Famous Polish people (that we have actually heard of)

gotcha :-) lol

Roman Zaleski - 5th the richest person in France. Now seting up new bank in Poland. For many years he have been supporting Polish charity institutions

he`s french.

He has Polish and French citizneship and he has some companies in Poland, France, Italy... so he is French- Polish.

in my book he`s French.

I don't care about your book.

Roman Zaleski donates Polish National Liblary in Paris - one of the biggest Polish cultural institutions in foreign country.

bibliotheque-polonaise-paris-shlp.fr

He bought for Wawel Castle and Warsaw Castle some new exponats just to make this colections richer ... Even he was ethnic French he would be Pole for me.

for me... its Zawisha Czarny

In the classical music world there are:

Fryderyk Chopin
Karol Szymanowski
Witold Lutosławski
Tadeusz Baird
Henryk Górecki
Grażyna Bacewicz
Andrzej Czajkowski
Jan Ekier
Jozef Hofman
Henryk Melcer-Szczawiński
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Andrzej Panufnik
Kszysztof Penderecki
Xaver Scharwenka
Kazimierz Serocki
Zygmunt Stojowski
Władysław Szpilman
Aleksander Tansman
Carl Tausig
Henryk Wieniawski

These are some quasi-household classical names, I would say...

and then...

Witold Gombrowicz is a well known author...

Krzysztof Kieślowski is regarded as one of the best directors.... ever. (by me, at least!)

my two cents. . .

Zawisha Czarny

Stanislaw Lem - strange noone mentions him. The most popular contemporary polish writer (SF/philosophy), I think you can safely say he contributed not only to euro-culture but culture as a whole (no one here read "Solaris" ?????)

And more popular thiese days - Sapkowski (pop-culture is still culture, right?)

Whether you heard about someone or not says nothing about that person. It only says something about you.

but... have you heard about Joseph Cnrad (Korzeniowski)? He was one of the best English language stylists with great influence on English literature and culture in general. To him, English was his third language.

proud to advertise your ignorance?

Who said here that Warhol was Polish?

He is Slovakian and its a well known fact.

You are wrong, Warhol was Rysyn, not Slovakian.

true, so Poles should scratch Warhol off then.

Poles have had their fair share of "Warhols" (only Poles will understand that)

I was recently reading a book about the British fighter ace of War World II Douglas Bader, there was a section on 303 squadron, and one Polish pilot in particular was an absolute nut case. Flying in on the enemy in his spitfire guns a blazing and breaking off 50 meters from collision, 100 meters was considered the absolute latest to break off such an attack this dude wanted German blood bad.

I cant remember his name, the books in my car and I really cant be bothered to go and get it. Im sure some Poles here will know his name.

Yes he was assigned to the Raf. On one particular expedition everyone was briefed that it was too dangerous to fly because of low cloud ( I think), however he ignored these instructions and took off in a spitfire and shot down the German plane. He became a national hero, with the RAF of course.

Polish pilots, while in the so called "training" would on occasion leave the formation to shoot down a German plane. They were in fact the most experienced, and some of the best pilots in Europe during WW2.

For those interested in the topic I recommend this book (the authors are Americans, without Polish blood in them):

Most good Pilots were "nutcases" back then. It took a certain charector to be willing to take off in canvas covered flying petrol tanks with only 30 odd seconds worth of ammo. I say hats off to them all(apart from that gerry who bombed my aunties chip shop...)

And here here for Josef Konrad,if nothing else the world got a damm cool vietnam movie out of him :)
" Karol dont surf"

Maybe combat experienced they had more to fight for, id imagie many had lost loved ones, their homes their country for Gods sake. A man that has nothing has nothing to lose, except in this case his own life of course. I think i'll check out some more info on 303 squadron. The only thing I dont like about this whole eppisode was that they were shooting down planes and then once the pilots ejected they were coming back in for the kill. This obviously sparked retaliation from the Germas and a trend emerged, many would be POW's became KIA.

Its fascinating stuff about 303,at a time when the RAF was scrapping the bottom of the barrel by cutting Pilot training back to a minimum the Poles were kept in a holiday camp in Blackpool. I think a couple of Poles served with my G' Uncle in 501 Sqdrn RAF right through the Battle of Britain so I imagine total Polish contribution was much larger than the 2 PAF Sqdrns.

It will be interesting to find out just how wide spread shooting baled out Pilots was amongst all the other nations during the Battle though,Im pretty sure plenty of native Britons did the same,after all,these barstewerds were trying to conquer their country,if they baled out over the channel there would have been a 50 /50 chance by the next morning ,after a bit of a bath,Fritz would be back dropping bombs over little snodberry in a shiny new 109.

Well i wonder if there was a rule, shoot a German down over Europe and make sure hes dead if you can. Shoot him down over the Channel or GB save the ammo.

Oh that is not so nice, as there is almost a "gentlemans code in the airforce",as to what is deemed to be appropriate when captured", it is usually a national code in the airforce of every country.

Have you heard of Ignacy Lukasiewicz?
No? but every time you are going to the petrol station, should think about him!
Well, if you bragg about your ignorance ......

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacy_%C5%81ukasiewicz

There probably wasnt ever a written rule along those lines but I wonder how many people followed something similar.
I suppose its easy for us now to say what is right and wrong,but ,seeing as an aeroplane could be produced in a couple of days and a pilot took months to train ,pragmaticaly,when an enemy who has proven himself over Rotterdam and Warsaw,not to mention Geurnica,to be ruthless and intent on invading your island,do you really play nice or do you try to kill every last one of them? I always remember Max Beaverbrook in The World at War,when he's asked if there was a code of the air during the battle of britain(he was a spitfire pilot) has a look that you give a child who asks a silly question and then planly said ,no,they were trying to invade our country .

To not know of at least two from this list, is a sign of ignorance and/or lack of education. I know three so I'm doing quite well.

"really"

To be fair Donkey,before you learnt a little about Poland you may have heard of Coppernicus and Marie Currie and presumably Walensa but honestly,Kopernik ,Maria Skłodowska and Wałęsa?


Yep,production lines,maybe a week tops,from pretty much scratch,that was the RAFs biggest problem in the BofB,not shortage of 'planes but Trained Pilots,but this is veering away from famous Poles now :)

Er,that lass from My Family,Denby Ash,was something like Dombrowski before equity name change,
Oh, and Rula lenska,every ones fav' ginger countess in a catsuit :)

No, i dont think there was. Bader (in the book i read) throughout the course of the battle of Britian became more and more aggresive towards the hun as a direct result of their ruthless bombings of civilian targets. Imagine how the Poles must have felt!!

Also watched Bomber Command on TV today, the bombings of Hamburg and Berlin. Whats this RAF day or what?