Happy New Year 2013

[tufta]

Happy New Year to all of you :-)

[pjotr]

Happy New Year for you too Tufta!

[jeanne]

Jan 4, 2013 9:58:59 GMT 1 tufta said:

Happy New Year to all of you :-)

Tufta! How nice to see you have checked in here! I fear Bo has deserted us...

Happy and healthy New Year to you and your family!!

Jeanne

[tufta]

Hi Jeanne and Pjotr!
I have checked - Bo logged in on Oct 24, 2012, 9:20pm.
I think there's only one way to wake up such an ambitious young man into action
We should start posting our own photos (I think Pjotr already did) and news.

There I go then, some ambitious Poles' achievements ;-)

www.thenews.pl/1/5/Artykul/123268,Radwanska-takes-Auckland-title

www.thenews.pl/1/5/Artykul/123194,Kowalczyk-wins-Tour-de-Ski-stage-5

---

P.S. I hope you are all alright. Pjotr's work is satisfying and Jeanne's grandmahood is blossoming. Happy New Year again.

[jeanne]

Jan 6, 2013 21:37:55 GMT 1 tufta said:

Hi Jeanne and Pjotr!
I have checked - Bo logged in on Oct 24, 2012, 9:20pm.
I think there's only one way to wake up such an ambitious young man into action
We should start posting our own photos (I think Pjotr already did) and news.

There I go then, some ambitious Poles' achievements ;-)

www.thenews.pl/1/5/Artykul/123268,Radwanska-takes-Auckland-title

www.thenews.pl/1/5/Artykul/123194,Kowalczyk-wins-Tour-de-Ski-stage-5

---

P.S. I hope you are all alright. Pjotr's work is satisfying and Jeanne's grandmahood is blossoming. Happy New Year again.

Tufta,

Thanks for keeping things going with these two links!

I fear I am not technically savvy enough to contribute much in the way of photos, etc., but I will try to find some interesting links.

I do hope Bo will resurface soon....it's been 'way too long!!

[Bonobo]

Thanks for wishes all of you and the same to you.

[tufta]

Ooops, forgot how to move around and missed teh replies!

There you are!

What's up? How's life in Kraków and Arnhem?

[pjotr]

Tufta,

Life is good in Arnhem, and white and cold at the moment. I love my job as cameraman and editor for the local Arnhem broadcast corporation, the tv branch of RTV-Arnhem.

It was hard to work though this week. Cold fingers, because I can't film with gloves. But I enjoy the snow, the winter and hope that it will freeze enough to skate again in the very near future.

This video shows the end of 200 km skating in Friesland in the North of the Netherlands




We all hope for a new "Eleven-cities Tour" this year if God's willing to allow us to have a tough winter with good freezing temperatures for the ice to get thick!

Wyścig Jedenastu Miast



The Elfstedentocht (West Frisian: Âlvestêdetocht, English: Eleven cities tour), at almost 200 kilometers (120 mi), is a speed skating match (with 200 contestants) and a leisure skating tour (with 16,000 skaters). It is held in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, touching every city (by history) of the province. It is held, in practice in January or February and not more than once in a year, when the natural ice along the entire course is at least 15 centimetres (6 in) thick; sometimes on consecutive years, other times with gaps that may exceed 20 years. When the ice is suitable the tour is announced, and starts within 48 hours.

The tour, almost 200 km in length, is conducted on frozen canals, rivers and lakes between the eleven historic Frisian cities: Leeuwarden, Sneek, IJlst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker, Dokkum, then returning to Leeuwarden.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht
www.rmf24.pl/sport/news-wyscig-jedenastu-miast-lyzwiarska-goraczka-w-holandii,nId,432954
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fryzowie

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

In Warsaw three years back

[pjotr]

Jan 13, 2013 19:36:06 GMT 1 tufta said:

Ooops, forgot how to move around and missed teh replies!

There you are!

What's up? How's life in Kraków and Arnhem?

And how is life in Good old Warsaw? The Warsaw of today must be different from the Warsaw I saw in August 2006 and 1984.

Hope you and your family are fine in your nice Warsaw neighborhood!

[tufta]

Jan 19, 2013 3:37:49 GMT 1 pjotr said:

And how is life in Good old Warsaw? The Warsaw of today must be different from the Warsaw I saw in August 2006 and 1984.

Yes, different. Though some things are the same.

First it is like that






And then something all of a sudden goes wrong and it is like this:

[pjotr]

Tufta,

It is good to see the good old Warsaw back Tufta! I love it. The city of my memories, my mothers youth, familymembers, her colleages and friends and you who live there!

A wonderful city with a mix of old and new Varsovians (like your Krakovian wife )

Cheers,
Pieter

[tufta]

I'm not sure I get the joke, but you can always come again, Pjotr!

BTW. did you start to learn Polish? You can't be trully half-Polish with the lingo, y' know

[pjotr]

I got the joke Tufta, although in the Netherlands I am terrible in understanding joke stories. I have a different kind of humor. But this humor is universal. First you have the beauty of snowfall, than the snowremoval machines come and than you get these ugly piles of grey and black snow in grey antracite and black forms. After days or weeks the city becomes ugly, because the beauty of virgin white snow (unattached) is gone. The black, grey and ice roads become mean places to be and ugly.

Now you remind me of a terrible Dutch program I usually ignore, Lingo, the language game. Tufta, I am not the best language specialist or linguist, but I did try to learn Polish. I must find the right method, disciplin and thus course to learn it. My mother opposes the difficult language courses and says, learn Polish words and start learning practical Polish sentences.

The problem is that I know a few words, but don't have sentences and do not have a conversation partner. I would like to be able to practice with someone. The best way would be a Polish girlfriend or wife (wishful thinking). In 2013 I want to visit Wroclaw. I want to visit Poland more often anyways. Due to my global family, social life and work, my travel destinations were elsewhere the last decade. Cape Town, New York, La Gomera, the Azores and etc. I just have to plan or set my mind to Polish city trips the coming year. In my case connection to a country or culture strenghens my language motivation. I was raised Duch centric so I have to start learning Polish from scratch.
That's difficult. You may be 50% Polish, but if there never had been a real connection that becomes difficult. My American cousins had two Polish parents and they were raised in a Polish-American household. They speak Polish, can write a little bit Polish and can read Polish. They translated my Polish grandmothers (babcia's) memoires, and are now bussy translating my grandfathers (dziadeks) memoires (from Polish to English).

Cheers,
Pieter

P.S.- I have those Polish-American cousins in Chicago and Milwaukee, and I have two Polish cousins in Poznan and probably some Kotowicz familymembers (offspring or far relatives) in Warsaw. But I haven't seen them since 1987. I wouldn't know how to reach them. I don't know what is left of the Poznań Pantoflinski and Kalinowski family. I know that my only chance to reconnect to Poland is learning the language and by visiting the country, and connecting to the culture, art and the present society. (Modern Poland, today, the present Poland, the situation of today) Like my pragmatic mother said to me: "I don't know the present Poland. It is a completely different country than the country I left in 1967. Even the language changed. There are a lot of new Polish words I can't understand. When I speak Polish with my few Polish friends or family members in Poland and the USA, I find it sometimes hard to find the words, because Dutch has become my practical daily language." Sometimes I heard my mother speaking Polish on the phone with someone in Warsaw. I told her; "Do you realize that you mix Dutch words and sentences in your conversation. I don't think that our Polish friend will understand that." But a few months back my mother got a compliment for her exellent Polish from a Polish friend from Poland, who said that she stil spoke good Polish. There are bright moments that my mother suddenly comes back in the language of her youth and young urban professional years, when she lived and worked in Warsaw for an architect bureau.

[pjotr]

Tufta,

The real chance to learn Polish is to visit my parents in Vlissingen more often and excercise Polish words, verbs, sentences and expressions with my mother. She was my last unofficial Polish teacher.
Next to my mother my only connection in Poland is the artist Piotr Gardecki. And he urges me to come to Wroclaw, because a lot seems to be going on over there. And I believe him. Wroclaw is the European capital of Culture in 2016. Again I say, I think my Polish link and connection is the real and direct connection with the country itself. I have to visit your country again. This year will be a good year. New York and Cape Town can wait. (My other favorite destinations) Poland is in progress, Poland is growing, a new generation of Poles shapes a New Poland. I think that there is a right mix of the good old things and the progress, you (Tufta), Bo, and other Poles like. We talked about it in the past. The combination of old and new Varsovians. Ofcourse the same counts for Krakow, the old and new Krakovians (Bonobo can tell us more about that), and Poznan, with it's old and new Poznanians. My grandparents, my mother and her sister -my American aunt- were New Poznanians after the war. (because they were Varsovians that had to leave the Mokotov district in Warsaw-which became confiscated by the Stalinist Polish Urząd Bezpieczeństwa [UB], which later became the Służba Bezpieczeństwa [SB], from 1956 until 1989) My mother has developped a ambivalent or dinstant relation with Poland, due to her very negative experiances with Communist Poland. (which treated her and my grandmother bad) I can say, that was the old Poland, but it marked her memories, and I don't know what she had to endure, when she left Poland. Her passport was taken away. When she wanted to visit Poland she was treated very badly at the Polish embassy in The Hague, and probably at the Polish border and inside Poland too. As a young woman (in the late fiftees) she was interrogated by the SB, because she visited the US-embassy in Warsaw, because her sister emigrated to the USA. I don't know what is in my mothers mind. She visited Poland for the last time in 1998. Warsaw had become a modern city back then. I followed her 8 years later in 2006. My parents liked the new Poland and the progress they saw. They also liked Prague and the Czech republic very much. They are Francophone and Anglophile people. They/we visited Wallonia and France a lot, and we visited Flanders more than the Randstad. (the Holland region in the Netherlands with Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague) There is a Belgian influence in me, and maybe Belgium is a little bit closer to Poland than the Netherlands, because Belgium is a Roman-Catholic country, and there are more Poles in Belgium than the Netherlands, due to Brussels and etc.

Cheers,
Pieter

[tufta]

Hi Pjotr. Life in communist Poland, and especially in the fifties was kind of hard to accept. Many people were mistreated, investigated, falsly accused, imprisoned and/or murdered without a proper trial. Passports were kept by the police (milicja), and recieving a passport and a right to make trip outside Poland was extremely rare. Consent from the authorities required lack of negative opinion from the (totalitarian) party. Usually a person being given such right was also required to make a quasi-intelligence report about the visited country, Poles' living there and so on and on.

What I think though, it was not "Poland" which treated her citizens badly. It was not THE Poland, but occupied, subdued country, which promoted the wrong people for their blinded or openly bad-faith (=treacherous) favouring of a foreign power and a totalitarian one.

Poland of that time was a distant, strange, drab and mentally 'removed' place from the rest of Europe. From that Europe which enjoyed American protection, democratic re-education, and a free society. A society which could flourish intellectually and build it's financial prosperity in the reality of free market and liberal democracy. Poland was abandoned and left on the other side. She was in a way forgotten as an unwanted concience pangs, blackmouthed to soothe the remorse or simply 'un-noticed' by those for who "Poland" ment memories of commited beastly crimes, large scale stealing and/or betrayal. All that is very understandable from a stictly psychological point of view - as such is the mechanism of human mind's operation.
This same mechanism - toutes proportions gardées -operates in the mind of an emmigrant, especially from the intelligentsia circles, who was always taught that it is his duty, yes, duty, is to stand with THE Poland whatever happens, sometimes even at the price of own personal affluence, not to mention 'heavier' sacrifices. I think we will agree that thanks to this 'strange' trait Poland is here and just look at her now!

What strikes me, excuse the frankness, perhaps I am a tad too outspoken, is how deep in your mind you replicate your mother's mental stance (which is unerstandable in case of your mother). Poland is - subconsciously - in the same cathegory as Cape Town or New York. Pjotr, your need to arrange things and spend long hours on the plane to get to those places. Poznañ is some 7 hours car trip from Arnhem! Warsaw is some 3.5 hours more. Wroc³aw 8 hours. No boundaries, all the way on excellent Dutch, German and brand-new Polish highways. 800-900 km! It's about the same distance Jeanne's daughter had travelled from West Virginia to Vermont to visit... I know you know what I want to say :-) And certainly I hope you take my horrible tirade the right way

All the best!

Jan 22, 2013 23:52:39 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Tufta,

The real chance to learn Polish is to visit my parents in Vlissingen more often and excercise Polish words, verbs, sentences and expressions with my mother. She was my last unofficial Polish teacher.
Next to my mother my only connection in Poland is the artist Piotr Gardecki. And he urges me to come to Wroclaw, because a lot seems to be going on over there. And I believe him. Wroclaw is the European capital of Culture in 2016. Again I say, I think my Polish link and connection is the real and direct connection with the country itself. I have to visit your country again. This year will be a good year. New York and Cape Town can wait. (My other favorite destinations) Poland is in progress, Poland is growing, a new generation of Poles shapes a New Poland. I think that there is a right mix of the good old things and the progress, you (Tufta), Bo, and other Poles like. We talked about it in the past. The combination of old and new Varsovians. Ofcourse the same counts for Krakow, the old and new Krakovians (Bonobo can tell us more about that), and Poznan, with it's old and new Poznanians. My grandparents, my mother and her sister -my American aunt- were New Poznanians after the war. (because they were Varsovians that had to leave the Mokotov district in Warsaw-which became confiscated by the Stalinist Polish Urząd Bezpieczeństwa [UB], which later became the Służba Bezpieczeństwa [SB], from 1956 until 1989) My mother has developped a ambivalent or dinstant relation with Poland, due to her very negative experiances with Communist Poland. (which treated her and my grandmother bad) I can say, that was the old Poland, but it marked her memories, and I don't know what she had to endure, when she left Poland. Her passport was taken away. When she wanted to visit Poland she was treated very badly at the Polish embassy in The Hague, and probably at the Polish border and inside Poland too. As a young woman (in the late fiftees) she was interrogated by the SB, because she visited the US-embassy in Warsaw, because her sister emigrated to the USA. I don't know what is in my mothers mind. She visited Poland for the last time in 1998. Warsaw had become a modern city back then. I followed her 8 years later in 2006. My parents liked the new Poland and the progress they saw. They also liked Prague and the Czech republic very much. They are Francophone and Anglophile people. They/we visited Wallonia and France a lot, and we visited Flanders more than the Randstad. (the Holland region in the Netherlands with Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague) There is a Belgian influence in me, and maybe Belgium is a little bit closer to Poland than the Netherlands, because Belgium is a Roman-Catholic country, and there are more Poles in Belgium than the Netherlands, due to Brussels and etc.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

Dear Tufta,

I agree with everyting youn writes. I need some time to reply. Time I haven't got right now. Driving to Poland is a little bit difficult for someone who doesn't own a car. But I have a drivers license, so there is a start. And we have such things like trains and airplanes in Europe.

You story is very interesting, clear and true. I will come back on this topic and write something more.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

Hello Tufta,

After coming back from my work duties and social evening with friends I want to react seriously to your very interesting, realistic and sympathetic story. I like it, because it is practical, historical (correct in my opinion) and close to my own feelings, opinions and my experiance with Poles and Poland in the sense of family, my mother, Polish-American family and scarse Polish connections inside Poland. I heard about life in communist Poland via my mother, and through my own experiances as a child and teenager visiting Poland in the seventees and eightees. Life in communist Poland wasn't free, was controlled by Polish puppets of Moscow, grey, dull and backward, because the Poles and Poland were blocked of from connection with the Free world, progress, development and thus Modernity. Poland to me was an archaic, magical world behind the Iron Curtian. Another reality, another system, another society and another atmosphere. I felt like a Westerner, being different and alien. But in the same time connected, because I was a familymember of the Polish family I visited, and they were very warm and hospitable. I liked the Polish people and it's old culture, but didn't like the system they lived in. Yes, the fifties were kind of hard to accept, due to these terrible Stalinist hardliners, terror of the UB, and the Stalinist "bringing into line" of people, the communist Gleichschaltung. The systematic elimination of non-Stalinist (non-communist) organizations that could potentially influence people, such as trade unions and political parties. I know that many people were mistreated, investigated, falsly accused, imprisoned and/or murdered without a proper trial. I think about Witold Pilecki and general Emil August Fieldorf, wo were tortured and murdered.

You are right that it was not "Poland" which treated her citizens badly. The Polish nation was not there, but a wrong version of it. The real Poland was present in the hearts and minds of the REAL Poles, Polish dissidents inside Poland and the forces expats and immigrants in the West, who couldn't return. I never considered the so called Socialist Poland, which was ruled by the Communist party, PZPR, as the real Poland or Poland. The Polish nation existed in the Underground dissident groups, the Polish-Roman Catholic church, the Polish diaspora (Polonia) abroad and inside the homes of the Polish people in Poland. Yes, the Polish Peoples Republic was an occupied, subdued country, which promoted the wrong people for their blinded or openly favouring of a foreign power and a totalitarian one.

Poland was abandoned and left on the other side by the USA (FDR/Truman), Great Britain (who treated Polish veterans badly and ignored their bravery and sacrifices during the war). My mother (and I with her) liked the unofficial Poland of these Cold War Years. The human connections with family, friends and her former colleages. The family life, the social life and the cultural life of the Poles back then. Also the Samizdat.

The Polish cultural intelligentsia circles, had the duty to stand with the real Poland of Polish Patriotism. (Freedom, democracy and Roman-Catholic roots) The Polish cultural intelligentsia suffered an incredible and lasting loss in the 19th and 20th centuries when the German and Russian neighbours tried to annihilate the Polish culture, language and people by Russification policies and Germanisation attempts by the Prussians and the Nazi's. I remember that my Polish dziadek told my mother to stay a Polish patriot abroad and to never forget Poland.

Tufta, I understand and respect my mother's mental stance, feeling, emotions and relationship to or with Poland. But it is not my opinion. I don't have this ballast of the past, and have no negative experiances with Poland, except from difficult journeys thriugh the DDR to Poland. But fact is that the negative experiances were mostly related to East-German border patrols, controls and the East-German police inside the DDR. Poland is on my mind, like South-Africa is on my mind, because my dear sister lives there. I would love to drive to Poznañ in 7 hours by car. I also would like to visit Warsaw again. It would also be good to visit the places in Poland I haven't seen yet, like Wroc³aw. I would love to see the brand-new Polish highways. Thank you for your wonderful tirade. I loved it and I agree with you.

Cheers,
Pieter

[jeanne]

Pjotr,

I enjoyed your comments very much because you write from the heart of the Polish people, not from the view of the former (or present, for that matter) "official" Poland. That is what true history is...

I feel the same way about Tufta's comments, though I expect it from him, as he is a Pole living in Poland, so I was not surprised by his remarks (Hi, Tufta . But it's very moving to read your thoughts, pjotr, coming from a person who, while having Polish relatives and connections, has grown up and is living elsewhere.

Jeanne

[tufta]

Dear Jeanne and Pjotr,
I hope I was capable - now and in the past - to make it clear that my 'tirades' do have an element of friendly teasing. With the stress on friendly. Well, even 'teasing' is too heavy a word here, but you know what I mean. I can do that because I am sure Pjotr gets it the right way, one of his loveable traits - and we can learn something from each other... still! Of course Pjotr is incredible example of a deeply thinking individual, in a way the most loyal to his several backgrounds - multiple backgrounds are a blessing for self-development but often are a burden in the 21 century. The latter is sad but true, as we all imagined Europe will only progress into less-nationalism-zone. But I disgress.
Jeanne, I totally agree with you - and I am not surprised by what you say as an American, a country built on immigration, where everyone today, or his family in the past, 'grew up elsewhere', it is so different in Europe!

My serdeczne pozdrowienia to both of you!

[pjotr]

Jan 24, 2013 3:04:46 GMT 1 jeanne said:

Pjotr,

I enjoyed your comments very much because you write from the heart of the Polish people, not from the view of the former (or present, for that matter) "official" Poland. That is what true history is...

I feel the same way about Tufta's comments, though I expect it from him, as he is a Pole living in Poland, so I was not surprised by his remarks (Hi, Tufta . But it's very moving to read your thoughts, pjotr, coming from a person who, while having Polish relatives and connections, has grown up and is living elsewhere.

Jeanne

Thank you Jeanne!

I write from a heart which is connected with my North-Eastern Polish (and actually Baltic-Polish Latvian and Lithuanian) Polish family of the Kotowicz branch (which partly lived near Augustow/Tworki and partly in Warsaw. My grandfather (dziadek) Josef Kotowicz was born in Tallinn, Estonia, just like his father. My dziadek studied in Kiev as a Pole, living in the part of Poland which was occupied by Czarist Russia. During the first world war he served as a Polish Liaison officer for the Russian artillery in the Czarist Imperial Russian Army at the Eastern front. Pilsudski fought at the same time for the Austrian-Hungarian Habsburg army at the other side 1914-1916.) and my babcia's Southern-Polish family branch, the Pantoflinski family. (originally from somewhere in between Opole and Krakow) Most Pantoflinksy's settled in Poznan in the first half of the 20th century and they stayed there in the second half of the 20th century. The Kotowicz family was concentrated in Warsaw, but also spread around the world due to the Second World War and emigration. My grandfathers brother Jan Kotowicz stayed in London after the war, because he couldn't return to Stalinist Poland, and he married an English wife. He had been an officer in the Polish army that was stationed in Great-Britain and had fought at the Western front.

Another connection to Poland than my dear family were the visits in the seventees (many vacations) and two vacations in the eightees. (in 1984 and 1987) That holidays, memories and thus experiances shaped my lifelong connection with Poland. These memories can't be erased. The connection with the country and it's people, with it's culture, faith and history was made, and the foundation of my connection with Poland. Other half-Poles are less connected to the country, because they never went there. Some of them have no connection with Poland and their family. How many people with Polish roots are searching on this and other Polish Forums and other sides for connections with their past. I know that there is a living connection with bloodrelatives. I am interested in Poland due to my family past, connections and the reality of an existing Polish family and friends of my mother inside Poland and the USA who are Polish. Both that family connection and my personal historical, cultural and political interest in Poland and Polish people connects me with Poland. But in the same time that interest is rooted in or merged with my interest in the larger Centre European region. The collection of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Germany. My babcia was raised in the Polish region which was occupied by the Austrian-Hungarian Habsburg empire. She learned German in her youth and that German language was a survival tool for her in the Second world war inside Poland and in Austria -where she was a Polish forced -slave - worker. The German language was important for me, because it was the language I spoke with my babcia and some Polish Uncles and aunts. With other Polish family members I spoke English. (mostly the younger ones, the cousins)

I liked and am fond of the cities Poznan, Krakow and Warsaw, which I saw, but I would like to explore Poland a little bit more. I have to see Wroclaw, Łódź, Lublin and Gdansk too. Warsaw is ofcourse the most attractive, ebcause it is the capital, and the place where the roots of my mothers family are. There they lived in the twenties thirties and first half of the fourtees. (1939-1944) I liked Krakow, because it is probably the most beautiful city of Poland and very important to Poland as it's old Capital and cultural heart. I like the city, because you feel the presence of the cultural intelligentsia, the 126.000 students of the Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagielloński) (from 800.000 Krakovians), the fine (contemporary) art (Bunkier), the theatre, the musical scene of the city, the poetry and literature, the old layers of architecture, and the new modern perifery of the city with it's business districts and research centra. I liked the cosmopolitan and yet very Polish atmosphere of Krakow in April 2004. I felt at home and thus comfortable in that city. Part of my identity belonged there.

Having spend much time in Poland and in Belgium in the past I witnessed other kinds of Roman-Catholicism than the Dutch Roman-Catholic faith I experianced as a kid and teenager. In my opinion, more deeply rooted forms of Catholicism. The Polish Roman-Catholicism is merged with the Polish culture, people, history, the country (with all the Roman-Catholic spiritual, mythical, and physical elements in the landscape, in harvest rituals, and thus the faith of the farmers, towns people and etc.) and mentality. Mentality, because Roman-Catholicism shaped the Polish way of thinking in the sense of ethics, values, education and how parents raise their children. In the fourtees, fiftees and sixtees) Roman-Catholcism was and is part of your identity as being a Dutch Roman-Catholic, who belonged to the Roman-Catholic pillar.

But one of the reasons of my connection to Poland is the deep interest of my Dutch father in Polish culture and his respect and interest in Polish history. My father tought me about the Polish-Lithuanian Common Wealth, about the Polish resistance during the partititions [the uprisings] -Prussian and Czarist Russian opression-, the Polish Interbellum -1919-1939 - [with Pilsudski's Sanacja regime], the heroic role of the Poles during the second world war inside and outside Poland, and the rotten role of the Germans [Prussians/the Knight orders] and Russians/Sovjets in Polish history. He tought me the difference between the Magnata, the high nobility of counts, dukes and others and the Schlachtza, the lower land gentry. He made and extensive study of Polish history and held readings about it. I read his essay about Polish history and learned a lot from it. The essay started in the early middle ages and ended in the new Democratic Poland after 1989, describing the new reality of democracy, kapitalism (a market economy), and the new rightwing, centrist and leftwing parties in Democratic Poland. It was amazing to read how much my father had studied and thus read about Polish history. He had travelled and stayed in Poland in the late sixtees, seventees, eightees and ninetees. And he could speak Polish a little bit. He studied Latin on an older age so he understood the Polish grammer and orthography. His city Rotterdam was bombed by the Nazi's and my mother's city was bombed by the Nazi's. They shared simular experiances, like living in a damaged city during the war.

Tufta, you and your wife and kids are Varsovians of today, who live in the new Warsaw, but also know how the old Warsaw of the Polish Peoples republic looked like and how the city looked at the end of the war, and probably from before the war from historical photo books, cinema, paintings, documentries or historical education. My mother, her sister and her parents (my babcia and dziadek were forced to leave their beloved Warsaw at the end of the war and moved to Poznan, where it took some while before they found a new home. They had to built a new life overthere and managed to survive, but the prosporous life of the Warsaw years before the war didn't return. Like many compatriots they suffered from the changing time and the policies of a new regime, which benefitted other people (party members and etc.) After highschool and Polytechnic school my mother moved from Poznan to Warsaw in the fiftees. She worked in Warsaw for Urbanistic bureau and an Architect office. In 1967 she moved to the Netherlands and left Poland for ever.

Cheers,
Pieter

[tufta]

Piotr, Piotr, Piotr
I don't know what to do On one hand I liked reading your long and extremely interesting comment. On the other I am slightly preoccupied with the way you so openly deal with your personal data in the free-access spot. Are you sure everyone who reads it 'out there' is a bona fide person? Well, anyway. Your family history is very interesting and vey much resembles the tragic fate of so many Polish families. As to mine - I like your description of new/old Varsovians, but I find it hard to feel there's a 'new' component in my family which is living in the city for few generations now. Also some other details you say are not exact, but it does not matter since if we take the personal part out of your description it does ideally depict the Warsaw realities. We are rather all but typical new Varsovians, extremly ambitious, success-hungry, generally young people. Our interest is already directed 'out-of-the-city', and more and more often even on weekends we choose a quite, cosy evenings by the fireplace in place of 'city-life'. The process is inverse with kids of course, some not kids anymore who more and more often get into the city-life, culture, entertainment, passing through the crticial forming years that will soon bring them the answer to THE question: whom I want to be?
Ie. do I want to be a "new" or "old" type (as this is more a question of personal choice, not place of birth, if you know what I mean

Pozdrowienia!

[pjotr]

Jan 25, 2013 8:08:03 GMT 1 tufta said:

Piotr, Piotr, Piotr
I don't know what to do On one hand I liked reading your long and extremely interesting comment. On the other I am slightly preoccupied with the way you so openly deal with your personal data in the free-access spot. Are you sure everyone who reads it 'out there' is a bona fide person? Well, anyway. Your family history is very interesting and vey much resembles the tragic fate of so many Polish families. As to mine - I like your description of new/old Varsovians, but I find it hard to feel there's a 'new' component in my family which is living in the city for few generations now. Also some other details you say are not exact, but it does not matter since if we take the personal part out of your description it does ideally depict the Warsaw realities. We are rather all but typical new Varsovians, extremly ambitious, success-hungry, generally young people. Our interest is already directed 'out-of-the-city', and more and more often even on weekends we choose a quite, cosy evenings by the fireplace in place of 'city-life'. The process is inverse with kids of course, some not kids anymore who more and more often get into the city-life, culture, entertainment, passing through the crticial forming years that will soon bring them the answer to THE question: whom I want to be?
Ie. do I want to be a "new" or "old" type (as this is more a question of personal choice, not place of birth, if you know what I mean

Pozdrowienia!

Dear Tufta,

You sound like a worried old friend, a family member or a colleage of mine who is worried about my wellbeing, naivity or sudden loss of sense of reality. I might be a weird character or person who liked to be open, but I know what I am doing. There is a certain danger in writing the way I do. But there is a reason behind my mix of subjective and objective writing. I want to connect to Poland and therefor have to unfold or show my personal ties or connection with Poland through the past and via the present. I am connected with Poland when I hear my mother speak Polish with someone in Poland or the USA. I am connected when I hear she had contact with someone in Warsaw or Poznan. In that cases I think practical. She has these relatives and friends, and I am her son. In 2006 I stayed at the home of one of her friends in Warsaw, due to the family connections and old ties of my mother with Warsaw. That contact I stayed with was a contact of the war years. A daughter of friends of my babcia and dziadek, which were their neighbours and lived in the same street. My mother told me that these people were very fine, decent, civilized, humble and reliable people. It is good to be connected with them. They were safe and good ties. These old (family) ties were my lifeline with Warsaw. That is why I talked about "Old Varsovians" and "New Varsovians", because this lady was a member of an "Old Varsovian and rural country" family, like my grandfathers family. Both families had ties with the School of Economics of Warsaw, and they were that kind of level of people.
I don't see any harm in writing this.

What is interesting about my long and interesting comment when not all my details are exact? Is my story coherent, correct and close to the truth. Obviously some of my figures about the war aren't correct. I am not a Polish history expert. But I hope and think that I know the essence of it. About 150,000–200,000 Varsovian civilians were killed during the Warsaw Uprising, and 700,000 were expelled from the city. About 10,000 Polish insurgents of the Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) were killed in action, and about 5,200–6,000 of them were missing in action. About 5,000 AK-soldiers were wounded in action and about 15,000 were prisoner of war. Berling 1st Army had 5,660 casualties during the Warsaw Uprising.

I am not sure if everyone who reads it 'out there' is a bona fide person? Thank you for your concern and pointing at this realistic fact. Yes, my Polish family history is very interesting and vey much resembles the tragic fate of so many Polish families. And that is why I am writing about it. Because there is not so much written about the experiances and the fate of many Polish families during that war.

I am sorry if I painted the wrong image of your family, and the fact that my limited memory gave a somewhat distorched view of your family. If your family is living in the city for few generations now, than it is a real Varsovian family. Born, raised and settled in the city. You are real Varsovians.

There is nothing wrong with being ambitious, success-hungry, and being young people. Young people are good for Warsaw, because these people are mostly more flexible than older generations, innovative, eager to learn and to change and focucssed on progress (renewal/reform and etc.) You country life outside the city is wonderful. I think you see this phenomenon everywhere in Europe with people from large cities and capitals who escape every now and then to the surrounding rural lands, nature, the fresh air and free space of the less densly populated area's outside the Metropole.

Cheers,
Pieter

[tufta]

Hello Piotr!
I got your point, thanks Of course there's no harm in what you write. On the opposite it's great reading!

[pjotr]

Tufta,

Thanks for your reply. I thought about your comment though and moderate my post a litle bit. More to take care of family interests (Polish family. To protect their privacy) than my own. I am not corruptable or blackmailed easily by some crazy internet users. ;D

But I appreciate your concern. That is what I wanted to say. Again, I want to state that it is very important for me to stay connected to present day Poland, Polish culture, Polish people, and thus the Polish language, the Polish reality, Polish contemporary developments and Polish news. I am connected, feel connected, but sometimes you have to go further. And like you and Piotr Gardecki stated, that is by going to Poland. (more often)

Cheers,
Pieter

[tufta]

Hi again!

You are certainly one of the best informed 'virtual pen-pals' of mine regarding Poland and beyond

All the best, serdeczne pozdrowienia!