the “Hispanic” identity is more thanrnmere political opportunism and intellectualrnfraud. It is an ideology of hate inrnquest of political domination.rn]oseph E. Fallon writes from Rye,rnNew York.rnFOREIGN AFFAIRSrnPolonophobia,rnCont.rnby Paul GottfriedrnPolonophobia,” my essay in the Januaryrnissue of Chronicles, engenderedrnmoving and informed responses forrnwhich I am most grateful. ProfessorsrnEwa Thompson and Alex Kurczaba andrnDr. Wojciech Wierzewski have allrnpraised me generously in letters to therneditor [Eds. note: See the Polemics andrnExchanges section of the April issue],rnbut, according to Managing EditorrnTheodore Pappas, their praise may bernequaled in intensity by the hate calls hernhas received from readers who refuse tornsubmit letters. One heartening developmentrnis that my essay can now be furtherrndiscussed in Poland. Two widely respectedrnPolish publications, Respublica andrnArcana (the latter edited by the distinguishedrnPolish historian Andrzej Nowak,rnwho is a close friend of professorsrnThompson and Kurczaba), have bothrnprinted translations.rnAllow me to clarify what I was tryingrnto say and what I did not mean to say inrnmy essay. I was certainly not maintainingrnthat Poland has no history of anti-rnSemitism. Alas, it does, but not to thernsame extent as its Russian and I’krainianrnFor I m m e d i a t e scrvrnCHRONICLESrnNEW SUBSCRIBERSrnTOLLFRE-L-:NUMBHRrn1-800-877-5459rnneighbors. Moreover, the interwar Polishrnrepublic did not make all possible effortsrnto assimilate its large and, for the mostrnpart, culturally alien Jewish minority. Inrnthe 1930’s, after the death of its gallantrnand magnanimous president Jozef Pilsudski,rnthe Polish goernment imposedrneducational and social disabilities on thernupwardly mobile segments of its Jewishrnpopulation.rnThis policy was plainly stupid, as assimilatedrnPolish Jewish intellectuals havernpointed out to me. For it struck preciselyrnat those Jews, like my late father-in-lawrnand my learned correspondent ProfessorrnStanley Stein, who readily identifiedrnthemselves with the P’olish nation. ThernPolonized Jewish middle class had mostrnin common with its Polish Catholicrncounterpart. Its members, not the PolishrnOrthodox Jews who were light years awayrnfrom the Poles culturally, read AdamrnMickiewicz and other patriotic poets andrnwere coming to view themselves as Polesrnin the interwar years. Despite his Jewishrnantecedents, the late Leopold Tyrmand,rnthe first editor of this magazine, was anrnoutspoken Polonophile, and one criticalrnreason for this was that he was steeped inrnPolish culture. If the Poles had playedrntheir cards right and had not beenrncrushed by the Germans and Russians,rnthey might have had many more Jewsrnwith the same orientation.rnEven so, some of the worst or ugliestrnthings that have befallen the Poles, fromrnbeing devastated by Piitler’s and Stalin’srnarmies to being savaged in the Americanrnand Canadian press, were not or are notrntheir fault. They occurred either fromrnbeing in the wrong place geographicallyrnor from having incurred the disfavor ofrnpowerful malicious enemies. Indeed,rnthe Polonophobia noted by me and myrnrespondents has neither a functional norrnrational basis. Dumping on Southernrnwhites and their historical symbolsrnmakes good sense from the standpoint ofrnthe managerial-therapeutic state. Givenrnthe South’s history of regionalism and rebellionrnagainst the central government,rnsupporters of the present Americanrnregime have every reason to play up thern”burden” of Southern history. It alsornmakes sense to play off blacks againstrnwhites, particularly Southern whites,rninasmuch as blacks are reliable backers ofrnan expanding and socially intrusive state.rnSuch a strategy continues what RadicalrnRepublicans did after the Civil War.rnOne can even concede some strategicrnvalue in having the World JewishrnCongress and its political spokesman, AlrnD’Amato, go after the Sw iss as Nazi sympathizers.rnAccusing the Swiss of pro-rnNazi sentiments for holding on to thernbank accounts of Jews who perished underrnthe Nazis may be defensible strategicallyrnfor those looking for money. ThernSwiss are loaded, and though they spentrnWorld War II armed to the teeth againstrna German invasion, they do speak a Germanrndialect, and many of them lookrnTeutonic. Though the Neue ZiircherrnZeitung and its letter writers havernprotested this shakedown, liberal Swissrnclergy and Swiss politicians capable ofrn”growth” are now calling for a “reconsiderationrnof Swiss history.” They wantrnsomething similar to the “historical revision”rnthat was undertaken by the Germansrnunder Allied pressure after WorldrnWar II. In the end, the Swiss federal governmentrnagreed to set up a “fund” thatrnwould go to the families of holocaust victims,rnthough not exclusively to thosernwith unredeemed Swiss bank accounts.rnBut Poland is neither Switzerland norrnthe American South. It is hard to seernwhat advantage, other than venting hate,rncan be gained by the recent anti-Polishrnbroadsides. Equally noteworthy, thernAmerican Jews who express or composernthese invectives have usually no direct relationrnto Poland. Their families left generationsrnago, when Poland was an occupiedrncountry, and their Jewish ancestorsrntypically came from the Pale of Settlement,rnwhich had a heavily Jewish compositionrnand was run by a Russian administration.rnAll of these generalizationsrncertainly would apply to that vocalrnAmerican Jewish Polonophobe AlanrnDershowitz, whose family migrated fromrnthe Pale of Settlement to Brooklyn in thernearly 20th century. Still other AmericanrnJews are descended from those whorncame from Galicia, a region of southernrnPoland ruled by a benevolent Austrianrnemperor, Franz Josef, when their ancestorsrnarrived in the United States in searchrnof financial opportunities. In the end,rnJews did not come to the United Statesrnbecause Poles or a Polish state oppressedrnthem, save for a negligible number thatrnarrived in the 1930’s. Nor was it Polesrnbut Ukrainians and rampaging Cossacksrnwhom Eastern European Jews associaternwith pogroms.rnI mention these circumstances to explainrnmy own surprise that AmericanrnJewish organizations, journalists, andrnmoral spokespersons harbor such intenserndislike for the Poles. Such a dislike wouldrn40/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn