Work / Never work for Mike Mills in Warsaw [28]

Mike Mills is still in business in Warsaw, but other schools like Resource have long ago folded leaving a paper trail in public offices. Of course, there is no suspicion that Mike Mills engages in gossip about anyone on an Internet forum, or blames others for poor results in business. Perhaps there is a connection?

Work / Never work for Mike Mills in Warsaw [28]


Dear mods, the above quote was edited out of my response, and it is curious how someone could be fired by a manager who claimed that he himself had been fired by the majority shareholder. Since jon357 appears to be confirming that he was the manager, I suppose it is open to actually see what litigation existed in Warsaw about this company.

Work / Never work for Mike Mills in Warsaw [28]


No, the manager of that company told me quite plainly that he had been removed as manager by the majority owner, that he had owned a minority share in the company, and it was in litigation. (He was later known to be giving advice about Polish lawyers for litigation on an online forum.) I suppose if one really wanted to know the truth, one might see what litigation resulted in Warsaw. My last direct contact with him, was a text message that I interpreted as a sexual advance. (He was obviously homosexual.) After I declined that, his conduct towards me changed, and he began spreading rather nasty gossip about me. He is a person best avoided.

Law / Do banks in Poland accept bank drafts issued by a foreign bank, in Polish Zloty? [8]

He would also need to transfer money into the bank account in dollars. That is an important point, and not all banks permit that. Otherwise, there might be a double conversion.

Law / Do banks in Poland accept bank drafts issued by a foreign bank, in Polish Zloty? [8]

Polish banks will accept foreign checks but only with great difficulty and processing fees. (I sent a check once to my Polish lawyer and he requested that I not do so again due to the hassle with the bank.) An international bank wire is the way to go. The European banking system doesn't have intermediary banks like the U.S. which charge additional fees for bank wires, although the receiving bank might well have a fee. Take a look at opening an account with Ailor bank, since it is foreigner friendly.

History / Massacre of Polish Soldiers at Winniza in WW2? [5]

Just to add that, as noted by Kate Brown in her excellent work about the Kresy "A Biography Of No Place", before the war the language on the street in Vinnica was Polish, not Ukrainian. She does note that many peasants in the region spoke a mixed Polish-Ukrainian dialect, were Catholic, and self-identified as Polish, claiming to be descended from the szlachta. Contrary to communist era claims of ethnic hostility, she notes good relations between Poles and Ukrainians in the region, noting that the peasants had marched to the Polish border to demand a Polish invasion to free them of communism. Of course, after Stalin starting to deport them to Siberia and Kazakhstan for simply singing Polish songs, people in Western Ukraine learned to declaim and deny Polish roots. She noted that the region had a rich variety of languages, ethnic groups, and religions which the various successive governments were constantly attempting to pigeonhole into categories which the people didn't quite fit. Brown was able to learn this from the Soviet archives. Most of Brown's archival research came from that, since the Soviets destroyed archives in Lwów after the war. Considering Brown's work and the intentional destruction of the archives, it is reasonable to assume that the same diversity existed in rural Galicia. Many Western and Polish communist era historians were simply content to place people into categories which Brown rejects, i.e., all speakers of a Ruthenian language dialect were ethnic Ukrainians etc. People with friends and family who came from the region know a different history.

History / Zygmunt Gorgolewski- the architect of the Opera House in Lwów [47]


By definition:


This certainly describes what happened to ethnic Poles in Galicia, regardless if there are still a few left in some places. Who was "Polish" and who was "Ukrainian/Ruthenian" was a difficult matter since they had intermarried for 600 years. What was too beautiful to destroy they simply claimed was actually if not "Ukrainian" then something other than Polish culture, thus "German".

Thank you for returning us to our topic of discussion.

History / Zygmunt Gorgolewski- the architect of the Opera House in Lwów [47]

[Allow me to recite the population of Lwów from the 1931 Polish Census:

Population of Lwów, 1931 (by first language)
Polish: 198,200 (63.5%)
Yiddish or Hebrew: 75,300 (24.1%)
Ukrainian or Ruthenian: 35,100 (11.2%)
German: 2,500 (0.8%)
Russian: 500 (0.2%)
Other denominations: 600 (0.2%)
Total: 312,200

Population of Lwów, 1931 (by religion)
Roman Catholic: 157,500 (50.4%)
Judaism: 99,600 (31.9%)
Greek Catholic: 49,800 (16.0%)
Protestant: 3,600 (1.2%)
Orthodox: 1,100 (0.4%)
Other denominations: 600 (0.2%)
Total: 312,200

Source: 1931 Polish census

There was no Wilsonian free determination of peoples in Lwów or the greater Galician region in September 1939 or thereafter. The point of the thread is the refusal of the beneficiaries of ETHNIC CLEANSING in the modern Ukrainian state to admit or acknowledge the cultural contributions of the Polish people there.

No one here, other than the individual attempting to hijack the thread, has suggested in any way that Ukraine as a nation should not exist, contrary to the position taken by the governments of France and the United Kingdom in 1920-1921. Attempts to hijack the thread to discuss straw man arguments about the right of Ukraine to exist, Cuba, a poster's alleged nationality or status in Poland, are irrelevant to the topic of the thread, and, therefore, thread hijacking, and/or "not related to Poland or Polish people in any way."

Respectfully,

Chris R.

History / Zygmunt Gorgolewski- the architect of the Opera House in Lwów [47]


Iron Man,

I can only conclude that he is trolling and trying to hijack the thread to discussing Poland's relations with Cuba, and is suggesting that an independent Ukraine was entitled to take territory from Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, where it was the ethnic minority, while assisting the Nazis in the Holocaust by bullets of the Jewish population. He does this despite the fact that his country, the United Kingdom, was hostile to Pilsudski's plan of separating Ukraine and Belarus from Russia, and then continues to suggest that by discussing modern Ukraine's sanitizing of the ethnic cleansing of Lwów by referring to its most prominent architect as a "German" I am hostile to Ukraine's independence.

This is a clear attempt to hijack a thread, and a clear ad hominem attack which has no relevance to our discussion, but it is all he has to offer.

Therefore, he is best ignored.

History / Zygmunt Gorgolewski- the architect of the Opera House in Lwów [47]


Enough Ruthenians were happy enough in Galicia and later Poland. The Ukrainian nationalists never conducted a plebiscite on the issue, and the Communists just made a sham out of things to the point that educated Ruthenians fled from them to the German side.


The point here, which you missed, is that Galicia was the best part of the partitions to live. That is why Gorgolewski and other "Germans" moved here. Ruthenians were never a majority in Galicia, nor in the former Galician Polish voivods as a whole. Wołyń was the problem area, and it was handled poorly as was the entire issue of Ukraine in the Treaty of Riga.


Really, you two should just head your own advice then.

Poland didn't follow the U.K.'s model in Ireland of attempting to end the Gaelic language. Should I continue that comparison?

Spot on, indeed!

How are Poland's relations with Cuba relevant to this discussion?


I am sure many here might consider many of Jon's comments on other topics tawdry. Such subjective comments are hardy useful for furthering discussion of this topic.

History / Zygmunt Gorgolewski- the architect of the Opera House in Lwów [47]


Their argument is that because they were unable to be educated in Ukrainian, that they were unable to compete with Poles in jobs requiring an education, since education was only in Polish. In contrast, Gorgolewski was an ethnic Pole who was required to learn German to study and then excelled in his field. Yet, in Ukriane he is labeled simply a German who was part of the Germanification of Galicia.


If Gorgolewski could be educated in German and excel, certainly Ukrainians could be educated in Polish and achieve in the Second Polish Republic. My friend's grandfather would be considered Ukrainian, and he learned in Polish and became an engineer. Those who didn't want an education, simply complained about the language and were fertile ground for subversion of the Polish state. I have met many people who have completed advanced degrees in a second language. It didn't stop them from achieving. It is not surprising that many modern Ukrainians don't want to discuss Gorgolewski's education and ethnicity since it undermines their criticisms of Poland.

Europe has moved past nationalism and has returned to a more multicultural view of European history. Academic honesty requires giving credit to people for their accomplishments, but such honesty is not present in modern nationalist Ukraine. Modern Ukraine remains stuck in a nationalist state of mind that masks a massive inferiority complex. (Perhaps because the former Galician areas and cities like Lwow are actually scenes of massive ethnic cleansing, which no one wants to address.) Not surprisingly, Ukraine remains economically backward since political leaders play to nationalism while ignoring its economic problems and lack of competition. As Ukraine attempts to move closer to Europe, there is nothing tawdry or revisionist to address a disturbing Ukrainian nationalism that erects statues to a man Poles, Jews, and Russians consider a war criminal, puts the portrait of a tower where Nazis executed 1,160 Jews on the back of its 200 grivna note, and otherwise fails to address its troubled past.

History / Massacre of Polish Soldiers at Winniza in WW2? [5]

Yes, I have been there. In Polish it is Vinnica and in German Winniza. In Ukrainian the name is Ві́нниця, but the transliteration from Cyrillic varies: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnytsia

What I know from being there is that there is still a sizable Polish minority there. It is deep into the krajina, but there remains a Polish church holding services in Polish with prominent lettering in Polish on the front of the church, and also a statue to Pope John Paul II in front. Clearly, Polish culture remains there. My guess is that there was some ethnic conflict against Poles, and then there was a cover up, i.e., needing to dress them in another uniform to cover the crime, and then referring to them as Ukrainians. Again, that is just a guess from what I know about the town, and the larger Polish-Ukrainian ethnic conflicts further West, etc.

I hope that helps.

Chris

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [215]

Pilsudski always claimed that he was a Lithuanian, and he wanted to recreate the Commonwealth, which was more than only Poland.

It was the idiot Dmowski who had a small minded view of only Poland.

The events of WWII proved that Pilsudski was correct. He was a great man surrounded by idiots, and not only in Poland.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [215]


The difference is that people paid to watch Houdini perform, and people really wanted to see him.

Houdini didn't pay to be a member of a forum so he could disparage the country to which he emigrated and where he earned is fame and fortune.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [215]

Interbellum Poland had a policy of strict neutrality between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The following author also soundly refutes the absurd claim by our trolls that Poland conspired to carve up Czechoslovakia:

Anna M. Cienciala, The Foreign Policy Of Józef Piłsudski And Józef Beck, 1926-1939: Misconceptions And Interpretations.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [215]

Józef Piłsudski's foreign minister Józef Beck answered your question best, "We would have defeated Russia, and afterwards we would be taking Hitler's cows out to pasture in the Urals." No educated Slav could have read Hitler and other German authors who were advocating expanding German borders by pushing the Slavic people further East and come to a different conclusion. Yet, the Slovaks, and the Slavs in the failing USSR who were starved under Stalin, were quick to jump and aid the Nazis by attacking their Slavic brothers in Poland. Hitler didn't keep his treaty with Stalin, who was supplying the Nazi war machine with raw materials and minerals until the day Hitler invaded the USSR, and Hitler would not have kept any treaty with Poland after the USSR had been defeated.

The better point to ponder is how history might be different if Poles and others had headed Piłsudski's call to recreate the Commonwealth, possibly including the modern rump state of Lithuania, and thus deny the Soviet Union Belarus and Ukraine. The alliance with Ukraine would have gained the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, making a quick war with Poland less likely to succeed. Piłsudski was very much opposed to the Treaty of Riga and selling out the Ukies. History has proved him very wise.

Food / Are there any Polish wines worth purchasing? [65]


They certainly have vineyards and a wine festival is held Zielona Gora in September. Wine making there dates back to at least 1314 during the Piast duchy of Głogow. The locals told me that it is perfectly legal to make wine in Poland, to possess the wine, and to drink it. The legal problem comes when someone tries to actually sell it. The result is that sales have become hush-hush.

Food / Are there any Polish wines worth purchasing? [65]


Yes, it felt that way, but it was probably just a tax dodge.

I found more about the problem here:

Poland's accession to the EU was supposed to be a new dawn for Polish winegrowing. Unfortunately, however, certain provisions within Polish law, along with a number of legal and administrative obstacles, are not only stymieing the development of wine production in Poland, but also limiting Polish farmers' opportunities to seek relevant EU funding.

eurocare.org/newsroom/newsletter/2011/may_june_2011/questions_from_meps/question_to_the_commission_on_wine_production_from_grapes_grown_in_poland_and_eu_by_tomasz_piotr_poreba_ecr

The problem appears to be limited to fermenting grapes, since it is easy to purchase alcoholic drinks made from other fruits.

So it appears to be that Polish regulation hinders commerce, as in many other areas with Poland. I blame it on the bureaucratic vestiges of the old communist regime that politicians find convenient for dispensing political patronage jobs.

Food / Are there any Polish wines worth purchasing? [65]


There are also EU politics involved. Zielona Gora has vineyards on the main hill and around town as well. There is even a wine making museum there. I was surprised that I couldn't find any Polish wines for sale there in the main shops. The locals informed me that it was because Poland's ascension agreement with the EU prohibited Polish wine from being sold in the common market. Apparently the French, Italian, and German winemakers were concerned about competing with Polish wine. That combined with avoiding paying taxes makes buying Polish wine like bootlegging. I needed a local to make a call to a friend, and then we met in a parking lot in town. The quality of the wine was fine. One vintner said he had an Italian who regularly came and bought his wine for his Italian restaurant.

It appears the "free market" in the EU isn't so free after all.

History / The Untold Battle of Britain [205]


Robert is not alone, although Brits are badly served by many of their countrymen posting here:


w_ww.cnn.com/services/presents.opk/wr.opk/cnnopk_ensor_article.html

Of course, the anti-Polonists here will conclude that the old girl had gone daft already when she gave that speech. However, she was not alone in that opinion:


Further reading for those who want more than the typical pub style "facts" offered here by anti-Polonists:

Arkady Fiedler, 303 Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron

Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud, A Question of Honor: The Kościuszko Squadron; Forgotten Heroes of World War II (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2003).

Adam Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War


Funny how well the Czechs served in the Polish Air Force in the U.K. It really shows how little Czechs blamed Poles for the Anglo-French sell out of Czechoslovakia, since they served under Polish command. Another anti-Polonist smear debunked by historic fact... How ironic that the Brits needed the Poles and Czechs to save their bacon on the Battle of Britain after they abandoned them to the Nazis without any significant military action in 1938-39!


Consider that he has a very German middle name which I believe comes from his ethnic German grandfather. It explains much of the anti-Polonism which he spouts here. Simply use the ignore button to improve the discussion. Ignoring him is truly the worst thing that we can do to him here.

History / Did British public protest against the sell out of Poland to the Soviets? [286]


How well did that strategy work?

The British and the French just went into a turtle. It worked better for the British than it did for the French.

History proves that the real strategy was to wait for someone else to come and do the dirty work for them. The Soviets in the East and the U.S. in the West. Promising support for Poland was just a sham and a fraud.

History / Did British public protest against the sell out of Poland to the Soviets? [286]


Your answer is non-responsive to the academically cited promises of British naval support. The important point is that if British promises of naval support were made, why were they not kept?


You are historically inaccurate here. The Nazi's didn't invade Denmark until April 1940, and Denmark and Sweden controlled the straits into the Baltic. The Germans didn't have radar to track ships, and the Northern latitudes of the Danish Straits were quite dark much of the day in September 1939. Somehow, the Soviet Navy was able to continue operations in the Gulf of Finland despite the Luftwaffe and German army surrounding St. Petersburg. Funny that. The difference is that Soviets knew they had to fight, and the Brits really didn't want to fight in the Baltic. When they finally went to France, they really didn't want to fight there either, and they evacuated from Dunkirk as soon as they could rather than stay and fight on the Continent.


The larger problem was the lack of a port in the Baltic from which to operate There was room for more diplomacy here in Baltic by the British, but they were uninterested in pursuing other alliances here with the little Baltic states, etc. Hitler was convinced that British and French didn't want to fight. Sending British ships into the area would have sent a strong message to Hitler and an attack on those ships may have resulted in more initial support for the war in the U.K. The fact remains that starting with the Locarno Treaties, the British were willing to cede the Baltic to the Germans. This is followed by the UNILATERAL Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935, which permitted the Germans to rebuild its navy. Simply limiting discussion to September 1939, does not absolve Britain for what followed, although I hear crickets for the Brits here on these issues.

Lastly if you were going to lose a ship, it is far better for it to be where the fighting is. Sending the Courageous out to hunt submarines and then having it sunk by a German sub was beyond inept. It was incompetent and a humiliation.


Correction, they did have it, but its effectiveness is questionable:


navweaps/Weapons/WRGER_03.htm

History / Did British public protest against the sell out of Poland to the Soviets? [286]


No, the Polish Navy never went to Nebraska. They were too busy fighting a war.


1. So securing shipping lines to Gdansk Bay wasn't a trade route, and no convoys were to be sent there?
2. There were no German ships or submarines in the Baltic?
3. This didn't include the Baltic?
4. A German invasion was coming in 1939?
5. So Poland was not an ally, and the areas that it controlled were not important?


Please regale us with your version of the Battle of Gdansk Bay on September and how ORP Gryf, Cmdr. Stefan Kwiatkowski was not killed in the German air attack, and how that destroyer did not drive off two German destroyers:

polishnavy.pl/PMW/history/index_03.html


The Royal Oak sank in port in Scotland, which is exactly where it was on September 1, 1939 when the naval war against Germany began. Courageous was sunk off the coast of Ireland, making it another British ship not engaging the Nazis where the actual battle was taking place. Was Courageous the aircraft carrier promised to help defend Gdansk Bay (supra)? If so, why wasn't it there?


The fact is the naval war began at Gdansk Bay without any support from the British Navy, which was at the time the largest, most powerful navy in the world, or the British RAF:

naval-history.net/WW2CampaignRoyalNavy.htm

The remaining destroyers in the Polish navy, being the largest ships in its navy since its Allies refused to grant the newly independent Poland larger ships from WWI from the German or Austrian navies from those peace treaties, followed orders to rondezvous with the British and French navies, which refused to enter the Baltic. They had to go to their ports to accomplish this.


Written by someone with total ignorance of anything beyond his own nationalist, jingoistic view of history. Perhaps it is you who needs to grow up and show some respect for those Poles who gallantly fought the German navy where the British and French navies refused to go?

Please share with us your outrage at the British governments which had permitted the German war machine to rebuild itself in contravention of the Versailles Treaty. Then, perhaps, you might understand why other nations, which suffered more from their arrogance, have resentment towards them as well.

History / Did British public protest against the sell out of Poland to the Soviets? [286]


Which sadly begs the question as to why the British had unilaterally agreed to permit the Germans to rebuild its navy (Anglo-German Naval Agreement 1935) to exceed the limits permitted by the Versailles Treaty, which prohibited the German navy from having battleships, submarines, and naval aviation. There were no consultations with WWI allies France, Italy, and there was certainly no consultation with Poland, which was dependent on the free city of Gdansk/Danzig for its only access to the Baltic. Again, the obvious implication of this unilateral British decision was the desire to have a German navy in the Baltic to serve as a check on the USSR, and the French were furious about it.


Jonny, me old son, thank you for giving us the basic British sanitized view of how well you met your obligation which you wish to believe and were likely taught in school. However, since you spent time in Poland, you should know that books and scholarly articles have been written on the topic with a contrary view:

Prazmowska, Anita J. (1995). Britain and Poland 1939-1943: The Betrayed Ally. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Count Edward Raczyński (1948). The British-Polish Alliance; Its Origin and Meaning. London: The Mellville Press.
Polityka - nr 37 (2469) z dnia 2004-09-11; s. 66-67 Historia / Wrzesień '39 Krzysztof -wikliński Tajemnica zamku Vincennes
(The latter includes promises of air support from an aircraft carrier in the Baltic.)

But, since you assert that Britain had met its obligations, please detail exactly what military aid the British Empire, with its air force and the largest navy in the world at the time, including 7 aircraft carriers, gave to Poland in September 1939. Give sources for your answers.

Please detail how the result in September 1939 differed from The Locarno Treaties in 1925, of which Józef Beck remarked, "Germany was officially asked to attack the east, in return for peace in the west."

Considering that Chamberlain's speech pledging to defend Poland's independence was made over five months prior to Hitler's attack on Poland, please explain why Britain was unprepared to offer more assistance to Poland than what it did.

History / Did British public protest against the sell out of Poland to the Soviets? [286]


It must be all of those Brits who come to Poland for their stag parties...
or maybe because of all of the guys like Harry who need to come to Poland to find a girlfriend.

Poles also did invent vodka, crack the Nazi codes and fought on all fronts against the Nazis, then tore down the Iron Curtain.

Try finding another nation that did all of that.

If Poland is such an insignificant nation, why do need to spend so much time posting here?

History / Did British public protest against the sell out of Poland to the Soviets? [286]


Obviously you owe them something.

Ingrate!

History / The Untold Battle of Britain [205]


I've met him, and he wasn't a bad guy to have a beer with, but he spends far too much time on Internet forums. His translating business in Warsaw must be very slow now since he is here so much. The problem is that he never supports anything that he writes. He thinks this is like a pub discussion where he can just make things up. Really this is the first time he ever called me a liar, but he did write about his dual citizenship before. He writes enough excrement that I doubt anyone really wants to go through it all. Some of it gets deleted, and then he does use sock puppets/pen names too.

I first saw Harry in action on another forum. He got banned for arguing with this one guy, then came back with a pen name. These two went back at each other all of the time. I thought they were two gay men having a spat. I was shocked to learn that both are apparently heterosexual. I have better things to do with my time. I'm putting him on ignore and everyone else who wants to have intelligent discussions should do the same.

History / Questions about Polish borders, Galicia and Cossacks. [50]


Are you sure that these numbers were intended to be exclusive?

My experience researching this region at this time is that people could speak both languages, or sometimes what they spoke was a mixture. The percentages on the page cited above didn't add up to 100%. It may have just been a head count of what languages people were capable of speaking without being exclusive.

History / Questions about Polish borders, Galicia and Cossacks. [50]


This is the important point. Austrian Galicia was very Catholic, unlike Orthodox Russia and Protestant Germany. Previously, the dividing line between those who spoke Ukrainian dialects was religion. The Ukrainian cossacks refused the offer of seats in the Sejm because they refused to accept Catholicism in their lands. To them, Ukraine had to be Orthodox, regardless of language. In the twentieth century language became more important. Stalin ended the Orthodox-Catholic problems by ordering the Greek Catholics to renounce the Pope. The problem continued recently when the Greek Catholic moved their Cathedral from Lwow to Kiev and there was a riot by the Orthodox.