To musiał być Polak

piątek, 16 czerwca 2006

To musiał być Polak

z cyklu „jednym ~~słowem~~ obrazkiem”:
from "in a single ~~word~~ picture" series:

„Polak?”
"Must be a Polish?"

Fotografia została zrobiona równo 70 lat temu, 16 czerwca 1936 r. podczas faszystowskiego wiecu Niemców z Hitlerem. Podczas gdy wszyscy podnieśli łapska w nazistowskich salucie do Hitlera, ten jeden człowiek pokazał, że ma to w ... gdzieś. Nadal pozostał anonimowy, chociaż w latach 90. i później próbowano nadać mu różne imiona, jednak ponieważ do dzisiaj już kilka różnych rodzin przywłaszcza go sobie jako swego przodka - nie ma więc pewności, kim był rzeczywiście. Dlatego uważam, że równie dobrze mógł być jednym z Polaków pracujących wtedy w Niemczech - bo czemużby nie? Jego tak buntownicza i zarazem wyraźnie prowokacyjna postawa jest przecież wręcz esencją natury Polaków.
Jeśli nawet kiedyś nie okaże się Polakiem z urodzenia, to i tak nadal możemy śmiało twierdzić, że ten odważny mężczyzna miał prawdziwie polski charakter.

ENG:
This picture was taken exactly 70 years ago, on June 16th 1936, during a nazi meeting of Germans with Hitler. When all people raised their arms in nazi salute, this one man did not. He remains anonymous (albeit since 1990's few different families claimed him to be one of their ancestors by now). And since we don't know his true identity, he might have been one of the many Poles working at that time in Germany, why not? At that time just the Polish coalminers working in German mines officially constituted of few hundred thousand men strong "foreign labourers", and lets not forget that many Poles at that time were actually living in Germany (they even had their own official "Union of Poles in Germany" and so on - obviously there were many of them since they had their own banks and offices in all major German cities).
After all, this man's so-obvious defiant stature is basically one of the very common traits of Poles, hence it is not far-fetched assumption that he may have been a Pole.
And even if his identity will ever be proven for certain and he would turn out not to be a Pole, we can still say that this brave man definitely had a very Polish nature.
And yes, I know in American English "a Pollack" is considered vulgar name for a person with Polish roots. But in Polish "Polak" (spoken exactly the same as "Pollack" in English) simply means "a Pole", a "Polish person", and I don't give a damn if them anti-Polish morons want to use it as an offensive word - you really can't offend any Polish by calling him a Pole in his mother tongue... so, them anti-Polish morons had better come up with something at least a bit more clever than just using Polish word to try to offend us! (But to do that they would need to have at least some brains, and that - obviously - we can't expect from morons)