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Message: [QUOTE="EricLA, post: 4014051, member: 26"] Seeing as I'm Polish (last name Otfinoski), I feel I need to chime in. Do you know why the modern day Polish jokes started? It was back after WWII. When Germany rolled thru numerous countries (including Czechoslovakia), the locals did not fight back and laid down their arms (it's a reason Prague was not razed or bombed). The Poles, however, being a proud (but poor) people, tried to defend their country and families. They rode out on horses armed with pick axes, rakes, and other farming tools since that was all they had. They attacked the German tanks and machine gun wielding soldiers. Obviously the Poles were slaughtered. Hence the "dumb Pole" jokes that perpetuated for almost a century now. Me on the soap box - instead of making fun of them for fighting when they had 0 chance to win, people ought to praise them for being brave martyrs in a fight they were destined to lose. I, for one, am very proud of my Polish heritage. Of all the former Soviet Block countries, Poland has become the most prosperous, sophisticated, and financially secure country in spite of their "dumb" heritage... :) Just wanted to add additionally, the Nazi's propaganda machine was horrifyingly incredible as they were able to ultimately convince most of their people that it was ok to murder millions of people who were "inferior". Historically, Presumably the first Polish jokes by German fleeing war-torn Europe were brought to the USA in the late 1940s. These jokes were fueled by ethnic slurs disseminated by German National Socialist propaganda, which attempted to justify the Nazis' murdering of Poles by presenting them as "[I]dreck[/I]"—dirty, stupid and inferior. Please note I'm not equating the slaughter of Poles with what happened to the Jews, or even the 10 million Russians who died defending their country, but the "dumb Pole" label was also part of the Nazi propaganda machine designed to dehumanize them and make it easier for the German people to accept the extermination of people from the country that stood up to Nazi Germany with no hope of winning. [/QUOTE]

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