Differences in Polish, American and British mentality

are you sure? can you elaborate?
Does it mean that in PRL there were uneployed engineers?


Of course it's not true.


I can give such example. Of course people who were on position had to be in some organisation but it was nothing more than a pose. The person I'm talking about indeed was in a youth organisation (or whatever it was called) but was never willing to join the party. And not because of political/ideological issues. He just never wanted to joint the układy...

Tak dziekuje Puelka.


OK since this is really hurting all of you guys i'll tell you... My father was a kierownik his father worked as a guard in that same facility, catching on.... when the whole communist system looked like it was gonna fall apart any day EVERYONE tried to get something out of it, (new system meant maybe they'll forget or wont know what happened) people in administrative post started selling steel, iron, wheels, maybe ever guns by taking them out of them factory. The last year in Poland my father was making in a few days what he made in a month. The commies found out those who were involved had to flee, how could he be a commie and work for them when he took from them they wanted to imprison him!!??? Why I told you this, to prove he wasn't a commie, and that he hurt that communist government the government which if democratic would have paid him wages he deserved as every other underpaid oppressed worker in that damn regime.

I know the realities. And I am not saying that the "party loyalist" has to be incompetent. On the contrary - he has to be competent, well educated AND loyal. Especially if working in the factory that was important from the military point of view.


It was called a "wilczy bilet" (wolf's ticket - I don't know why they call it that way). If you get it - the only job available would be an odd, manual jobs. Regardles of the university degree.

he was a thief... nothing to be proud of...


it doesn't justify his actions....

numerus clausus.


Probably not because you were not a socialist activist but a solidarity activist, am I wrong?

Perhaps you would like to read what I wrote? "ability and reliability" Without a bit of both, good jobs were not available. Look at Adam Michnik: excellent writer but was only able to work as a welder. Jan Rokita: excellent marks at uni but not allowed to train as a lawyer.


We know that he built weapons which enabled two communist regimes to oppress the people of two different nations.

Listen commies stole legally others illegally everyone did it, you didn't you lived just like all commoners on kartki. In Russia Vory v Sakonye is a proud term.

My edit to that post again:
However I wanted to add a true story from my past: it was the year eighty something. My older brother was about to take his entry exam to secondary school. It was a somewhat competitive school. It was also the year of elections. The normal course of events was to ignore the whole thing. However, my mother was very worried about my brother getting into the school. My parents were fighting the whole morning over going to the elections, and in the afternoon my mother went to vote. She said, she wouldn't forgive herself if my brother didn't get to the school because of her failing to vote. My father stayed home.

Only nowadays I see under what kind of pressure the generation of our parents was. Some people had to cave in, and it wasn't because they were evil. There was life that had to be lived, kids that had to raised and fed. We have only a vague idea how it was like to be in their shoes.

So your father was stealing too?

not everyone... don't put all Poles in a line with your dad... i know of many people who didn't...


well, it's not Russia...

Interesting: in the past you have claimed here) that your "father worked there just for 5 years left for East Germany better pay, then Spain and USA." But now you claim that he actually had to flee because his thieving came to light.

How did he manage to get a job in a security conscious industry in a police state (i.e. East Germany) after having been forced to flee Poland?

Your lies seem to be unraveling somewhat.

"I kill a communist for fun but for a green card i'm gonna carve him up real nice" Al PAcino LOL
Any time you hurt a communist or a communist government it's something to be proud of, a government that denied you of your basic human rights and essentials. Communism was like a uncle who took you in when you needed help, but molested you.

I think it's much better to be a communist than a thief... shame on your father, Penn. The thing you've acknoledged is much worse than every accussation Harry made about your father...


YOU'VE MUST BE KIDDING. YOUR DAD ROBBED MILLIONS OF POLES! And you dare to make excuses?! I'm disgusted.

Were you aware that in communism everything was the property of everyone? Your father was stealing from his own people. Nothing to be proud of.

I can work up excuses for collaborators, but not for criminals.

Ok, En, your point has been made mute by Penn and Marynka, so cut your losses...

I would have done the exact same thing everyones innocent and smart after the facts, if you actually lived in communist Poland you'd do the same thing 'You got a family you've got an engineering degree, you wasted 2 years in your life in some damn army, you have nothing for all of your work' in a normal country you'd be a rich man with your qualifications. Like a doctor who made 3 times less than a coal miner in Poland, this is normal to you???


The guy who quotes me word for word lol, he first was in E Germany 2 years job training and work , 5 years in Poland, then left for Spain in 88' , 90' for America, happy?? LOL

I'd rather be poor.

Poland is a really tiny nation in comparison to the massive amount of different cultures and societies living here in the US and abroad. Honestly we’re hardly recognized as a unique culture or mentality in this melting pot.

9 out of 10 when I just say that I’m Polish to someone they'll look at me confused wanting more explanation. Once this is established, people just accept it. They may pay attention to news about Poland because now they know someone that says is Polish. And that’s where it ends.

There are so little of us out there that it's not really difficult for a Polish person living abroad to spot another Polish.
To me personally it feels like looking in to a giant jelly bean jar and spotting white and red one in there. To us Polish, the white and red means something, to others it’s just another jelly bean.

You can pretend not to be Polish but the white and red mentality will give you away to other Polish. To others here in the US you’re just another white dude in a melting pot of many.

As a side note: it's so much more fun to mangle with all the jelly beans in the jar and not only those white and red ones.

It gives one a valuable perspective that can be used to ones advantage.

I would like to hear someone’s perspective from the British side.

And any time a person helped a communist regime by making them weapons which with they could oppress people, that person should have been ashamed. Was your father ashamed every day that he worked to prop up two commie regimes?


Yes, we have already seen from your willingness to swear to attack Poland that you inherited your father's complete lack of morals.


So now you say the exact opposite of what you said previously. First it was East Germany, Poland and then East Germany and Spain but now it is East Germany, Poland and then Spain. Were you lying then or now? Or both then and now?

One question though, you claim he had to flee after his thieving was discovered: how did a man wanted for theft from a key industry manage to get a passport with an exit visa?

You dad has served them for the decades. Are you proud of this as well?

In 1989 a lot of party members an collaborators escaped to the West. They know that in free Poland they would be held responsible for their doings. Some of them pretended to be a freedom-fighters and Solidarność members and applied for a political asylum.

But the true is - in 1989, when the Solidarność won the elections - there was no reason for patriots to escape. The patriots were freed from the prisons and started to build a new free Poland. But the commies and collaborators have got every reason to be afraid.

I'd rather be poor and work for the good of Poland.

Oh, wait a minute, I mean "I was poor and I did work for the good of Poland"!

Puelka remember, the people who accomplish something in life are the ones who take risks, the ones who just sit back will stay in one place. Like in a job place if you don't run your mouth ask for a raise leave or threaten to leave you'll never get one. The boss will think you're a dummy and got nowhere else to go.

keeping up your standards and morals is an achievement... not 'do celu po trupach'...

Harry, can you explain the source of your expertise in all things Polish, and when you worked for the good of Poland?

I would also like to know where


came from.

and who steals?


And please stop patronizing me. You can't even imagine how much I'm disgusted of you and your dad!


he was a Peace Corps (or something like that) volonteer as a teacher of English.

Yes, being a collaborator is certainly running the risk that freedom will once again return and one will have to flee.


If that place is called 'Poland', that'll be just fine with me thanks.


Quite right: you will never get a job (for long) if you run your mouth. Not that you need to worry about that, given that you work at daddy's company.

Oh stop that collaborator thing! Can't you see that he confessed to much worse thing?

why can't Harry speak for himself? He seems to know a lot about Poland in the 80s/early 90s. I would like to find out how. It's a simple question.

I'm not sure that it is worse. Thieves steal property; collaborators steal freedom. Would you trade your possessions for your freedom?


You've already had your answer. Goodbye.

Sometimes if you wanna win the war you have to burn the village.


Communists robbed all Poles!!! your money your health, freedom to hurt them was something good why is it so hard for you to see that? That Catholic Church has brainwashed you, told you what to do, how to feel about certain things, meanwhile they steal from the people take their money take their services to build for free, and molest little children. They do all those things they've been teaching you are wrong.