History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]


do you know what Jesus said - let the dead bury their dead - I'm not a fan of graveyards at all - cremation is such a nice hygenic thing and you can throw the ashes back to the earth or you can choose to scatter them on some water - such a practical thing


no, I mean that - we are a barbaric nation - I am very much barbaric myself - I do not condemn those who removed gravestones from old German cemeteries in fact I know plenty of such examples - many such cemeteries have even never been used ever since - I wouldn't do that myself now in my state of mind but I don't condemn these people - I just don't care much about German past of the land I live about


Szydłów was the original Slavic name of the place - it was then germanized to Schidloff - the name was changed sometime in the 20th century to Goldmoor (moor stands for well moor as in Dartmoor because hmm there is a moor in the area? )

Niemodlin is also the original Slavic name - it was renamed to Falkenberg sometime in the middle ages when German settlers arrived in Silesia (and as Silesian Piasts germanized) - it was even once a seat of a small Piast duchy

I don't know about Tułowice (if it is the original name) but there is another Tułowice that is not far from Warsaw so the name is an actual Polish name (even if not the original early medieaval Polish name - I know of examples of names that are loosely based on German and old Slavic name and have no counterparts in present day Poland - I lived in such a place) - the German name was Tillowitz and it's pretty obvious it is a germanized version of a former Slavic name

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]


there was no continuity, man - on the contrary there was straightforward discontinuity - Germans lived here and suddenly they lived here no more - the people who came here felt little or no connection with this German past - and still you can find out about all those German names - there are books, there are maps - I just won't repeat myself that much - but hey - come on now - there have been so many people borne here now that only know Tułowice, Szydłów, Niemodlin - do you still want to change all these names back to German

and guess what - yes Poles are barbaric intolerant people who can hardly tolerate Germans (must be why they pick cucumbers around Hannover and strawberries in Schiefergebirge) - if you have enough of those bloody barbaric Poles and their ways you can choose to move somewhere else - unless you are serving your time in some Polish prison you are free to go :)

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]


you know what - history is history - what do you want to commemorate - do you want Poles to commemorate Bismarck, Hindenburg and Fritz der Grosse??

I don't need to have so called 'Polish heroes' to be commemorated and I insist 'some other nation's' heroes are not commemorated where I run around

history is a thing we can learn from - but I don't think you can learn anything from history by dwelling on it

ok - lots of Germans used to live where I live - they even built this and that - but it's all gone - I don't give a damn about that past - we live now - and for heaven's sake noone is denying that some places where inhabited by Germans, bore German names - you can find these names in books and in old or special maps - I just can't imagine myself living in Goldmoor neben Tillowitz, Kreis Falkenberg, O.S - the people that came here back in the late 40's have enough to feel themselves not in their own places and you would want them to be reminded of that every single day by foreign sounding names - for the sake of what???

btw communist propaganda used to scare people who lived in the 'recovered territories' by the spectre of imperialists coming back and bringing the Germans back - why do you think these villages were in such neglect which can be seen even now - because these people who came here did not feel 'at home' and were not sure that it was not just a temporary thing (then combine it with communism and consider that such attitudes are inherited from generation to generation

btw I don't often go to central Poland but when I visited I actually sensed that this land was Polish, that there is such confidence in Polishness there which is much weaker in the 'recovered territories'

News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]


Poland wanted more educated Poles including those of countryside background it had enough of educated Jews - wikipedia entry on numerus clausus is pretty informative if you care to read - and many Jews could afford to send their children to private schools or abroad - those provincial Poles very often could not

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]


you may call me whatever you want but I wouldn't like to live in Poland surrounded by German names (I live in Opole region) and I bet most Poles wouldn't either - btw your Latin, Saxon, Norman and French names are all Anglicized - you don't live in Londinium but London so what you are actually arguing about?


in essence this actually like my English - they learn Gaelic as a foreign language and use it as such (save for people from a couple of more traditional regions)

News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]


state run higher education

the ban happened later in the 30's

and I don't think it had a simplistic explanaition (motivation)

btw. numerus clausus is not a complete ban (someone mentioned here that at the same time some American universities (private) were not accepting Jewish students at all

Life / Will Polish people be accepting that im only half polish? [63]

Gary - you just don't get the specific sense of humour some poeple on this forum have ;)

Language / Unique names of cities/town/villages in Poland [58]


thorp(e) is actually Germanic word for village cognate of German 'dorf' (in Danish it is trup (rup), in northern German torf, torp

in Britain I presume -thorpe names suggest Nordic (aka Danelaw) settlements as do -by names (-by = village,town) (as Anglo Saxon word for village must have been -ham as in hamlet)

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]


why did you raise such a stupid idea actually?


and how many people are actually able to communicate in Gaelic (excluding some more traditional regions)

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]

isn't it because the Irish have mostly forgotten to speak their national language and speak English instead?

why bother with an old Gaelic name (of say Wexford) when you speak English everyday

Language / Unique names of cities/town/villages in Poland [58]


I think 'kał, kały' had somewhat if not completely different meaning in the past - there is a village Kały north of Opole, I have seen Kaliska on map which is the same root - still I am not a professional linguist and I just don't know - btw many words and their meanings have gone into oblivion since middle ages

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]


maybe because Liw is in Masovia and never was part of Germany, huh?


for several reasons - one reason is cities like Breslau, Oppeln, Neisse had long established Polish names (these names were originally Polish/Slavic)
other thing is many names were clearly germanized Polish (or if you insist Slavic names) and why use a germanized if we can use Slavic sounding names - (even if we don't get the previous name)

and you surely underestimate the comfort factor of living around Slavic sounding names instead of 'dorf's' around

btw - the English changed many local names in Ireland (Wexford, Waterford, Limerick)


btw - make a poll and ask if Poles of this forum would rather have Wrocław, Opole, Brzeg, Szczecin i Gdańsk or perhaps Breslau, Oppeln, Brieg, Stettin and Danzig?

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]

the thing is foreign sounding names in the States form a variety (a hodge-podge) not a monotonous German toponomastic that would be a case if Poles kept German names in today's western Poland - and well why should Poles leave the name Breslau if it had a Polish name - we even use Polish names for cities that have never been Polish (Paryż, Londyn, Monachium, Mediolan, Rzym, Florencja, Belgrad, Wiedeń, Marsylia, Norymberga, Kopenhaga, Kijów, Stambuł, Ateny, Neapol, Wenecja, Wormacja (Worms), Wittenberga, Lipsk (probably the original Slavic name), Brema (Bremen), Kilonia (Kiel), Lubeka (Luebeck), Bruksela (Brussels), Edynburg, Dunkierka (Dunkirk, Dunquerque), Nicea (Nice), Zagrzeb (Zagreb), Turyn (Torino, Turin), Hanower (Hannover), Ratyzbona (Regensburg), Rejkjawik (Reykyavik), Nowy Jork, Waszyngton, Filadelfia, Brunszwik (Braunschweig), Nowy Brunszwik, Kalifornia, Nowy Meksyk, Luizjana, Floryda, Wilno, Kowno, Ryga, Kłajpeda, Dynenburg (Daugavspils), Nowa Południowa Walia (New South Wales), Pekin (Beijing), Nankin (Nanking), Ren (Rhein), £aba(Elbe), Wezera(Weser), Men (Mein) - as in Frankfurt nad Menem (Frankfurt am Mein), Kolonia (Koeln), Moguncja (Meinz), Akwizgran (Aachen) - Akwizgran is becoming very rare actually (most traditional names of German cities are becoming rare - it is only educated people who use them)

History / Polabia back to Slavs? [113]

do you think Polish people would be comfortable living in Breslau, Oppeln or Neisse instead of Wrocław, Opole, Nysa (btw the latter are all original names)

yes some places origined as German settlements and never bore Slavic names but still I wouldn't like to live in a Hirschberg in a free Polish country

News / Multi-culti (in Poland) -- roadmap to disaster? [344]


well - I have seen plenty Somali women in London who couldn't actually speak any English - my guess is they are living at the expense of the UK taxpayer - were they obliged to learn English they could find a job and contribute a bit instead

USA, Canada / Going back to the Old Country of Poland after more than 25 years! (from USA) [249]

the literal translation? - maybe: 'what our cottage is abundant in, it is keen to share' sort of - sounds strange, huh? ;)

Language / Unique names of cities/town/villages in Poland [58]

there is a small village Chotel in Pińczów area - it is pronounced exactly as 'hotel' in Polish - but still you don't say 'w Chotelu', 'do Chotelu' as in 'w hotelu, do hotelu' but 'w Chotlu', 'do Chotla'

Language / plural forms (cztery kubki / czternascie kubkow) [23]


all numbers above 4 require genitive (among them 14)

USA, Canada / Going back to the Old Country of Poland after more than 25 years! (from USA) [249]


well- it's similar in meaning to the Spanish 'mi casa es su casa' - you can roughly translate it as 'what we have about house is for the guest' (literal translation would sound strange in English)

Language / Unique names of cities/town/villages in Poland [58]

I haven't found it on any Polish map but long ago I found Hujsko in Przemyśl area in an old Czech auto-atlas

edit: seems they have changed the name some time ago

Travel / Traveling around Poland - our photo stories with very personal commentary [225]

this is the longest footbridge in Wrocław - it crosses Odra between Biskupin and Niskie £ąki

pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:KladkaZwierzyniecka_we_Wr oclawiu.jpg&filetimestamp=20060127183033

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%82adka_Zwierzyniecka

mostypolskie.pl/most/kladka-zwierzyniecka-wroclaw,53,.html

the thing is over 200 m long

Travel / Traveling around Poland - our photo stories with very personal commentary [225]


maybe for the same reason orthodox people in Poland have their own cemeteries


must be that bloody Polish antisemitism :P - and actually not many old Jewish cemeteries still exist in Central and Eastern Poland

and btw - cremation and scattering of the ashes solves the problem of graveyards - no need for them anymore - the Hindus don't have graveyards - wouldn't you agree they are pretty expensive thing to have in cities

Travel / Traveling around Poland - our photo stories with very personal commentary [225]

you can - unless you don't count Jews as German - mmw.pl/english/museum/cemetery.php

News / Failures of Poland and Tusk`s government [191]

you have linked a wrong clip Seanus (the one you linked is about some old Polish-born professor)

Travel / Traveling around Poland - our photo stories with very personal commentary [225]

pawian - have you ever been to Germany - you wouldn't be so very enthusiastic about Polish motorways and bridges and stuff

Po polsku / Polska jest dyktaturą? [129]


a co to ma wspólnego z równością wobec prawa?

Law / Looking for confirmation of Grandfather's citizenship... [17]


I think you pretty much misinform here - a general rule of the citizenship law of Poland (at least now) is that an individual is a Polish citizen until he renounces his/her citizenship

the law does not clearly state that with obtaining foreing citizenship will result in losing Polish citizenship as far as I know

edit: but the rules were different in the past: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_nationality_law - before 1951 if one acquired citizenship of another country he automatically lost his Polish citizenship - so you were actually right delphi

Law / Looking for confirmation of Grandfather's citizenship... [17]

My guess is your grandfather's documents were issued by the Polish government in exile in Britain - they must have kept some archives even though the government was no longer recognized by most countries post 1946 - I don't know if they transfered the archives to Poland after 1989 or they remain in Britain (London probably)

another thing is to look for (in case the British trace produces no results) is some birth cirtificate/record in parish records were your grandfather was born - if he was not born in Warsaw there is a big chance such old parish records still exist to date

hope it helps a little bit

News / New road taxes in Poland? [13]

new electronic system (Viatoll) of payment for driving certain roads makes it necessary for every vehicle heavier than 3.5 ton to have the system equipment on board (so called Viabox) - this electronic piece of equipment costs 120 PLN an so does the obligatory firts pay into the system which works a bit like pre-paid phones - there are electronic gates already installed at most location the system is to be in place

the most important thing for people who just drive their sedans is that when you haul a trailer (or a caravan) the weight of the vehicle is calculated by adding the weight of the trailer to the weight of the car - in many such cases you should have the Viatoll system on board (seems Poland is the only country with such a strange rule - there are other things about the system that raise outrage (like the scarcity of places where you can register for the system and where you can top-up your viabox)

here you can see which roads or road sections will have the system soon regiomoto.pl/portal/zdjecia/mapa-polskich-drog-i-autostrad-platnych-w-systemie-viatoll

History / Why is the Battle of Grunwald celebrated more than the Battle of Lubiszewo? [29]

Maybe the battle is not thought of as remarkable because it actually was a kind of civil war that the battle put an and to (actually it was Gdańsk/Danzig rebellion) - and well the overwhelming part of the Danzig forces were some kind of militia so even when the losses ratio is impressive you had perhaps plenty of such battles with ill trained and equiped peasant or burgher rebellions in the past