Hollywood's War with Poland, 1939-1945

Preface

ix Preface Hollywood presented a fundamentally distorted and negative portrayal of Poland and the Poles during the Second World War. An American citizen whose knowledge of the war was derived exclusively from the movies would be unsympathetic if not hostile to Poland and understanding if not supportive of Soviet policies directed against Poland’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The number of Americans who fell into this category is impossible to determine, but it was doubtless large. Moreover, even for those for whom the movies were but one source of information, films had at least some effect, and for the Poles that effect was negative. This conclusion is based on a careful consideration of scores of films and on the reconstruction of the evolution of stories from literary property through various “treatments” into ever changing scripts. This reconstruction has been supplemented by evaluations of the films and their political content provided by governmental agencies. In addition to studying the films closely, I have consulted many memoirs, letters , diaries, and memoranda by screenwriters, directors, studio heads, actors, and other film employees. Discussions of Slavs in American cinema are few, and of the Poles, very few. All of them are characterized by sweeping allegations based on a small sample of films. For the average American, “going to the movies” usually meant watching cheap and artless efforts, not just attending a few major productions. It is thus only by considering a great many films, not just a handful of lasting impression, that we can sense the cumulative effects of the films on the public. Hence my examples are many and far ranging. That Poland was treated very negatively is beyond question. Why this was so is more difficult to determine. The principal factor was the desire by the political Left, especially the Communist Party, to gain sympathy for, and promote the foreign policy interests of, the Soviet Union. Undermining Poland’s claim on the support of the American public was a direct contribution to promoting Soviet political and territorial ambitions. That Poland had long been regarded by the political Left as an inveterate enemy of the Soviets made this effort more passionate. In Hollywood, the Left, therefore, was ideologically antiPolish . This disposition complemented the foreign policy of the Roosevelt administration, which regarded close wartime cooperation with Moscow as fundamental. Poland had very considerable grievances against the Soviets, and any consideration of them complicated relations with Moscow. Simply put, the American government could be either proRussian or pro-Polish; there was no compromise position. For reasons of realpolitik, it chose the former. This made it a functional ally of the Hollywood Left. Much has been written about the relations between New Deal liberalism and the radical Left. In Hollywood, at least over Poland, they worked in tandem.1 These are the main factors that explain Hollywood’s treatment of Poland and the Poles during World War II. But they are merely the central features of a complex landscape. Poland was presented the way it was as a result of the interaction of many factors imbedded in the ethnic mosaic of the United States, including the Poles’ relationship with other minority groups, especially the Jewish community. Polish-Jewish relations haunt the story even though they were rarely specifically addressed. That World War II brought both the Holocaust of the Jews and the ruination of Poland, themes Hollywood avoided, makes this discussion especially sensitive and significant. Finally, theAmerican conception of World War II as “the good war,” in which villains and heroes were clearly distinguished and moral ambiguity was banished, required avoiding radical doubts about the worthiness of the Soviet Union as an ally of the United States. Norway and France, Czechoslovakia and England were all victims of Nazi rapacity . Discussing any of them merely underscored the moral clarity of the war. Poland, however, was different. It was invaded, occupied, and abused by both Germany and Russia. Poland raised the radical question about the Soviet Union’s place in the coalition of the righteous. x Preface But since the Soviets were obviously paying the largest price in the struggle to defeat Nazism, entertaining doubts about their fitness raised awkward questions about the cynicism and ruthlessness of American foreign policy. Such questions could not coexist with the self-confident rectitude of a country off to war singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Poland had to be ignored to salve the American conscience. At base, Poland’s fate in...