News / Rest in Peace Anna Walentynowicz or is it...?! [63]

Re Poland's funeral industry, are there any American-style funeral parlours in Poland where mourners come to view and pay respects to the deceased displayed in an open coffin? There is a viewing room at Wólka Węglowa (presumably also at other cemeteries) but that is usually about 30 minutes before the Requiem mass. And not all families opt to have the open coffin displayed. There's an extra charge for that (rental of the viewing room).

News / Rest in Peace Anna Walentynowicz or is it...?! [63]

The Polish media are having another field day, this time about the suspected mix-up of coffins in which the remains of Smolensk victims were placed. More and more families are requesting the exhumation of their loved ones. Today Marshal of the Sejm Ewa Kopacz (who back then was health minister) tearfully proclaiming on TVN24 that she did everryxthing in her power in Moscow in April 2010 but that she was only in charge of comforting victims' families. How could Walentynowicz's mortal remains have been placed in the wrong coffin? Her son saw them in Moscow and everything was OK. The ugly red Russian coffins were changed in Warsaw to handsome wood-grain ones. That might suggest that they mix-up took place in Poland. So overall political responsibility for the chaos falls to the ruling Tusk clique.

Life / "Protestant" or Non Catholic communities in Poland [18]

Even on Sundays? Is it an abandoned or disused faciltiy?

USA, Canada / Feminine surname endings in America? [48]

So an Icelandic lady emigrates to Canada. At the immirgtration offcie in Toronto when they see Helga Olaffsdottir in her passport do they automatically write down Helga Olaffson in their computer? Or if its Halina Dobrowolska, do they change it to Dobrowoslki right then and there? Anyone know for sure?

Life / "Protestant" or Non Catholic communities in Poland [18]

That church at Solidarności was rolled back in the late 1940s or early '50s to make way for the Trasa W-Z. It was quite an engineering feat back then.

Life / "Protestant" or Non Catholic communities in Poland [18]

There's a big Lutehran church just a stone's throw from the Hotel Victoria (I think it's now called Sofitel). My impression is that there are some 90,000 Lutherans in Poland, but the majority live in Cieszyn Silesia. Former PM Jerzy Buzek is a Lutheran.

One of the most colourful denominations are the Catholic Mariavites of Felcjanowo near Płock who have not only women priests but also bishopesses. There are also Old Catholic Mariavites but they do not have female clergy.

History / Seen "teutonic" in my history book and i was just wondering what it was? [4]

Interestingly, the lands conquered by the Knights of the Cross (aka Teutonic Knights) were named after the pagan Prussians the Teutons had slaughtered. That area came to be known as Prussia, and that was the name of the 19th/20th century . Kingdom of Prussia, also known as the Second Reich, which fought in WW1. Hitler prefered the name Deutschland (Germany) for his Third Reich, of which Prussia (Preußen) was one of its regions.

Some say inviting the Krzyżacy by Duke Conrad of Masovia was the biggets blunder ever committed in Polish history. The alien enclave festered like a cancerous growth until 1945. Then, rather than splitting the area up between Poland and Lithuanian, Stalin put his fiothy paw on Królewiec region and turned it into the Kalininrgad enclave. He needed a warm-water port that did not freeze over and the doddering old FRD and usually shrewd and crafty Churchill gave in.