I was born in 1947, and I remember when Polish jokes were the “craze.” At the time I didn’t understand why Polish people were the brunt of the jokes, and of course the Italians, Irish, Blacks, etc., were included in stupid jokes that were passed around. Now that I’m older, I’ve learned what the Polish people went through under the Nazis, and the Russians. By the way, I visited Bletchley Park on a trip to England in 2007. That was before they’d decided to “save” it and preserve it for posterity. It was still a very interesting visit despite the dilapidated condition of the place. The day I was there, a little, old lady who had worked at Bletchley was visiting, and we stopped to listen to her talk about her time there. She was living in Sheffield when she was working there. She was asked about the movie “Enigma” that had come out in 2001, and she said it was a bunch of “rubbish.”
Years ago, I got to know an Italian professor and his family visiting the US for some mathematics work. I told him some ‘Polock’ jokes, but they didn’t see why Poles should be made fun of. They explained the same jokes were told in Italy about policemen.