A Polish Politician Extinguishes a Hanukkah Menorah. What do you do when the worst stereotypes seem to be true?

 

A Polish Politician Extinguishes a Hanukkah Menorah

What do you do when the worst stereotypes seem to be true?

 

Grzegorz Michal Braun is a 56-year-old Polish parliamentarian. On Tuesday, December 12, 2023, Braun used a fire extinguisher to snuff out the candles on a Hanukkah menorah erected in the Polish Parliament, the Sejm (pronounced "Same"). Warsaw Rabbi Shalom Stambler and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Piotr Zgorzelski had lighted the candles. The rabbi was accompanied by two of his children, ages 7 and 11. Chabad Rabbi Stambler has been lighting Hanukkah candles in the Sejm for the past seventeen years.

 

A Jewish woman, Dr. Magdalena Gudzinska-Adamczyk, physically confronted Braun and attempted to stop him. He sprayed her in her face and she required medical attention. She displayed courage in spite of being a petite woman, smaller than Braun (photo here). She later said, "I have stopped feeling safe in this country." Dr. Gudzinska-Adamczyk also said, "This is my religious symbol, I have the right to defend it, because we live in a free, democratic country. And no one has the right to direct a powder extinguisher in my face because I am defending my religious symbol."

 

Attempting to justify his crime immediately afterward, Braun said, "Those who take part in acts of satanic worship should be ashamed … There can be no place for the acts of this racist, tribal, wild Talmudic cult on the premises of the Sejm … You are not aware of the message of this act innocently called Hanukkah … I am restoring a state of normality by putting an end to acts of satanic, racist triumphalism because that is the message of these holidays." His statement was booed by other parliamentarians.

 

Braun's antisemitic vandalism was immediately and widely condemned, including by members of his own party.

 

"All decent people think exactly the same thing, this is an unacceptable thing, this must never happen again. This is a disgrace," said Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who assumed office on December 13, 2023.

 

Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich told Reuters by telephone that Braun's actions were not representative of Poland and that he was "embarrassed" by them.

 

"I declare that I am ashamed and apologize to the entire Jewish community in Poland," said Cardinal Grzegorz Rys.

 

Mariusz Blaszczak is chairman of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc, or Law and Justice Party Parliamentary club. Law and Justice is a right-wing party; it recently lost its parliamentary majority. Blaszczak said that "Braun should be expelled from Confederation," that is, Braun's own party should expel him. "If he is not expelled, it will mean Krzysztof Bosak [the head of Braun's party] stands by him, and he [Bosak] should step down as deputy speaker of the Sejm … There is no justification for the attack because it was an attack on Poland … It is an attack conducted by a man who is either completely irresponsible or someone who acts to the detriment of our country."

 

Piotr Glinski, former Deputy Prime Minister and current Sejm member also spoke on behalf of Law and Justice. "I am turning to the Confederation community," he said, addressing Braun's party. "We are crossing a terrible line in politics … This is aggression not only on religious grounds, but also on interpersonal grounds. There were little children there. This is not to be defended and not to be spun."

 

The New Left Party filed a motion for Krzysztof Bosak to be dismissed from his deputy speaker post because he allowed Braun to speak after the vandalism.

 

Slawomir Mentzen, co-leader of Confederation, suspended Braun from the party and from speaking in the Sejm.

 

Szymon Holownia, the Speaker of the Sejm, called Braun's act "absolutely scandalous … Poland is home to all religions." Holownia banned Braun from Tuesday's Sejm session and reported his act to prosecutors. Holownia penalized Braun to the maximum extent that he could by withholding half of his parliamentary salary for three months and his full parliamentary allowance for six months. "The entire parliament leadership supported the decision, except the Confederation party representative, Krzysztof Bosak, who abstained from the vote," reports JNS.

 

A popular fundraising site blocked collections for Braun. They released the following statement. "At Zrzutka we want to be a place that promotes positive initiatives and social values. Therefore, we encourage you to support the collection 'Let's Ignite New Hanukkah Candles' established in agreement with POLIN Museum, one of the aims of which will be implementation of general anti-discrimination workshops.'"

 

On December 14, The Jewish Community Center in Krakow posted on its Facebook page, "An incredible ceremony of lighting the last Hanukkah candle took place in the Sejm, attended by the President, the Speakers of the Sejm and Senate along with the Chief Rabbi of Poland. We are extremely pleased with the presence of approximately 200 people who came to the Sejm for this ceremony, to show solidarity with the Jewish community and oppose antisemitism. The shameful act of a radically right MP two days ago was a sign of hatred by one man. Today's large number of participants is a reaction of support from many different sides. Thank you to everyone for being there and taking a stand against antisemitism."

 

Telewizja Polska asked if Grzegorz Braun was a useful idiot of the Kremlin, or just an idiot. "Be it one individual's psychotic break or a sponsored and deliberate act of hybrid warfare against Poland, Grzegorz Braun does a huge disservice to Poland and its image abroad," they wrote. They suspected that social media support for Braun was astroturf. "Russians are known for using bots to create an impression of support for whatever dubious cause they happen to be championing at the moment. We could see it on YouTube, with people applauding Braun in the comments sections, mostly from anonymous, likely fake, accounts. It doesn't mean there aren't some Poles who admire Grzegorz Braun's actions but they are a fringe group with little to no impact on Polish politics and society."

 

TVP added that Braun's act can and will be used against Poland. "Russian propagandists will undoubtedly try to paint Poland as a country full of Nazis. This is concerning as it may point to Russian preparations for aggression, hybrid or open, against Poland. By first weakening and humiliating Poland on the world stage, Russian propagandists are making the West less sympathetic to the Polish cause."

 

Michael Rubenfeld is a Canadian Jew. His YouTube channel records his life in Poland. He said that Braun is "a psycho. He's always been a psycho." He said that "We in Poland know that this isn't Poland." Rubenfeld is "proud" of how Poland's leaders responded to Braun's vandalism. He acknowledged, though, that "This is not a good look for Poland" and "This is going to serve as ammunition for people who have got it out for Poland. Jews are going to say, 'See? I was right all along. Everybody is an antisemite in Poland. I knew it. I told you. Look at the fire extinguisher!'"

 

Of course some praised Braun's vandalism. "Grzegorz Braun is a hero of Islamists in Turkey. They pray that God will make him a Muslim," reported Gazeta Wyborcza.

 

Grzegorz Braun's Konfederacja Wolnosc i Niepodleglosc or Confederation Liberty and Independence party received less than ten percent of the votes in 2019, the year Braun first won his seat; see here and here for recent numbers. Braun has a history of extreme behavior. In May, 2023, Holocaust scholar Jan Grabowski was delivering a lecture in Warsaw when Braun approached, grabbed Grabowski's microphone, and began to smash it against the podium, saying, "Dosyc tego," or "Enough of that." Braun also vandalized the loudspeakers.

 

In 2020, Braun accused the US of a "colonization-plus or maybe even occupation-plus" approach to Poland. Braun opposes what he calls the "Ukrainization of Poland," or "Ukropolin" – a paranoid vision of "Poland where Ukrainians have more rights than Poles." An online video shows Braun debating with a nun at a Catholic book fair. Braun is horrified that books by "heretical" Protestant publishers are allowed. The nun says she was not aware of being filmed and asks that the film be deleted which, of course, it was not. In January, 2023, Braun was accused of illegally removing a Christmas tree from Krakow's district court and placing it in the trash because its decorations honored Ukraine and the European Union. In 2021, Braun threatened Poland's health minister with hanging.

 

In 2017, Braun directed Luter i rewolucja protestancka, Luther and the Protestant Revolution. This documentary presents an unflattering depiction of Martin Luther. It also presents a Utopian image of Catholic Europe before the Protestant Reformation. The documentary's publicity poster uses a sixteenth-century image of Martin Luther as "the devil's bagpipe," see here.  

 

Braun's ties to Russia have raised suspicions. "Tomasz Piatek, a Polish investigative journalist who has researched Braun, documented him making a trip to Russia to meet with Leonid Sviridov, a Russian propagandist for the Kremlin who was expelled from Poland and the Czech Republic on suspicions of espionage," reports the AP.

 

Braun's thuggish behavior cannot be attributed to a rough-and-tumble background. Braun's father, Kazimierz Braun, is a director and university professor who has taught in the US. Braun's grandfather, Juliusz Braun was a lawyer, professor, underground fighter, and political prisoner of the post-war Communist occupiers of Poland. Other members of his family are similarly persons of advanced education and accomplishment. As my Polish friend Piotr Sitarek said, Braun "is certainly a member of the intelligentsia. He speaks in a highly sophisticated, archaic manner which you could even see as charming, if you discounted what was the actual content of his speeches."

 

Here in New Jersey, I learned of Braun's Warsaw vandalism shortly after it occurred. A friend who knows of my interest in Polish matters sent me, via social media, the breaking news. I watched the online video and felt heartsick. If my friend had sent me video of Grzegorz Braun, in the Sejm, during a holiday celebration, defecating on a Polish flag, or urinating on a statue of Saint John Paul II, I would have felt similar disgust, rage, and grief.

 

I felt my own pain. I felt others' pain. I felt the pain of Jews around the world for whom life has been newly challenging since October 7.

 

I felt pain for Poles. I felt pain for Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883), author of "Zydowie polscy," a groundbreaking poem that honors and embraces Poland's Jews. I felt pain for Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841-1910), whose novels were considered for a Nobel Prize. She focused on Poland's Jews. Of her oeuvre, one scholar writes, "Orzeszkowa brings together on old Polish nobleman and a Jewish watchmaker and makes them discover the amazing similarity of their respective human experiences … No justice can be done to these works without mentioning the genuine human warmth permeating many of these images, and their well-documented ability to move both the Polish and Polish-Jewish readers for whom they were intended."

 

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the Odessa-born Zionist and eventual commander of the Irgun, made a pilgrimage in 1905 to Orzeszkowa's home to meet with this "famous Polish author," this "white-haired lady." His praise for her is high. In his autobiography, Jabotinsky calls Orzeszkowa "a friend of the Jews … a noble personality … a humanist … generous … her manners full of that ancient courtoisie … a noble soul."

 

When they met, Poland was still partitioned by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Polish nationalists like Orzeszkowa wanted a Poland where schoolchildren could study in Polish, where the Polish flag that adorned her salon would be the national flag, where Polish people could advance beyond a semi-feudal economy. The prominent Polish politician on the world stage pushing this agenda was Roman Dmowski. Dmowski worked very hard for Polish statehood. Dmowski was an antisemite.

 

Nationalism was also on the rise among Jews, and some Jews felt more connected to Jewish identity than Polish. Some wanted schools to use the Yiddish language; others wanted school instruction in Hebrew. Ukrainians also lived within borders claimed by Polish nationalists; they had their demands, too. Jabotinsky and Orzeszkowa discussed the clashing demands of Poland's splintering groups.

 

Orzeszkowa observed "with quiet sadness," "All my life I tried to promote mutual understanding and neighborly peace between your people and mine Apparently I worked in vain."

 

Watching Braun's thuggery, I felt sad for the over seven thousand "Righteous" Poles who rescued Jews while under Nazi occupation, the worst occupation for rescuers in all of Europe. Most of their stories of heroism and sacrifice will never be known, especially while haters like Grzegorz Braun hog the spotlight with their lunatic stunts.

 

I felt sad for the entire human race. We have to view so much ugliness, and Braun's stunt was just more ugliness in a world that is already saturated.

 

I am the author of Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture. Given that, as the book's title suggests, I am concerned with negative stereotyping of Poles as brutes, one might conclude that my reaction to Braun's vandalism would be to do everything I could to shore up Poland's international image. That assumption would be wrong. There is more important work to be done here. Work that must always be done when a member of a stereotyped group seems to prove every negative stereotype true.

 

Polish-Jewish relations are complex, and my book is correspondingly complex. My goal is very much not to "defend Poland's good name." Rather, my goal is to talk about how distorted images of Poles are exploited to distort history, morality, and decision-making regarding crises. This distortion matters very much outside of Poland. The Brute Polak is cousin to "White Trash" here in the US. Whenever poor people lacking formal education are scapegoated by elites as the sole cause of a pressing problem, you encounter the brute. For those who would like to get a sense of what the book is about but who don't want to read it, there are a couple of YouTube videos, here, and here.

 

On October 7, 2023, Muslim terrorists invaded Israel and committed unspeakable atrocities against hundreds of innocent and defenseless Jewish civilians and others, including Thais and Nepalis. That event is still echoing in the minds of aware people around the world. We feel for the victims and we fear wider cataclysm. After October 7, antisemites seemed to crawl out from under every rock, from the streets of London to congressional hearing rooms where Ivy League presidents gave answers that chilled the blood. Israel is at war. Arabs and Jews are dying and we all worry that those deaths might lead to more, and more, and more deaths. We worry about our own lives. We know that terrorist tentacles reach very far and in terrorists' eyes, and in their ideology, we are all nothing more than their chosen prey.

 

Poland is the country in which the Nazis carried out much of their "Final Solution." Auschwitz, Birkenau, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno, Majdanek, the Warsaw Ghetto, the Lodz Ghetto, were all in Nazi-occupied Poland. Pogroms, such as in Kielce, took place after the war. In 1968, the Soviet-Communist-dominated government of Poland pressured Poland's remaining Jews to leave.

 

All of these factors, from decades ago and from today's headlines, make Braun's vandalism particularly sickening. This isn't just about extinguishing candles. Braun's act is a reflection of a profoundly evil mind and a sick soul. If the Brauns of this world had more power, Heaven knows what the world would look like. Perhaps fires for "heretic" Protestants would fill the air with ash, just as Braun filled the air with choking debris during his vile stunt.

 

Jews have been in Poland for a thousand years. By the late seventeenth century, nearly seventy-five percent of all the Jews in the world lived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Jews were ten percent of the population. That ten percent was culturally distinct and significant. Eighty percent of Polish Catholics were peasants, often serfs. They were rural, they lacked formal education, and they rarely handled money or engaged in business. Jews were more likely to be urban, literate, and involved in business. Jews were associated with books, for example, not just as readers, but as book merchants.

 

Jewish characters like Mickiewicz's Jankiel and Wyspianski's Rachel star as heroes in Polish literature. The late Columbia University professor of Slavic and comparative literature, Harold B. Segel, wrote that "'Judeophilic' or 'philo-Semitic' traditions of Polish literature … were impressive and have no parallels elsewhere in Europe … Polish literature is a literature of Jewish experience; indeed, it is the greatest European literature of Jewish experience … Poland has the richest Jewish history of any country in Europe, and one of the richest in the world … dry statistics can scarcely do justice to the impact of the Jewish presence on the Polish consciousness." Polish and Jewish culture intertwined. Potato pancakes and borscht, the words "shmata" and "kishka," sarcastic humor, a dark worldview, and a stubborn insistence on carrying on in spite of all obstacles are all shared by Poles and Jews.

 

It has been said and said truly, there is no Poland without Jews, and there is no Jewish history without Poland. I close Bieganski with these lines. "There is a legend, perhaps true, perhaps only necessary, that the fourteenth-century King Kazimierz the Great, who proverbially found a Poland of wood and left a Poland of stone, had a Jewish companion, Esterka, who, in spite his four other wives, was the love of his life, and the mother of his children. In Aaron Zeitlin's 1932 play, Kazimierz voices to Esterka the ineluctable bonds between Poles and Jews. 'We shall die. But so long as your race and mine inhabit this earth, it is not ended.'"

 

In 1981, Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski alluded to another reason why Poles and Jews will always share important physical, ethical, and spiritual territory.

 

"I did not manage to save

 

a single life

 

I did not know how to stop

 

a single bullet

 

and I wander around cemeteries

 

which are not there

 

I look for words

 

which are not there

 

I run

 

to help where no one called

 

to rescue after the event

 

I want to be on time

 

even if I am too late."

 

We all want to be on time, even if we are too late.

 

Polish-Jewish relations will never be ended for Poles and Jews, but also for the rest of humanity. Eva Hoffman wrote that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was an experiment in multiculturalism before the word "multiculturalism" was invented. When Szymon Holownia said that "Poland is home to all religions," he might have sounded, to some, very Woke and twenty-first century. In fact that's not the case. Catholic Poland united with a significantly still Pagan Lithuania in 1386. The 1264 Statute of Kalisz granted Jews remarkable rights and freedoms. Muslims have lived in Poland continuously since the 1300s. While the rest of Europe was fighting the wars of religion, Poland was a "state without stakes." In 1573, the Warsaw Confederation guaranteed religious freedom. Poland was never perfect. But at its best, Poland was an example of co-existence.

 

Everyone on the planet could root for that concept – for the idea of a country where diverse people tried to figure out how to get along, and sometimes managed to work it out. There's a famous photo of Pope John Paul II, in his white papal vestments, and Rabbi Elio Toaff, a white-and-black-striped tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl, draped around his shoulders. The pope and the rabbi are holding each other's hand and beaming smiles at each other. Any good person's heart might be warmed by such an image of peaceful and mutually appreciative comity.

 

Yes, many times people did not manage to work out being different, and yet living side by side. People tend to know the tragic side of the story. The part they don't know about is the co-existence, or the love. In 1987, I was listening in on an impassioned debate about Polish-Jewish relations in the foyer of the Piast dormitory in Krakow, Poland. Young scholars were head to head; in previous debates, they had come to blows.

 

An elderly woman spoke up, cutting through the tension, the theory, the macho posturing, and the citations. She was an eyewitness in April, 1919, when Polish troops, commanded by the legendary Jozef Pilsudski, retook Wilno from the Red Army. She spoke of how much she admired Pilsudski, who is a Polish national hero. He was her hero, her hero as a young Jewish girl. She then began to describe the beauty of the apple tree that was outside her window in her childhood home in Wilno. "I loved that apple tree, my apple tree, my Polish apple tree, my Polish-Jewish apple tree!" she insisted, as she broke down in tears. None of the scholars present could formulate an argument in support or in refutation of this woman's love.

 

I can't limn the full complexity of Polish-Jewish relations here. No matter what is said, someone on one side or the other will respond with, "Yeah, well, what about … " or "You didn't mention … " and, therefore, "You are clearly biased!" I've been accused of being both secretly Jewish and a representative of a reactionary Catholic cult. I can, though, say the following.

 

I've written pieces for Front Page Magazine that are critical of aspects of black American culture. Those aspects include a rationalization of criminality, out-of-wedlock births, and victim mentality. I've also been critical of Islam. When I write these pieces, I wonder how my black and Muslim neighbors and former students would respond to my words. I can imagine them being hurt. I don't want to hurt them. I want to invite them to a more positive culture. The first step in that journey is to recognize the failings of one's own group, to publicly acknowledge those failings, to renounce them, and to speak up for the better way.

 

It isn't helpful to say "Well blacks have suffered so we cannot hold them to the same standard we hold others." It isn't helpful to say, "Well, we aren't Muslims so we can't criticize their beliefs." It isn't helpful to say "Criminals" or "terrorists" "are just a small minority. The majority of Muslims are good people." It really, really isn't helpful to say, "White people" or "Christians" "have done bad things" so they somehow deserve to be victims of black criminals or Muslim terrorists. Whataboutism, a Communist propaganda technique, also doesn't help. "Oh, a member of my group did a bad thing. But what about when a member of your group did a bad thing? Huh?"

 

I reject all the above mentioned methods of deflection when it comes to antisemitism in Poland. Yes, Poles have suffered. Polish suffering is no excuse for Braun's act. No, I don't live in Poland. Yes, I can still speak up about Polish antisemitism. Yes, Braun's party is small. We know all too well that minority parties and minority populations can wreak havoc. The Nazis were a tiny, fringe party that many laughed at. President Obama dismissed ISIS, the Islamic State, as the "JV team." Some say, "Well what about when Jews do negative things?" I will not be thrown off track by whataboutism. Braun's act needs to be addressed, no matter what anyone else has done or said.

 

I don't know if the social media posts I've seen supporting Braun, on Facebook and YouTube are astroturf or bots. On Braun's Facebook page, there are posts calling for Poland to develop nuclear weapons and to retake its former territory, which would require Poland to invade and conquer Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine, from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea. Clearly, this is delusional. The fact is, though, that no matter how fringe Braun is, no matter how delusional his supporters are, the posts supportive of him reflect a significant trend in Polish culture.

 

Antisemitism is a trend in Poland. It has risen and fallen, along with Poland's larger fate in the international arena. There are reasons antisemitism reached its height in the inter-war era; for a detailed explanation, read my book. Today, Poland is widely recognized as one of the safest countries in Europe for Jews; again, there are geopolitical and historical reasons for that. All that being said, antisemitism exists in Poland today, and it exists among Poles abroad. I am wary of any attempt to assign percentages to this antisemitism; methods strike me as flawed. The Poles and Polish Americans I associate with are not antisemites. But I witness antisemitism on social media.

 

This antisemitism involves a great deal of denial and of unhealthy fantasy. Antisemites like Braun imagine into existence a Poland that literally never existed. Poland was never "purely" Polish or "purely" Catholic. The Catholic church, my church, was never perfect. The Catholic church sex abuse crisis made headlines in Poland as elsewhere. See, for example, the 2019 documentary, Tylko nie mów nikomu, Tell No One. Church leaders in Poland responded to this heartbreaking documentary by expressing regret and vowing to make necessary changes.

 

Roman Dmowski (1864-1939) was an antisemite; he is a hero to contemporary Polish antisemites. He insisted that Catholicism was an essential part of Polish identity. The falsehood of Dmowski's position is demonstrated by Dmowski himself. Dmowski was not religious and was possibly an atheist. He was a student of biology. He was inspired by Social Darwinism. As scholar Joanna Kulska writes, "Roman Dmowski, who himself was not a religious person, considered Catholicism not as an addition to Polishness but as an element which constitutes its essence. He was the one who created the concept of 'The Pole–The Catholic' as part of political discourse." Dmowski described Jewishness in biological terms. "A Jewish woman will always be a Jew, a Jewish man: a Jew. They have another skin, they smell differently, they carry the evil among the nations." Dmowski also said that "Every Pole will be an enemy of every German he meets."

 

It's more than a bit ironic that Grzegorz Braun has a German surname. It's possible that he, through some ancestor, is related to Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress. There are many prominent Poles with German surnames. Oskar Kolberg, a world class folklorist, was the son of a German father and a French mother. August Emil Fieldorf a World War II hero, commanded the unit that assassinated Nazi SS and Police Leader Franz Kutschera. Saint Maximilian Kolbe gave his life for another in Auschwitz. Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were martyred by the Nazis for helping Jews. As is evident from their German surnames, all these great Poles had German ancestry. We do not reject them for that. And, of course, our national composer, Frederic Chopin, had a French father and he spent much of his life in France.

 

Conversely, there are famous Germans with Polish last names or of Polish ancestry, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Klaus Kinski, and Charles Bukowski. Our national poem, Pan Tadeusz, opens in praise of Lithuania. A Polish national style of dress associated with the nobility was inspired by Turkish dress. Hasidic Jews, in turn, fashioned their traditional garb after this Polish style of dress. And of course having pure and noble Polish blood, and undergoing a rigorous Catholic upbringing, is no guarantee of virtue. One of the most evil men who ever lived, the author of incalculable human suffering, was a Polish nobleman, who was raised and educated as a good Catholic boy. Felix Dzerzhinsky founded the Soviet secret police.

 

Polish antisemites imagine that Jews are conspiring to take over Poland, to reduce Polish people to second class citizens, and to strut about dominating others with their supernatural Jewish power. It's difficult to know how to address delusions that bizarre. Delusional grandiosity is accompanied by protestations of weakness. Polish antisemites repeat how helpless, how weak, how ineffectual Poles are. I have been running a Polish-themed blog for thirteen years. I focus on false and negative images of Poles in popular media and education. A frequently repeated post is one that says, paraphrase, "We can't do anything to change this. We have no power. The Jews have all the power." Antisemitism isn't just bad for Jews. It is bad for antisemites. Insisting that you are nothing but a helpless little loser, while you simultaneously insist that Jews run the world, is a self-destructive worldview.

 

Braun's vandalism disgusted me, yes, because it occurred so soon after October 7, when the world is still wounded from what has been called the deadliest and cruelest day for Jews since the Holocaust. There was another aspect of his crime that troubled me. In videos of the event, Braun has hunched posture; he appears neckless. His face is blank. It doesn't look as if he is incapable of cognition; he looks as if he has flipped a switch to turn off any cognition that might take place. He looks as if he is assuming a self-administered stupidity. He moves as if he has chosen to regress down the evolutionary ladder towards the cave dweller. "Oh my God," I thought. "This demented fool is a living representative of the Brute Polak stereotype." His ugliness, as Michael Rubenfeld pointed out, will erase the best of Poland. That's Braun's other crime. The world needs beauty. It needs heroes and faith and hope and light. Braun didn't just extinguish candle flame. He tried to extinguish Orzeszkowa, the Ulma family, John Paul II. I want to do whatever I can to resist that. My resistance is not to make excuses, or pretend that this is not part of my fellow Poles' and Polonians' culture, or to play the whataboutism game. No. I want to do what I ask black friends and Muslims friends to do. Admit the problem. And renounce what I have admitted is there, and needs to change. And to carry the light forward.

 

Danusha Goska is the author of God Through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery