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Anti-Polonism (alternatively spelled antipolonism; also, Polonophobia) is a term used to collectively describe a broad spectrum of hostile sentiments toward Poles^{[citation needed]}.

While the term is used in Polish (as "antypolonizm"), its use in English has been limited. The term was used frequently in the 19th century to describe the anti-Polish policies of Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck. The English derivation does not appear in major English dictionaries, and according to LexisNexis has been used only twice in English-language dailies or magazines within the past 10 years. It has, however, been studied in scholarly works by Polish, German, Russian [1] and English[2] researchers.

The term was coined before 1919, and began to reappear repeatedly throughout right-wing Polish circles in the 1990s. It was frequently used as a diversion to deflect directed to Poles accusations of anti-Semitism which were expressed by certain Jewish groups [3] [4]. It continues to be widely used by right-wing circles like Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish families) which are represented in the Polish parliment. However, it has also entered mainstream usage to describe a variety of behaviours and ideologies hostile towards Poles or Poland[5].

Description

File:Ger Ju52 Sept.jpg

"Whether figures, gasoline, bombs or bread, we bring Poles/Poland death." Painted on German Ju-52 transport-plane fuselage during the Polish Defence War of 1939.

The historic counterpart of anti-Polonism is polakożerstwo (in English - the devouring of Poles) - a term used in 19th century to describe anti-Polish politics of Otto von Bismarck.

The journalists, politics and priests use that term in the context of events that signify sentiment towards Poles (for instance in the context of Polish jokes, presentation of negative stereotypes of Poles in the media or historical misstatements like Polish death camps)[6].

Historic actions based on antipolonism ranged from propagation of motivated by anti-Polonism aversion for Poles to felonious acts the goal of which was to suppress Polish state and physical extermination of the Polish nation. The groups which are currently most frequently accussed for anti-Polonism include Jewish circles (often as part of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory) together with German and Russian politics.[7] [8] [9]

Widespread forms of anti-polonism have included:

racist anti-Polonism, a variety of xenophobia;
cultural anti-Polonism: a prejudice against Poles and Polish-speaking persons;
organized persecution of Poles as an ethnic or cultural group, often based on the belief that Polish culture or interests are a threat to one's own national aspirations.

During World War II when almost all of Polish society was the object of German genocidal policies, German anti-polonism led to mass campaign of extermination.[10]

Continued mass-media references to World War II-era "Polish death camps" and "Polish concentration camps" are often cited as examples of anti-Polonism^{[citation needed]}. These terms in fact refer to German concentration camps set up and run by Germans, on occupied Polish territory, whose millions of victims included Poles. Those who object to this usage argue that these terms tend to shift responsibility for these camps onto the Poles, rather than simply describe their location in a neutral way. The World Jewish Congress stated in January 2005: "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." [11]

Robert Hurst of CTV News in Canada, however, has contended that the expression, "Polish death camps," is common usage in news organizations, including those in the United States, and is not misleading, and declined to issue a correction or an apology. [12]

Also cited as examples of anti-Polonism are other phrases relating to Poland during World War II, such as "Nazi Poland. "[13]

Additionally exist persistent German canards, dating back to World War II and meant to illustrate Poles as unintelligent or incompetent. Such stories include the false allegations that Polish cavalry "bravely but futilely" charged German tanks, and that the Polish Air Force was wiped out on the ground on the opening day of the war. Neither tale is true, as is discussed at Myths of the Polish September Campaign. Other forms of hostility toward Poles have included disparaging "Polish jokes", orriginally made in Nazi Germany in order to portay Poles as inferior, stupid and dirty people, fit only to serve Germans[14].Their continued use in German society after WW2[15],[16] has stirred protest from Polish government[17].

Anti-Polonism (analogously to other ethnic phobias) has been used as a tool by demagogs inside and outside Polish circles, seeking their own personal or their own ethnic group's aggrandizement at the expense of a disparaged, demonized or dehumanized people, either Poles themselves or other groups acussed of anti-Polonism.

Historical anti-Polonism (Polakożerstwo)

The ideologists of the modern anti-Polonist conspiracy often link authentic manifestations of historical prejudice or persecution against Poles (usually in a fabricated way) to support nationalistic views. Not to be confused with anti-Polonism, these historical facts have existed for many years throughout different countries, although unrelated between each other.

Persecution of ethnic Poles (to 1918)

Persecution of Poles and their culture made its appearance in the 18th century, in Prussia, a rival of Poland in the European political arena. For instance Johann Georg Forster in his private letters dismissed the idea that the Poles were part of European culture, comparing them to primitive tribes and portraying Poland as an underdeveloped, uncivilized land awaiting the importation of Kultur from truly civilized countries. This planted the seeds for German ideas of Lebensraum and created stereotypes which Nazism would later exploit[18]. Prussian officials encouraged the view that the Poles were culturally inferior and in need of Prussian tutelage.

Frederick the Great nourished a particular hatred and contempt for Poles. He spoke of the Poles as "slovenly Polish trash," "the Iroquois of Europe" and "a barbarous people sunk in ignorance and stupidity." The consequences were that nobility of Polish origin were obliged to pay higher taxes than that of German heritage, the Polish language was persecuted in Prussia, and Polish monasteries were viewed as "lairs of idleness" and their property often seized by Prussian authorities. The prevalent Catholicism among Poles was stigmatized.

When the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lost the last vestiges of its independence in 1795 and remained partitioned for 123 years, ethnic Poles were subjected to Germanization under Prussian and later under German rule, and to Russification in the areas that had been annexed by Imperial Russia. Antipolish sentiments were fanned in both Russia and Germany.

File:Egzekucja Polakow przy murze wieziennym Leszno pazdziernik 1939.jpg

Germans execute Poles against a prison wall, Leszno, Poland, October 1939.

In Russia, being a Pole was in itself culpable, and authorities sometimes employed antipolish riots as a matter of policy. Polish culture and religion was seen as a threat to Russian imperial ambitions, and officials often acted to disrupt Polish culture. Later, with the emergance of Panslavist ideology, Russian writers saw the Poles as betraying their "Slavic family" because of Polish efforts to regain independence from the Russian Empire (the latter being viewed by Russian Panslavists as the natural leader of the Slavic nations). Prejudice and hostility toward Poles are present in many of Russia's cultural works of the time. Russia used deportations, Russification, mass murder, and confiscation of Polish nobles' property to undermine Polish culture and society. The fact that Poles were overwhelmingly of Catholic and not Orthodox faith, likewise gave impetus to persecution.

In Prussia, and later in Germany, similar persecution was the order of the day. Poles were forbidden to build homes, and their properties were targeted for forced buy-outs, financed by the Prussian and German governments. The Polish language was banned from use, and Polish children were tortured at school for speaking Polish (Września). Poles were also subject to forced deportations (Rugi Pruskie).

Persecution of ethnic Poles (1918-1939)

File:Katyn3.jpg

Mass graves of murdered Polish military officers at Katyń Wood, near Smolensk in western Russia.

After Poland regained its independence following the First World War as the Second Republic of Poland, the question of its borders was not settled. Poles were persecuted in the disputed territories, especially in Silesia, where this led to the Silesian Uprisings.

The aftermath of the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918-19), the Polish-Soviet War (1919-21) and the Treaty of Riga (1921), coupled with Soviet propaganda, led to growing tensions between Poles and Ukrainians in eastern Poland.

Second World War (1939-1945)

Hostility toward Poles reached a particular peak during World War II, when all of Polish society was an object of German genocidal policies. Poland lost approximately a third of its population. Millions of Poles died in German concentration camps such as Auschwitz, where Poles were the second most numerous victims after the Jews.

The Soviet occupation of Polish territories during World War II was also extremely brutal. Polish prisoners of war were executed in the infamous Katyn Massacre and at other sites, and thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including academics and priests, were sent to forced-labor camps, GuLags.

With the conclusion of the Second World War, Nazi atrocities per force ended. Soviet ones, however, continued. Soldiers of Poland's Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and returned veterans of the Polish Armed Forces that had served with the Western Allies were persecuted, imprisoned and often executed following staged trials (as in the case of Witold Pilecki, organizer of Auschwitz resistance).

Misuse of the term

Extremist circles and some journalists, when they refer to anti-Polonism, incorporate conspiracy theories which link the historical persecution of the Polish nation with the incidents of present times. Such ideologists link authentic manifestations of historical prejudice or persecution against Poles to support nationalistic views. Inivestigation of crimes made by inviduals of Polish ethnic background have also been target of accusations of alledged antipolonism from such groups.Anti-Semitic groups also accuse Jews as being part of an anti-Polish conspiracy, (see Żydokomuna).

German soldiers executing 15 inhabitants of Kórnik, in western Poland, October 20, 1939.

"[Poles] suck [anti-Semitism] with their mothers' milk. This is something that is deeply imbued in their tradition, their mentality. Like their loathing of Russia. The two things are not connected, of course. But that, too, is something very deep, like their hatred of Am Yisrael. Today, though, there are elements [in Poland] that are cleansed of this anti-Semitism." Former Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir (Born and raised in Poland, with a degree from Warsaw University), denouncing the existence of anti-Semitism in Poland in 1989.

"Poland’s existence is intolerable and incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany’s life. Poland must go and will go — as a result of her own internal weaknesses and of action by Russia — with our aid. For Russia, Poland is even less tolerable than it is for us; Russia will never put up with Poland's existence. With Poland, one of the strongest pillars of the Versailles System will fall. To attain this goal must be one of the firmest aiming points of German politics, because it is attainable. Attainable only by means of, or with the help of, Russia. [...] The restoration of the border between Germany and Russia is the precondition for regaining strength of both sides. Germany and Russia within the borders of 1914 should be the basis for an agreement between us [...]." — Hans von Seeckt, Chief of the Troop Office of the German Army, responsible for shaping German foreign policy, writing after the Treaty of Rapallo (1922).

"I have issued the command — and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly I have placed my Totenkopf Units in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death, mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish race and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" — Adolf Hitler.

"All Poles will disappear from the world.... It is essential that the great German people should consider it their major task to destroy all Poles." Heinrich Himmler.

"[Poles are] cattle in human form." Johann Georg Forster, 18th-century Prussian writer.

"[Poles are] more animals than human beings." Joseph Goebbels, Nazi German propaganda minister.

"[Poland is] an historic failure, which has won her freedom not by her own exertions, but by the blood of others." David Lloyd-George. -->

"A hen is not a bird, Poland is not foreign." — Russian saying, justifying the Russian dominance over Poland

"Poliakam, panam, sobakam sobachaia smert!." [To Poles, landowners, and dogs, a dog's death!]-Red Army slogan [19].

"We have to overcome all signs of antijewishness, anti-judaism (dislike born out of wrong understanding of Church's teachings), antisemitism (hatred born out of national or racial prejudice), that happened or still exist among christians. We expect the same determination towards eradicating anti-polonism." Statement by Polish Roman Catholic Church Episcopate on August 25 2000 during the meeting on Jasna Gora monastery [20].

"The conscience of the Polish nation would be sick and mortally wounded if we did not ask another question: even if now with weapons in hand did we not do at least as much as possible to help and save the Jews? Yet Poles are often wronged when, in the world, too far-reaching generalizations are drawn concerning the collaboration of some Poles in the tracking down of the Jews, or the blackmailing of them. Criminal and amoral social margins exist in every community, and among their victims at the time in Poland were not only Jews, but also general Grot Rowecki, and thousands of soldiers of the anti-Nazi conspiracy. We should reject irresponsible generalizations in this matter, just as we should reject generalizations that wrong other nations. Anti-Polonism is not morally any better than anti-Semitism or anti-Ukrainism." Jan Jozef Lipski.

Bibliography

Lukas, Richard C. and Norman Davies (foreword) Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944, (2001, c1996)
Lukas, Richard C.: Forgotten Survivors: Polish Christians Remember The Nazi Occupation
Lukas, Richard C.: Did the Children Cry: Hitler's War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945
Mikołaj Teres: Ethnic Cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, Alliance of the Polish Eastern Provinces, Toronto, 1993, ISBN 0969802005.
Ryszard Torzecki: Polacy i Ukraińcy; Sprawa ukraińska w czasie II wojny światowej na terenie II Rzeczypospolitej; Warsaw, 1993.
Wiktor Poliszczuk: Bitter Truth. Legal and Political Assessment of the OUN and UPA, Toronto-Warsaw-Kiev, 1995.
Władysław & Ewa Siemaszko: Ludobojstwo na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939-1945 (eng: The Genocide Carried Out by Ukrainian Nationalists on the Polish Population of the Volhynia Region 1939-1945., Warsaw, 2000.
Filip Ozarowski: Wolyn Aflame, Publishing House WICI, 1977, ISBN 0965548813.
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, ISBN 0786407735.
Tadeusz Piotrowski: Vengeance of the Swallows: Memoir of a Polish Family's Ordeal Under Soviet Aggression, Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing and Nazi Enslavement, and Their Emigration to America, McFarland & Company, 1995, ISBN 0786400013.
Dr. Bronislaw Kusnierz: Stalin and the Poles, Hollis & Carter, 1949.
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.ISBN 83-7063-148-7. 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

File:Wolyn1943.jpg

Four Polish children bound to a tree with barbed wire at the village of Łobozowa (Tarnopol County), part of large-scale massacres of Poles in Volhynia (in prewar southeastern Poland) by Ukrainians in 1943.

@@ Line 78: / Line 78: @@
 [[Image:Egzekucja 15 mieszkancow Kornika 20 10 1939.jpg|thumb|180px|right|German soldiers executing 15 inhabitants of [[Kórnik]], in western Poland, [[October 20]], [[1939]].]]
-* "[Poles] suck [anti-Semitism] with their mothers' milk. This is something that is deeply imbued in their tradition, their mentality. Like their loathing of Russia. The two things are not connected, of course. But that, too, is something very deep, like their hatred of Am Yisrael. Today, though, there are elements [in Poland] that are cleansed of this anti-Semitism." Former Prime Minister of Israel [[Yitzhak Shamir]] portaying Poles as nation possesing inbreed natural traits that need to be cleansed.See also [[Racism]]
+* "[Poles] suck [anti-Semitism] with their mothers' milk. This is something that is deeply imbued in their tradition, their mentality. Like their loathing of Russia. The two things are not connected, of course. But that, too, is something very deep, like their hatred of Am Yisrael. Today, though, there are elements [in Poland] that are cleansed of this anti-Semitism." Former Prime Minister of Israel [[Yitzhak Shamir]] (Born and raised in Poland, with a degree from Warsaw University), denouncing the existence of anti-Semitism in Poland in 1989.
 * "Poland’s existence is intolerable and incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany’s life. Poland must go and will go — as a result of her own internal weaknesses and of action by Russia — with our aid. For Russia, Poland is even less tolerable than it is for us; Russia will never put up with Poland's existence. With Poland, one of the strongest pillars of the Versailles System will fall.  To attain this goal must be one of the firmest aiming points of German politics, because it is attainable. Attainable only by means of, or with the help of, Russia. [...] The restoration of the border between Germany and Russia is the precondition for regaining strength of both sides. Germany and Russia within the borders of 1914 should be the basis for an agreement between us [...]." — [[Hans von Seeckt]], Chief of the Troop Office of the German Army, responsible for shaping German foreign policy, writing after the [[Treaty of Rapallo]] ([[1922]]).