of the Soviet Union.
The British historian
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
wrote in 1945 that National Socialism was inevitable because the Germans wanted "to repudiate the equality with the peoples of (central and) eastern Europe which had then been forced upon them" after 1918.
During Stalin's
Great Terror
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...
in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, a major
ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
operation, known as the
Polish Operation, took place from about 25 August 1937 through 15 November 1938. According to Soviet
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
archives, 111,091 Poles, and people accused of ties with Poland, were executed, and 28,744 were sentenced to
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
s, for a total of 139,835 Polish victims. This number constitutes 10 per cent of the officially persecuted persons during the entire
Yezhovshchina period, with confirming NKVD documents. The prosecuted Polish families were accused of anti-Soviet activities.
Outside the Germans and Russians, the Lithuanians also developed a very strong anti-Polish hatred, partly due to historical grievances. For the Lithuanians, the
Polish–Lithuanian War
The Polish–Lithuanian War (in Polish historiography, Polish–Lithuanian Conflict) was an undeclared war between newly-independent Lithuania and Poland following World War I, which happened mainly, but not only, in the Vilnius and Suwałki reg ...
of 1920, which costed the capital
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
to be on Polish hand, cemented anti-Polish sentiment. Virtually throughout the inter-war, anti-Polish had been omnipresent in Lithuania, and Polish minority in Lithuania faced a very harsh repression by the Lithuanian authorities. The
1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania led to the establishment of relations, but it remained extremely difficult as Lithuania still refused to accept Vilnius as part of Poland.
Ukrainians were also another people with strong anti-Polish hostility. The
Polish–Ukrainian War
The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces (both the West Ukrainian People's Republic and Ukrainian People's Republic). The conflict had its roots in ethn ...
of 1919 resulted in Ukraine crippled militarily and, though Poland did assist Ukraine in the eventual conflict against the Bolsheviks, but was unable to prevent an eventual occupation by the
Soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in th ...
. This had led to enmity against Poland by Ukrainian nationalists, which resulted in the establishment of
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization estab ...
and the beginning of Ukrainian problem in Poland. Assassinations of Polish officials by Ukrainian nationalists became increasingly frequent from 1930s onward.
Invasion of Poland and World War II
Nazi propagandists stereotyped Poles as nationalists in order to portray Germans as victims and justify the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
; the
Gleiwitz incident
The Gleiwitz incident (german: Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz; ) was a false flag attack on the radio station ''Sender Gleiwitz'' in Gleiwitz (then Germany and now Gliwice, Poland) staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31 August 1939. Along ...
was a Nazi
false flag
A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misr ...
to show that Germany was under Polish attack, and the killing of Germans by Poles in ''
Bromberger Blutsonntag'' and elsewhere was inflated to 58,000 to increase German hatred of Poles and justify the killing of Polish civilians.
In October 1939, Directive No.1306 of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Ministry stated: "It must be made clear even to the German milkmaid that Polishness equals subhumanity. Poles, Jews and Gypsies are on the same inferior level... This should be brought home as a ''leitmotiv'', and from time to time, in the form of existing concepts such as 'Polish economy', 'Polish ruin' and so on, until everyone in Germany sees every Pole, whether farm worker or intellectual, as vermin."
[From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939-1941 (1997), by Sheldon Dick ed. ]Bernd Wegner
Bernd Wegner (born 1949) is a German historian who specialises in military history and the history of Nazism. Since 1997 he has been professor of modern history at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, Germany.
Wegner is a contributor to t ...
, p.50
Historian
Karol Karski writes that before World War II the Soviet authorities carried out a discreditation campaign against the Poles and describes Stalin as Polonophobe.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
Poles became the subject of ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale, including:
Nazi German genocide in
General Government
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...
,
Soviet executions and mass deportations to
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
from
Kresy
Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic, it ...
, as well as
massacres of Poles in Volhynia
The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia ( pl, rzeź wołyńska, lit=Volhynian slaughter; uk, Волинська трагедія, lit=Volyn tragedy, translit=Volynska trahediia), were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the ...
, a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out in today's western Ukraine by Ukrainian nationalists. Among the 100,000 people murdered in the ''
Intelligenzaktion
The ''Intelligenzaktion'' (), or the Intelligentsia mass shootings, was a series of mass murders which was committed against the Polish intelligentsia (teachers, priests, physicians, and other prominent members of Polish society) early in the ...
'' operations in 1939–1940, approximately 61,000 were members of the Polish intelligentsia. Millions of citizens of Poland, both ethnic Poles and Jews, died in German
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s such as
Auschwitz. Unknown numbers perished in Soviet "
gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
s" and political prisons.
Reprisals against partisan activities were brutal; on one occasion 1,200 Poles were murdered in retaliation for the death of one German officer and two German officials. In August 2009 the Polish
Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
(IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead (including Polish Jews) at between 5.47 and 5.67 million (due to German actions) and 150,000 (due to Soviet), or around 5.62 and 5.82 million total.
Soviet policy following their 1939
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
in World War II was ruthless, and sometimes coordinated with the Nazis (see:
Gestapo-NKVD Conferences). Elements of
ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
included Soviet mass executions of Polish
prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold priso ...
in the
Katyn Massacre
The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...
and at other sites, and the exile of up to
1.5 million Polish citizens, including the
intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
, academics, priests and Jewish Poles to forced-labor camps in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
.
In German and Soviet war propaganda, Poles were mocked as inept for their military techniques in fighting the war. Nazi fake newsreels and forged
pseudo-documentaries
A pseudo-documentary or fake documentary is a film or video production that takes the form or style of a documentary film but does not portray real events. Rather, scripted and fictional elements are used to tell the story. The pseudo-documentary, ...
claimed that the
Polish cavalry
The Polish cavalry ( pl, jazda, kawaleria, konnica) can trace its origins back to the days of medieval cavalry knights. Poland is mostly a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment. The knights and heav ...
"bravely but futilely" charged German tanks in 1939, and that the
Polish Air Force
The Polish Air Force ( pl, Siły Powietrzne, , Air Forces) is the aerial warfare branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 mil ...
was wiped out on the ground on the opening day of the war. Neither tale was true (see:
Myths of the Polish September Campaign). German propaganda staged a Polish cavalry charge in their 1941 reel called "Geschwader Lützow".
Ukrainian and Lithuanian nationalists utilized the increasing racial segregation to foment anti-Polonism. Followers of
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera ( uk, Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, Stepán Andríyovych Bandéra, ; pl, Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical, terr ...
(also called Banderovites) committed genocide on Poles in
Volhynia
Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. Th ...
at 1943. Lithuanian forces often clash with Polish forces throughout the World War II, and committed massacre on Poles with support from the Nazis.
Bernard Montgomery
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and t ...
often assigned blame to the failure of his operations, such as
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was an Allies of World War II, Allied military operation during the World War II, Second World War fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 27 September 1944. Its objective was to create a Salient (military), salient into G ...
, to the Polish troops under his command. Poland's relationship with the USSR during World War II was complicated. The main western Allies, the United States and the United Kingdom, understood the importance of the Soviet Union in defeating Germany, to the point of refusing to condemn Soviet propaganda which vilified their Polish ally. The western Allies were even willing to help cover up the
Soviet massacre at Katyn.
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka ( (also Kossak-Szatkowska); 10 August 1889 – 9 April 1968) was a Polish writer and World War II resistance fighter. She co-founded two wartime Polish organizations: Front for the Rebirth of Poland and Żegota, set up t ...
, the Catholic co-founder of
Zegota, the Polish resistance group which risked the German death penalty to save Jews, and who herself was sent to
Auschwitz, stereotyped Jews as haters of Poles even as she characterized Poles who remained silent in the face of the Holocaust as complicit:
Post-war
Under
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, thousands of soldiers of Poland's underground eg.
Home Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
(''
Armia Krajowa
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
'') and returning veterans of the Polish Armed Forces that had served with the western Allies were imprisoned, tortured by
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
agents (see:
W. Pilecki,
Ł. Ciepliński) and murdered following
staged trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the ...
s like the infamous
Trial of the Sixteen
The Trial of the Sixteen ( pl, Proces szesnastu) was a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service and falsely accused of var ...
in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
,
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. A similar fate awaited the "
cursed soldiers
The "cursed soldiers" (also known as "doomed soldiers", "accursed soldiers" or "damned soldiers"; pl, żołnierze wyklęci) or "indomitable soldiers" ( pl, żołnierze niezłomni) is a term applied to a variety of anti-Soviet and anti-communist ...
". At least 40,000 members of Poland's Home Army were deported to Russia.
In Britain after 1945, the British populace accepted the Polish servicemen who chose not to return to a Poland ruled by the communist regime in their decision to stay on in Britain. The Poles resident in Britain served under British command during the war, but as soon as the Soviets began to make gains on the Eastern Front both public opinion and the government turned increasingly pro-Soviet. Socialist supporters of the Soviet Union made the Poles out to be "warmongers", "anti-Semites" and "fascists".
[The Poles in Britain 1940–2000 by ]Peter D. Stachura
Peter D. Stachura is a British historian, writer, lecturer and essayist. He was Professor of Modern European History at the University of Stirling and Director of its Centre for Research in Polish History. He has published extensively on the subj ...
, Page 52 After the war, the
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
s and Labour party played on the fears among the public of there not being enough jobs, food and housing to incite anti-Polish sentiments.
The myth that Poland had been conducting a genocide against ethnic Germans was invented in 1940 by German nationalist writer by embellishing the events of "
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday may refer to:
Historical events Canada
* Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
* Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
". In 1961, a book was published in Germany entitled ''Der Erzwungene Krieg'' (The Forced War) by the American historical writer and
Holocaust denier
Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements:
* ...
David Hoggan
David Leslie Hoggan (March 23, 1923 – August 7, 1988) was an American professor of history, author of ''The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed'' and other works in the German and English languages. He was antisemitic, maintained ...
, which argued that Germany did not commit aggression against Poland in 1939, but was instead the victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy against the ''Reich''. Reviewers have often noted that Hoggan seems to have an obsessive hostility towards the Poles. His claims included that the Polish government treated Poland's German minority far worse than the German government under Adolf Hitler treated its Jewish minority. In 1964, much controversy was created when two German right-wing extremist groups awarded Hoggan prizes. In the 1980s, the German philosopher and historian
Ernst Nolte
Ernst Nolte (11 January 1923 – 18 August 2016) was a German historian and philosopher. Nolte's major interest was the comparative studies of fascism and communism (cf. Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism). Originally trained in philosophy, he was ...
claimed that in 1939 Poland was engaged in a campaign of genocide against its ethnic German minority, and has strongly implied that the German invasion in 1939, and all of the subsequent German atrocities in Poland during World War II were in essence justified acts of retaliation.
[Evans, Richard J. ''In Hitler's Shadow'' New York: Pantheon Books, 1989 pages 56–57] Critics, such as the British historian
Richard J. Evans
Sir Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British historian of 19th- and 20th-century Europe with a focus on Germany. He is the author of eighteen books, including his three-volume ''The Third Reich Trilogy'' (2003–2008). Evans was ...
, have accused Nolte of distorting the facts, and have argued that in no way was Poland committing genocide against its German minority.
During the political transformation of the Soviet-controlled Eastern bloc in the 1980s, the traditional German anti-Polish feeling was again openly exploited in the
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
against
Solidarność
Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subseq ...
. This tactic had become especially apparent in the "rejuvenation of '
Polish jokes,' some of which reminded listeners of the spread of such jokes under the Nazis."
"Polish death camp" controversy
The expressions offensive to Poles are attributed to a number of non-Polish media in relation to . The most prominent is a continued reference by Western news media to "Polish death camps" and "Polish concentration camps". These phrases refer to the network of
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in order to facilitate the "
Final Solution
The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...
", but the wording suggests that the Polish people might have been involved. The Polish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...
, as well as
Polish organizations around the world and all
Polish government
The Government of Poland takes the form of a Unitary state, unitary Parliamentary republic, parliamentary Representative democracy, representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Poland, President is the head of state and the Prime ...
s since 1989, condemned the usage of such expressions, arguing that they suggest Polish responsibility for the camps. The
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish org ...
stated in its 30 January 2005, press release: "This is not a mere semantic matter. Historical integrity and accuracy hang in the balance.... Any misrepresentation of Poland's role in the Second World War, whether intentional or accidental, would be most regrettable and therefore should not be left unchallenged."
In Polish-Jewish relations
There is a stereotype that Jews are anti-Polish.
Cardinal
Józef Glemp
Józef Glemp (18 December 192923 January 2013) was a Polish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Warsaw from 1981 to 2006, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983.
Biography
Early life and ordination
Józef Glemp was ...
in his controversial and widely criticized speech delivered on 26 August 1989 (and retracted in 1991) argued that the outbursts of antisemitism are a "legitimate form of national self-defence against Jewish anti-Polonism." He "asked Jews who 'have great power over the mass media in many countries' to rein in their anti-Polonism because 'if there won't be anti-Polonism, there won't be such antisemitism among us'."
In November of the same year, Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Shamir ( he, יצחק שמיר, ; born Yitzhak Yezernitsky; October 22, 1915 – June 30, 2012) was an Israeli politician and the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms, 1983–1984 and 1986–1992. Before the establishment ...
said Poles “drink in (anti-Semitism) with their mother's milk.”
Polish Prime Minister
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime min ...
said that “these blanket statements are the most destructive actions imaginable,” and that they “do irreparable harm” to people seeking Polish-Jewish reconciliation.
Adam Michnik
Adam Michnik (; born 17 October 1946) is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, and editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper, ''Gazeta Wyborcza''.
Reared in a family of committed communists, Michnik became an opponen ...
wrote for ''The New York Times'' that "almost all Poles react very sharply when confronted with the charge that Poles get their anti-Semitism 'with their mothers' milk'." Such verbal attacks – according to Michnik – are interpreted by anti-Semites as "proof of the international anti-Polish Jewish conspiracy".
In ''Rethinking Poles and Jews'', Robert Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska said that anti-Polonism and anti-Semitism remain "grotesquely twinned into our own time. We cannot combat the one without combating the other."
The term "anti-Polonism" is said to have been used for campaign purposes by political parties such as the
League of Polish Families
The League of Polish Families (Polish: ''Liga Polskich Rodzin'', LPR) is a conservative political party in Poland, with many far-right elements in the past. The party's original ideology was that of the National Democracy movement which was heade ...
( pl, Liga Polskich Rodzin) or the defunct
Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland
Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, SRP) is a nationalist, populist, and agrarian political party and trade union in Poland. Its platform combines left-wing populist economic policies with religious c ...
( pl, Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej) and organizations such as the Association against Anti-Polonism led by Leszek Bubel, leader of the
Polish National Party and a former presidential candidate. Bubel was taken to court by a group of ten Polish intellectuals who filed a lawsuit against him for "violating the public good". Among the signatories were former Foreign Minister
Władysław Bartoszewski
Władysław Bartoszewski (; 19 February 1922 – 24 April 2015) was a Polish politician, social activist, journalist, writer and historian. A former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, he was a World War II resistance fighter as part of the ...
and filmmaker
Kazimierz Kutz
Kazimierz Julian Kutz (16 February 1929 – 18 December 2018) was a Polish film director, author, journalist and politician, one of the representatives of the Polish Film School and a deputy speaker of the Senate of Poland.
Biography
Kazimierz ...
.
According to Polish historian
Joanna Michlic
Joanna Beata Michlic is a Polish social and cultural historian specializing in Polish-Jewish history and the Holocaust in Poland. An honorary senior research associate at the Centre for Collective Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Un ...
, the term is used in Poland also as an argument against the self-critical intellectuals who discuss Polish-Jewish relations, accusing them of "anti-Polish positions and interests." For example, historian
Jan T. Gross
Jan Tomasz Gross (born 1947) is a Polish-American sociologist and historian. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society, emeritus, and Professor of History, emeritus, at Princeton University.
Gross is the author o ...
has been accused of being anti-Polish when he wrote about crimes such as the
Jedwabne pogrom
The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. At least 340 men, women and children were murdered, some 300 of whom ...
. In her view, the charge is "not limited to arguments that can objectively be classified as anti-Polish—such as equating the Poles with the Nazis—but rather applied to any critical inquiry into the collective past. Moreover, anti-Polonism is equated with anti-Semitism."
For the 1994 anniversary of the
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occ ...
, a Polish ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' journalist, Michał Cichy, wrote a review of a collection of 1943 memoirs entitled ''Czy ja jestem mordercą?'' (''Am I a murderer?'') by
Calel Perechodnik, a
Jewish ghetto policeman from Otwock and member of the "
Chrobry II Battalion
The Chrobry II Battalion was a unit, formally subordinate to the Polish Home Army (AK), which took part in the Warsaw Uprising. It was named after the Polish king Bolesław I Chrobry ("Chrobry" is old Polish for "valiant"Gunnar S. Paulsson, "Secr ...
",
[ Romuald Bury]
JAKA „GAZETA”, TAKIE PRZEPROSINY...
, PolskieJutro, Number 243 January 2007/ref> alleging (as hearsay) that about 40 Jews were killed by a group of Polish insurgents during the 1944 Uprising. Unlike the book (later reprinted with factual corrections), the actual review by Cichy elicited protests, while selected fragments of his article were confirmed by three Polish historians. Prof. Tomasz Strzembosz accused Cichy of practicing a 'distinct type of racism,' and charged ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' editor Adam Michnik
Adam Michnik (; born 17 October 1946) is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, and editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper, ''Gazeta Wyborcza''.
Reared in a family of committed communists, Michnik became an opponen ...
with 'cultivating a species of tolerance that is absolutely intolerant of antisemitism yet regards anti-Polonism and anti-goyism as something altogether natural'." Michnik responded to the controversy, praising the heroism of the AK by asking: "Is it an attack on Polish people when the past is being explored to seek the truth?". Cichy later apologized for the tone of his article.
Polish historian Adam Leszczyński states that "Antisemitism is an extensive doctrine with racist or religious grounds that led to the Holocaust. 'Antipolonism' is at best a generalized aversion to Poles."
"Polish jokes"
"Polish jokes" belong to a category of conditional jokes, meaning that their understanding requires knowledge of ''what a Polish joke is.'' Conditional jokes depend on the audience's ''affective'' preference—on their likes and dislikes. Though these jokes might be understood by many, their success depends entirely on the negative disposition of the listener.
Presumably the first Polish jokes by German displaced person
Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...
s fleeing war-torn Europe were brought to the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in the late 1940s. These jokes were fueled by ethnic slurs disseminated by German National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
propaganda, which attempted to justify the Nazis' murdering of Poles by presenting them as "''dreck''"—dirty, stupid and inferior. It is also possible that some early American ''Polack
In the contemporary English language, the noun ''Polack'' ( and ) is a derogatory, mainly North American, reference to a person of Polish descent or from Poland. It is an anglicisation of the Polish masculine noun ''Polak'', which denotes a perso ...
'' jokes from Germany were originally told before World War II in disputed border regions such as Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
.
There is debate as to whether the early "Polish jokes" brought to states such as Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
by German immigrants relate directly to the wave of American jokes of the early 1960s. A "provocative critique of previous scholarship on the subject" has been made by British writer Christie Davies
John Christopher Hughes "Christie" Davies (25 December 1941 – 26 August 2017) was a British sociologist, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Reading, England, the author of many articles and books on criminology, the sociolog ...
in ''The Mirth of Nations'', which suggests that "Polish jokes" did not originate in Nazi Germany but much earlier, as an outgrowth of regional jokes rooted in "social class differences reaching back to the nineteenth century." According to Davies, American versions of Polish jokes are an unrelated "purely American phenomenon" and do not express the "historical Old World hatreds of the Germans for the Poles. However, Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s imported the subhuman-intelligence jokes about Poles from old Nazi propaganda."
For decades, Polish Americans have been the subject of derogatory jokes originating in anti-immigrant
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
stereotypes that had developed in the U.S. before the 1920s. During the Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
, Polish immigrants came to the United States in considerable numbers, fleeing mass persecution at home. They were taking the only jobs available to them, usually requiring physical labor. The same ethnic and job-related stereotypes persisted even as Polish Americans joined the middle class in the mid-20th century. "The constant derision, often publicly disseminated through the mass media, caused serious identity crises, feeling of inadequacy, and low self-esteem for many Polish Americans." In spite of the plight of Polish people under Cold War communism, negative stereotypes about Polish Americans endured.[Dominic Pulera]
''Sharing the Dream: White Males in Multicultural America''
Published 2004 by Continuum International Publishing Group, 448 pages. . Page 99.
Since the late 1960s, Polish American
Polish Americans ( pl, Polonia amerykańska) are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 9.15 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.83 ...
organizations have made continuous effort to challenge the negative stereotyping of the Polish people once prevalent in American media. The Polish American Guardian Society has argued that NBC-TV used the tremendous power of TV to introduce and push subhuman intelligence jokes about Poles (that were worse than prior simple anti-immigrant jokes) using the repetitive big lie technique to degrade Poles. The play called “Polish Joke” by David Ives
David Ives (born July 11, 1950) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is perhaps best known for his comic one-act plays; ''The New York Times'' in 1997 referred to him as the "maestro of the short form". Ives has also written ...
has resulted in a number of complaints by the Polonia in the US. The "Polish jokes" heard in the 1970s were particularly offensive, so much so that the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached the U.S. State Department about that, however unsuccessfully. The syndrome receded only after Cardinal Karol Wojtyła
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
was elected Pope, and Polish jokes became passé. Gradually, Americans have developed a more positive image of their Polish neighbors in the following decades.
In 2014, a German speaker joked during the European Aquatics Championships
The European Aquatics Championships is the continental Aquatics championship for Europe, which is organised by LEN—the governing body for aquatics in Europe. The Championships are currently held every two years (in even years); and since 2022, ...
that the Polish team would be coming back home in "our cars".
Today
United Kingdom
Since the EU enlargement
The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political conditions called the Copenhagen criteria ( ...
in 2004, where ten new countries joined in the single-largest expansion to date (Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
, Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
, Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
and Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
), the UK has experienced mass immigration from Poland (see Poles in the United Kingdom). It is estimated that the Polish British
British Poles, alternatively known as Polish British people or Polish Britons, are ethnic Poles who are citizens of the United Kingdom. The term includes people born in the UK who are of Polish descent and Polish-born people who reside in the UK ...
community has doubled in size since 2004; with Poland now having overtaken India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
as the largest foreign-born country of origin in 2015 (831,000 Poles to 795,000 Indian-born persons). Anti-Polish sentiment in the UK is often related to the issue of immigration. There have been some instances of anti-Polish sentiment and hostility towards Polish immigrants. The far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
British National Party
The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...
argued for immigration from (Central and) Eastern Europe to be stopped and for Poles to be deported.
In 2007, Polish people living in London reported 42 ethnically motivated attacks against them, compared with 28 in 2004. The Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
MP Daniel Kawczynski
Daniel Robert Kawczynski ( pl, Kawczyński, ; born 24 January 1972) is a British Conservative Party politician.
Kawczynski has served as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a parliamentary ...
, of Polish origin himself, said that the increase in violence towards Poles is in part "a result of the media coverage by the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
" whose reporters "won't dare refer to controversial immigration from other countries."
Kawczynski voiced his criticism of the BBC in the House of Commons for "using the Polish community as a cat's paw to try to tackle the thorny issue of mass, unchecked immigration" only because against Poles "it's
raised a number of formal complaints – including with the Press Complaints Commission – about news articles in the ''
'', which the Federation claimed "displayed anti-Polish sentiment". The newspaper denied this was its intention, and the PCC brokered a settlement between the parties.
'' has been noted for a number of other controversies. On 14 October 2009, Nazi-hunter
has been distorted since independence and the transition to democracy to make it more palatable to their electorate and to minimize the role of local collaborators in Holocaust crimes." On 20 October 2009, ''The Guardians
said: "We are meant to be friendly towards the newest members of the European Union. But the truth is that several of these "emerging democracies" have reverted to a brand of ultra-nationalistic politics that would repel most voters in western Europe. It exists in Poland". In response to the above articles,
wrote in the same paper on 23 December: "In my experience, the automatic equation of Poland with
– and thence a slide to guilt by association with the Holocaust – is still widespread. This collective stereotyping does no justice to the historical record."
Also in 2008, the Polish ambassador sent an official protest to the
''.
' used to describe Polish immigrants. He accused Poland of complicity in the six million Jewish deaths of
, prompting not only an official letter of complaint to ''The Times'', but also an
.'' The ambassador, Tuge-Erecinska, explained that the article was "unsupported by any basic historic or geographic knowledge," and that "the issue of Polish-Jewish relations has been unfairly and deeply falsified" by Coren's "aggressive remarks" and "contempt".
'': "''Fuck the Poles''".
.
However, the case was unsuccessful as Poles are not classified as an ethnic minority. The editor of ''The Jewish Chronicle'',
, commented on 6 August 2009: "There are few things more despicable than anti-Semitism, but here's one of them: using a false charge of anti-Semitism for political gain."
On 6 October 2009,
. During the interview, Fry stated: "There has been a history, let's face it, in Poland of a right-wing Catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history, and remember
..." The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, as well as an editorial in ''
. Fry has since posted an apology on his personal weblog, in which he stated: "It was a rubbishy, cheap and offensive remark that I have been regretting ever since... I take this opportunity to apologize now." On 30 October 2009, the Chief Rabbi of Poland,
, complained about this new British political row playing on a "'false and painful stereotype that all Poles are antisemitic', whereas the truth was that the problem was around the same there as elsewhere in Europe."
In January 2014, a Polish man, whose helmet was emblazoned with the flag of Poland, claimed he was attacked by a group of fifteen men outside a pub in
. Photos were taken of him and his motorbike. The victim blamed xenophobic speeches of the Conservative
there was seven attacks on Polish houses within ten days, in which stones and bricks were thrown at the windows.
Following the
, there were more cases of Polonophobic occurrences including anti-Polish leaflets distributed in
.
Central and Eastern European pupils, including the Polish ones, have experienced increased levels of xenophobic bullying since the Brexit vote.
Anti-Polish sentiment in the UK has been the subject of an academic study.
, "was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles". Lapid also wrote that there were "Polish death camps" (see
i ambassador to Poland, said that "We need to work to reduce anti-Semitism, but work is also needed for there to be less anti-Polish sentiment" and "Anti-Polonism occurs not only in Israel, but also in Jewish circles outside Israel."
In February 2019, Poland's prime minister
canceled plans for his country to send a delegation to a meeting in Jerusalem on Monday after the acting Israeli foreign minister,
said that Poles "collaborated with the Nazis" and "sucked anti-Semitism with their mothers' milk."
, "the father of Polish genetic theory" and said: "All right, there were Poles and Hungarians who collaborated, there were and are anti-Semitic Poles and Hungarians. But why generalize? Why be
, why accuse these nations and attribute to them inherent anti-Semitic characteristics?
On 15 May 2019, Poland's Ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski, was spat on and attacked outside the Embassy of Poland, Tel Aviv by a 65-year-old Israeli architect, Arik Lederman, who was arrested following the assault. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said: "We express our fullest sympathy to the ambassador and our shock at the attack," while the suspect apologized and said he had been provoked earlier by a Polish Embassy employee using an anti-Semitic slur against him. The Polish embassy in turn disputed the man's account, and said it has CCTV evidence to disprove it.
On 14 November 2007, Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox aired an episode of ''Back to You (TV series), Back to You'' created by Christopher Lloyd
and Steven Levitan called "Something's Up There", which contained a controversial anti-Poland, Polish slur. The slur involved Marsh trying to convince the show's lone Polish-American character, Gary, to go bowling after work by saying: "Come on, it's in your blood, like kielbasa and collaborating with the Nazis." Fox later apologised on 20 November 2007. It vowed never to broadcast the line of dialogue again either in repeats and/or syndicated broadcasts. Fox stated that, "The line was delivered by a character who is known for being ignorant, clueless, and saying outlandish things. Allowing the line to remain in the show, however, demonstrated poor judgment, and we apologise to anyone who was offended."
In August 2005, a series of allegedly organised attacks against Polish diplomats took place in
, which prompted the then-Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski to call on the Russian Government to stop them.
An employee with the Polish embassy in Moscow was hospitalised in serious condition after being assaulted in broad daylight near the embassy by unidentified men. Three days later, another Polish diplomat was beaten up near the embassy. The following day the Moscow correspondent for the Polish daily ''Rzeczpospolita (newspaper), Rzeczpospolita'' was attacked and beaten up by a group of Russians. It is widely believed that the attacks were organized as revenge for the mugging of four Russian youth in a public park in Warsaw by a group of skinheads, several days earlier.
The former "Solidarity (Polish trade union), Solidarity" leader and Polish President Lech Wałęsa criticised the Lithuanian Government over discrimination against the Poles in Lithuania, Polish minority, which included the enforced Poles in Lithuania#Surnames, Lithuanization of Polish surnames and the removal of bilingual Polish language street signs in municipalities with predominantly Polish-speaking population. In 2011, Wałęsa rejected
's Order of Vytautas the Great citing the mistreatment of the Polish minority.
In his 2007 book ''Heroes and Villains'', in the context of bitter Polish-Ukrainian relations concerning the mutual massacres during World War II, David R. Marples asserted that (at the time of the writing of the book) there were "no Ukrainian organizations and press organs that specialize in anti-Polish propaganda. However different interpretations of these bitter World War II events have led to a sharp deterioration of the relations between the nations since 2015. In April 2017 the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance forbade the exhumation of Polish victims of the 1943 massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia as part of the broader action of halting the legalization of Polish memorial sites in Ukraine, in a retaliation for the dismantling of a monument to UPA soldiers in Hruszowice, Eastern Poland.
Polish President Andrzej Duda expressed his concerns with appointment to high Ukrainian offices of people expressing nationalistic anti-Polish views. The Ukrainian foreign ministry stated that there is no general anti-Polish sentiment in Ukraine. In 2017, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski announced plans to bar Ukrainians with anti-Polish views, as a reaction to the disrespect to the Polish cemetery in Lviv following a Ukrainian accusation of Polish "occupation" in the city.
Following the accession of Poland to the European Union, Germany–Poland relations have improved. In 2016, Martin Schulz, a German Social Democrat, criticized the Duda's government in Poland and referred it as a "coup". This had led to criticism in Poland, although Polish government had downplayed the issue. In 2020, President of Poland Andrzej Duda accused German media of misinterpreting his words and the German government for being Polonophobe regarding coverage about 2020 Polish presidential election.
*
*Mikołaj Teres: ''Ethnic Cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, Alliance of the Polish Eastern Provinces'', Toronto, 1993, .
*Ryszard Torzecki: ''Polacy i Ukraińcy; Sprawa ukraińska w czasie II wojny światowej na terenie II Rzeczypospolitej''; Warsaw, 1993.
*Tadeusz Piotrowski: ''Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist, Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II'', McFarland & Company, 2000, .
*Dr. Dariusz Łukasiewicz: ''Czarna legenda Polski: Obraz Polski i Polaków w Prusach 1772-1815 (The black legend of Poland: the image of Poland and Poles in Prussia between 1772–1815)'' Wydawnictwo Poznanskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciól Nauk, 1995. Vol. 51 of the history and social sciences series. . Paper. In Polish with English and German summaries.
*Eduard v. Hartmanns Schlagwort vom "Ausrotten der Polen" : Antipolonismus und Antikatholizismus im Kaiserreich / Helmut Neubach.
*'Erbfeindschaften': Antipolonismus, Preußen- und Deutschlandhaß, deutsche Ostforschung und polnische Westforschung, [w:] Deutschland und Polen im 20. Jahrhundert, red. U. A. J. Bechner, W. Borodziej, t. Maier, Hannover 2001
*Danusha Goska, "Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture", 2010,
*M.B.B. Biskupski, "Hollywood's War with Poland, 1939–1945" 2009,
*"Polish Encounters, Russian Identity", 2005, ; — based on the materials of a conference on "Polonophilia and Polonophobia of the Russians", Indiana State University, 2000
*
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{{Anti-Slavic sentiment
Anti-Polish sentiment
Racism
Anti-Slavic sentiment
Anti-national sentiment
1940s neologisms