Don't Shoot. I'm a Polish

Submission 18,433

About

"Don't Shoot. I'm a Polish", also known as Don't Shoot. I'm Retarded, is a memorable quote uttered by the character Wladyslaw Szpilman in the film The Pianist. Online, screenshots from the scene have been used in a series of multi-pane memes expressing the memer's disliking of a subject (Similar to: Don't Shoot, I'm a Nazi Too).

Origin

On May 24th, 2002, the film The Pianist premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.^[1] In the film, the character Wladyslaw Szpilman (portrayed by Adrien Brody), a Polish Jew survives the Warsaw ghetto run by Nazi soldiers. When the Polish Soviets close in on him, he says "Don't shoot. I'm a Polish" (clip below).

The origin of the meme is unknown. The earliest available variation was published on July 24th, 2017 by Facebook ^[6] user MemesUNSAAC (shown below).

Spread

On August 15th, 2017, Facebook^[2] user TurisMemes posted, a Spanish-language, three-panel meme of the scene. The post received more than 1,600 reactions and 400 shares (shown below).

Over the next two years, the meme continued to spread online, particularly on Spanish-language meme pages. For example, on June 15th, 2019, Facebook^[5] Cristina Presa y Condenada posted a variation that received more than 1,000 shares and 800 reactions in less than one year (shown below, left).

The meme continued to grow in popularity throughout the year, On September 8th, 2019, Redditor ^[4] gofundmemetoday shared a variation about the Area 51 raid. The post received more than 23,000 points (94% upvoted) and 140 comments in less than one year (shown below, left). On November 1st, an anonymous Redditor^[3] shared a variation of the meme on the /r/dankmemes subreddit. the post received more than 18,000 (97% upvoted) and 180 comments since being deleted (shown below, right).

The meme also inspired other variations, including "Don't Shoot Me. I'm Retarded," which remains one of the most popular. On April 13th, 2020, controversial computer programmer John McAfee posted^[7] an anti-vaccination variation of the meme (shown below).