Polish mathematicians and film credits

I was one of the last, for the lack of better word generations to remember PRL and to sense the influence of the communism on everyday life. We could travel more or less freely to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yogoslavia and other countries. Lots of countries which don't exist anymore. Come to think of it I do hope it's just a coincidence, what with Scotland planning to gain independence.


We could not travel freely to France, Great Britain and other countries which were our pre-war allies. But this last bit was not important. It was the free world. The mythical West where people were free to do whatever they wanted but seemed to have little or no interest in history or international politics and forgot about us.
So when I was a child people who made it to the West and made it in the West were sort of a legend. They definitely had glossy lives, ate oranges and tangerines as much as they wanted and could express their political opinions without the fear of being persecuted. I bet my bother would add something about their cars (I was not that bothered, I really liked our Lada 1500s).

We had a bit of a game, my brother and I. We loved to watch film credits to see what Polish names would come up and silently salute with faster heartbeats the people who made it in the West. Well, ok, I did. But he watched the credits, too.

Some people we knew or we knew of indeed made it to the West. For instance one of my Dad's colleagues escaped to Switzerland with his family. He was kind and at the same time silly enough to send a postcard. My Dad was in the army. He got called for questioning by the militia pretty quickly.
Then there was my uncle on my mother's side who knew someone in the US and so got an invitation and spent a few years working there (of course, as a builder), came back, built a huge house, and started a big family.
There were of course actors, directors, musicians and writers, commonly known as the Usual Suspects.
And obviously almost the whole of Silesia, the lucky bastards, who could claim German citizenship if they had enough evidence, and most of them had. The citizenship was not that attractive if their ancestors came from what later became East Germany, which is probably why some of them stayed in Poland.

It is still a national sport to trace tracks of Poles in the world and "claim what's ours". Sometimes it's petty, like with Roman Polanski, who's either Polish when he gets his Oscar or Jewish when he's being chased for intercourse with a minor. Sometimes it's absurdly touching, like when the Polish War Memorial comes up in the traffic news (apologies to anyone who ever got stuck in traffic around the Polish War Memorial - it's really not about wishing you bad). And sometimes it's just with irritation, like when you drive past the signs "Welcome to Bletchley, home of the codebreakers".

Because somewhere along the way it actually becomes important that, you know, we were one of the allies and we made quite an effort during the war, too.
Ever little Polish child knows that Enigma code was cracked by the Poles in 1932 and handed over to the French and the British 2 months before the beginning of the war. It was us, it was us, it was us! <stomp feet repeatedly>

There is a great, insatiable need in Poles for validation, for praise, for admiration. It's always struck me as something pathetic that we come across as a 40 million strong bunch of attention seekers who get so caught up in the memories of our grandeur that we gloss over our present shortcomings and diminish our present achievements. I'm guilty as charged - I get annoyed when people think that Marie Curie was French.
It's that need that reduces our voice to the squeal "If it wasn't for us, the whole of Europe would be German now!".
We don't do ourselves any justice that way. It's not pride. It's just unrequited love.

Yes, Bletchley is the home of the codebreakers. Polish mathematicians were the codebreakers, too, which every little child is going to find out about should their parents take them to the Bletchely Park. There's nothing to get stroppy about. We just do our thing and we'll have plenty more Marie Sklodowska-Curies. Self esteem is something that you either have or not, you hardly ever gain respect by stomping your feet, and busting stereotypes is not about perpetuating more convenient ones.

Not sure if it helps you understand your Polish neighbour... I suppose it will if only you remember that getting over an unrequited love is not an easy thing and maybe your neighbour hasn't done it yet.