After reading The Painted Bird, a fair question may arise: is it partially the fault of the victims that they were so horribly dominated by the Germans? Jerzy Kosinski portrays the villagers in his writing as being very uneducated and passive; they seem to simply allow the Germans to take over and destroy their lives without putting up any sort of rivalry. Of course, the German force was very strong at the time of World War II and they would have been an extremely difficult group to attempt to beat, but could the Polish citizens' lack of education and common knowledge have hindered their ability to present some sort of resistance? This seems to be a message that Kosinski was trying to get across by writing this story. He not only emphasized the brutality of the Germans and showed the ways in which they were unnecessarily harsh (this is an understatement) to the people of the main character's nation, but Kosinski also brings to light the fact that the Polish people weren't doing anything to change their situation. This criticism of their complaints with no actions is probably a big factor toward the banishment of his book in Poland, as it made the country and its people seem very unintelligent. This is a very important part of the book that should not be overlooked because criticism seems to be one of Kosinski's leading motives in writing this work.
This website provides a presentation of two possible ways of reading and interpreting The Painted Bird, with the idea of the Polish allowance toward the German force as one example:
http://fiftybooksproject.blogspot.com/2009/01/painted-bird-by-jerzy-kosinski.html
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