History / Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) started anti-Semitism? [101]


I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Poland didn't have kings since it was partitioned and even before that for many centuries kings were elected and had little power. It was the Szlachta who ruled in Poland.

History / Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) started anti-Semitism? [101]

Vast majority of Poles at the time were peasants and peasants back then had no nationality. It's like yehudi said - Jews were a class. Germans, Armenians, Tatars, Cossacks and other nationalities had "extraordinary priviliges" too, why focus on Jews?

History / Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) started anti-Semitism? [101]


I'm wondering about this too. Ever since I started writing on this forum I've had three nightmares with Jews in them. These threads are driving me insane!

History / Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) started anti-Semitism? [101]

Casimir the Great was a smart, smart man who knew that the only way of preventing blood libel was making it punishable by death, so that nobody would get any funny ideas.

Language / Does anybody know of a list of Polish-English False Friends and True Friends? [60]

Prezerwatywy - Preservatives ;)

History / Thinking of changing Wikipedia's Holocaust article to include genocide of Poles. [78]


Because they weren't Slavs.

Nazis believed that Jewish blood was poison, Polish blood was worthless and German blood was like the specialest snowflake. Polish blood was worth something only if it was mixed with German blood. But even one drop of Jewish blood was enough to poison even the superior German blood. Get it? Or should I give you some three hundred quotes?

History / Thinking of changing Wikipedia's Holocaust article to include genocide of Poles. [78]

Here's what Jan Karski was told by the representatives of the Jewish underground, very interesting and true statement:

"You other Poles are fortunate. You are suffering too. Many of you will die, but at least your nation goes on living. After the war Poland will be resurrected. Your cities will be rebuilt and your wounds will slowly heal. From this ocean of tears, pain, rage and humiliation your country will emerge again, but the Polish Jews will no longer exist. We will be dead. Hitler will lose his war against the human, the just, and the good, but he will win his war against the Polish Jews. No -- it will not be a victory; the Jewish people will be murdered...."

As we all know, this is exactly what happened. Not only Polish jewry was annihilated but Jews in many other countries as well. And that's why Holocaust is mainly a specifically Jewish experience.


But they were the only Slavic babies allowed to live. Nazis believed that blond hair in Poles was a sign of German blood. Don't try to deny the obvious Anti-Slavic sentiment of the Nazis, there's too much evidence of it.

History / Thinking of changing Wikipedia's Holocaust article to include genocide of Poles. [78]


Funny, I thought the main difference between Jewish and Polish victims was that a Polish person was in mortal danger whenever someone accused them of being Jewish or hiding Jews. I haven't heard of a Jew under Nazis who would be in mortal danger due to being mistaken for a Pole.

As every Pole, I feel bitter that polish victims are often forgotten but let's not pretend that we had it "just as bad" as Jews, it's a lie. A lie.

History / Thinking of changing Wikipedia's Holocaust article to include genocide of Poles. [78]


Poles also have their own term, "Zagłada Żydów".

History / Thinking of changing Wikipedia's Holocaust article to include genocide of Poles. [78]

Dear god... don't you dare. Don't you fvcking dare! I don't want the whole world to think that Poles are butthurt, selective, revisionist attention wh*res.

Last time I checked, Poles were included under "other victims" - in their righteous place.

History / Anita J. Prazmowska's "The Polish Century" [24]


...I remember the time when you still made sense. I could expect that statement from joepilsudski but it's really disappointing to see it coming from someone who still manages to sound sane from time to time.

Antisemitism of the Poles is often exaggerated but to say it was nonexistent one has to be channelling some fantastic alternate reality.

History / Anita J. Prazmowska's "The Polish Century" [24]

I don't like historians who write about a country they have personal links to. It's impossible to be 100% objective, the bias, no matter how small, is always there and even if there isn't any then there will always be people who will believe that there is a bias and demand proof from another source for every argument used in a discussion.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]


Ask yourself - if your country was invaded, who would cheer? There are always cowards and opportunists who change sides AFTER the fall of the country but there's nobody who would be happy to be invaded.


That reminds me, there's one particular photo of a crying woman doing the Nazi salute and every time I see it posted somewhere, it has a different caption. I've seen her described as Austrian, Czech, Polish, French and German, come claim the photo was taken in 1938, 1939, 1945... some claim that she's crying from happiness, others that she was forced to salute.

It doesn't tell me anything.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]

Please remember that I mean a very far ancestry. One person living 1000 years ago can have millions of descendants today.

Take Frankists for example (they were far from the ony Jews who converted but with Frankists at least we can operate on concrete numbers).

Let's say that every each one of Frankists and their descendants had only two children and only at the age of 30. that would leave us with 3,328,000 descendants of Frankists in the year 2000.

And now about the haplotype: let's imagine that half of the Frankists were men and half of them were women. As for their children, one is always a girl and the other always a boy. If a woman whose father had J haplotype marries a man without it then their children will have no trace of J haplotype. A man with J haplotype, on the other hand, would only be able to pass it onto his son. Therefore in the year 1790 we have 13,000 men with J haplotype but in 1820 only 6500 of their descendants have that haplotype. Flashforward to the year 2000 - only 101 of the descendants of Frankists have J haplotype while the other 3,327,899 have R1A haplotype.

This is what usually happens whenever there's a an inclusion of 'foreign' blood in homogenious nations - it gets very quickly suppressed. But it doesn't change the fact that a huge chunk of the Polish population has at least one Jewish ancestor.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]


26,000 Frankist converts are behind my statement ;)
Allow me to explain - although it was unusual for a catholic to become a Jew it wasn't as unheard of for a Jew to become a catholic. That's why there's a higher chance for Poles to have Jewish ancestors than for Jews to have Polish ancestors.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]

Before or after WWII? If you mean before then certainly not majorly Polish. People in the past rarely married outside their religious circles and it was very unusual for a Pole to convert to Judaism. Even if some did, their haplotype would also be eventually lost.

However, during inter-war Poland marriages between Poles and Jews became more common. Also, not many Jews were left after WWII and communist purges so most of them married catholic Poles. Current Polish-Jewish minority most probably has Polish R1A haplotype.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]


You do realize that a man can have only one Y-DNA haplotype? And that it can only be inherited by males, never by females? In other words: if your mother has J haplotype, your DNA test wouldn't show it. If your mother, grandparents and greatgrandparents from your mother's side were all Jews, you would still figure as a person with no trace of Jewish ancestry. Practically every Pole has at least one Jewish ancestor but it's not enough to significantly change the most common haplotypes in the country.

The only thing your data proves is that there are hardly any pure-blooded Jews in Poland. Most of them probably have R1A haplotype.

History / To Understand Poland 39-89 (L.U.C - TRIBUTE TO STEFAN STARZYŃSKI) [17]

There are some bits I don't like but other than that it's amazing! It's a pity that no other track from "To Understand Poland 39-89" appeals to me.

Life / What's wrong with you, Polish people - is it an inferiority complex? [123]

Polishforums may seem like a good place to discuss Poles but it's not a good place to talk WITH Poles. The opinions expressed on this board come mainly from non-Poles or people with some sort of Polish ancestry who have never lived in Poland. My advice is to check the profiles of everyone whose opinion you're reading - if the answer for the question "Do you speak Polish?" is "no" or "some" then don't act like that person's opinion is somehow an opinion of a Pole or the entire Polish population.

Anyway:


I've never even thought about Jews before I started posting here. All those conversations, guilt tripping and blame games now made me obsessed with Jews or rather with the thought that a great deal of Jews hate Poles and have a warped view of Poland and their opinion is only reinforced by the foreigners who keep posting antisemitic crap here and are for some reason assumed to be Poles which results in lurkers and newcomers wondering wtf is wrong with the Poles and their 'obsession' with Jews.

Genealogy / Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light [511]


Read the thread. It has 10 pages of different theories of this "phenomenon".

Genealogy / The last name is Krzywoszyja. Help? Am I Polish? [30]


I beg to differ...

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]


In that case I see several possibilities:
1. Your father's colleague made it all up.
2. Your father's colleague misinterpreted his father's words.
3. His father made it all up.
4. His father didn't know why he was denied employment and simply assumed that it was due to antisemitism.
5. Your father's colleague wanted to make himself seem more important by stating that he hails from a family of doctors and not, say, farmers or building constructors.

6. His father competed for a job with a catholic and lost. Bitter, he blamed it on antisemitism.
7. The director of the hospital was antisemitic and didn't want to employ Jews so he lied that he's not allowed to do so by law.

Whichever one is true, the only way of proving him wrong is to present him with a list of Jewish doctors in pre-war Poland. The law was universal for the whole country so you don't have to search for them specifically in Tarnopol. My advice is to show him at least one full page of surnames, he won't be able to ignore that many. However, there's a possibility that he's simply too proud to admit that he was wrong or lying in which case he will never admit it, no matter how much evidence you present him with.

Also, from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland

The major industries in which Polish Jews were employed were manufacturing and commerce. In many areas of the country the majority of retail businesses were owned by Jews who were sometimes among the wealthiest members of their communities. Many Jews also worked as shoemakers and tailors, as well in the liberal professions; doctors (56% of all doctors in Poland), teachers (43%), journalists (22%) and lawyers (33%)

Hospitals would have to be seriously understaffed if 56% of doctors were refused employment.

Food / Poles prefer pizza & kebab? [64]

British people love curry and I don't hear anyone complaining.
I eat soups and pierogi every day at home. I get sick of them sometimes and wish for something new.

Study / Rumor about racism - will I be fine in Poland as a black International student from Africa? [241]

jarnowa
Dude, you don't speak Polish and you started 2 racist threads on this forum and now suddenly you're concerned about the well-being of black people and Arabs?

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [636]

hague1cmaeron

That would depend on when it happened. I've heard many things about antisemitism in pre-war Poland but to my knowledge there was never any restriction on their employment. On the other hand his father could have meant the time before Poland regained its independence (I don't know what Russia thought of Jewish doctors). And of course he wouldn't be allowed to work in the hospitals during WWII. He could be also speaking of communist times, there was that whole "Anti-Zionist" campain, when many Jews lost their jobs (although it was mainly jobs connected to politics and administration). Finally, he could have meant it not literally - that Jews were unwelcomed in Tarnopol's hospitals or something.

A thing worth noting about Tarnopol is demography - In 1939 50% of the population was Polish, 40% Jewish and 10% Ukrainian. If half of the population wasn't Polish then I find it unlikely that hospitals were run solely by Poles.

News / Changing Face in Poland: Skinnhead Puts on a Skullcap [90]


It's not exactly like that, I think. If the discussion is about "Those Evil Arabs" then Jews suddenly serve as a proof of how hateful and nasty Arabs are, when the discussion is about "Those Evil Jews" it's the other way around.

And please, don't say "They", I don't want to be associated with Sokrates and his opinion.

UK, Ireland / Polish opinion of England as a country and the English nation [64]

I was taught by an Englishman for a while and I've been to England (as a tourist). I must say that I'm always surprised at how mean they can be online compared to how sweet and friendly they appear in real life.

History / Why are Jews pestering Poland for "proper" WW2 monetary restitution/reparations? [750]

I can understand them. My family used to own lots of buildings in Kraków, I'd love to have them back as well. But it's simply impossible.

I hate when people are trying to make it some sort of Polish-Jewish issue - "Jews want money because they are anti-polish!" "Poles won't return money because they are antisemites!".

History / Why did Hitler kill so many Jews in Poland? [261]


I agree with this. There's no point denying that Jews were far from liked in pre-war Poland. Obviously, not liking Jews and wishing for their death are two different things but let's not whitewash the unpleasant atmosphere and sour feelings between us.

History / Why did Hitler kill so many Jews in Poland? [261]

mulsie
Racist attacks are sad but not at all unusual, especially at the time when a country is still in a mess and one more death might go unnoticed by the authorities. Jewish deaths are usually mentioned in books about... well - Jewish deaths, simply because that's what these books are about. Not because they were the only ones to die but, like MareGaea said, because these attacks happened so soon after a major tragedy so more attention is paid to them. I understand that bad incidents certainly influenced the decision to emigrate but let me repeat what I once said: FEELING unwelcomed and actually BEING in mortal danger are two different things. I might be afraid of being run over by a car but this doesn't mean that I'm in mortal danger every time I cross a street.

The problem with picking out specific deaths and incidents is that it creates a fake image of the situation. Loads of Poles were beaten up or even murdered in racist attacks in Great Britain in the recent years and tens of thousands have left Britain but it doesn't make the situation of the Polish minority desperate.

Please, remember that In REAL LIFE there are no extremes like 'bed of roses' or 'hell on earth'.