Life / I'm British in Poland and I think that it's time to go back to the UK! [240]

I think the bureaucracy is getting better, but very slowly and rather unevenly, as SeanBM has pointed out. It's still a long road to anything resembling a normal system.

I'm wondering how long it's going to take politicians to figure out that the state they represent and therefore they themselves would be a whole lot less reprehensible for average Poles if you didn't have to run around with a stack of papers for official permission in triplicate every time you wanted to sneeze.

Take for instance a building permit - you have to get a whole mess of papers from various public offices in order to get it. Now how difficult would it be for the building permit office to simply get that information from the others, seeing as they all represent public authorities? I can understand supplying personal or business information, but why do I have to go to the gmina office so I can take something from them to the powiat office? Wouldn't it be simpler for them to do it directly? That would also avoid having everything authorized, stamped, fingerprinted, signed, spit-on-over-the-shoulder and whatever other old time magick the officials require, because there'd be no question about the documents' authenticity. And you could hire a whole bunch of friends-of-rabbit to do the correspondence, so everyone would be happy.

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]

That looks like something I've seen out of a train window near Krakow. Still no idea what it might be.

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]

I know someone who does, but it's really not a popular drink here.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

Both volumes are collections of first-person accounts by survivors, with only an introduction added by the main editor, himself a Holocaust survivor. I'm not sure how much editing was done on the individual pieces before I got them to translate, though my understanding was that they wanted to keep them as authentic as possible.

Life / Why many funny stories about Polish People in Europe? [38]


You had La Manche on your side - probably the only reason you didn't get overrun like everyone else in 1939-40. Don't take it the wrong way, though - lucky for everyone you didn't.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


Aaaah. Sorry about jumping on you but after reading some of the conversation here I thought I saw a "see - he's in with the Jews" thing coming.

In fact, I only took the pictures for the CSM story about Siemiatycze. Someone else wrote the articles.

As far as the book goes, I think it's worth reading if you're interested in that segment of history. However, I'd say the first volume is probably more valuable as a primary source because of the method in which the stories were collected - as a survey for association membership, originally not meant for publication. That means they're much more matter-of-fact than the second book, where some of the authors try to get artistic with their account, sometimes to no great effect.

Both give a slightly different perspective than most Holocaust stories because the people involved actually stayed in Poland and often had normal, full lives afterwards. The gradations of good and evil are much more subtly distributed than in some other accounts I've seen/read. That doesn't mean they're a pleasant read, though.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


Is that a trick question?

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


I damn well wish it was - half of my worldly worries would disappear. Alas, my considerable Masonic/Jewish/whathaveyounot influence doesn't reach that high.


Yeah, right. Let's just say you know everything better than I do and get it over with.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


If you think commies were the only ones incarcerated there, think again. Some of the most brutal treatment was reserved for Nationalists, and I wouldn't think they'd like you to think of them as reds.

Accusing someone of commie brainwashing just because he doesn't see pre-war Poland as the promised land is a bit rash, to say the least.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

Jeez, Patrycja, do you try to at least understand who's saying what, or do you just respond with the same mantra to everyone? You begin by quoting my post, but then go on to argue against something I never said, which is that Bereza was comparable to Auschwitz. It didn't have to be to be a horrid s***hole and a serious blemish on Poland's honor, just like Guantanamo is for the US without anyone having been killed there at all.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


Right, I see. :-)


Oh, come on, a prison is where you keep criminals who have been sentenced by a court. Bereza was more like a more brutal version of Guantanamo, where you got kidnapped to if you stepped on the wrong toes and where torture and humiliation was the order of the day. Now granted many countries had places like that at the time, but that doesn't make it right, and neither does the fact that some of the people kept there were genuinely dangerous.


The point it was called a concentration camp and that's the name that's stuck with that kind of place afterwards. When most people see a swastika, they are likely to think "nazis" not "the Sun". Same with "concentration camp" - the term just doesn't have the same meaning it did in Bereza's time. Right now it would be more accurate to talk about a "penal camp" or some such.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


First off, as I'm sure he'll gladly point out, we don't employ him. We're glad to have him writing a column and an occasional article for us, but that's more of a hobby than a job.

As far as "polonophobia" (a horrid word - makes us sound diseased or something) - being Polish myself, and having known Harry for a number of years, I can definitely assure you that he is nothing of what you allege. If not succumbing to national myths and having an independent point of view means you're a polonophobe, then I'm one too. Harry and I have had our share of disagreements, and I've often thought he argues points that don't really need it, but I've never felt that he has any sort of bias against Poles or Poland.


Bereza Kartuska was a concentration camp. The point is that it wasn't a death camp.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

Well, z_darius, in fact I know where Harry makes his living, and cheap pamphlets it ain't. And he hardly rates as a "polonophobe", either.

But having said that, Harry, you did use the term "concentration camp" for Bereza, which I myself would accept if it hadn't been for Auschwitz, Buchenwald and a few other places of this type along the way. Words take on new meanings, and old ones become outdated, as I think has happened in this case.

Bereza was a horrible place, and its creators should probably roast in hell for eternity, but it was no Mauthausen.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

Has anyone here noticed that you're talking about two different things - concentration camps and death camps? German death camps were called concentration camps, but they bear little similarity to British, Polish or American camps of this type. The Brits invented the concentration camp during the Boer War, and I'm sure they weren't pleasant things, just as Bereza Kartuska wasn't, and you can argue about the rightfulness of what was being done there, but comparing them to Auschwitz or Buchenwald is a complete misunderstanding, IMHO.

History / Polish hatred towards Jews... [1290]

20-7-2=?

History / Polish hatred towards Jews... [1290]

Well, these kinds of things don't help Polish-Jewish relations at all:


nwe.pl/National.php?article_id=360

Food / 'de volaille' - I need the recipe for what sounds like devil eye?? [9]

Check out "Chicken Kiev" on any recipe website and you've got it.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

If you're British, you should have no problem registering as self-employed (actually it's called something along the lines of "having your own business activity") in Poland. You DO NOT need a work permit here.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

Whether the salary's good or not depends what you'll be doing. For a burger flipper it would be insanely good, but maybe not great for a corporate lawyer. In any case, you should be able to live pretty comfortably on that in Krakow.

Work / Have been offered a job in Warsaw - should I move to Poland?? [48]


Most of us have happily given up on sorting anything out. Adopt a Zen attitude and all your troubles just melt away. In Poland you only get in trouble if you try to overachieve. Otherwise just enjoy the veneer.

Work / Have been offered a job in Warsaw - should I move to Poland?? [48]

Ten years ago this was the place to be - all opportunity, all potential, and a challenge around every corner. Today it's just another European city, full of everything an average person might want. Shopping malls, movie theaters, clubs, bars, art exhibitions - you name it. I'm telling you - there's just no challenge in living here any more. If you want real fun, look at Uzbekistan or the Transdnester - you'll really feel alive there.

History / Polish hatred towards Jews... [1290]


Web forums don't really give you an accurate representation of any population's opinions - the loonies tend to hijack any conversation that concerns their subject of obsession, but that's hardly representative of anything.

There are Poles who are anti-Semites just as there are French, German, American and probably Thai or New Guinean anti-Semites. There are also plenty of Jews who have prejudices against Poles, Blacks and Asians. No nation has a monopoly on ignorance and bigotry. That doesn't mean that the idiots and racists are representative of any of them.

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]

I think in the States it's sold as Budvar or something like that - the result of a trademark spat that ended with the American stuff being sold as just "Bud" in Europe. (Actually, I should say "marketed" and not "sold" - I don't think too many people here actually pay to drink it.)

Food / What's your favorite Polish beer? [870]


True if you're talking about Milwaukee Bud-water, but not the original Czech Budweiser - that's a beer-lover's beer and hardly anything Poland makes stands up to it.

Żywiec has been giving me monster headaches ever since Heineken took over - which is funny, because the Heinie brewed in the same place doesn't.

My favorite beers in Poland - Żubr, Leżajsk and Tyskie, in that order.

Life / What is the reason for POLISH jokes ? [486]


I wouldn't be so sure - AFAIK the idea that Poles were stupid started in the late 19th and early 20th century, around the same time as the idea that the Irish were stupid, that Italians were stupid, that... well, you get the idea. However, as to their reading and writing skills, considering that these were mainly uneducated peasants (not just the Poles, mind you) this may have played a role.

I remember Polish jokes still being pretty popular in the early 1980s. When I left the States in the mid-90s, you hardly heard them any more - by that time traditionally "Polish" US cities were flooded with new "political" immigrants, who were generally highly educated intellectuals, and hardly fit the "stupid Polack" stereotype. Pope John Paul II and the Solidarity movement's successes didn't hurt, either.