Life / Poland, maybe the world's last bastion of faith [67]

What I see here is a bunch of old women whining of "how the US and Europe have all gone to the dogs and Poland is the only beacon that is left in the world". Gimme a break, will ya? Because not everybody agrees to YOUR choices and YOUR way of life, doesn't mean that a country goes down the drain.

P3, you really have to quit spouting this nonsense about homosexuals. Really. You start to sound like a cartoonesque Catholic: aahw poor dysfunctional homosexuals, single moms, druggies, ppl who like to switch partners, divorcees....G.I.V.E. M.E. A F.R.E.A.K.I.N.G. B.R.E.A.K.

You know, in NL we have an Evangelical Channel. They used to broadcast these "Christian" TV-movies: help! help! I used to be going down, I am a black drug addict homosexual with 15 adopted kiddos (no not Jewish as the good Christians don't help Jews), which I support by prostituting myself, which has as nasty side-effect that it fulfills my psychotic nymphomaniac disorder as well! But then I met God and everything suddenly went ok. Suddenly I'm not homosexual anymore with no psychotic nymphomaniac disorder, my adoption kiddos have all disappeared and guess what? I'm suddenly not black anymore either! My life is fine now and I owe it all to the Church.

You know, this is the feeling that I get when reading this stuff. If you are so resentful of the Western world, why don't you go join the Amish? Then you can party like it's 1699. But don't use the benefits of the Western world and complain that it's going downhill. You use the result of its progression, remember that.

>^..^<

M-G (you sound like a bunch of old women, really)

Life / Poland, maybe the world's last bastion of faith [67]

Well, here the next one comes. First he says this:


Then come the doubts:


Then follows a lot of blahblah...Muslims bad...blahblahblah...US down the drain...And so forth. Then comes the redemption:


And now the evil lefties and progressives, which joys he claims to have enjoyed as a child, have turned into evil Golgothans and get their turn as they want to destroy the Church, but look at all the thing the Church has done for us:


I could respond to all this, but I get too much of a "Touched By An Angel"-feeling with this post of yet another individual who wants to turn the clock back some 200 years. So I won't.

>^..^<

M-G (busy - afternoon coffee-break)

Genealogy / Polish nationality? Which of the following (if any) determine being Polish. [231]


They're waiting all their lifetime, their parent's lifetime and their kids' lifetime, eh? :) It's just folklore, at least, that's how I look at it. I don't look at them being Dutch - it makes nice conversation, but that's it. I think the Americans of Polish descent have the same folkloristic idea about Poland and probably will have the same effect on a visitor from Poland.

M-G (you planning to take over the US? You and what army?:) )

Genealogy / Polish nationality? Which of the following (if any) determine being Polish. [231]

Best description I heard was American of Polish descent. Don't get me wrong, I say this too to the Americans I meet that claim to be Dutch when it was their great-grandparents who came from NL to the US and they usually have never set foot in NL, but do have a kitschy windmill in their garden or living room :S

Genealogy / Polish nationality? Which of the following (if any) determine being Polish. [231]


But where do you draw the line? Because your great- great- great-grandfather was Polish, you are Polish too, even if you yourself, your parents and grandparents have never set foot in Poland? I think there comes a point where you have to say that you're American and again, in my opinion that is the place where you were born, not the place where your parents or grandparents were born. If I take this to my own situation, I would be Portugese, because my great- great- great- (...) great-grandparents came from there?


If the parents have already American citizenship and the child was conceived in Poland, but born back home in the US, then the child is an American citizen. It could be accidental, but often it isn't.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


I did, but it should matter to all of us as these were ppl and if we start denying it en masse, we start to be co-guilty. Like the Germans who watched and did nothing. Saw "Road To Treblinka", which is on YouTube as well, it's a pretty decent documentary. It's in five parts. Just do a search for Road To Treblinka. It should pop up. It's in English :)

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


Except their faces and language (for the most part, that is). :)

Genealogy / Polish nationality? Which of the following (if any) determine being Polish. [231]


As per the 2nd generation they're not Poles anymore, they are Americans. Americans of Polish anchestry, but that's the only thing Polish they have. They are 100 per cent American. I know other teams in America do this too: Irish American, Italian American, Jewish American, but imo it's all nonsense. They are born and bred within the US, so they are Americans. Nothing more, nothing less.

Since I believe that nationality is determined by the country you're born in, it would be point 2.

>^..^<

M-G (olé)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


The Dutch army mobilized in September 1939 as they hoped to remain neutral again, but somehow knew they would be invaded sooner or later. This fear was to be confirmed with the "Venlo-incident", in which English secret agents were lured to Venlo, a town on the German border by ppl who posed themselves as either British agents or German agents who had fallen off with Hitler. As soon as the English agents arrived, they were kidnapped by those German agents and dragged into Germany. Venlo lies half in Germany.

As from January 1940 ongoing msgs were received from a German officer Hans Oster (who later participated in the assasination attempt of 20 July 1944) by Dutch Major Sas (the commander in chief) that the invasion was imminent, but those warnings were withdrawn every time at the last moment. I think the first word of an invasion was somewhere half January 1940. When the final warning came on the evening of the 9th of May ("Tomorrow at dawn") the Dutch troops were put on alert, but since they had so many warnings, the attitude was a bit laissez faires. But when the Germans came that morning, they were ready.

The Dutch army was in a sorry state: basically built during WW1 (and at that time it was indeed strong enough to withstand any invading enemy), and way too weak to withstand the superior power of the German army. Nevertheless, they fought where they could and fighting was especially vicious at the Grebbelinie, the Peel-Raamstelling, Zeeland, Rotterdam (more or less) and the entrance to the Afsluitdijk in the North. Germans, expecting the invasion of NL to take no longer than a day or two, grew angry with the Dutch resistance after 3 days and sent word that if the Dutch army would not capitulate, they would bomb Rotterdam and after that Utrecht and Amsterdam. The Dutch army already made contact with the German forces to negociate the truce and capitulation, when the German planes had already taken off to bombard Rotterdam. German efforts from the ground to stop the imminent bombardment (as the Dutch had already surrendered) were ignored as the pilots had instructions to ignore all signs from the ground. Rotterdam got bombarded, the entire old city was in flames and app 8000 ppl died. Rotterdam was one of the most beautiful cities of the Netherlands before it got bombarded. It's also one of the few big cities that the Germans bombarded severely outside of a battlefield during the war. The others are London, Warsaw, Belgrade.


A couple of months after the Dutch surrender the Dutch soldiers were allowed to go back home - except the Jewish soldiers of course. He did this with all the pow's of the small countries he conquered. Actually, it's unknown why he did this. To create goodwill? Or perhaps because he was afraid he wouldn't have enough space and resources to maintain these huge numbers of pow's? It's unknown.

Edit: a few months before the invasion Hitler had said in a speech on the radio "The Dutch are my friends! We would never want to hurt or attack them! If they want to remain neutral, I will respect their wish and I will personally see to it that nobody ever harms the Dutch."

>^..^<

M-G (Neen!)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


I suggest you read about the Tripartite pact - a pact Nazi Germany made with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Yugo was put under pressure to join this pact too, and the Yugoslav prince gave in to this pressure on the 25th of March 1941. Two days later his govt was overthrown. This infuriated Hitler as usual and not even two weeks later he invaded the country.

Greece did a marvellous job by beating the Italians back into Albania, however, against the Germans they did not have a chance. They held out for a while but the Greek mainland was pretty quickly conquered - only on Crete it lasted longer.

>^..^<

M-G (Oxi!)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


Because before the 27th of March 1941, the Yugoslav govt was pro-German. Plain and simple. The overthrowing of this govt on that date was reason for Hitler to invade Yugo.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]

He was about 100 away from Moskou when winter set in and the Russian troops didn't have any substantial answer at the time, so chances may very well be he would've captured Moskou. So there may be some truth in there. But it didn't happen, so we have to revert to "if-history" and that's not really my favourite style of history.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]



Both were a mistake, but in a way unavoidable: the US were (kinda covertly) already participating in the war and had already taken sides by sending goods to GB and the SU was the nemesis; after all, he had proclaimed so many times that Communism was his archenemy. If he were in some crazy way true to his own ideology, he just HAD to attack the SU. And he could have gotten the SU on her knees, if it weren't for Yugoslavia and Greece. The "necessary" invasion of those two countries after Mussolini screwed up once again in Greece and a switch in Yugo from pro-Nazi régime to anti-Nazi régime, delayed the attack on the SU with about 6 crucial weeks, without which there would've been a very real chance that he would've conquered Moskou before the dreaded winter started. I'm not sure, but I seem to remember that the original date for the attack on the SU was planned for early May instead of the 22nd of June. He could've waited a year, but the SU was building up for an inevitable attack on Nazi Germany too, so it was catch-22 for Hitler.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Off-Topic / Does anyone else find Cygans fascinating? [60]

Trolls alert!

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Off-Topic / Does anyone else find Cygans fascinating? [60]

Troll alert!

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Off-Topic / Does anyone else find Cygans fascinating? [60]

Troll alert!

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


Well, it's not completely true that there is a total lack of administration. They remain Germans and Germans like to do anything Gründlich (thoroughly). There are books in the Bundesarchiv of Germany that spell out names and dates (of transport and so on), but they somehow don't connect to the books kept in the camps respectively. This makes it fairly hard to make precised statements as to where certain ppl arrived and of those that were gassed no record was kept at all on the day itself. Unlike the prisoners that stayed in one of the barracks. They were kept in administration fairly thoroughly. Based on these facts one can make fairly accurate statements as to whether a person was gassed upon arrival or if he/she was kept in detainment for a while. Problem with this is that the dates are not always coherent, so that part will always remain guessing and deducting.

As I stated above, most of my findings are relatively accurate. As for the family members that went to Auschwitz I can tell they weren't gassed immediately as there is an arrival record of them (don't know if I mentioned that above). Comparing this record to the occupation records of that September month, has led me to the conclusion that they must've been gassed somewhere around two weeks after arrival.

You are correct when you say that David Irving is a decent researcher, however there are some serious flaws in his findings, as I am sure you will know.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Life / Are Border Collies popular in Poland? [30]


That just goes to show how much I was able to teach him :)

Edit: that pops up another question, related to the topic at hand: in how far are "race"-pets preferred in Poland? I mean do Polish ppl specifically look for a certain race of dog or cat or do they generally don't care as long as it's a suitable animal?

>^..^<

M-G (he is a drop dead gorgeous fellow, but my oh my was he stubborn)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]

David Irving is a dangerous fool. I actually never understood whe he is so bent on denying what has been proven so often.

But then again, isn't the term Political Correctness often misused as an excuse to be rude and so on?

>^..^<

M-G (let's see how long he stays away this time - my gutfeeling tells me that it's gonna be a bit longer than 3 days this time)

Life / Are Border Collies popular in Poland? [30]


Ok, my bad - I thought all Collies looked kinda the same.

Huskies are beautiful, I heard they are the kind of dog that is the closest to the wolfe. They certainly look very much like it.


It was a joke. But in the 70's when the TV-series Lassie was on, loads of ppl wanted to have a dog like that, without knowing how to handle a dog of that kind. In NL this behaviour has kinda come to be known as the Lassie Complex. It's not only for dogs, but all sorts of pets.

The only trick I could learn my cat was eating. Oh and he does fetch balls of paper, like PGTX's Rex does.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Life / Are Border Collies popular in Poland? [30]

Do I sense a Lassy-complex? :))

But to be serious, Border Collies are beautiful dogs - I'd have one if I had the time to maintain it or a Labrador.

>^..^<

M-G (would get a pup and a kitten of the same age and watch them grow up together)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


There are some documents, but not available to the public. One needs special permissions to have a look at them. But given the nature of the camp - there was hardly any "storage" place for large amount of prisoners, the vast majority were gassed on arrival. A very good account of what happened is the interview Claude Lanzmann had in Shoah with one of the former guards of Treblinka. I would suggest you view it on YouTube, or, if you can get your hands at it, to watch the entire documentary - which is quite a sit as I believe the total time would be over 5 hrs or sth.

For Auschwitz it's easier.

@Seanus: it helps when you're a Historian. You can contact the necessary authorities through the University and this usually is enough to convince them that it's for scientific research. Plus, the Bundesarchiv was very helpful. I can definitively recommend them. I went to Bergen Belsen and Koblenz where they were very helpful indeed. Out of Poland came photo copies of the material I needed. In total it took me about a year to figure out. But it was also the reason why I became a Historian in the first place.

>^..^<

M-G (but still it feels awkward to describe endings of lifes, not only of relatives, this way)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]

It was quite gruesome to figure out, one feels like some sort of a bookkeeper when describing the events. The biggest part (about 40 ppl) of my family was arrested during one single razzia on the 18th of April 1943. They were betrayed by their neighbour. After torture the sites where the rest of the family in Rotterdam was hiding were revealed and consequently raided on the 22nd, 25th of April and the 2nd of May, all in 1943.

After a short stay in the "Hollandse Schouwburg" (Dutch Theatre - collection site of Amsterdam Jews and Jews from other parts of Western NL), they were herded to the Amsterdam Muiderpoort trainstation on the 10th of May 1943 and packed in the trainwagons we all know. The train went first to Bergen Belsen, where they presumably arrived on the 12th of May.

There half of the wagons were cut loose from the train and the ppl in there were herded into the Bergen Belsen camp, among which app. 40 family members. These were to stay for a few months in Bergen Belsen, before being shipped to Auschwitz, where they arrived on the 12th of September 1943.

It seems they weren't killed immediately, but for certain not long after arrival as records indicate that two weeks later new shipments from France and elsewhere arrived and there was ample space to hold them - the numbers of inmates two weeks earlier imply that nearly all of the barracks must've been full to the limit. It's therefore safe to assume that they were killed somewhere between the 12th and the 27th of September of 1943. The Nazis didn't keep names and numbers of the loads that went into the gaschamber, so it's hard to determine on which day exactly they were gassed.

The remainder of the train with app. 35 family members in it went from Bergen Belsen on to Treblinka, where they arrived around the 25th of May 1943. Everybody on that train went straight from the train into the gaschamber. Yet it's impssble to name exact dates of which one was gassed on which day as, like I said, the Nazis didn't keep books on that particular part - at least, I didn't find them.

Edit: have to add that my private research was only pssble with the friendly co-operation of German, Polish and Dutch authorities in the field.

>^..^<

M-G (like I said, I felt a bit like a bookkeeper checking on his books)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


I do, Seanus. I have already explained this earlier on in the thread.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


Oh yes there was. I think it was called "Fall Seelöwe" (Operation Sealion). They were already gathering the boats in the French harbours for it. The Battle of Britain was meant as a prologue and it failed. The only feasiblity of the operation would be that the war would last longer. Germany would've lost eventually anway. No country can stand against the entire world and win in the long run. It's simply not pssble.


I knew you liked that news. I wonder why you didn't know yet - she was found yesterday already, as police announced it. That's all I'm going to say about this in this thread. Perhaps we can discuss this in the animal abuse thread? (sorry mods, this was a one-off)

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


That too, but the main reason they were lucky in Dunkirk was that the Germans halted their advance because of Hitler's irrational fear that the troops would be attacked in the flank. But there was no enemy army to attack and had they just advanced to Dunkirk, they would've taken the entire British army prisoner. That would've been the end for Britain.

>^..^<

M-G (the puppy killer has been caught!)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]

The miracle of Dunkirk saved the British Army and eventually saved Britain itself. If nearly the entire British army would have been captured, the Battle of Britain wouldn't have mattered anyway. Even if the Germans had lost it, they could just march into Britain in that case as there was no ground army left to defend the island.

The Battle of Britain was a bad mistake made by Göring; if they would just have gotten into their boats and sailed off to Britain, the Island would be theirs before the Summer would be over. Britain was just lucky there.

Speaking of Göring: a Berlin fishmonger once promoted his fish on a market by shouting "Herring! Herring! As fat as Göring!" The police took notice of this and had him arrested. After paying a fine and promising he would not do it again as he would be watched from now on, he went to the market again the next day. This time he shouted: "Herring! Herring! As fat as yesterday" True story :)

>^..^<

M-G (Berliner Humor)

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


You know I always wonder, when you see this imagery of death camps and other products of hate, why there on Earth are still ppl that think hate is a good thing and defend their hate towards ppl who use their common sense and say all the hate has to stop.

But like I said, somewhere earlier, Simon Wiesenthal once said: "every other generation this vile hate rears its ugly head again. Ppl forget and need sb to blame - the other is always perfect to blame as you don't want to blame yourself for your own failure."

This time it took a bit longer for this cancer to resurface, but that's only because the Holocaust was such a big blunder that for a little while, even the racists were embarrassed and neo-Nazis were still afraid of going to jail for spouting their disgusting ideas. Now, as it seems, it's kinda "safe" to state things like that, they come crawling from underneath their rocks and stones again and taint the world again with this crap. :(

I'm getting so fcuking tired of this. Every freaking time they come again and again and again. And the fun thing is, most of them racists are heroes of the Internet - if they would say it to my face they would be afraid of getting punched in the face. A very real fear though :)

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Anyway, my family never earned one cent on the Holocaust, in the end it didn't only cost my family around 75 members as part of the 6 million Jews that died, but it cost them a fortune as many of the pre-war possessions were either stolen by the Nazis or collaborating Dutchmen.

>^..^<

M-G (they called some of them "bewariër" a combi of the Dutch words for aryan and to keep)

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


It wasn't a war in military terms as the opponents were unarmed citizen, so therefore there can't be no victory. Do you regard it a victory when you swat a fly with a newspaper?

As for the other remark, it just came across that you felt that any commemoration of Poland at the 1st of September would be questioned by anyone here. That's all.


Agreed. Btw, did you know they now caught that puppy killer in Bosnia? Police announced it today. They are going to arrest her brother and parents too. Ain't that good news?

>^..^<

M-G (anyhow, it's beer time)

Please don't wander off topic, there is another thread for this!

History / Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland) [138]


I wouldn't say it was a defeat, would you? It was definitively sth else.


Don't be so defensive. The question was whether the Poles commemorate this date or not. That was the only question of this thread and the only reason I started this thread was because I was wondering about this. No attack in there, just curiosity.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)