History / The Warsaw Uprising memory. To remember who you are. [180]

The only known Danish "Nazi" on record is a certain Dr. Frits Claussen who attempted an appeasement Hitler-style movement in Denmark during the War. Typically, he was laughed out of the Folketing by his right-thinking fellow Danes:-)

History / The Warsaw Uprising memory. To remember who you are. [180]

The Poles can stand alongside those valiant Danes, lead by among others Kaj Munk who let himself be captured and shot by the Gestapo, as really the one or two European nations which actively resisted Hitler tooth and nail! Sadly, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, even France, caved in shamefully to the Nazis and installed their horrid puppet leaders in place of real men and women!

POWITAJMY BOHATERÓW I ODDAJMY HO£D JEJ PAMIĘĆ!

Genealogy / Do I look Polish? (my picture) [375]

Poles on average tend to be instantly recognizable actually by the lozenge shape of the head, regardless even of light-eye color or fair hair texture! Men usually have broad, squarely-shaped faces. I recently stood next to such a gentleman at my local bus station. He didn't utter a word, yet I guessed (and guessed correctly) that he was Polish. Sure enough, after the first cellphone ring, the man answered in obviously native Polish:-)

Same with women. They're recognizable usually by sharp-featured, almost sculptured, faces (again, eye color or hair notwithstanding) and a particular expression I can't quite put into words.

Genealogy / Do I look Polish? (my picture) [375]

From these photos alone, I'd frankly say more Italian than any other nationality. Did I disappoint you?

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

Again, one's genetic makeup alone scarcely conditions one for fluency in the ancestral mother tongue! It's all nurture, not nature:-)

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

Gumishu's right on this! Polish heritage alone is NO prerequisite for being able to learn Polish effectively, don't kid yourself:-)

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

Depends on what one means by "liberated". If what is meant is "indoctinated" with democratic values, i.e. baseball etc. aka "de-NAZIfied", clearly to victor went the spoils (..of war). I'm sure the former Soviets tell and told a very different picture of "liberation" than the Brits and the Yanks:-)

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

Pleassse, alcoholism is scarcely limited to the Poles!!! How about the Swedes, the Dutch and the Finns?? The latter have a far worse reputation, along with hooliganism among the Dutch particularly:-)

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

I beg your pardon, sir! What I've reiterated on this forum is that NO nation is "inherently" one thing or another, but a people is the collective summation of its parts and sadly, the German nation seems to have been inculcated with an insularity born out of perceived borderlessness, hence vulnerabilty.

To such a people, I gladly add the Japanese, with whom the Germans are often compared:-)

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

There are cultural differences between nationalities, there's no getting around that. Stereotyping though is an all too easy trap into which we all fall. My experiences with Poles is that many are openly emotional about topics which might leave, say, Germans, Danes, Brits, Yanks etc. cold, e.g. their national identity aka recent history.

Once, I casually remarked to a group of youngish Poles (30 something) how much I loved the Polish language, literature and what I saw of the landscape, along with personal "heroes" of mine such as Karol Wojtyła. At that point, one young man almost with tears in his eyes, kept agreeing with me, saying "New York Times writes sh***t about my country...!" The rest of the people similarly became agitated.

Imagine saying something like what I said to a group of Danes. Not all are pflegmatic, but when I once told some Danish tourists how much I liked Denmark, they all but scoffed at my feelings in a bemused, ironic way:-)

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

??? Seemed to have missed something. I never once intimated that I "prefer" any such thing, I'm merely describing the state of German historiography post 1945:-) Perhaps it is YOU who is reading an unintended meaning into my statement(s):-)

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

Spot on, Totti!

Furthermore, don't negatively pigeon-hole all Poles merely because of bad experiences with one group.

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

Distance? Indeed you do. Post-War American, British and German historians, e.g. Gooch, Kegan, Trevor-Roper, Bracher, Taylor and a host of others ALL jumped on the bandwagon of trying NOT to whitewash Germany as some flawed nation of bloodthirsty, Jew-hating, heathens:-) Problem was, as illustrated beautifully in that movie "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961), the US needed Germany as Europe's economic, geopolitically strategic lynchpin. Americans therefore had to be super cautious NOT to tread on German toes.

The English were rather less "politically correct", however.

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

What other kind is there, apart from the tainted kind?

Seriously, After the War, Germany wasn't able to see herself objectively. How could she? Therefore, ONLY outsiders, i.e. Allied outsiders, saw themselves as either morally or intellectually "fit" enough to sit in judgement of their irreparably compromised European cousins, now seen by many as damaged goods, a once proud well(-spring) of culture, forever poisoned.

Many after the War shared this view. It took the late seventies for folks like Mitscherlich to write so-called traitorous exposes of their people. They were called "foulers of the nest" by most, unpatriotic rats who'd best shut up for their own health and good.

TheOther, history isn't pretty, so don't try to whitewash the facts, while we're still on the subject of paintLOL

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

Can't appropriately respond to that last post, I'm afraid.

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

Well, as I recall, the Fuehrer himself wasn't exactly crazy about the Poles either. He grouped all Slavs together as some lower form of human (just add an "e" in between "Slav" and whaddya get???) and merely placed Jewish Poles at the bottom of the whole heap. Back on topic? As I posted earlier, the Poles on average disliked the Germans, but the nation they really FEARED, were the Russians.

By the way, you may disagree to your little heart's desire. The weak underpinnings of democracy and enlightenment in Germany are considered by any authentic historian as root causes in the rise of Nazism, period!

@Oh, incidentally Mirten ol' pal! I'm not Polish. I'm of German descent and was born in the US:-)

UK, Ireland / My bad experiences with Polish neighbours in UK (not meant to offend) [173]

I'm not Polish. Not even close:-) But the above diatribe reads a bit over the top to me! I'm not necessarily questioning the veracity of your story, merely the generalizing character of it all.

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

Don't know to which "game" you're referring, TheOther! I'm speaking about historical fact, not opinion. The fact is that Germany was particularly susceptible to Hitler because their foundation in popular democracy was weak to almost non-existent. Come one, man! Take a look at the failed Vormaez so-called Revolution of 1848!! It was like claiming to be a serious army and attacking the enemy with one pop-gun and a water pistol:-)LOL The Weimar Constitution??! There was a bleedin' failure if I ever heard one. Dressing a military nation-state in democratic garb for a decade and calling it a true democracy??

I'm only painting German history with the brush strokes it deserves, using the colors and canvas which it has bestowed upon me, nothing more, nothing less!

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

@TheOther,

You and Jolly are the two big "German"/"Germany" experts around here 'right? Well check out H. Plessner's treatise on 'secular piety', one of Germany's philosophical responses to the Plague, the Thirty-Years War and a bunch of other stuff brewing pre-Enlightenment throughout the German Empire! Secular Piety is defined as a uniquely German view of the world which seeks to "despiritualize" the physical world and remove G_d from the entire equation. Kant too contributed to the so-called Nazi Weltanschauung, whereby e.g. pity as a response to pain was deemed essentially illogical and thus unimportant. Obedience to the Will was the highest commandmant, hence, disobeying the Will might be considered even worse than murder! The German title's too long and this ain't a German Forum per se, only once you read, you'll instantly see this guy Plessner's take on the essential cave-in of grass-roots Christianity to the ruling aristocrats at the time. He and others have explained the failure of Christian ideology and its basic 'Judaism' as one of the many reason Hitler was able to appeal so viscerally to the German masses! Basically, Germany was still pagan, had never Christianized (except nominally), hence had no concept of human equality, brotherly love, i.e. the glue that holds Western Civilization together.

If you're thinking, "Hey, £yżko! Whaddabout the Crusades?", the Crusaders themselves were only converts to Christianity, not familiar with the teachings of Jesus.

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

Yeah, we know! And "our" Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes once advocated mercy killing of the feeble-minded, right!
That doesn't make it right either though, does it now?:-)

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

Germany has seen itself throughout history as the unwitting victim of inferior races and peoples, forever vying for their rightful place against the "superior" Germans. This attitude has morphed into "LOOK, WE'RE GERMANY!! ECONOMIC SUPER POWER NO.1 IN EUROPE. TREMBLE BEFORE US!!!"

They needn't say such expressly; it's often plain oozin' outta their pores:-)

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

Name me one testing system which ISN'T flawed in some way, I dare you!
:-)

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]

Problem is, folks, is that the US simply hasn't kept up with the rest of humanity! "What was good enough for grandpa's good enough for me!" type mentality pervades the Western States especially, like a cancer, never cut out at its source!! Is protection important? Sure, it is! But the cure for crime isn't arming every potential nut job walking around. The cure for crime is ameliorating social conditions at home, school and work, thereby decreasing the need to commit violent crime.

In my opinion, only registered and RESPONSIBLE police officers in any town in the land, should be allowed to buy, carry and use handguns on a regular basis. Just being a "hunter", "gun-fancier" or the like, shouldn't be good enough:-)

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people!" is what the NRA has been babbling for generations. Yet, if the (unstable, trigger-happy) people didn't carry guns in the first place, more (unarmed, innocent) people wouldn't be killed!!

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

ALL facts by their very nature are subject to both legitimate "interpretation" as well as abuse by certain groups wielding a particular agenda, and the fact remains that Germany has suffered seriously, starting in around 1985 up 'till round about the late '90's and beyond with a much-watered down school system to accomodate all those groups heretofore excluded: the feeble minded, immigrants, often from poor, illiterate families, as well as children from so-to-speak "broken homes" aka "at-risk" populations.

The situation is roughly analogous to contemporary America. The reason that countries such as Sweden, Iceland and Finland seeme to score so high, is/was the relative lack of the type of malignant social problems which have invaded Germany, the US, the UK and France. In by and large homogeneous societies, e.g. Sweden or Iceland, (yet curiously NOT Norway or Denmark as much any longer!), the learning curve is far more uniform, the household and the school go much more hand in hand, and immigrants are far less integrated than they are in many other countries in Europe.

Law / The right to own guns: would you support such legislation in Poland? [2237]

If that Roof character hadn't had a gun on his person (mad as hell though he probably was), there would've been NO shooting and the world wouldn't be reading about another countless statistic! Same for Adam Lanza, the Columbine Gang and all the others.......

:-)

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

Nonsense?? PISA was correct, TheOther!! Whether the reasons are due to immigrant children or not, the fact IS that Germany's level HAS lowered over the past decades:-) How can you argue with facts or are you merely splitting hairs as usual?LOL

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

Nice one:-)

By the by, the spelling is "aneCdote":-) Think of "eXam" vs. "eGZamin" etc....

English spelling's a nightmare for most Europeans, don't worry, I'm only being my persnickety self!

Language / Polish Language Exchange Thread [141]

Believe her bio says Kraków, but that could always be misleading:-)

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

Correct!

However, it might also be that Mirten's schooling is poor and he may not have learned in history class about Modern Germany:-)
Considering all the revisionism that's been going on recently apropos Hitler and the Holocaust, I'm not surprised. Frankly, it didn't even occur to me reading his post. And don't let's please not forget the embarrassing PISA study some years back, in which Germany was ranked almost number fifteen among world nations in education.

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

More Poles learned German for years rather than English (even when it was later offered in school). Those I've spoken to also preferred it to Russian (albeit the latter was superficially easier for them):-)