Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Oh, but I have.

I asked her for her "sources" and she refused and so I'm supposed to reveal mine?? Can't do business on such a basis, sorry.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Paulina,
I can understand your denying the truth. Under extreme circumstances, all of us might be forced to do things which under ordinary circumstances
would scarcely occur to the average person.

Often times, the truth can be embarrassing, indeed painful.

Off-Topic / What's your connection with Poland? Penpals. [574]

Poland not only had about the largest active, open Jewish community in Europe before the War, during WWII, the Poles indeed can be proud that they also had the second most active Nazi Resistance movement beside France.

This doesn't mean that all resistance fighters were philosemites, but it does mean that numerous Polish gentiles did offer safe haven to Jews when many other countries refused. In this way, they share something with Bulgaria and Denmark.

This is not to say there wasn't antisemitism in Poland as well. The point is we must keep historical truth in perspective. After all, few questions are either black and white.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

...Polish people who grew up and lived there, who therefore have every reason to want to deny such every existed. How similar to those Germans who grew up right after the War and lived through Hitler, not during the late '60's. They denied that Nazi persecution of Jews was even at issue, denying the truth until the very end, yet we all know that it most horribly did exist, although we can thank our lucky stars it exists no more. The truth finally came out when their children, indeed grandchildren, eventually, if reluctantly. decided to weed out those long hidden skeletons in the closet and, as the Germans say, "reinen Tisch machen". Poles have to come clean as well.

I'd be the first to concede that the sort of things I've been posting about in all likehood no longer exist as they did in former times, I'm givin' ya that much. Now let's accept that it once did and leave it at that.

Off-Topic / Being a Slav: a blessing or a curse? [199]

Interesting. Transference of meaning is fascinating among related languages, isn't it.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

It didn't, Alien, so relax.
Any "stereotype" has at least some basis in fact.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Tell it to TheMilfman who began this thread. The truth is out there, pal! You can run, but you can't hide.

Off-Topic / Being a Slav: a blessing or a curse? [199]

@Ziemowit,

Not only have I always known the difference between Slovenia (capital Ljubliana) and Slovakia (capital Bratislava), furthermore, their languages are actually quite different in terms of common word stock. The word for "word" in Slovene is "beseda", no similar root whatsoever with "slov-"!

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

??? Et tu, Maf? Why are you putting words in my mouth which I even persisted in stating I never said? I'm truly surprised and disappointed in you, moreover you apparently don't like to respond to private messages.

Bribing officialdom sexual or other, just like exacting political favors from the Church, is as old as St. Peter himself, so quit playing little bo peep!

Language / I love the word Kurwa [26]

@Abrizzle, Polish is far richer in vocabulary than "kurwa".

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

The point I was making is that I've never generalized different nationalities on this or any other forum. Secondly, the meaning of the paragraph is that I would never need to make stuff up which is so plain to any thinking human:-) Often truth really IS stranger than fiction.

Simple enough for you?

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

I reiterate, it's never the length of time one has spent abroad which measures the sharpness of their perception, but the keenness with which they observe their surroundings.

Prejudiced?? I like who's talking, Paulina.

An educated person such as myself clearly has well-researched knowledge about what they are writing/posting and certainly wouldn't be guilty of tortured scribbling and the like except to someone who refuses to admit to even one scintilla of possible veracity in a given statement. Where does a person such as I glean their information? From thin air?!

Your refusal to accept what I've posted is for the umpteenth time the same as if I refused to admit that a majority of Brooklyn slumlords are Jewish. I'm Jewish, but that obviously doesn't make me a slumlord as well.

Paulina is Polish, but does that make her some sort of prostitute merely because she's Polish???
The very statement isn't even worth responding to.

However, it does point to your circular logic.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

I'm no more incapable of admitting that I'm wrong than you are of admitting that you too can be mistaken, Paulina!

DIscussion is always a two-way street. Ya can't deal with that, get off the cross walk!

My formulations are only as "messed up" as you choose them to be. You're arguments are quite simply fallacious; if you don't agree with something the other person is arguing, then THEY and they alone must be wrong.

For every nay-sayer, there are those who will agree:-)

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Not all women.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Thank you, Bobko!

I can only respond by admitting that many conversations I've had with those in question from Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, (all women, by the way) were conducted under the influence of alcohol, i.e. wodka, if only to elicit the truth under circumstances in which someone might well choose to BS their way through, rather than reveal their heart.

Remember that old saying, "Drunkards, like children, always tell the truth."

@Lenka, like Paulina, you refuse to admit the possibility of what I'm saying as the truth, simply because you are a contrarian.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Paulina, it seems that the current exchange is as much about you as it is about me. If I'd posted matters with which you agree or in which you could see some merit, sources would be superfluous now, wouldn't they.

But since you refuse to accept the validity of my conversations, in essence saying I'm lying, you feel the need to require sources to back up what was common knowledge, knowledge not from books, documentaries or the like, but from daily experience of those who lived through Communism.

Again, I draw your attention to my comments yesterday concerning a debate I had of late about the Holocaust on another forum with a poster who also persisted in exacting sources from me. Had I said that the Nazis were the saviors of this planet instead of the gravest, most putrid pestilence in the history of planet Earth (which of course, they were!), the poster in question wouldn't have badgered me for proof.

As I've posted statements with which you clearly take serious issue, you too are asking for sources. Were you in agreement with me, we wouldn't be having this frankly pointless exchange.

You seem to be using this thread to pursue your own agenda, instead of to accept the simple facts with which you might not have been familiar.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Apparently, you continue to deny the fact that what I've stated can be gleaned from conversations with any intelligent anti-Communist defector (man or woman) who managed to escape from that morass.

"Sources"???! Are you mad? Every time someone says something with which you steadfastly refuse to concede, you require documented proof? Rather reminds me of a recent debate I was having on another forum concerning the Nazi Era, during which discussion, the other person continued to pelt me with questions such as "Where did you get your information??" and "I've lived in Berlin all my life and I don't know any Willa Wannsee!" etc.

You're hitting the proverbial brick wall since you will not accept unpleasant reality, Paulina! There were decent, discreet Poles who survived the system and others who chose not to and left. There are plenty of good, truly spiritual American Jews and then there are the unassimilated Brooklyn Orthodox slum lords.

We're both cut from the same cloth....but not the same fabric:-)

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

@Paulina, refusal to acknowledge the unpleasant reality of the Communist past is no logical reason to accuse me of posting anything other than the truth as I see it.

You simply refuse to concede that just possibly, I might be right. You weren't even an adult then, perhaps not even born. Neither was I. All we know is what we read in the papyrus (LOL) and I can certainly read as well as you can!

Travel / Starting 2024 Visa's will be required to visit Poland from the U.S.A. [21]

Canada I believe still requires an IQ test for new arrivals who wish to apply for citizenship.
Possibly this has changed, but have yet to find any news sources on line, even after inputting various key words in combination.

Language / Terms of endearment in Polish [222]

@Sea2mysoul, what's your grandson's name?
For example, if it's "Teddy", then "Tadek" or "Tadziu" would be appropriate etc.

Travel / What do people think about German people in Poland? [25]

Milo means that they have to finally overcome their misgivings about their Nazi past. I lived in Germany, roughly from '87 on and off up through the beginning of 2000, taking business trips as well as attending academic conferences, and the bulk of the enlightened population do indeed acknowledge some degree of recrimination concerning the Third Reich. Perhaps not among your circle of acquaintances, Ironside, but I can handily confirm it as a fact.

In theory, I'd tend to agree. However in reality, far easier said than done.

Travel / What do people think about German people in Poland? [25]

Before this discussion closes, I wanted to add that often times Germans are deemed overly perfectionist when visiting certain countries and may appear permanently dissatisfied with the respective level of service, cleanliness or punctuality.

Having lived among Germans, both abroad as well as here at home for many years, I can confirm that Germans are frequently shocked and disappointed when confronted with such charactarizations, claiming to the contrary that they never seek to come across as either mean or cruel. Instead, they honestly believe it is their duty to point imperfections out to someone, in fact, doing them a favor by allowing them to improve and measure up to German standards:-)

This has been my experience.

Travel / Starting 2024 Visa's will be required to visit Poland from the U.S.A. [21]

I think it's no more than right.

Life / Poland vs Hungary for an expat? [41]

Orban is anti-migrant, who apparently doesn't want such visitors, even if they are educated and speak Hungarian!

His point of view remains "Hungary for Hungarians".

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

Once more, Johnny, you ought to learn how to read English and kindly quit playing the Devil's Advocate so clumsily!

I've never claimed to be a Pole, rather, was simply COMPARING how it would be if I generalized regarding fellow Jews, many of whom are in fact slumlords in Brooklyn, transferring the same fallacy or generalization concerning ALL Polish women as prostitutes during the Communist Era.

Obviously, both statements would be deemed stereotypes and neither would be valid.

Understood this time? Plainer I can't make it for you unless I drew a bloody diagram.

Travel / What do people think about German people in Poland? [25]

Germanophobia's just as bad.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

@Paulina,
As a member of the affected nationality in question, I/we realize how hard it must be to hear and to accept the "inconvenient truth".

I too would like to believe that those Brooklyn slum lords are of any other background than Jewish. However ugly the facts, they must be faced straight on, and you simply wish nothing more than to make me look bad instead of accepting what sadly was, and hopefully no longer needs to be as Poland becomes ever more a free enterprise society.

Travel / What do people think about German people in Poland? [25]

Again, nearly everybody has had some type of cross-cultural run in with some majority tourist group, at least once in their travels.

There's the "ugly American", the ever present Japanese shutterbug of yore, the "arrogant, opinionated German" ad infinitum, ad nauseum!

I've found the latter a stereotype, quite apart from any Germans I've encountered abroad...and that's been quite a number, I can tell you:-)

Travel / What do people think about German people in Poland? [25]

Well, while I've encountered only some German tourists while visiting Szczecin (Stettin) many years ago, I cannot say for certain whether or not they are as you claim, susa82.

Often, nationalities abroad are not the same at home. When in France some time back, oh, during the end of the mid-2000's, I had numerous encounters with German travelers and found them, in comparison with my fellow Americans, far more linguistically adept in French than I and usually quite knowledgible about France.

The one detail though which I do recall, was in Spain in the late '90's. While on a business trip to Madrid, I remember a group of German-speaking visitors in the dining room of my hotel. Being that we both spoke the same language, naturally, I got into a pleasant conversation about travel, tourism etc., innocuous topics, to say the least. I then asked how well they knew Spanish, only to receive an odd look from the tour leader, who responded that the others only used English while on their trip, not German, not Spanish!

I found that strange, I must confess.

Life / Are Polish Women very promiscuous towards foreigners and refugees? [197]

The operative word in my post is "was" the norm, but I trust, no longer is:-)

As I'm sure you're aware, in order to survive daily life during the Communist Era, it most certainly included being able to bribe the local officials....by what ever expedient necessary!