Language / Grammar - difference between "jaki" and "co" in Polish language [43]

"jaki(ś)" means more "what type" or "kind"/"sort", e.g. "Proszę o chleb! - Jakiś chleb? = May I have some bread, please! - What kind?, or "Jakiś kolor jest?" = What color is that? "Co" is like "What", e.g. "Co to jest?" = What's that?, "O co to chodzi? = What's that (it) about? etc.

History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Yehudi,

Vox claimed I was comparing the tragic death in a street accident of Socha's young daughter with the death of numerous AK fighters in Warsaw.

The person obviously grossly misunderstood what I was saying:-)

History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

You missed the entire point, Voxie!

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

Gumishu, Germany aka Nazi Germany was hardly alone in her committing of unspeakable missdeeds. The "singularity" of the Nazi Era was more the seeming nationwide complicity as well as the methodical thoroughness with which such barbarity was carried out!

Yes, JollyRomek shares with many other Germans this insecurity which the Germans call "Geltungsbeduerfnis" and which is like a knee-jerk reaction every time the truth about Germany's shameful recent past suddenly comes up. Most can't handle it.

Then again, I don't see the average 21st century American rushing over to see the Museum of US Atrocities to Native Americans or the Monument To Slavery either.

The latter crimes however, do beggar comparison:-)

History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Ooops. Guess, I'll have to re-read the Wiki-Pol. entry:-)
thanks!

History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Merged: Leopold Socha - Jews savior, hero?

What with all these commemorations concerning the indeed valiant Warsaw Uprising in '44-45, it seems to me that equal attention should be paid to the brief, shining life of Leopold "Poldek" Socha, the sewage inspector in £ódź who hid Jews (even those who couldn't pay), losing his own life at only thirty-six while saving his young daughter's right after the war, in 1946.

As we Jews would say, may his memory be as a blessing!

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

Since US education itself was basically "cancelled" during and even after the Reagan years, it's no wonder:-)

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

There were shameful acts committed by BOTH SIDES, notably under duress of death (or worse!!!)...EXPOSURE!
Sure, many members of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising among the Jewish participants did indeed have criminal records. Is the mass killing of an entire people though ever justified in order to punish a minority of wrong doers??!

You probably agree with that guy the late Prof. Andreas Hillgruber from Cologne whose major work on the destruction of Bolshevism attempted to tacitly rationalize, therefore to an extent justify, the Shoah, by arguing the German people were so loathing of Communism, ergo, so fearful of some Communist threat, that a man on the level of Hitler was needed to establish order in the country, citing the failed Kurt Eisner 1919 takeover of Bavaria as evidence of the Germans' desire for a more solid discipline. A majority of leading German Communists were either Jews (Eisner, Rosa Luxembourg) or half-Jews (Karl Liebknecht), hence "Jew" eventually became synomymous with "Communist", the hated Staatsfeind!:-)

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

A website source for instance might be helpful:-)

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

I already did, and still don't get what you're driving at:-)

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

Please explain?

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

History is always written by the winner, JollyRomek, you know that:-) The IRA were indeed branded terrorists and baby killers, because that what many of them were! I still cannot forgive or forget Gerry Adams, despite his ass-kissing the English in an attempt to turn over a new leaf!!

Never heard of Polish Underground Resistance taking hostages, then in many cases killing them, merely to shake up the other side!!

To me, the tactics of the IRA were similar to that of the Weather Underground etc. Completely different circumstances, related methods of violence and coercion.

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

The number though, was relatively small. While Holland, for instance, had Westerbork Camp, Denmark had NONE!

Hat's still off to the Danes:-)

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) [376]

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) [376]

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.