RE: [Cz-L] 115 year old postcard

Many European Jews spoke German as a way of separating themselves from the "peasant" or less educated. Elitism is as old as the hills. Its also alive and well today.

Shelley

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On Sun, 3/9/14, Charles Polak <charles.polak_at_bbc.co.uk> wrote:

 Subject: RE: [Cz-L] 115 year old postcard
 To: "'HARDY BREIER'" <HARDY3_at_BEZEQINT.NET>, "Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu" <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
 Date: Sunday, March 9, 2014, 8:23 PM
 
 I find the idea of some
 German-speaking smartarse or clever-clogs (whether an ethnic
 German or a local Jew who identifies with the German
 language) making a truism or mere cliché of how
 congenitally stupid Slavic hill-people are extremely
 repugnant and racist. Probably that was part of the mind-set
 in Austria-Hungary: not a lost paradise, but a precursor to
 the worst that was to come in the inter-War years and the
 Shoah.
 
 Charles Polák
 mailto:charles.polak_at_bbc.co.uk
 

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Received on 2014-03-09 19:16:19