Polish "jokes" came from Nazi propaganda

I had the same reaction as Sozobe...

The Polish character in "All in the Family" was a main character (married to Archie Bunkers daughter) and was treated quite lovingly by the writers.

He was educated and intelligent... a main theme in the show was how he dealt with his oafish father in law.

Many years ago while browsing through the (then open stack) Library of St John's College in Annapolis I came across an old volume entitled "An anthology of 11th ans 12th century Islamic literature". Finding the title irresistable I picked it out and spent an hour or so looking through it. There was one section of fairly short pieces that caught my eye as easily readable samples. It was in short a collection of "Frank" jokes - amusing (and often belittleing) stories of the odd behavior of the European (German, French, British, Italian) Crusaders who invaded and later settled in Palestine. The story themes were all very familiar; the uncouth Frank; the cuckold Frank; the stupid Frank; the greedy Frank;etc. Indeed they were the essential themes of most of the Jewish, Polish, Irish, Negro jokes I had heard growing up. I suspect they were already very old in the 11th century when they were written, and had then already been told and retold in times past about innumerable tribes and cultures - and reciprocated in kind.

The Nazis may well have encouraged and disseminated belittling jokes about the "untermensch" Poles and others. However this behavior was hardly new or unusual in human history and the material they used wasn't even original.

I haven't studied the relevant history. But based on anecdotes from the East Prussian part of my family , anti-Polish jokes in Germany are much older than Nazi Germany. Until World War I, Prussia occupied a sizable territory that had historically belonged to Poland. Even after World War II, they governed over a lot of ethnical Poles. In addition, as Walter said, many Polish workers immigrated to the Rhein-Ruhr complex to work in coal mines and the metal industry. In both settings, the Polish were part of the German underclass -- kind of like Mexicans in the USA. Accordingly, they faced similar resentments, and became the butt of similar disagreeable jokes.

I'm sure Nazi Propaganda played on this hostility. But they didn't invent it.

Have you heard any of the "Gringo" jokes Mexicans tell about Americans?

Actually, every European country has enough jokes about it's neighbor countries to fill an entire book with it. We joke about the Dutch, Italians, Spaniards,
Brits and they in turn have their own jokes about the Krauts. In the 70s the
Italian "guest workers" who came in droves to Germany got the brunt of jokes
then. I don't think that any of the Europeans take offense to the jokes made
about them.

In recent years, when political correctness overtook our lives, one hears
less and less of these nationality related jokes, but I remember very vividly
that when the Bush administration denounced the French a few years ago
for distancing themselves from joining him in his crusade against Iraq,
jokes about the French started almost overnight.

Going back to Polish jokes. Todays Polish jokes have little to do with the
ones of 60 years ago. I only know one where they'd ask a German where he's
going on vacation and he said: "To Poland, visiting my car!"

Living here in southern California, I would exchange Poland for Mexico,
as crime statistics tell us that most stolen cars end up there. We've had
our share of jokes about Mexicans too. In fact , no nationality is left
out, is there?

Just thinking about georgeob and the Irish - oh my!

All are more or less equally involved. As a kid I grew up with a host of ethnic jokes - about Poles, Jews, Blacks, Swedes, Germans, Italians and of course the British. I had enough friends in the other tribes to learn that they told more or less the same stories about us.

In the second epilogue to "War and Peace" Tolstoy, in the midst of his philosophical ramblings, tells a pretty good German joke. In it he posits that if one showed a then very new steam engine to a typical Russian peasant, and asked him what makes it move, the peasant would answer "There's a Devil in there who makes it go". Tolstoy goes on to say that if one then patiently explained to the peasant that there is no devil in the machine, and then asked again what makes it move, the peasant would say, "Well, then there's a German in there."

That was even a nice one, George. I know some Germans jokes that are more
disturbing, but we all laugh about it. The more serious the times the better the
jokes. The great depression brought a lot of good jokes to the surface - what
else was there left? You've got to laugh!

Probably, but only in Spanish that I couldn't quite catch...

Well, some people want to distort what they consider 'propaganda' to suit their own biased purposes. What the TV show 'All In The Family" did was raise public awareness and consciousness to help expose prejudice more than any TV show of its time and for that decade.

Most of the ethnic jokes I know from Mexico are about Spaniards.... I don't know of any Gringo jokes.

Oh, yeah?

I know lots of them. Look here's one:

Francis,

Jajajajajaja!

Pourquoi ne faut-il-pas conter les blagues aux Suisses les vendredis?

Pour qu'ils ne risent pas pendant la messe.

Je confirme!

Deux Belges decident d'aller à la plage en France, mais, en traversant la frontière, ils voient un panneau, <<Pas de Calais>> . . . donc, ils rentrent.

C'est bien connu, n'est-ce pas?

Deux Alsatiens flânnent en Metz, et ils voient une voiture avec l'affiche <<GB>>.

L'un dit <<Qu'il a de la chance!>>

L'autre dit <<Comment?>>

<<Regardes, GB, gongé bayé!>>

Oui!

Là, t'es méchant! Leur accent est moins prononcé..

C'est un français, un Belge et une très jolie Suédoise qui sont dans un train.

A un moment donné, le train passe dans un tunnel et toutes les lumières s'éteignent.

A la sortie du tunnel, le Français se tient la joue et gémit de douleur.

La Suédoise se dit: Le Français a voulu me donner un bisou, il s'est trompé et le belge l'a frappé.

Le Français se dit: Le Belge a voulu donner un bisou a la Suédoise et elle a voulu lui donner une baffe et elle s'est trompé.

Le Belge se dit: Quelle rigolade, AHHHHHHH. Au prochain tunnel, je refais le bruit du bisou et je redonne une baffe a cet imbécile de Français.