Bieganski lives -- Bieganski in the press -- Bieganski takes root in America -- Bieganski in American cinema -- Bieganski as a support for Jewish identity -- The peasant and middleman minority theory -- The necessity of Bieganski : a shamed and horrified world seeks a scapegoat -- Interviews -- Bieganski lives -- next door to Shylock -- Final thoughts
Summary
In this study, Goska exposes one stereotype of Poles and other Eastern Europeans. In the "Bieganski" stereotype, Poles exhibit the qualities of animals. They are strong, stupid, violent, fertile, anarchic, dirty, and especially hateful in a way that more evolved humans are not. Their special hatefulness is epitomized by Polish anti- Semitism. Bieganski discovers this stereotype in the mainstream press, in scholarship and film, in Jews' self-definition, and in responses to the Holocaust. Bieganski's twin is Shylock, the stereotype of the crafty, physically inadequate, moneyed Jew. The final chapters of the book are devoted to interviews with American Jews, which reveal that Bieganski-and Shylock-are both alive and well among those who have little knowledge of Poles or Poland
