Due to that fact, since 11th century it had been developing, along with one of Slavonic tribes, an interesting culture of contemporary Poland. Reading text of Stefan Bratkowski I remembered another text from correspondence of Jerzy Stempowski (Hostowiec) with Jerzy Giedroyc, published by Czytelnik in 1998. As I was reading it, I was fascinated with live HISTORY, not distorted by historians, politicians, ideologists and journalists. Let me quote some of fragments from first volum(pp. 134 - 154) of correspondence of "Prince" Giedroyc with one of most interesting, most open minds of 20th Century, educator of several generations of Polish humanists, Jerzy Stempowski. It was in 1950s:  

"Bern, July 18, 1957  The biggest danger for Jews is their own extremity and intolerance, eventually effecting everybody and hardest for helpless and innocent. I don't see any remedy for this. Jewish community is too fragmented, too diverse, to find a recipe that would satisfy everybody". "It is a feeling for more private use."

"Between 1904 and 1930 there occurred irreversible changes among Poles as well as among Jews. On Polish part, those were results of nation-based state concept of National Democracy party (Endecja). That concept effected whole period between two world wars. The changes on Jewish part were equally deep. In 1904, did anybody see Jews shooting their guns, escorting prisoners with guns in their hands or training granade throwing? NO. Nobody would even believe such a possibility. And in 1917-1918 those strange scenes became reality at whole area engulfed with soviet revolution and penetrated imagination of not just Poles but other people as well."  "Those changes should be completed with anti-Semitism of West, why not mention it? With a few exceptions, it were not Polish people who helped Hitler to exterminate Jews. It was done by their parla to exterminate Jews. It was done by England and America, doing a campaign and watching that nobody escapes net. It was done by their parliaments, approving policy and passing laws when everybody knew what it was all about. Even American Jews were passively watching it, apparently they believed that slaughter of Jews in Europe is a lesser calamity than their massive migration to America. And Palestine? I think leaders and participants of project did not neglect anything to create conflicts, which cannot be resolved. All powers of West contributed to that situation but their citizens did not intend to live in Palestine. All these events were unthinkable in 1904 but they dramatically altered basic components of so called "Jewish issue."

Don’t you think we should ask here whether American zealousness to explain complex aspects of Polish- Jewish conflicts is not aimed at distracting world attention from their own (American), not too impressing, attitude to holocaust?  What did Uncle Sam and robust Churchill do with reports of Jan Karski, what did IMB built its power on, what did American newspaper say about „Jewish plot”, what were Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s views of “Jewish issue”?  In 1920s and 30s in United States, just as in Poland, there were limitations in acepting Jewish candidates to study medicine and numerus clausus at Columbia University as late as 1950s; for most part quoted after "Rzeczpospolita", Krzysztof Maslon. (Years ago I had an opportunity to talk with an American psychologist who was not accepted to Columbia University in late 40s because he had filled out university questionnaire). 

Yet, even by historical standards, America seems to be provoking blanket repulsion.

The Pew Research Center published last December a report titled "What World Thinks in 2002". "The World", was reduced by pollsters to 44 countries and 38,000 interviewees. Two other surveys published last year - by German Marshall Fund and Chicago Council on Foreign Relations - largely supported Pew's findings.

The most startling and unambiguous revelation was extent of anti-American groundswell everywhere: among America's NATO allies, in developing countries, Muslim nations and even in eastern Europe where Americans, only a decade ago, were lionized as much-adulated liberators.

"People around world embrace things American and, at same time, decry U.S. influence on their societies. Similarly, pluralities in most of nations surveyed complain about American unilateralism."- expounds Pew report.

Yet, even this "embrace of things American" is ambiguous.

Violently "independent", inanely litigious and quarrelsome, solipsistically provincial, and fatuously ignorant - this nation of video clips and sound bites, United States, is often perceived as trying to impose its narcissistic pseudo-culture upon a world exhausted by wars hot and cold and corrupted by vacuous materialism.

Recent accounting scandals, crumbling markets, political scams, technological setbacks, and rising social tensions have revealed how rotten and inherently contradictory US edifice is and how concerned are Americans with appearances rather than substance.

To religious fundamentalists, America is Great Satan, a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, a cesspool of immorality and spiritual decay. To many European liberals, United states is a throwback to darker ages of religious zealotry, pernicious bigotry, virulent nationalism, and capricious misrule of mighty.

According to most recent surveys by Gallup, MORI, Council for Secular Humanism, US Census Bureau, and others - vast majority of Americans are chauvinistic, moralizing, bible-thumping, cantankerous, and trigger-happy. About half of them believe that Satan exists - not as a metaphor, but physically.

America has a record defense spending per head, a vertiginous rate of incarceration, among highest numbers of legal executions and gun-related deaths. It is still engaged in atavistic debates about abortion, role of religion, and whether to teach theory of evolution.

According to a series of special feature articles in The Economist, America is generally well-liked in Europe, but less so than before. It is utterly detested by Moslem street, even in "progressive" Arab countries, such as Egypt and Jordan. Everyone - Europeans and Arabs, Asians and Africans - thinks that "the spread of American ideas and customs is a bad thing."

Admittedly, we typically devalue most that which we have formerly idealized and idolized.

To liberal-minded, United States of America reified most noble, lofty, and worthy values, ideals, and causes. It was a dream in throes of becoming, a vision of liberty, peace, justice, prosperity, and progress. Its system, though far from flawless, was considered superior - both morally and functionally - to any ever conceived by Man.

Such unrealistic expectations inevitably and invariably lead to disenchantment, disillusionment, bitter disappointment, seething anger, and a sense of humiliation for having been thus deluded, or, rather, self-deceived. This backlash is further exacerbated by haughty hectoring of ubiquitous American missionaries of "free-market-cum-democracy" church.

Americans everywhere aggressively preach superior virtues of their homeland. Edward K. Thompson, managing editor of "Life" (1949-1961) warned against this propensity to feign omniscience and omnipotence: "Life (the magazine) must be curious, alert, erudite and moral, but it must achieve this without being holier-than-thou, a cynic, a know-it-all, or a Peeping Tom."

Thus, America's foreign policy - i.e., its presence and actions abroad - is, by far, its foremost vulnerability.

According to Pew study, image of Unites States as a benign world power slipped dramatically in space of two years in Slovakia (down 14 percent), in Poland (-7), in Czech Republic (-6) and even in fervently pro-Western Bulgaria (-4 percent). It rose exponentially in Ukraine (up 10 percent) and, most astoundingly, in Russia (+24 percent) - but from a very low base.

The crux may be that USA maintains one set of sanctimonious standards at home while egregiously and nonchalantly flouting them far and wide. Hence fervid demonstrations against its military presence in places as disparate as South Korea, Japan, Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.

In January 2000, Staff Sergeant Frank J. Ronghi sexually molested, forcibly sodomized ("indecent acts with a child") and then murdered an 11-years old girl in basement of her drab building in Kosovo, when her father went to market to do some shopping. His is by no means most atrocious link in a long chain of brutalities inflicted by American soldiers overseas. In all these cases, perpetrators were removed from scene to face justice - or, more often, a travesty thereof - back home.

Americans - officials, scholars, peacemakers, non-government organizations - maintain a colonial state of mind. Backward natives come cheap, their lives dispensable, their systems of governance and economies inherently inferior. The white man's burden must not be encumbered by vagaries of primitive indigenous jurisprudence. Hence America's fierce resistance to and indefatigable obstruction of International Criminal Court.