Real Estate / Deals available from Polish property developers [40]


eleanoroconner,

You are partially incorrect to make sweeping assumptions like this. Although locals account for most of the demand in Poland, foreign influence weighs heavily on the Polish property market. Let's take a look at an excellent article from the "International Herald Tribune" entitled, "Poles watch housing prices soar as western Europeans snap up property in new EU nation", dated September 13, 2006, but very relevant to today's property prices. Here are some snippets:

- "Like many Poles hoping to buy a home, the 30-year-old journalist has resigned herself to painful compromises - having to live in a suburb and commute by car - as soaring housing prices driven partly by foreigners put much of the city's best property off limits to normal working people."

- "House and apartment prices in Warsaw and other leading Polish cities have spiraled upward since the eve of the nation's 2004 entry into the European Union - a boom driven by low interest-rate mortgages, housing shortages and foreign speculators snapping up real estate as investments."

- "The demand is generally driven by local people but there are buyers from Spain, the U.K. and Ireland buying new constructions in bulk - 10, 20 or 30 apartments and sometimes even more," Rutkowski said.

- "The foreign speculators are pushing the bar up for normal buyers," said Andrzej Halesiak, an economic researcher with the BPH Bank who has studied the issue.

News / Is The Warsaw Voice in British or American English? [39]


Of course. Just ask Adam Michnik, Editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza. He openly describes himself as a Pole of Jewish origins.

News / Is The Warsaw Voice in British or American English? [39]


Danusha V. Goska, PhD, seems to more of an intellectual giant than you'll ever be in your lifetime. She is an "experienced teacher, an award winning writer, and a published scholar". Her accomplishments and credentials are on the net. Please perform a seach on Google. What exactly are your credenitals, please tell us here at the forum? Do you seriously consider the State University of New York, a highly regarded institution, to be a "cesspit"? Sorry, the other site you mentioned is not frequented by myself. Perhaps, that is the sort of website you often patronize since you are so familiar with it.

Is it not allowed to point out who certain individuals are? In October, 2000, Ms. Pamela Kruger of "Fastcompany.com" did an in depth story entitled "The Best Way to Keep the Devil at the Door Is to Be Rich", about Helena Luczywo and Wanda Rapaczynski, founders of Gazeta Wyborcza, Agora SA (Link: fastcompany.com/magazine/40/wf_agora.html). Ms. Kruger went into depth on how GW was formed, who started it, and who the founders were, in detail. Here is one quote of many from the article:

"To understand Agora's thirst for independence, you first need to appreciate the personal stories of both Luczywo and Rapaczynski. Like most Poles, their personal histories are wrapped up in Poland's traumatic political history. Luczywo's parents, both Jews, fled during World War II to what was then the Soviet Union, escaping the fate of roughly 3 million Polish Jews who were murdered in Nazi death camps. While in the Soviet Union, the Luczywos became friends with Rapaczynski's parents (her father was a Polish Jew; her mother was a Polish Catholic). Michnik, who was also Jewish and who was an outspoken student activist, was arrested several times during that period and spent some time in prison.)"

So, now tell me, if Ms. Pamela Kruger can do an article and point out is who is Jewish, why can't others do it? Also, is Ms. Kruger confused as to the definition of is a Polish Jew or Polish Catholic? I think not. The definition is clear cut.

Poles, the majority being Roman Catholic, are of various faiths in this country. There are Poles of the Roman Catholic faith, Eastern Orthodox Catholic faith, Muslim faith, Protestant faith, Lutheran faith, Jewish faith, and many others. A "Polish Catholic" is simply a Pole of the Catholic faith. A "Polish Jew" is simply a Pole of the Jewish faith. So, where is the problem of understanding you are having? I used the precise terminology as Ms. Pamela Kruger used in her article written 7 years ago. She explicity described Wanda Rapaczynski's parents as "Polish Jew" and "Polish Catholic". Still confused? I suggest you read some good literature on the subject. That might clear up your mind a bit. By the way, you should stay away from such facist websites as you had mentioned.

News / Is The Warsaw Voice in British or American English? [39]


Although the Warsaw Voice is based in Warsaw, Poland, their American (USA) office is located in Altoona, Pennsylvania, USA. So, this newspaper is more 'American' than English. To be more specific, the ownership is Polish-Jewish, similar to Gazeta Wyborcza. This information is for those of you who wish to see exactly who is in charge of this publication, and is not intended to imply any form of anti-semitism.

In the general opinion of most Poles who have come into contact with this newspaper, the Waraw Voice is generally regarded as extremely anti-Polish Catholic, often containing defamatory and exaggerated remarks by their columnist, Slawomir Majman, a Polish-Jewish businessman living in Warsaw. Here are some more facts. The president of this newspaper is Andrzej Jonas, also a Polish-Jew living in Warsaw.

For the president of the Warsaw Voice to allow the columns written by Mr. Majman to be published and included in the paper's contents suggest that the ownership fully supports his racist views. Below, is an excerpt of an excellent forum posting on "Racist Language and the Polish-Jewish Discourse" reflecting an example of the type of subject matter Mr. Majman has in engaged in: (link: info-poland.buffalo.edu/issues/goska.html)

"Two recent articles are typical in their employment of the lens of racism to discuss Polish or Polish-Jewish issues: Abraham Brumberg's March 2, 2001 "Murder Most Foul" in the London Times Literary Supplement and Slawomir Majman's June 24, 2001 Warsaw Voice article, "Great, Great Indifference." (Note by Ela_Lawyer: This article cannot be found in the Warsaw Voice's archives any longer...I wonder why?)

Mr. Majman's thesis, in his own words: "the Poles retain a feature that makes them dramatically different from other developed nations: a neurotic curiosity as to how the world perceives them . . . The Poles, more than any other nation, worry about the world's opinion of them and that's a fact worth remembering . . . a hang-up exists: the Poles' complex about their image."

Mr. Majman's repeated locution, "The Poles" is a shibboleth -- it's a tip-off that he is using racism as a model for understanding and describing the world. He is not talking about this human being or that human being, who happens to be Polish, who is displaying a universal human trait. He's not reporting sound sociological research that has uncovered an undeniable statistical trend -- the rise of a universally human behavior in a given population under a certain set of circumstances. He's not describing the circumstances under which any human community, of any ethnicity, would become more likely to display a given, universal, human trait -- and thereby contributing to an illumination of the human condition.

He's not using the scientific method, a method that demands that if a point is made about phenomenon A, it be defined in contrast to a control, phenomenon B. No hard scientist, for example, would dare attempt to describe the properties of any element, hydrogen, for example, without comparing hydrogen's mass, structure, etc. to other elements from the periodic table, and adducing evidence to support any such description. In the social sciences, no respectable sociologist would dare to state anything even so apparently simple and uncontroversial as "Appalachia is poor" without adducing charts on income levels in Appalachia compared to income levels in the rest of the United States."

The above sample of what type of literature the Warsaw Voice circulates provides a good reason for any educated individual to avoid it as much as possible. There are many more such examples of Anti-Polish Catholic remarks which were in previous editions of the newspaper. Note: You will not find most of such articles and columns in the online archives any longer. The Warsaw Voice has been very careful to omit such information as not to offend anyone. Nevertheless, they are in their hard copy, print editions for anyone interested in research.

Question: How does any respectable firm like "LOT Polish Airlines", the many hotels and tourist centers in Warsaw and Poland, support and hand out this type of newspaper to individuals for free as advertisements?