History / How I blew a 6 figure grant for my charity because of my appreciation of Polish history... [77]

I don't post here as much as I used to but something happened yesterday and I just need to vent.

I'm a New Yorker, I spent over a year teaching English in Poland living there with my ex girlfriend, but I've been back in NYC since 2009 and I work at an anti-racism charity.

Yesterday I attended a very fancy dinner, got to chat with some big shots in NYC philanthropy, and at my table there happened to be a couple. They introduced themselves to me, and spoke about their daughter who is mentally disabled, and their charity, which they are setting up to speak out on behalf of disabled people across the country. We got along great, and then the husband started telling me about racism in the US and how bad it is. I mentioned that it's not that bad, it's a minority that "hates blacks" (to use his words), and that people who complain here should know that there's much worse.

Now I'm not a hater of Poland, but I had to relate to him how living in Warsaw opened up my eyes to how good I have it in NYC. In Warsaw, while most of my students were super nice to me, and my girlfriends family were amazing (though it took some convincing to win over babcia) the racist minority is much bigger than in the US, and way more vocal. If I walked the streets alone I would merely get stares, which could be annoying but even the ones that were menacing from the street kids didn't bother me too much. But when I would hold my girlfriends hand, and the three times we made out in public, we got an earful. I'll always remember right in the centrum some guy in his car at the red light screaming "czarnuch" at me while we were holding hands. And another time, again in the centrum, when some hooligans walked by and cursed my gf out in Polish calling her a slut.

My point was that America is pretty good. Then he says:

MAN: "Yeah...Poland...they didn't really put on a good show during WW2..."

ME: You mean for losing..? Kind of hard to put on a good show when you're being double teamed by Hitler and Stalin..

MAN: No I don't mean militarily, I mean for their participation in the killing of the Jews..

ME: Oh well... I've heard that opinion before...and I believe it's based on a misreading of history...the jews and the poles were twin victims of the holocaust, almost 3 million non Jewish Poles were killed and the entire nation was to be completely annihilated after the war...yet the Polish never set up a collaborationist government like France, they fought tooth and nail, and some of the first reports about what was going on in the concentration camps came from people like Witold Pilecki and Jan Karski, Poles who volunteered to be taken to concentration camps like auschwitz, organized escapes, and tried to alert the allies about what was going on...you should also know that the Poles are the most represented group at Yad Vashem....so it's sad to hear people express that opinion about the poles, when in fact they're behavior during the holocaust was heroic."

The guy didn't even answer and turned away, seemingly restraining himself from attacking me with his butter knife.

I have so many American Jewish friends that believe this crap about Polish/Nazi collaboration, and then the whole world in general act like the holocaust was only about the jews which is ridiculous.

Anyway I later found out that that guy was a big shot philanthropist who gives millions to charities like mine. I probably blew a nice grant.

Life / Is sarcasm widespread in Poland? [27]

I can't stand sarcasm anymore, it's so overused and abused here in New York by people that think they're being clever, and often used as a shield by the highly insecure and immature. I was telling someone how during my time living in Poland one of the refreshing things was the lack of sarcasm - I felt like conversation was more earnest and straightforward, but turns out that person is Polish-American and disagreed that in her family, sarcasm is out of control and that she always attributed that fact to being Polish....

Any thoughts?

News / Romney visits Poland: Gets support from Lech Walesa? [29]

Am I reading this right? That Lech Walesa supports Mitt Romney? Is Poland generally critical of Obama?

I'm only surprised that Lech Walesa would support Romney because, American conservatives love to say that Ronald Reagan took down the soviet union without even mentioning Lech Walesa and Solidarity, Pope John Paul, and Gorbachev. I would be very offended if I were him.

Sorry for misspelling Walesa

Travel / Anybody VERY familiar with bars in Warsaw? [22]

I need help trying to identify a bar from a picture, hehe I know it's a long shot but I figured I'd ask here if anywhere...let me know and I'll post the picture!

Thanks

News / What part of Poland's image do you think is the most exportable? [90]

I've toyed with the idea of opening up a small shop here in NYC to sell clothing and other odd things that are either from Poland or inspired by it. Initially I thought of clothing with prints that evoke a sense of Poland's rebellious attitude under communism and other symbols from polands communism era. like cool, well designed prints of people or even just slogans in polish. But I'm having a hard time coming up with a list of things that can be associated with Poland. Such things can be objects, pictures or slogans that might inspire pride or admiration for poland, while also poking fun at it.

But in general this has got me thinking about the things about Poland (past and present) that can be exported in an appealing way, kind of like how apple pie is associated with USA, or Yankee caps, rock stars like hendrix, morrison or elvis, nike, wall street, hollywood, etc..

any ideas?

Travel / what are the average fares to Poland from USA? [10]

hey guys, My wife and I live in New York, she needs to go back to Poland sometime later July early August, and return a month later. I remember fares to Poland being pretty cheap, but when we go on expedia nowadays they're all $1000+?? (roundtrip). Are there any tricks to getting cheap flights? Or have the prices just gone up?

History / Thinking of changing Wikipedia's Holocaust article to include genocide of Poles. [78]

Ever since my return from Poland It's pissed me off how much the holocaust is equated with the Jews, without even a token mention of Poles, 2 million of whom died at the hands of the Nazis, and whose culture and nationhood was the target for complete annihilation.

So I'm thinking of changing the wikipedia entry for "The Holocaust", which is defined there as

"the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany."

I want to change it to "The Nazi genocide of approximately 5 million Poles, of whom 3.1 million were Polish Jews, and 2 million were ethnic Poles." or something similar.

The Wikipedia article does mention the Nazi attack on Poles and other ethnicities, but nevertheless chooses to define the holocaust exclusively as the genocide of Jews in the first paragraph of the article.

Any caveats? Suggestions?