History / Poles should emulate Jews? [153]

"Emulaiton" was the title of the thread I started several years ago and by some force majeure it got merged with the latest one. There is a difference. A call to emulation is an appeal, the latest thread deals solely with dispassionate analysis which could be an interesting intellectual exercise. The latter thread is in the spirit of Realpolitik -- objective assessment of effectiveness, the "survive and thrive" theme, totally devoid of any ethical or aesthetic considerations. For example, Stalin was a worse monster than Hitler in terms of his victims' body count, but in terms of Realpolitik he was by far the superior despot. (BTW that too could be an interesting subject for discussion but would have to be off-topic.)

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

KOBYLARZ: root-word kobyła (mare, female horse); possibly originated as a nick for the sole farmer in a hamlet to own only one mare; alternatively as a topo tag from villages such as Kobylarnia, Kobylasz,. Kobyle, Kobylec and similar. (Rough Eng. equivalents: Mareville, Mareton, Marebury.)

History / Poles should emulate Jews? [153]

Everywhere and always. Obviously if someone is doomed to total extermination as was the case under Hitler, only a very few managed to survive. But given half a chance Jews will outperform most other nations. Jews constitute a very tiny nation on the world stage -- a mere 15 million or so. Ever consider the percentage of scientists, musicians, writers, scholars, politicians, entertainers, etc. they have produced?

History / Poles should emulate Jews? [153]

Merged: Comparing Polish and Jewish success levels?

The quality of life in various countries is often measured on the basis of a composite of negatives and positives. Life is good in a country that has a low crime, accident, suicide, divorce and homelessness rate as well as a high level of literacy, education, entrepreneurship, income and environmental awareness, etc.

I believe nations can be evaluated in a similar way on the basis of how a specific people have well used the givens they have received: territory, climate, geographic location, natural wealth, human resources, etc. Such an analysis would eschew any moral considerations because one nation's success if often achieved at another's expense. One must assume for the purpose of such an analysis that the goal of every nation like that of every living organism is to SURVIVE AND THRIVE.

On that basis, Jews rank at or near the top of the world's most successful nations. Poles are considerably lower, although it would be difficult if not impossible to assign percentage values to such a comparison.

Genealogy / Szercman / Kutmer - information [5]

SZERCMAN: Polonised spelling of Scherzmann -- possibly meaning joker or jokster; not currently used in Poland.

KUTMER: My Yiddish ain't that hot, so this is just a wild guess -- the Yiddish version of kotlarz (pot & pan maker); not currently used in Poland.

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

Paulina -- congrats, a great post! Finally a balanced approach ot the question. Your are to be admired for the time and patience it took to get all those thoughts down in writing. Much more valuable than back-anb-forth repartees.

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

To better define terms, the Soviet-backed puppets were those in power: Goys Bierut, Radkiewicz and Gomułka (later arrested), Russified Pole Rokossowski, Jews Berman, Minc, Fejgin, Brystygier, Romkowski, Różański, Mietkowski. Wolińska, Michnik and others -- the PZPR rank and file were in it for the perks and job opportunities created for them by the pupper leadership.

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

Pan raczy żartować? (Joking?) The subjugated and non-sovereign Polish nation bore no repsonsiblity fror what the Soviet occupation forces and their Kremlin-backed puppets did prior to June 1989. Remember Mazowiecki's iconic thick line, meaning that free Poland would not be liable for what the regime had done over the preceding 45 years.

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

When were those Lutherans expelled?
There were vietrually no true communsits in Poland, only opportunitists who joined the PZPR for reasons of career and privilege.

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

Poland prides itself in being a "kraj bez stosów" (land without stakes -- the kind people are burnt at.)
Except for the Aryans (who betrayed Poland by siding with Sweden), no religious groups was ever expelled from Poland. And there were hardly any religious wars of the 30-years war type taking place in the "enlightened" West. Compare that with Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England, etc.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

KULA nad KUK£A are two different terms. Kula means ball, kukła is the puppet.

CZOKA£O: from dialectal verb czokać (standard Polish cmokać) to kiss loudly, make a puckering lip-smacking sound imitating a loud kiss; this is one of a fairly small group of surnames derived from he past tense of verbs. Others include Przybył, Biegała, Gwizdała, Mrugało, etc.

For more info contact research60@gmail

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

Poles were in their own country, Jews were outsiders seeking asylum and received it. They had been thrown out of one place after another, so nothing stopped them from moving on if that mere handful of pogroms you listed were more than they could take.

All in all, the dates you threw up look like a Sunday School picnic compared to what was happening in the "enlightened" West. Check out:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism#Eleventh_century

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

If things were so bad over the centuries, why didn't they go to Germany, only a few km to the west, or Muscovy or Hungary or Bohemia or Sweden?

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

Have you tried poznan pogrom? Google is the same in Warsaw or Hamtramck. So which pogrom are you interested in?

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

Not necessarily Russian. They were all Soviet citizens but that included Jews, Georgians, Kalmuks, Latvians, Kazahkis, Armenians and any other nation the tzars and Stalin managed to subjugate.

As for Poznań, I'm not much into local football. That's all I got when I Googled what you wrote: Poznan pogrom. Try it, you'll see.

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

Citizenship can be a purely bureaucratic category. The Poles unfortunate enough to have lived in the eastern half of Poland annexed by Putin, er, um, I mean Stalin in collusion with Hitler, and who survived the ethnic purges of the late 1930s and the post-1941 genocide* and exile were able to write Polish in their Soviet passports, but if they knew what was good for them they wrote Ukrainian or Belarusian.

And the POPs sent by as occupation forces spoke little if any Polish but were given Polish citizenship and wore Polish uniforms. Did that make them Polish?

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

Some had Polish citizenship, other were Soviet POPs (pełniący obowiązki Polaka).

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

Probably all the Jews who served mankind's No. 1 butcher Stalin were atheists and not followers of the Judaeic faith. One can change one's religion or refute religon entirely, de-Jewify one's name and switch one's political allegiance, but one cannot change one's DNA. The communist terror apparatus was not overrepresented by members of a certain religious denomination but by a specific ethnic group.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

SOBUCKI: Probably originated as a nickname-turned-surname of toponmyic origin, traceable to the village of Sobuczyna in southern Poland's Częstochowa area. Check out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobuczyna,_Silesian_Voivodeship
Less likely but not inconceivable from Суббота (Subbota) -- Saturday in Russian.

Genealogy / Easy way to find out which Polish coat of arm/Clan you belong to. [105]

It means that no Kubisz ever made it into the ranks of the Polish gentry. Only about 10% of Old Polish society was "well born", the remaining 90% were commoners.

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

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_history#Poland-Lithuania

Overrepresentation of Jews in post-war Poland's terror appartaus is clearly indicated by the following chart:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Security_(Poland)

From Dossier of MBP directors in 1944-1954.[3]
Background Number Percent
Polish 221 49.1%
Jewish 167 37.1%
Soviet 46 10.2%
Ukrainian 5 1.1%
Belorussian 4 0.9%
Russian 1 0.2%
Other 4 0.9%
Unlisted 2 0.5%
Total (RBP / MBP) 450 100%
K. Szwagrzyk, Aparat Bezpieczenstwa w Polsce, IPN, 2008, p. 59

Since Jews at that time accounted for no more than about 1% of Polish society, that means they were 37 times overrepresented in the communist terror apparatus.

Can we blame them? Of course not. War and its aftermath brutalizes everyone and makes survival the supreme goal. A disproportionate number of Jews survived in those circumstance by siding with and serving the Soviet-imposed regime. During the Nazi occupation period Polish szmalcownicy sought to help their families to survive the shortages and poverty by taking over Jewish property.

When the Soviets invaded eastern Poland in 1939, many Jews joined self-styled Workers Militias, fired on regular Polish troops and fingered Polish officials to the NKVD. When Germany pushed the Soviets out, local Polish thugs engaged in pogroms like Jedwabne and got even. And so it goes.....

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

You stated: "Those statutes were very enlightened for their times. Just a shame they weren't always enforced."
Well tell us then how often the Statutes of Kalisz were broken.
While you're at it, also tell us how much better a large Jewish minority fared in some other country or countries.

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

Considering your riposte, the question was apparently somewhat ambiguous. Have any Jewish scholars, leaders or others ever regretted that the Jewish people in the middle ages and later did not choose some other, more Judaeophilic country for mass settlement? If so, which country would that be and why didn't they go there?

The Statute of Kalisz was not always enforced? Know of any statute, law, constitution, treaty, accord or other man-made agreement that was ever enforced 100%?

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

Have you heard any rueful Jews regret that they didn't move en masse to some other European land?
It's an established fact that Old Poland was one of the least intolerant countries back in those highly intolerant times and was relatively free of the religious wars which raged in the "enlightened" West.

Bolesław the Pious, Casimir the Great and their successors reaffirmed and expanded Jewish rights in Poland. Bolesław's Statute of Kalisz stated:
1. ...Should a Jew be taken to court, not only a Christian must testify against him, but also a Jew, in order for the case to be considered valid.

2. ... If any Christian shall sue a Jew, asserting that he has pawned securities with him, and the Jew denies it, then if the Christian refuses to accept the simple word of the Jew, the Jew by taking oath must be free of the Christian.

10. ... As punishment for killing a Jew, a suitable punishment and confiscation of property is necessary.
11. ... For striking a Jew, the usual punishment in the country shall apply.

There is a 100 limit word rule when copying/pasting from the internet.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Considering that Brody was 80% Jewish in the 19th century, there's a good chance your ancestors were amongst the local Jews. However, a name such as Jakubiec alone is no indication, since Jews have been known to use various Polish and other Slavic names. If they had had a typically Jewish name like Baruch, Szapiro, Margolis, Lewita, Segal, Rubinsztajn, Birnbaum, etc., that would have been a different story.

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

The question posed by the title of this thread is worth pondering: Terrible past for Jews in Poland?
But history in general is quite horrible. The horrors emperors, kings, princes, popes, and their henchmen and armies visited upon one another are staggering not to mention the misdeeds of individual cut-throats, highway robbers and other assorted brigands.

But for some reason the Jews, who got thrown out of one country after another, chose to settle en masse in Polish-ruled territory. Does that possibly not suggest that somehow things were a bit less horrible there? Has anyone ever heard a Jewish historian, scholar or any grass-roots Jew for that matter say: "Too bad we didn't settle in Portugal, Turkey, the Rhineland, Hungary or Serbia rather than Poland?"

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

JEREMIENKO: Ukrainian patronymic-derived surname from Jeremiasz (Jeremiah), one of the Old Testament prophets.

DANIELOWA: feminine name meaning Daniel's wife.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

JAKUBIEC: derived from Jakub (James, Jacob), popular both amongst Jews and Goyim including Poles. This would most certainly have originated as a patronymic nickname-turned-surname, the equivalent of English Jacobson or Jacobs.

Other patronymic endings have produced Jakubiak, Jakubik, Jakubczak, Jakubowicz and Jakubowski.

History / What Hitler really thought about Poles? Hitler's letter to Himmler 1944 [111]

When did Poles deny Germany access to the sea? Which sea?

Law / USD shooting up so high for PLN [76]

On 8th March it was up to 3.81 zł = USD $1!