History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]

Niki, 4 of my great grandparent were murdered in the Holocaust, both of my grandfathers fought as soldiers on the front lines, both getting high medals for their service. My dad and uncles served in the combat branches of the military, I was in the US Marine Corps and the US ARNG, and with all of this I still do not fault Polish soldiers who were drafted into the SS. No "normal" parent would tell them to go and die! Talk is cheap!

Language / Learn Polish or Russian [86]

There are a lot of Polish words in Ukrainian.
I would think the speakers of both languages could understand each other.
I can understand about 1/3 of Polish just from the similarities between Russian and Polish.

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]

It is so easy to say what I WOULD HAVE DONE

Very "noble" statement.

Like someone said everything seems so clear in hindsight.

Or as my mom would say: Fools always speak with such conviction!

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]

Oh Ya!!! That's so similar to sending your kids to Auschwitz! lol

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]


Spoken like a true mother! lol

It's easy to speak about something u don't have to be faced with!

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]


So being the mother of one of these 250,000 young men, you would rather see them killed then a posibility of them going to the front lines and surviving, or maybe even assisting the underground??

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]


So they should have shared our fate and dies?! That's so considered of you! lol

You also forget that there was a ton of half Jews who served as soldiers for the Nazi's.

Don't forget, there is good and bad among every group.

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]

Jon, we can't count the 250,000 Poles who served in the German Army. they were conscripted without their choice. And just because they were soldiers on the front lines did not mean they participated in the genocide. Most were sent to the front lines to fight the Russian Army.

History / Should Poland be given ANY credit for ALLOWING Jews into Poland for 1000 years? [195]

I'm a Russian Jew, and I completely agree. Jews prospered in Poland. Polish Catholic rulers took a different approach to conversions of Jews. Successful Jews who converted to Catholicism were given Polish Nobility titles (u get more flies with honey was the approach). Jews were not persecuted and were welcomed in Poland. There is a misunderstanding about why most of the Concentration Camps were in Poland... it was not because Poles were racists but because logistically it was convenient for the Germans because most European Jews lived in Poland!

Tsarists Russia caused all the strife for Jews living in Poland and Belarus. If the Romanov Royal S#!t-heads wouldn't have taken control of Poland and Belarus, and the Germans wouldn't have created the genocide, I believe there would still be a huge Jewish population in Poland, but unlike the population of 100 years ago which did not mix, there would probably be a huge number of mixed marriages between Christian and Jewish Poles.

I think Poland needs a better PR campaign, because in the West the true view of Poland is distorted, and American Jews, like their non Jewish counterparts are not well educated when in comes to things outside of their profession. And if you don't know the truth, it's far too easy to make assumptions that have no basis in reality.

For those who do not know:

1. Poland has the biggest number of Righteous Among Men (people who rescued Jews durring WWII) of any nation according to Israel's Yad Vashem.

2. Poland has the smallest number of people who cooperated in selling and turning Jews over to the Nazi's, less then 0.1%.

Language / Learn Polish or Russian [86]

Rudy5, I'm from Russia, and even thought I do not speak Polish, I can understand a lot of things in Polish, especially in written form. Poland is a big country with 38,000,000 native speakers of Polish, so being a Pole yourself I would encourage you to learn the language of your ancestors. Plus Polish is similar to Russian, and if you learn one, you will have an easy time learning the other. Plus Polish is VERY similar to Ukrainian and Belarus (If you speak one, you can easily understand the other... I think), I know a few Ukrainian words and even thought they are different from Russian, they are the same in both Polish and Ukranian, which gives you a total of about 100,000,000 people who you can potentially converse with while speaking Polish.

History / Ukrainian-occupied Eastern Poland [135]

I read somewhere, that 95% of countries today have some kind of land dispute with their neighbors.

Genealogy / Polish vs Belarus origin? Help identify the origins of our family crest. [6]

I'm not looking for family history, I'm looking for someone who is familiar with Polish Heraldry (Crests and symbols).

Genealogy / Polish vs Belarus origin? Help identify the origins of our family crest. [6]

House of names is garbage site. I ordered my families surname explanation and they sent me something that basically said that our name is a German word of a Seal! lol! Most ridiculous thing, they could have looked it up on wikipedia and found a better explanation. Not only that after speaking to them a they said they would send me a refund. I send that paper back and never got anything. Avoid House of Names like a plague!!!