News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Thank you, Dirk!

We're finally back on the same home page. The only difference between nowadays vs. "the old days" is that today people hint at it more than back in former times.

Sixty or more years ago, it was commonly understood that the family priest/rabbi, the local minister to a loyal, contributing congregant of many years, a politician etc. was nearly always THE intermediary who brokered jobs for those who paid into the system.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Some solid connections sure won't hurt either:-)
Remember, it's not always what, but WHOM, you know!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

We may not all be equal as people; we are ALL equal as human beings.
This is written in the Bible...if you people have ever bothered to read and understand it!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Obviously nobody's perfect, "to err is human, to forgive divine" etc. ad infinitum...
Problem is that these days, folks don't even try, certainly not to the degree we once did, say fifty-odd years ago and before.
Mankind's lost the way, and BADLY!

Ought to have known we were heading for a social Armageddon when around the early '90's I remember reading a longish op-ed piece
in the NYT entitled "Sometimes, even G-d needs a vacation", wherein the pastor, the author of the article, remarked he was actually trying to
use whatever legal tactics he and his staff possibly could to discourage "problem parishioners" from bothering the church office on the
minister's "day off".

Hmmm, "minister's day off"?? Last time I consulted the Good Book, a clergyman's duty, bound by their calling, was to be there for whomever required

the requisite soul tending, a soldier in vestments, fighting the good fight against evil of a suffering humanity.

Recently, my spirit still stuck in more halcyon days, I attended the informal memorial of an elderly colleague who'd passed on and we were all gathered

in the Dean's office. I arrived a few minutes after people started gathering, saying, "I wish to extend my condolences on Dr. Luehrmann's untimely passing!", upon which

the priest in his robes seated near to me, looking rather dispeptic, blurts out "GLAD THE OLD FART'S DEAD!", to chuckles and quortles inside the anteroom.

Isn't that lovely.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

As far as having a good life, how in G-d's name can one truly enjoy such a life if it's built solely, or mostly, on the unhappiness/suffering of others?

The answer is one can't.

Never too late to repent for one's sins ON EARTH!

Love / How do guys from Poland flirt? [47]

Off (or perhaps on) topic, kelebeg. Are you perchance Hungarian by birth?

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Now there's a rationalization for indifference on the part of the West if I've ever heard one! Can't you do better than that, Dirk?

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Can you really believe any human group would masochistically prefer the nightmare of eternal isolation to the ideal of harmony and peaceful cohabitation?
Y'all must be either cracked or some type of political provocateurs!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

I merely wish to set the record straight once and for all. Those who were victims came by that regrettable status honestly. Look up the meaning of the word and I trust you'll see what I mean.

The Jews didn't all wish to exclude themselves and live in hermetically sealed isolation. The Christians wanted that and set up laws that it be so.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

I see you're switching stuff around, making it seem as though the aggressor were in truth the victim instead of the victim as victim.

Were someone to get attacked who is able to defend themselves valiantly, bully for them. However, as I've often reiterated, one size doesn't fit all and why should the healthy six-footer with broad shoulders and a pair of biceps as big as ham hocks necessarily be deemed both "less" of a victim than another person 5ft. 4in. with a weak constitution and who doesn't pump iron every day, not to mention more worthy of being defended by virtue of his size and strength?

Most Jews were indeed more than wanting in physical exercise, having a poor diet and almost complete unfamiliarity with the daily use of firearms, not to mention skilled armed conflict, above all in the shtettl.

The latter scarcely chose their role as victims vs. the former more self-sufficient group.

All I get from many on this Forum is the perennial "empathy fatigue" and please bear in mind that once the conscience goes, so too the soul and humanity has traded her specialness, distinct from the animal kingdom, in exchange for a ring side seat before the Gates of Hell.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Be careful please, with that "Jews had a monopoly on victimhood?" stuff, Dirk, you're playing with fire and might get burned.
Such dodgy rhetoric makes it sound as if the Jews actually "planned" their status as Nazi pawns.

Believe me, if we could've done things differently over the millenia, we'd have done it!

Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

Polish people don't necessarily"stare" at strangers any more or less than other relatively homogeneous societies, in which outsiders who appear "different" are often the subject of closer inspection! I'd go as far as to say that Poles may be the more discrete in that sense, compared with say, the small-town Germans whom I initially encountered.

Being tall, but at the time dark, curly-haired, brown-eyed and non-Nordic-looking, I received plenty more stares in Scandinavia than I ever did during my all too brief respite in Poland roughly a few years later:-) When I started to speak in the respective languages much less, that was it, it was too much for them up north to handleLOL

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Well, Morawiecki apparently has relaxed the restrictions of this new law....somewhat!

News / Poland supporting potential new EU members - Georgia and Turkey [32]

Turkey especially is today a political force to be reckoned with!

Erdogan wants to reject Ataturk's vision of a modern nation and return to the time of sultans and caliphates.
This Turkey is clearly not ready for the EU, NOT the erstwhile democratic bridge presided over by enlightened, Western-
thinking politicians, for instance Tansu Cillar.

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

"But generally speaking, the German populace retained their Catholic/Protestant identity."

On the surface so it seems. However, ask an Austrian historian about his or her countrymen's religious affiliations, and they'll probably reply neither "katholisch" (Catholic) nor

"protestantisch" (Protestant), but rather "Nationalkatholizistisch" aka "National Socialist Catholic":-)

Nominally, nearly all Germans were/are Christian, of course, the Jewish population being even back then a decided minority within the German-speaking world.
Plessner's point though is that one of any number of reasons why Hitler was able to sell the Germans (including Austrians) on his exterminationist ideology with such

apparent ease, was that there was little firm Christian underpinning in their society. Therefore, they were quickly sold, most of them, on the notion that the bigger, tougher, stronger, healthier, more mentally agile, were simply better than those less fortunate a la Darwin!

The concept of divine spirit, brotherly love, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount "And the meek shall inherit the earth" and so forth, remained essentially foreign to the historical German character, and hence utterly laughable to the arch-cynical Nazis.

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

The Nazis, one might with equal veracity argue the Germans as well, were Pagan in their world view, a people belonging to a nation which never quite Christianized, but instead merely paid lip service to convenient Christian imagery or symbolism! Essentially, religion was the means which justified their ends, namely, the conquest of "inferior" races and peoples aka anybody who wasn't deemed a fit AryanLOL

Helmuth Plessner states the former point of view quite cogently in his famous (as yet untranslated) volume "Nationhood Deferred: On the Political Gullibility of the Bourgeoise Intellect".

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

This confirms then what I've long suspected. Maybe this too helps to explain the proverbially low quality of English instruction in Poland.

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

Hitler certainly did hate Christianity with its ideals of love and forgiveness! He is known to have publically (as well as in MeinKampf) excoriated Christianity as having too much of a "Jewish conscience".

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

If your first language isn't English (in your case I'd assume Polish, yes?), this oughtn't pose much of a problem either, considering the ultra-globalized world we live in.

Some twenty-five or more years back, I might concede that even the hint of not being native to the language being taught could in fact understandably be seen as a barrier, today, I'd have to say no.

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

Adult learners don't really need "teaching technique" in the classroom as compared with children or under-age teens, I'll grant you that much.
However, any number of international institutes of the kind described in the thread will doubtless prefer someone with either a degree in CELTA, TESOL or any similar degree from a certificate-bearing, accredited college which will confer same on those teaching ESL abroad (the operative word here)!

If your husband has no background further in the language of country where he will be teaching, this might pose a problem.
Sure, I realize bribery runs rampant nearly everywhere on the known planet nowadays, many Polish schools DO indeed require at best a minimal standard for their teachers, albeit the pay probably won't be that terrific in contrast with the States, particularly Germany for instance, doing the same job.

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

Further addendum, just the truth.

The Poles to the Nazis were sub-human ("Untermenschen").
However, the Jews were termed by Hitler himself vermin ("Geziefer").

The former might still be permitted to live under the Third Reich, albeit solely as slaves and servants to the Master RaceLOL
The latter were in fact NOT permitted to live, certainly not within the dragnet of at that time occupied Europe, roughly extending from France to the Reichskommisariat

in the Eastern districts or "Ostlandgebiet". The goal here was total extirpation, even for so-called Mischlinge or "quarter Jews" in the long run.

Perhaps to some an insultingly insignificant distinction. It does though point to a slight degree of wiggle room in the former group which might have allowed Christian Poles to live.

History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]

Concerning loving or hating an entire country, I should quote here the late German President Gustav Heinemann when asked by the press whether he loves his country, he responded, "I love my wife"

:-)

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

American English exclusively, although we all realize full well that "that other one" continues to represent the world standard, look at the UN, EU, NATO etc.

America might lead the world in industry, however, Britain still retains her crown of bearer of the English mother tongue to millions:-)

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

Students want to believe their teachers/instructors/professors are role models. They too realize that there's plenty of PR in language teaching and that their pedagogues

don't always say EXACTLY what they mean. I can't quite agree with you there one hundred percent.

The main thing is/was that my charges saw that my native language was English, the language in which I was engaged to teach.

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

Speaking only from my experience in that other large country to Poland's West, I would typically respond in clear, unidiomatic English, neither too slowly (which might have been taken as condescending!) nor too quickly. If my interlocutor for whatever reason failed to understand me, I'd excuse myself to the class, go into the corridor and explain matters sotto voce in German to my colleague. This rarely if ever happened, however.

Everything went just fine. What I told was merely a "white lie", not an out-an-out fib intended to hurt or harm anybody.
:-)

News / How strongly are Poles sure that president Duda defend Poland's interests ? [265]

I agree, only the puppeteer has changed; pre-'89, Poland was a puppet of the former Soviets, today, Duda is correct seen as a puppet of Kaczynski's very home-grown PiS. It's all the same punch-and-judy show! The audience hasn't changed, merely the players aka puppets:-)

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

@maf, who's lying?? Just using a little child psychology on 'em, that's all.

@roz,.....yeah, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I always say:-)

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

No, not a liar, rather, as a purposely cautious educator. That's been my experience.
Tempting as it was when I was teaching in Germany to chime in interpreter-like, every bloody time a student of mine was groping for the right word,

I restrained myself as much as humanly possible. Instead, I asked their classmates to see if THEY, rather than I, could help the struggling student.

It actually worked:-)

Work / New Job at Warsaw International School as an English teacher - Advice? What should I expect? [26]

"But the students can't know I speak it."

Definitely relate, pernumba! In certain such institutions, there's an "ENGLISH ONLY!" rule and after two demerits, the instructor can be let go.
I wish you only the very best of luck and I see that you're serious because you bothered to learn the target language:-)

Have a blast!

News / Political life of Poland [135]

My point was crystal clear, Rich, simply not grasped by you in it's entirety!

Immigrants have always been a necessary evil, so to speak, the life blood of a failing corpus which found itself in need of cheap labor and quickly. Let's not mince words here; while the former are human beings, just like any other, they have indeed been turned into political footballs by our capitalist society, to be brought in or chucked out as need would have it.

Once, the newcomer was put at the back of the line until they learned our language intelligibly (nobody ever said "perfectly"), had no prior criminal record, and worked their way up to the standing they desired and contributed respectably to society.

Some countries such as our neighbor to the North administer intelligence tests to new arrivals who wish to settle in their country. Perhaps we here in this country should do the same or are we so stymied by the political correctness of civil rights that we've become socially paralyzed and therefore asphyxiated by our own public relations bull?