History / Poland did reasonably well in land terms out of the postwar settlement [270]


You are kidding, right?

Otherwise I tend to understand you said that Poland emerged from WWII with enhanced class of inteligentia, enriched materially?

btw, Poland was not as divided as you may have heard. Have you heard the joke about the left and right side of Israeli politics?

It goes like this:
"the Israeli left come form eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, whatever), and the right? They graduated from Polish gimnazjums."

You heard about Betar? There is a movie coming out.


You got me Harry. I cannot quote the article, but I believe it said that "western borders (or borders with Germany) were guaranteed",

do you agree with this? If yes, they still didn't keep the treaty, we did not get to keep borders with Germany.

How ridiculous it would be if we did, but even England could not insist on it however they tried, didn't they?

There must be a reason why 70 years (and counting) the British archives from WWII are sealed in Polish matters.
Do you agree it is related to the terrible deal that Poland got after WWII? I think so.

History / Poland did reasonably well in land terms out of the postwar settlement [270]


Let's see. How about this: "England guarantees Polish borders", then "we guarantee borders but we did not say THE Borders.
Poland will have A border, will it not?"

Of course it depends what the meaning of the word "IS" is.

The answer to the thread question:

Poland got a terrible deal in any term, land included, in the postwar settlement. Just few facts:
for 90% of Poles the war ended in Poland in 1989,
just ask any Pole if they would rather have Wroclaw and Szczecin or Lwow and Wilno.

USA, Canada / Polonia who needs help with Polish Documentary [27]

Another provocateur working hard to diminish the image of Poland. Who pays you? Never mind I know.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur

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


Of course he/she meant extortion (Extortion, also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.) Definitely we have it here regarding 'summary' payment requests.

But someone mentioned that this is for individual claims. In such case there is no issue (17 pages of polemics about nothing, isn't it funny), Poland already has laws regarding individual properties. Actually my friend told me about how he got his house back in mid 90s (more than 15 years ago). His family (Polish Catholic) was extremely well of and owned several buildings in pre-war Warsaw. The family left Poland in September '39 and never returned after the war (very smart decision avoiding sure prosecution by (very likely) Mr. Michnik's brother, and after one day trial death penalty...). Anyway my friend explained the laws this way: a property owner can receive the property back, if 1. the building is still standing (no claims to lots), and 2. the building is in government hands (if it was sold to private owner, who purchased it in good faith according to current laws, it's final). Out of all possessions only one building that my friend's family owned in pre-war Warsaw qualified and sure enough it was returned to him after few months court case. Since at that time he lived in the US he sold it to family still living in Poland. Case closed. And as I said it was mid 90's.

So now we are back to 'summary' requests by Jewish organizations. It would help to include some numbers into Swiss situation, which as somebody previously mentioned is very similar. The initial claims were for Jewish money held in Swiss banks illegally after WWII and the amount mentioned was 'in excess of 10 billion dollars.' The Swiss questioned the amount. An independent auditing of bank's books was ordered and the Swiss appropriated 500 million dollars for the audit. Before the results of this audit was even publish the Jewish organizations started attacking the audit as not-fair, wrong, etc despite having a large number of Jews performing the audit (along with some Swiss of course). Hastily a 'summary' agreement was reached to pay Jewish organizations 1.25 billion dollars and the sum was paid. How were the money spent is not a subject of this thread.

The results of the audit? In all Swiss banks 140 million dollars were found that could be traced to Jewish property.
So let's stop this discussion about nothing.

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


OK, you asked ironsite, here it is:

Antisemite: a person disliked by a Jew.

Precise enough for you?

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

You know that you sound really silly claiming there were countries friendly to Jews, only they didn't accept Jews (maybe that's why there were

friendly?) Nice firends you found. I like you very much too, but stay away!

News / Communist era 'newspeak' appeals the most to Poland PiS supporters (what a surprise) [89]

Of course you all realize that Mr. Michnik and his Gazeta Wyborcza are not impartial observers in this study, do you?

Mr. Michnik calls Gen. Jaruzelski his friend and an honorable man. For your information Jaruzelski is a former communist
leader and responsible for thousands of deaths and broken lives during his rule that included declaring war on 'his' nation,
so called martial law. Mr. Michnik is staunchly anti-PiS and therefore his studies on the subject are to be taken with a lot of salt.

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


Absolutely right!
I believe the claims are for the time period after September 1, 1939 (property ownership changes caused by WWII).
Poland was a double victim of this war, first attacked by Germany and Soviet Union in 1939, and left to fight alone despite international
treaties, then again sold out at the end of WWII and given along with Cental Europe to Soviet Union as gift for defeating Germany.
There was no free Polish administration in Poland until 1989. The legal Polish goverment in London was delegalized by Western powers in 1945.
The first Polish administration in 50 years implemented legal procedures for former property owners that work very well.
There will be no summary 'reparations'.
If anybody needs any convincing, please look at Swiss claims.

News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [161]

Any doctrine created by Mr. Sikorski has to be taken with a lot of skepticism.

Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [147]

I think Poles are confused and English people in Poland only aggravate this confusion. There is only one English that Poles (and almost everybody else in the world) are/should be interested in and it is International English called American English or just English. There is no need at all to waste time for English accent. Unfortunately Poles even as they learn and use English are led to believe by some English folks that there are two versions of this language (of course there are almost countess accents) and they need to learn classic/proper/original (pick your word) version. So they opt for this classic but only in their perception. Anywhere and everywhere in the world including England people use International English and that's all they need. Anyway the 'classic' English is only spoken by queen, everybody else has their own heavy accent and really there is no need to bother with that.

Life / What is the reason for POLISH jokes ? [486]

I believe the jokes were supported by US establishment after WWII as an excuse for abandoning Poland. Poland was the 4th allied power, after Soviet Union, US and England and before France. But it was France who got the permanent seat on the Security Council. To defend this betrayal it was convenient to tell people that Polish people were 'bad', stupid and everything in between.

Another issue is Poles in Hollywood movies, in 50s very famous movies had Polish elements, like Someone Like It Hot, The Westside Story, On The Waterfront, The Streetcar Named Desire, etc. Then it ended, why?