Every language has its idioms. For example, Polish has "jak Berek pod Kockiem". The translation, "like Berek at Kock", doesn't tell us much. Who is Berek? What is Kock? And why does anyone want to be like him?

Well, Berek is Berek Joselewicz, a Jewish colonel in the Polish army during the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, Poland actually had a Jewish colonel (with a rather fancy hat and a rather handsome mustache). In fact, they had an entirely Jewish division that Joselewicz led.

Kock is a town on eastern Poland, the site of 1809's eponymous battle. And, no, nobody wants to be "like Berek at Kock". At Kock, Berek was slaughtered by Austrians.

So what would the English equivalent be? "Like a snowball in hell"?

Perhaps "like a Jew in Poland"?