The Anti-Bigotry Committee of the Polish American Congress released an official letter in protest to the series of anti-Polish ethnic jokes which was used recently by late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel of ABC-TV.
The committee also alleged that the host was also heard over the Disney-owned network to have ridiculed the attempts of the Polish cavalry to defend their country against Nazi invasion which was said to have signaled the start of World War II.
Polish Americans have repeatedly sounded their objections when they were made the butt of the ethnic jests especially by the entertainment industry in the past.
TV host Kimmel publicly made clear his love for Polish jokes that he even expressed his desire to use them on his future shows so much to the ire of the Polish Americans.
Michael Preisler spearheaded the formation of the Anti-Bigotry Committee of the Polish American Congress over thirty years ago. Preisler, a Polish Catholic who survived the horrors of Auschwitz was then president of the Congress’s Downstate New York Division. He is now retired but still hold the title of Honorary President of the New York Division.
Preisler calls the malicious jokes “untermenschen” or the German term for “subhuman” or “inferior”. The word was commonly used by the Nazis to malign and degrade Jewish and Polish prisoners.
For him, the biggest Nazi joke was when Adolf Hitler claim that it was Poland who started World War II and that the Germans merely defended themselves against Polish aggression.
The Anti-Bigotry Committee submitted their protest letter to the Walt Disney Company hoping it would land on sympathetic hands given that is CEO, Robert A. Iger is of Jewish background and “whose ethnic group has often been a target like us”.
The Canada Free Press reports the protest letter of the committee to ABC-TV and Disney:
Ms. Anne Sweeney, President
Disney-ABC Television Group
77 West 66th St.
New York, NY 10023Dear Ms. Sweeney:
Re: Jimmy Kimmel Show 12/04/13
We were led to believe the problem of anti-Polish bigotry on the ABC network had been permanently resolved when we concluded our conference with Ms. Chris Hikawa held at your New York office over a decade ago. The Drew Carey show was our agenda then.
Regrettably, Jimmy Kimmel just introduced a series of Polish jokes and expressed his desire to continue them on future shows. We call this to your attention since we are of the opinion ABC has not authorized him to set broadcast standards for your organization.
As the new year approaches, please bear in mind the world will be commemorating the 75th anniversary of World War II which began with Hitler’s invasion of Poland September 1, 1939. Although the power of Germany’s military machine eventually conquered Poland, the Polish people were the first to resist the Nazis. Despite their loss, they continued to fight the Nazi hordes by providing the Allies the largest and most effective underground resistance in all of German-occupied Europe.
One of the derisive jokes Mr. Kimmel offered to denigrate their anti-Nazi struggle is based on deliberate German misinformation given news reporters when the first battles of the war were taking place. The exuberant Nazis embellished the story of their victory by claiming the Polish cavalry was “so stupid” that its horsemen were ordered to attack the German tanks with nothing more than just a lance in their hands.
It is a matter of record the story has long ago been discredited as being Nazi misinformation and typical German propaganda intended to humiliate and demoralize their enemy. Also, to impress their own German soldiers with a belief their superior German blood makes them forever invincible against their inferior foes. Polish veterans who survived the war and joined the Polish American Congress after emigrating to the United States are some of those authorities who challenge this German propaganda.
Hitler’s racist and xenophobic campaign was most intensively directed against the Jewish and the Polish people. Every German was to believe he or she was part of the “Master Race” and Jews and Slavic people like the Poles were “untermenschen,” the German word for “subhuman” or “inferior.” Mr. Kimmel, himself, described us as “stupid” when he was ridiculing us on his show. His was as much an “untermenschen” statement as one which would have come from the mouth of an arrogant Nazi death camp guard who had become accustomed to regularly calling Poles “swine” and Jews “vermin.”
We offer this historical background because a book published this year, “The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler” charges America’s major movie studios of allowing Nazi propaganda in films they produced in the years leading to World War II. Many spokespersons for your industry are vehemently trying to deny such charges at this time. Nonetheless, a stigma remains and overshadows the image of the industry in which Disney-ABC Television is prominent.
It may be in the interest of Disney-ABC Television to seriously consider the implications of Mr. Kimmel’s revival of ethnic degradation which goes beyond the parameters of acceptable ethnic humor and enters the sphere of a racial philosophy not much different from what the Jewish and Polish “untermenschen” had to face when Hitler and his Nazis established their reign of terror in Poland nearly 75 years ago.
We trust you will be able to assure us Mr. Kimmel understands he represents himself as well as the Disney name when he appears before your cameras. His personal prejudices should remain his own and you would do well to prohibit him from discrediting the great respect the Disney name had accrued in the years that preceded his association with the Disney organization.
Sincerely yours,
Frank Milewski
Chair