History / Is there a list of those in the Polish Army during WWII? [192]


The Polish Parachute Brigade was formed with the purpose of capturing airfields in Poland for use in the planned uprising. They were held in reserve for this purpose until the British brought political pressure for its use in liberating France and the Netherlands in June 1944. Since the Poles required support from the Brits for the planned uprising, they didn't feel they could decline the request. (In the event, British support for the uprising was inadequate, to say the least.) Subsequently, the Polish parachute brigade was committed to Montgomery's folly in the Netherlands in Operation Market Garden, which was an unmitigated disaster. One school of thought is that the Polish paratroopers were sent on that mission to keep them unavailable for service in Poland, and the political issues with Stalin which would have arisen from their activity with the AK. Another perspective is that they were sent to gain battle experience, although considering the high mortality rate of paratroopers, this seems unlikely. Understand that the Poles in exile had placed their hopes for liberation in their paratroopers.

To understand the prestige of the Polish paratroopers, only the U.S., Britain, and the Poles among the Allies had significant paratroop brigades. Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth nations had none worth mention. After D-Day, the British had only one functional airborne unit, and the Poles were needed to enhance them. However, the incompetence of the operation retarded progress on the battle front. The 2,000 Poles who served in the parachute brigades desperately wanted to fight in Poland, but were denied this by the politics of appeasing Stalin. For more about this see M. A. Peszke, The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II (2009)

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [27]


Ethnic Poles were not the majority here, but ethnic Ukrainians were not either. Ethnic "Ukrainians" were a subgroup or Ruthenians. Many Ruthenians had rejected the Ukrainian ethnicity before WWII. Some had intermarried with the Poles for hundreds of years, or claimed to be descendants of the Ruthenian szlachta and were Polonophiles. Others were Carpo-Rusyns, like the Lemkos, who spoke a different language and rejected the Ukrainians as chauvinists attempting destroy their unique language and culture. After the war and the ethnic cleansing by Stalin and the Ukrainian fascists, these Ruthenians were declared to have been Ukrainians who just weren't aware that they were. Since the Soviets also destroyed the periodicals archive in Lwow, it is difficult to "prove" what existed there prewar. (Pre-war residents have different recollections of events than post-war communist historians.) Communist historians and Western historians predisposed to discount the legitimacy of the Second Polish Republic's borders have accepted the Stalinist orthodoxy of Rutheinian being a synonym for the Ukrainian endonym. Slowly this is changing. Dr. Robert Magosci has been at the forefront of changing this perception:


britannica/topic/Rusyn-people

Wolyn had been under Russian administration since the last partition of Poland. Its lesser nobility were so oppressed by the greater nobility that they intermarried with the peasants and Ruthanized. The people in Wolyn were overwhelmingly Orthodox in contrast to the Catholic Ruthenain Galicians. Modern Russian social scientists distinguish the two groups as two distinct ethnic groups. Remember that Stalin forced the Uniates to renounce the Pope after annexing Galicia.

Law / Boyfriend overstayed 90 days in Poland - will he get a fine or deported? [16]

It may depend on the border guard. The best thing to do is for him to say he wants to go to Ukraine to see the beautiful Polish city of Lwow. (He should have gone there first.) They may allow him to go there and reset his 90 days without deporting him to the U.S. I doubt they want to deport him, since someone needs to pay for the airfare. Much depends on how he presents himself, etc. Good Luck!

Law / Boyfriend overstayed 90 days in Poland - will he get a fine or deported? [16]


No, his passport will show that he was denied entry into the UK, not deported. If he insists that he wants to go to Ukraine, he may be permitted to buy a ticket to Ukraine and try his luck with the Ukies without getting a black mark from Poland as well. Ukraine is a massively corrupt place and they want money from Western tourists. It is his only chance IMHO.

Law / Boyfriend overstayed 90 days in Poland - will he get a fine or deported? [16]


Which is exactly why he needs to insist that he is just transiting the airport to Ukraine. She can meet him in Lwow and experience its overwhelming Polish culture. If asked about the overstay, he might just say that he had problem leaving over the holidays. If he doesn't look like a dirtball or a terrorist, and is polite, they might cut him a break and not put him on a black list.

Law / Boyfriend overstayed 90 days in Poland - will he get a fine or deported? [16]


It would be better that he have a ticket when he lands. With all of the refugee problems, they can check everyone's passport exiting the aircraft before connecting flights. Many airports do this anyhow. He needs to make clear that he is not intending to enter Poland and the onward ticket proves that.


They could expel the Poles from Lwów, but they can never remove Polish culture from Lwów, regardless of what they call it and how silly they choose to dress. Polish culture is still everywhere in Lwów.


They are human, and know that people screw up sometimes.

Law / Boyfriend overstayed 90 days in Poland - will he get a fine or deported? [16]

After getting on the flight to Ukraine, that black X on the British stamp might attract some further questions in Ukraine. He should be prepared to answer questions as to why he got denied entry to the U.K. Americans getting hassled entering the U.K. is not uncommon, especially if they aren't satisfied that someone fits their idea of being a tourist. He should make an effort to convince the border guards in Ukraine that he is there as a tourist, has enough money and credit cards to support himself during his stay, and can leave at the end of his visa. Basically, they want to see that he will spend money there and not be a problem, and leave on time. If you intend to meet him in Ukraine for a holiday, he should tell them that as well.

History / Religion Of Children From Interfaith Marriages In The Kresy areas of Poland [3]

Thank you for this. Joyce focuses mostly on Roman Catholic and Orthodox relations. She does note that the faith of the children is a consideration in these interfaith marriages. However, she claims that Roman Catholics and Orthodox can't intermarry without one converting to the other's faith. The Catholic priest she interviews contradicted her on this point. I think that she confused the requirements for having the marriage ceremony in the church building (where the non-Catholic must promise to raise the children Catholic) with the church recognizing a marriage to someone from another faith. If a Catholic married someone in a ceremony in another church, that person cannot remarry without an annulment. So, the Catholic church clearly does recognize these marriages as valid. Unfortunately she doesn't delve into the interrelationships with the Eastern Rite Catholics. There is no need for anyone to convert in a marriage between people practicing different rites of Catholicism. The tradition I mentioned certainly had no impediments in that case.

It is an interesting read. She is an anthropologist and has a different methodology from the commie social scientists and geographers whom she noted usually conflated religion and ethnicity. These clowns never supported their "expert" opinions which assigned ethnicity to groups of people based solely on their academic titles, and such opinions were declared facts which coincidentally justified involuntary border shifts and ethnic cleansing. She notes that one of her Orthodox sources objects to constantly being categorized as a Russian or Belarussian. She cites another academic who noted that there were still people in the region who avoided claiming an ethnicity and called themselves "local". The Kresy always was unique and defied easy categorization.

Study / WŁODZIMIERZ MĘDRZECKI - academic credentials - Warsaw University [3]

Thank you. I had a problem finding that information. He has done great work writing about Ukraine and the East. His defense of the integrity of the 1931 Census against communist propaganda is excellent.

History / Chance of Lwów once again became coming part of Poland [344]

Considering that 100 years ago the people in Western Ukraine didn't consider that they lived in Ukraine, which they considered to be on the other side of the Dnieper, it wouldn't take much for them to relearn their history. People standing in the long lines at the Polish consulate certainly do. Pre-WWII Western Ukraine, including the Soviet side, was much more Polish before Stalin started sending "Poles" to the gulag. (When I am in Ukraine people tell me that my szlachta surname is actually Ukrainian.) Much of the Ukrainian nationalism is pushed by the ruling oligarchs. Patriotism and religion are the last resorts of scoundrels. As Ukraine collapses economically and possibly politically, look for Western Ukraine to look for integration with Poland. Ultimately, people there will choose the superior Polish economic model over the fascist/Soviet Ukrainian nationalism which masks the political corruption.

History / Chance of Lwów once again became coming part of Poland [344]

No, according to a Russian historian this was on the Russian side of the partition. People in Wołyn, Podolia, etc., did not consider that they lived in Ukraine. Therefore they did not consider themselves Ukrainian. That is not to say that they had all considered themselves Poles, but the modern Ukrainian ethnic identity is quite new, and somewhat contrived. The Hapsburgs were quite instrumental in creating it. The standard Ukrainian dialect comes Poltava. Western Ukraine historically was a much more Polish influenced dialect.

History / Chance of Lwów once again became coming part of Poland [344]

Considering that this account comes from before WWI, absolutely not. Read Kate Brown and pay attention to her sources in "A Biography Of No Place". If you haven't read that book, you can't understand the region. It is one of the best books available in English. It won an award for the best history book the year it was published and Harvard University Press doesn't publish commie neo-Stalinism. Bullocks yourself. Ignoramus!

History / Chance of Lwów once again became coming part of Poland [344]

All of Europe denied the concept of self-determination of people before WWI. Then after WWII, half of Europe was denied self-determination of peoples. There is no evidence that a majority of people in Western Ukraine had wanted to be separate from Poland after WWI. Since the Soviet archives note protests from Ukrainians marching to the Polish border to demand that Poland invade to save it from Stalin in the 1930's, and Yale's Timothy Snyder concluded that after the Soviet annexation in 1939 Ukrainians were nostalgic for Polish rule, there was more pro-Polish sentiment here than you acknowledge. What is clear is that the Ukrainian nationalists were brutal fascists who killed their relatives in the most barbaric manner and put the Nazis to shame and Stalin engaged in ethnic cleansing starting on the Soviet side of the border before the war. There was no self-determination of peoples here after the war either.


Correction: Kate Brown wrote that people in Western Ukraine before WWI considered Ukraine to have been the steppe:
environmentandsociety.org/mml/transformed-landscape-steppes-ukraine-and-russia
The Dnieper was the dividing line proposed by Lenin at Riga in 1921.

History / Polish conscripts to German army [132]

Harvey Sarner in his book about Anders Army, General Anders and the Soldiers of the Second Polish Corps (1997), noted that II Polish Corps was resupplied with Polish conscripts from German POW camps in the tens of thousands. This was compelled by the break with the Soviets which eliminated recruits from the East. Since these soldiers had served in Wehrmacht they were in danger of being shot at deserters if they were recognized as such. So, it is not surprising that some used assumed or borrowed identities. However, once the tide turned against the Nazis, many found that risk preferable to being viewed as Nazi collaborators at the end of the war. It was so successful that by the time II Polish Corps was demobilized, it had a "surplus" of soldiers in excess of the limit that the Brits had placed on it. Norman Davies has also recently released a book about the Second Polish Corps Trail of Hope: The Anders Army - An Odyssey Across Three Continents (2015)

History / Polish conscripts to German army [132]

Officially, the Germans didn't recognize that they were ethnic Poles. Post-war academics have generally attempted to divide RP II 's population into somewhat arbitrary ethnic groups by religion and language without acknowledging that many were "transitional" people who could assimilate into the population on the other side of the border. They rarely were given a choice to "vote with their feet" by either the Nazis or the Soviets, who assigned them an ethnicity to further their territorial ambitions and claims. Anders' Army was the one notable exception, but even then, the Soviets took a very restrictive view of whom they declared to be Polish, and thus permitted to fight under Polish command. The Polish graveyard at Monte Casino has quite a few Jewish Star of David's, as well as Orthodox and Greek Catholic crosses bearing witness to the religious diversity of the Poles from the Kresy.

History / Teaching our kids about Poland's History [57]

I got a young family member Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski. Granted it is 436 pages but it covers a thousand years of history. Poland: An Illustrated History by by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski might be best for younger learners, but I haven't reviewed it personally. Norman Davies is likely a bit too dry for a 10 year old. While Davies is well regarded, and a definite improvement over communist era historiography written by Communist Party historians in Poland parroting propaganda against the Second Polish Republic and repeated by anti-Polonists in the West, he is still not quite free academically from those parameters. The need of some authors to bash Poland to imply that the loss of half of its pre-WWII was justified or inevitable should be carefully considered.

History / Teaching our kids about Poland's History [57]

Charles de Gaulle fought with the Poles against the Russians in 1920-21. It was there that he, along with Polish officers, learned that the next war would be fought with an emphasis on tanks and airplanes. All were ignored by the French high command in 1940. Undoubtedly, de Gaulle, who stated that the U.S. and U.K. gave away too much of Europe to Stalin, is a hero in Poland.


British, and other Western historians, have a tendency to use criticism of the Second Polish Republic to mask the complicity of Poland's Western "allies" in:

1) permitting the rearmament of Germany,
2) failing to make war on the Germans in September 1939 in fulfillment of military self-defense agreements,
3) abandoning the Poles fighting in the West to exile from Stalin's puppet regime, and
4) shifting Poland's borders and government without the consent of the pre-war Polish citizens of the Kresy.
It is far easier to bash Poland and Poles than to address their own disingenuous promises and complicity in the disaster that befell the citizens of the Second Polish Republic.

[quote-rozumiemnic]"the only British historian that says a lot of truth in his writings about Polish history,"
illogical sweeping statement surely? the only one? Really goofy?
Anyway I read that he is far from impartial in his treatment of who suffered in WW2, and that this has been a contentious issue.[/quote]

Feedback / Member warning system to prevent abuse / spam / off-topic posts [145]

Will certain repeat offenders get permanent bans for second or third banishments? They drive people away from the forum with their anti-Polonism.

Travel / The best and inexpensive way to travel from Prague to Warsaw? [15]

Yes, the bus is cheaper and the train is more comfortable. However, due to the commissions, cross border travel gets much more expensive by train. I would suggest taking the bus to Wroclaw and then taking a train to Warsaw. The bus station is right next to the train station so it is an easy transfer. Another option would be to take a train to the Czech side of the border somewhere, walk across the border, then get on a train on the Polish side. I did that a few years ago, but not from Prague. Please note that more local trains are crossing the borders now, so check the schedules online:

rozklad-pkp.pl/en

Genealogy / Are Sorbs Polish? Does anyone know about Sorbish enthnicity? [62]

Fundamentally, people are who and what they, themselves, claim to be and not the labels that others wish to impose on them. (What happened due to the involuntary changes in Poland's borders after WWII) Modern Europe has learned to embrace this diversity which is very much in contrast to pre-WWII nationalists who claimed otherwise. Polish historian Henryk Zieliński wrote quite a bit about the Germanization of its Slavic peoples (in Polish) before the war. I haven't read him, but he eventually rejected communist historiography and was likely murdered as a result.

The major caveat with regard to communist era academia is that they tended to support, at least implicitly, Stalin's post war forced borders with regard to transitional peoples which never had the opportunity to decide anything for themselves. I would not be surprised to learn that communist historiography suggested that Germany's Western Slavs were either Polish, or close enough to be "rightfully" Polonized. The fact is that more likely, these transitional groups preferred living where they could maintain their own language and ethnicity as distinct from that which was larger but somehow similar, e.g., the Carpo-Rusyn language and culture has flourished in Poland, while it has largely disappeared in Ukraine. When such people were not able to resist, their distinct language and culture has disappeared. The Pomeranian language became extinct after the war, and despite spending time there, no one recognizes a separate Pomeranian people or culture.

Genealogy / Are Sorbs Polish? Does anyone know about Sorbish enthnicity? [62]

No, I believe that I was referring to the Slovincian language which is now quite extinct. Together with Kashubian, it made up one of the two branches of the Pomeranian languages. Ethnically, Slovincians had become Protestants, unlike the Kashubians who remained Catholic. So, only half of the Pomeranian languages survived the war:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovincian_language
It has been a few years since I read about this. I seem to remember reading that the language was further to the West near Szcecin, but that was about ten years ago and can't find anything presently on the Internet about that.


Considering that Poland's post war Western border is exactly that which the Russians had proposed at the start of WWI, (as noted by Norman Davies) it is not surprising that Stalin rejected something different. The point exploited for justification is that the "Recovered Territories" had been very Slavic before Germanization. Thus, Polonization was the rejection of Germanization.

Travel / The best and inexpensive way to travel from Prague to Warsaw? [15]

It is also possible, and maybe cheaper and faster, to take a minibus from Cieszyn to Krakow. From there many train options exist to get to Warsaw quite quickly and conveniently. However, don't expect to be able to find those minibus schedules online!

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [27]

Before WWII, "Ukrainian" was a political party and movement among many Ruthenians, but it was not quite an ethnicity. After the war, the Ukrainian identity was forced on the remainder who survived or weren't deported.

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [27]

Nope. The Catholic Ruthenians remained Ruthenians until Stalin and the Ukrainian fascists invaded and began their crimes against humanity contrary to the Ukrainian neo-nationalism you are promoting here.

History / Should Poland organize March of the Living in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland? [27]

There could be no "revival" for something that was novel, and not accepted by many of the people others insisted were members of that new ethnonym. The term Ruthenian was used by the Great Powers at Versailles to distinguish the Catholics from the Orthodox. (See Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, "It was not clear were the Ruthenians belonged...The Ruthenian delegates who managed to get to Paris by the spring of 1919 could not say what they wanted." [at pg. 225] ) That distinction is maintained by modern Russian social scientists. Historians Christopher Hann and Paul Robert Magosci, among others, also disagree with your Ukrainian neo-nationalist point of view and opinion.


Truly, the revisionism came when millions of people were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan, murdered for asserting that they were not Ukrainians as the local fascists insisted, or refusing to participate in their pogroms, (which put even the Nazis to shame by attacking their close relatives), denied the ability of self-determination as to their national government, and in which army they might fight and serve, and also deprived of their right to practice their Catholic religion by Stalin's communists who forced their church to renounce the pope, or exiled in the West, etc.

History / Is 5th partition of Poland possible? What kind? How? When? [73]

The partition of the novel state of Ukraine is now underway. It is being propped up with Western financial support, which it is exhausting with its corruption. A President Trump may well come to an agreement with Putin about changing Ukraine's formal borders to recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea. With the blessing of the U.S., Poland could again include the beautiful Polish city of Lwów. Poland may need to leave the E.U. to become whole again, but it is not Poland that is in danger of shrinking.

News / Poland -- Europe's only counterweight to Russia [271]

Trump is open to renegotiating the existing order. Why does the U.S. still have bases in Western Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism? That doesn't make any sense anymore. If Trump invests in Poland, we will want to defend it. Trump won't take the nuclear option off the table, and the defense of the U.S. nuclear umbrella is all that Poland needs to prevent a war with Russia. With that, Poland no longer needs to worry about the fickle Germans as a major ally. Russia unilaterally abrogated the Budapest Memorandum, and the borders of the failed novel Ukrainian state are open to renegotiation. Trump will renegotiate that, and it is an opportunity that Poland would be foolish to miss to regain Lwów. It is a beautiful Polish city!