The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by TheOther  

Joined: 13 Jul 2009 / Male ♂
Warnings: 1 - A		 Last Post: 27 Jul 2024
Threads: Total: 6 / Live: 1 / Archived: 5
Posts: Total: 3596 / Live: 951 / Archived: 2645

Displayed posts: 952 / page 16 of 32
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TheOther   
10 Feb 2016
Genealogy / Do I look Polish? (my picture) [375]

Who cares if you look Polish, Japanese or Namibian? You seem to be a nice, young woman - that's all that counts.
TheOther   
10 Feb 2016
Genealogy / Do I look Polish? (my picture) [375]

Duck face is over. The new selfie face is fish gape... :)

cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/news/a47461/new-selfie-face/
TheOther   
9 Feb 2016
Genealogy / KUKULA ancestry [32]

Have you searched for Kattowitz, Prussia (or German Empire) already? That's the first thing you should do given the time frame.

familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bsurname%3AKukula~%20%2Bbirth_place%3AKattowitz~
TheOther   
21 Jan 2016
Genealogy / Poland Genealogy Resources [130]

Look forward to any advice.

If you know when and where your parents married, you should either have their marriage certificate (which also lists their parent's birth places and dates), or you should be able to contact the state archive in Poland that holds the civil registration records for the place where the marriage took place. Usually, the marriage was at the bride's hometown. Once you know the names of all four grandparents plus the birth dates of your parents, you can try to find additional siblings in the records (start with your mom and dad, and then move forward and backward in time). When you've found the oldest sibling, go backwards in time from his/her date of birth. You should be able to then find the marriages of your grandparents, which are usually a few months to 1+ year prior to the birth of the first child. Then start all over with your great grandparents, and so on and so forth.

When you contact Polish archives, always provide as much information and details as possible. Write in Polish, German or English, and if they find something they will ask for a pre-payment (modest prices!) before they'll send you document copies. Good luck!
TheOther   
15 Jan 2016
History / Polish conscripts to German army [132]

Does anyone have any information on this Regiment please?

These are the experts (don't get fooled by the main page by the way, they are NOT Nazis):
forum-der-wehrmacht.de/
TheOther   
26 Dec 2015
Life / All Things Christmassy in Poland [281]

in Poland the Christmas season lasts from the start of Advent until Candlemas (2 Feb)

Christmas at home was a party on the beach at 30 C/ 85 F. Can't imagine to do that for two months in a row... ;)
TheOther   
23 Dec 2015
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

gave Western big-money forces carte blanche to exploit and abuse Poland's economy and not pay their fair share of taxes.

Tax breaks to attract foreign investors - what's wrong with that (as long as you don't allow tricks like the so-called Double Irish Arrangement for example)? Increasing your corporate taxes to fill your coffers temporarily is of course possible, but in the end it will bite you if you are not careful. Once the taxes reach a certain threshold, investments in Poland will become unprofitable and the country will have to deal with major unemployment. Poland is not an island and has to compete with other countries for foreign investments.
TheOther   
21 Dec 2015
Genealogy / Records from pre-1914 Będzin and Sosnowiec [10]

I have checked every online resource I can think of (Ancestry, FaimlySearch, Jewishgen).

Have you seen this one as well?

familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99H-NQGQ?owc=QZW1-QV8%3A1588932888%2C1588932893%2C1589088475%3Fcc%3D2564996&wc=QZW1-QYF%3A1588932888%2C1588932893%2C1589088475%2C1589088474%3Fcc%3D2564996&cc=2564996
TheOther   
17 Dec 2015
Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]

So, to sum it up, I suspect it probably has a lot to do with the sex industry, actually.

Maybe there were two different phases in which the reputation of women from the East developed? Communist times in the 1980's when being "friendly" to westerners could have its advantages, and the post-1989 era when some of these women were exploited by the sex industry. Either way: we have to be careful not to generalize too much, because we are only talking about a small percentage of the female population.

I really recommend reading the article

I'll check it out, thanks for the link.

it may be a common Polish character trait to think in terms of "the West" or "the East".

I believe that most Europeans who can remember the Cold War will do that.

My true interests are butterflies, rainbows, flowers, kittens and embroidery.

You forgot unicorns... ;)
TheOther   
16 Dec 2015
Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]

I have heard that about East Germany under communism as well.

Same in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, don't know about Poland.
TheOther   
16 Dec 2015
Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]

Yes I know, I made that point myself.

Not really, because women at that time were not so cheap that they would hit the sack with you for a pack of cigarettes, and they certainly didn't prostitute themselves (well, some did, but they were mostly government employed). The "attraction" of western currencies was mostly based on the fact that dollars and DM were the inofficial currencies of many countries in the Eastern Bloc, and they would buy you goods and privileges that weren't available to anyone without. No wonder that quite a few ladies took advantage of acquaintances from the west.

I think many women from that part of the world would dispute and probably find offensive

Probably, but most of them didn't have the opportunity to compare the East to the West to tell the difference.

Probably no different to teenagers in many parts of the world.

Societies in the west were already quite liberal when it came to sex (including the Irish gals spending their vacation in Spain...), but those in the east were a little different in that respect. Sex was not so much a commercially exploited "fashion", but something more natural which was simply a part of life as it should be. Relaxed, as I said. It's hard to explain.
TheOther   
15 Dec 2015
Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]

I really am just wondering - did Western men get that impression because of the women from the Eastern bloc who ended up working in the sex industry?

The answer is actually quite simple and has nothing to do with the sex industry. Two reasons, the first being that many women in the Eastern Bloc - especially in Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia - had a much more "relaxed" attitude towards sex than their western counterparts. Second, in the early to mid 1980's, western men travelling in communist countries were at a very big advantage when it came to buying power. Everything was dirt cheap compared to the west and hard currencies were highly sought after, because they could buy you almost anything in the east. Very attractive to a lot of women of that era, and that's pretty much how they earned their reputation of being "easy picks".
TheOther   
1 Dec 2015
History / Whom do the people in Poland hate more: Germans or Russians? [869]

Isn't it sad that modern so-called Westerners don't remember nor care about the past

Isn't it sad that people talk about fighting during WW2 and about hating whole nations even though they were born 50+ years after the end of the war?
TheOther   
1 Dec 2015
History / Whom do the people in Poland hate more: Germans or Russians? [869]

I always dreamed of Germany disappearing at the hands of Polish

Too late ... Germany owns you already ...

...ever since I was a little kid

Isn't it sad that xenophobia starts at such a young age, and that it's always the fault of the parents?
TheOther   
26 Nov 2015
Feedback / Is it Polish forum or foreign forum? [159]

Those two classy Poles

What are you waffling about?

Little White Riding Hood meets the Big Bad Polonia Adolf. "Adolf, Adolf ... why do you have such a big mouth?" LOL.
TheOther   
9 Nov 2015
History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

But the division itself goes back much deeper into history,

Interesting interpretation. Wonder how Austria-Hungary or the German Empire defined themselves (if at all) - Central Europe, Eastern Europe, both? Most likely, nobody really cared.
TheOther   
26 Oct 2015
Genealogy / Want to find a person [762]

Gottlieb as a first name doesn't sound quite right either.

Gottlieb is a common, old fashioned German given name for a male.
TheOther   
26 Oct 2015
Genealogy / Want to find a person [762]

How about this one?

familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3A%22Gottlieb%20Bogdan%22~%20%2Bsurname%3ADebski~
TheOther   
26 Oct 2015
Genealogy / Want to find a person [762]

The surname Gottleib

I believe that wasn't a surname, but the given name "Gottlieb". So her ancestor's name was Gottlieb Bogdan <family name>.
TheOther   
24 Oct 2015
News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]

Only naive people believed in EU.

I would suggest you read up on the history of the EU, my friend. Start with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community