Love / Polish girl after my husband [15]

I've found Polish women in particular often to be aggressively, if playfully, flirtatious, frequently coming on way "too strong" for most Westerners' taste:-)

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

The AfD in Germany has certain, albeit distant, parallels with the Trump faction in Congress; both claim to appeal to the long-term "ignored" and disenfranchised, those who honestly believe they've been given the short end of the stick, moreoever are bleedin' sick and tired of the stranglehold over them known as political correctness.

They also both rely on extreme historical ignorance (Trump supporters of the New Deal Era, AfD/PEGIDA, of the lessons from Hitler) mixed with a post-'60's infantility of wanting everything THEIR way or the highway, so to speak, as well as a completely insensitive disregard for the idea of the downtrodden in any society together with the need to fix problems which actually need fixing vs. those which don't.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

It isn't your guilt or fault, it is though ALL of our collective responsibility and this is among other reasons why I find the post-'60 backlash in which we are living so toxic.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Explaining the NS-period obviously would be insulting one's intelligence, not to mention profaning, as well as dishonoring, those murdered innocents along with other victims to claim that Hitler built the Autobahn (true, but totally irrelevant!), encouraged good health by neither imbibing nor smoking, excercising and so on as a way

of relativizing these years by stressing the "positive" aspects of the Third Reich ad nauseum.

German students must learn of their past, much as Americans need to learn of their often shameful history, one atrocity at a time. Otherwise, it'll go over them like a wave and likely never be internalized.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

I'd have to agree there.

Figure you know the expression though "Nur lass' kein Gras darueber wachsen."
The Hitler period simply has to be presented to a new generation in a manner that's relevant to THEIR experience, most of whom might well be second-to third generation Germans only, whose family is from elsewhere in the world and who therefore have zero connection with the Holocaust!

This to me remains the ultimate challenge.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Same place as you did, pal, DER SPIEGEL, TAGESSPIEGEL etc. Oh, almost forgot the NYT, can't forget about that:-)

The problem with Germany is that her recent past was taught in such a heavy-handed way, most people of the post-70's era became immediately turned off to the constant haranging, lecturing from foreigners and the deep sense of shame inculcated into their everyday life. Today's young Germans have become almost inured to the lessons of the past and that's the real crying shame!

Po polsku / POWRÓT do Polski - od czego zacząć? [22]

Czytajcie artykul w ubieglej edycji >Nowego Dziennika< z tego poniedzialku: "Czy warto wracac do Polski? - Fakty i mity"

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Fair enough, yet who picked up the ball and ran with it?

I call it guilt by association, if you're familiar with the phrase. You hang out with bad people, and the smell of Judas lingers for as long as you live!

Never said that it's right, only that this is usually the way human nature functions.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Merkel just dismissed her chief "spymaster" a few days ago for not only right-wing ties, to among others the AfD, but also for remarking
that the Third Reich was not as significant as history has made it out to be. Sort of reminds me of LePen's comment that the Shoah was

"merely a footnote in history", or words to that effect.

Gotta hand it to that Angie! She acted decisively here and didn't waffle or make excuses!

Language / Polish words that sound funny? [224]

Educated Poles however, would certainly understand your previously posted sentence, therein lies the difference!
Technical Polish, legalese English, where's the dichotomy?

Language / Polish words that sound funny? [224]

Any more tortuous than a Pole who's learned English and in the US for several years getting involved with:

"The party of the first part, hereinafter known as the party of the first part,
while not in any wise related to the second party of the first part, herein-
after referred to as related, either by marriage, blood, or non-connubial
consent......." ??!

Your ethnocentrism is showing again, Rich ol' boy! It's all relative in the end:-)

UK, Ireland / Observations about Polish people / women in the UK [5]

Although it has been many years since last in Poland, almost twenty to be precise, I can only imagine that the English learning abilities of Poles has changed somewhat in that time:-)

Probably after the collapse of Communism, what you say was true. When I visited the country around the mid-90's, I too didn't encounter a single Pole on the streets of Szczecin, a medium-large city, who spoke any language but Polish.

I must add too, that stereotypes and cultural fallacies abound on both sides.

Language / Polish conjugation - Present Tense [7]

Dana Bielec explains this excellently in her several books on Polish grammar!

Language / Polish conjugation - Present Tense [7]

Polish can be tricky for those used to the relative regularity of the infinitive or verb stems (verb classes) in French ("-ir", "-aire", "-er"), German ("n") or Spanish ("-ir", "-er", "-ar"), I will agree.

There are approx. eleven different base verb endings and so you should try to learn each newly acquired verb WITH its infinitive before going on so that when

you encounter that verb pattern again, it will be already familiar to you:-)

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

How would you know where I'm posting from, Ironside, if you weren't a fellow inmate yourself?

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Not in the way you mean it, but compare the outward look of the German culture in which you grew up!

We here in the US have gotten quite used to all colors and backgrounds in schools, at least in the major urban areas, especially of the East Coast aka Philly, Boston,

New York, Baltimore and so forth.

Not so in Germany, save for the past two decades or so.

When a graduate exchange student in the Hannover area during the late '80s, my university classroom was exclusively white and German-born! I was the only

foreigner, and Hannover ain't a small town either.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

On the other hand, if any nation which is basically homogeneous (gleichartig) is forced without its consent to alter the essential cultural make-up with which it has grown accustomed for millenia, this has got to have certain harsh reprecussions (Gegenreaktionen) on the populace.

The Jews of Germany had become ever so assimilated over a thousand or more years within the same land area as to become all but indistinguishable from their gentile fellow citizens. Throughout the whole of the 19th century, many even sported Christmas trees in their homes, spoke German like any other non-Jewish German, and basically (unlike in Poland!!) shed their ghetto past, joining the military and earning the Iron Cross....

Such fervent desire to incorporate the host country into their everyday life has sadly not been a corner stone of the most recent non-European immigrants to Germany

and this is what has been causing problems, hence prompting my remark from before:-)

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

I simply mean that at the rate things are going presently, the "face" (Antlitz) of the Federal Republic will have changed so drastically, it be nearly

unrecognizable to those belonging to our generations, that's all.

Sorry if I caused offense!

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

I wonder IF Germany will look ten years from now:-)

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

I agree in part.

Yet, Merkel as usual is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't!

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

To espouse the contention that Germany today exists for the sole purpose of keeping the State of Israel alive is not only the rankest form of inaccuracy, it is

also anti-Semitic!

Certainly Germany doesn't wish to repeat her heinous record of ignoring human rights of the people from whom her ancestors mercilessly robbed them.
On the other hand, the Federal Republic continues to walk a nasty tightrope between kowtowing to special interest groups within her society who have been

marginalized and looking after their own nationals at home.

Merkel, indeed no German Chancellor, should have to placate right-wing, anti-democratic demagoguery in order to serve the best interests of their people.
In pandering to the worst elements of populism, Germany cheapens both herself as well as her place in today's global market.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Gauland and others have doubtless been emboldened by the Swedish right-wing "victory" margin, as well what's going on now in Hungary.

USA, Canada / I'm struggling with my culture - I grew up Polish in America. DNA test. [37]

You're arguing nurture over nature, is that about it?

Some might argue that point:-)

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

To my knowledge anyway, your Basic Law aka post-War Constitution, was drafted before the UN was fully in place, therefore statutes regulating the German government's actions as you've so described would have to be held in abeyance until such time as the law provides.

I believe you have amendments as well, although not to the same degree as in the US.

USA, Canada / I'm struggling with my culture - I grew up Polish in America. DNA test. [37]

Alexandria,

You remind me of similar issues many other ethnicities go through when their children grow up here aka in the States, but their folks, family, are all from there aka Europe aka "The Old Country"!

Lots of German-Americans for example, born right in the US in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio etc. often complain they are identified as "German" because of their family name, yet feel and act culturally "American" which gets them into all sorts of culture-shock problems when interacting with their foreign-born relatives from Germany.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

@Dirk, Merkel and Trump couldn't be more polar opposites (apart from the obvious) if they tried! Think I don't know that??

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Considering her past, a Trump-like (vs. a Trump-"light") figure is the last thing she needs! We don't need him, neither do they.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

Don't you believe that bilge for a second, Crow!

She'd rebound before and she'll do it again, trust me:-)

News / Poland's "historical path" is that of "fascism" (Jew attack alert) [43]

Incorrect, Ironside!

The "idea" was to create a greater Poland ruled by a Russian (NON-Jewish) elite elite and supported by, who else, the US, of course:-)

Ya got it backwards, fellaLOL The Jews as a whole ain't interested in Poland, be they German or American-born Jews.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

How about Hans Koehler! I forget now which post he occupied before Federal President.