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Post by Bonobo on Dec 29, 2015 22:25:47 GMT 1
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Post by jeanne on Dec 30, 2015 17:36:07 GMT 1
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 30, 2015 20:28:57 GMT 1
That looks like American scale blizzard. One photo reminded me a similar situation in my life from late 1990s.:  I went to school located out of the city despite extreme elements and even managed to get through snowdrifts but on the spot I learned the classes had been cancelled. The skeleton school staff were really surprised seeing me. |
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Post by jeanne on Dec 30, 2015 20:40:41 GMT 1
In Massachusetts where I live, the governor declared a state of emergency and closed all the roads to all traffic except emergency vehicles. That meant I couldn't go to work for a week! Sadly, some men we knew from work died in their power boat trying to go to the aid of a ship in distress off the coast. The saddest story, I thought, was about a ten-year-old boy who disappeared after going out to play at the beginning of the storm. Apparently, he was jumping around in the snow, doing flips or something and hit his head and lost consciousness. No one knew what happened to him until April. Their mail carrier was delivering the family's mail and while on the front walkway noticed a boot sticking out from the then melting snow. The poor child had died right beside his family's front walk. The snow was falling so fast and thick that even after searching for hours, no one noticed him under the snow, and there he remained for two months until the mail carrier found him...  |
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Post by jeanne on Dec 30, 2015 20:42:25 GMT 1
I went to school located out of the city despite extreme elements and even managed to get through snowdrifts but on the spot I learned the classes had been cancelled. The skeleton school staff were really surprised seeing me. I'm inspired by your dedication to attending classes!!  |
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 30, 2015 20:57:26 GMT 1
The saddest story, I thought, was about a ten-year-old boy who disappeared after going out to play at the beginning of the storm. Apparently, he was jumping around in the snow, doing flips or something and hit his head and lost consciousness. No one knew what happened to him until April. Their mail carrier was delivering the family's mail and while on the front walkway noticed a boot sticking out from the then melting snow. The poor child had died right beside his family's front walk. The snow was falling so fast and thick that even after searching for hours, no one noticed him under the snow, and there he remained for two months until the mail carrier found him... A heart-rending story. I can imagine what the parents went through. |
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Post by pjotr on Dec 31, 2015 11:25:19 GMT 1
Wonderful and insightful images of that terrible winter of 1978. It reminds me of the Dutch famine of 1944, called ' Hunger winter' (Honger winter) in Dutch. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944My father told me about that bitter cold and endless winter of late 1945 and the first half of 1945. It felt like a 100 years winter for them back then. All day long starving skeleton like thin children and elder people rang the door bell of my grandparents, fathers and aunts house in Rotterdam. They asked for Potato peels. A lot of boys and young men were forcibly taken to Germany, to work as slave labourers in German factory at the end of the war (1943, 1944,1945). The Germans called it Arbeitseinsatz in Dutch. My father went into hiding in his parents apartment in Rotterdam, in a hidden, secret section of that home. His Dutch teacher in his school was a Dutch nazi, who stood in front of the class in a black uniform. He was hated by his pupils and colleagues.  Such a uniform my fathers Dutch teacher wore.  And the teacher wore this kind of hat with his uniform. The pupils played tricks with that hat, like throwing it from one half of the class to the other half. Like a soccer game, with the furious teacher in the middle of the class. That was very dangerous. Once in a rage he sent a few of his pupils who had bullied him to the headquarters of the SD in Rotterdam. My father was one of them. It was one of the scarriest moments of his war time life. That nazi teacher took away his identity papers (Passport, called Ausweis in German), and then he had to go in hiding. He was 16, and boys from 16 were suitable to be sent to Germany to work camps or factories. A lot of these factories were bombed and many Polish, Dutch and French forced labourers died during these bombings of German towns and cities by allied (American, British and Polish bombers) You don't see snow in these images, but there was lot's of snow and it didn't went away for months, finally the snow coloured black but it stayed. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_March_(1945)" The March" refers to a series of forced marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 western Allied prisoners of war held in German military prison camps, over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions, over about four months between January and April 1945. This series of events has been called various names: "The Great March West", "The Long March", "The Long Walk", "The Long Trek", "The Black March", "The Bread March", and "Death March Across Germany", but most survivors just called it " The March". It was a terrible long and cold winter both in the East and Central-Europe and in Western-Europe. Poland during the seventies and eightiesI remember that it was sometimes very hard for my mom to connect to my Polish babcia in Poznan, due to bad connections, and the fact that mail was checked and monitored. We were concerned about that winter in Poland and how my babcia and older uncles and aunts would coap with that harsh winter. I remember that it was a difficult winter for us kids in the Netherlands too. We had to struggle our way to school through large piles of snow which sometimes blocked the bike lanes and roads. Sometimes strong winds gathered snow in certain points. Again, very good images of that winter of 1978 in Poland. Where there food shortages or supply problems due to that harsh winter back then? Maybe it was easier for people in cities than people on the country to live through such a hard winter? You have more trucks with salt in the city and snow removing machines in cities. Of course the communist administration will have been a bureaucratic mess due to the centralisation and the lack of competent people in the command structure. Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by pjotr on Dec 31, 2015 12:17:38 GMT 1
Good Polish joke about the 4 basic plagues of communism. I remember the great ironical sense of humor of my Polish uncles from Poznan of that period. Good jokes like: " We have two rulers we have to obbey, the communists during the week, during work hours, and the church in the weekend." Another one: " We have three rich classes in our great socialist society;, the communist nomenklatura, the Roman-Catholic clergy and our Polish Gypsies (who were good businessmen  )." These guys were Roman-Catholics, but nothing was sacred in their ironical sense of humor. My versions written down from my poor memory over here are probably weak versions of the original ones of my uncles. They had great sense of humor, often with a little bit of Polish selfmockery in it. Another joke was that Poland was so badly managed that the future of Poland was at stake. Germans and jews should be imported again to organise, manage and rule the place. The communist authorities, the daily life in the peoples republic, foreign relations and etc. were suitable topics for jokes and a good sense of Polish humor. Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 31, 2015 12:46:51 GMT 1
Interesting story about famine in the Netherlands. I didn`t know about it. Playing with their Nazi teacher`s hat could have ended tragically for boys. They were lucky it didn`t take place in occupied Poland.  Again, very good images of that winter of 1978 in Poland. Where there food shortages or supply problems due to that harsh winter back then? Maybe it was easier for people in cities than people on the country to live through such a hard winter? You have more trucks with salt in the city and snow removing machines in cities. Of course the communist administration will have been a bureaucratic mess due to the centralisation and the lack of competent people in the command structure. Cheers, Pieter Yes, there were food shortages in cities because transport was paralysed. For the same reason, people in the countryside soon ran out of coal. They had food but no coal. Which option would you choose? Food without heating or vice versa? |
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Post by pjotr on Dec 31, 2015 15:18:10 GMT 1
Dear Bo, You are right. They were not some ordinary boys. They were Rotterdam boys from an upper class neighbourhood and high school. The Germans were the superior occupying Germanic German people, and the Dutch were the less superior Dutch Germanic people. The Nazi teacher belonged to the same social group, but he was an outcast, because most people were not Nazi's. But a dominant collaborating minority was. They were feared and loathed and deeply hated. But mocking, resisting or protesting Nazi's also meant prison, torture and death in the Netherlands. But the Dutch collaborators (Dutch Nazi's) had less power than the German and Austrian nazi's in the Netherlands. But they were dangerous, because they had the support and the police and military force of the German and Austrian nazi's behind them (The Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Gestapo, SD, collaborating Dutch police and the German Grüne Polizei). People who hid jews, allied pilots or forced albourers, were immediately sent to concentrationcamps, executed or murdered on the spot. A dagerous Dutch Nazi force was the Dutch SS, and next to that you had the collaborationalist Dutch Nazi party NSB paramilitary forces, the WA and the Nederlandse Landwacht. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Silbertanneen.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strikeen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putten_raidThey were targets for assasination by the Dutch resistance and they were looked upon with contempt. Yes, the Dutch society was probably more split than the Polish one. You had the pillarization of the Calvinist, Roman-Catholic, socialist and secular-liberal (General) pillars. But the hatred and contempt against the Germans was so large that the different resistance organisations collaborated fairly well with each other. There was even a united National Resistance organisation, which was coordinated or had ties with the Dutch government in London. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_resistanceen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Lindemansen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Hazelhoff_RoelfzemaCheers, Pieter |
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Post by pjotr on Dec 31, 2015 15:19:11 GMT 1
Interesting story about famine in the Netherlands. I didn`t know about it. Playing with their Nazi teacher`s hat could have ended tragically for boys. They were lucky it didn`t take place in occupied Poland. Again, very good images of that winter of 1978 in Poland. Where there food shortages or supply problems due to that harsh winter back then? Maybe it was easier for people in cities than people on the country to live through such a hard winter? You have more trucks with salt in the city and snow removing machines in cities. Of course the communist administration will have been a bureaucratic mess due to the centralisation and the lack of competent people in the command structure. Cheers, Pieter Yes, there were food shortages in cities because transport was paralysed. For the same reason, people in the countryside soon ran out of coal. They had food but no coal. Which option would you choose? Food without heating or vice versa? Ofcourse food without heating is better than no food at all! |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 21, 2018 15:05:56 GMT 1
Good Polish joke about the 4 basic plagues of communism. I remember the great ironical sense of humor of my Polish uncles from Poznan of that period. Good jokes like: " We have two rulers we have to obbey, the communists during the week, during work hours, and the church in the weekend." Another one: " We have three rich classes in our great socialist society;, the communist nomenklatura, the Roman-Catholic clergy and our Polish Gypsies (who were good businessmen )." These guys were Roman-Catholics, but nothing was sacred in their ironical sense of humor. My versions written down from my poor memory over here are probably weak versions of the original ones of my uncles. They had great sense of humor, often with a little bit of Polish selfmockery in it. Another joke was that Poland was so badly managed that the future of Poland was at stake. Germans and jews should be imported again to organise, manage and rule the place. The communist authorities, the daily life in the peoples republic, foreign relations and etc. were suitable topics for jokes and a good sense of Polish humor. Cheers, Pieter In case of 100 years` winter, a new ironic rhymed saying was born - Nie potrzeba Bundeswehry, Nam wystarczy minus cztery We don`t need Bundeswehr (West German army which might win the war between two opposing blocks and destroy communist Poland), minus 4 Celsius is enough. Another joke: What are the major four plagues of communism? Spring, summer, autumn, winter. |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 5, 2018 5:12:00 GMT 1
It was tragic, but communism was a great source of mockery of the Poles with their ironical sense of humor. “Polish humor, like Jewish humor, is the humor of a wounded people,” Simon Wiesenthal ones said. “It helps. people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them. Before the war, some people felt oppressed by the Jews, so there were spontaneous anti‐Semitic jokes. Yes, before the war, anti‐Semitism was voluntary. But now that it's part of the official line, to be anti‐Semitic is to be proregimeand, besides, the anti‐Jewish jokes aren't funny. Most of the young people today have never seen a Jew to take seriously or joke about. But they have run across anti‐Semitism of one kind or another. So they think jokes that make fun of anti‐Semites are funnier than jokes that make fun of Jews.
Wiesenthal estimated that “90 percent of Polish political humor is against the Russians, and maybe 10 percent more is against Polish subservience to the Soviets.”
Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi‐hunter who lived in Vienna, and who also happened to be an authority on Eastern European underground humor, told a joke based on efforts of the regime to educate the masses. The story concerns an indoctrination session in a Polish factory. The chairman is berating the workers for not coming to party meetings.
“You are sitting home and you don't know from nothing.” To prove his point, he singles out a worker and asks him: “Who is Brezhnev?”
The man shrugs. “I don't know.”
The chairman snorts and says: “You see, he doesn't know who is the glorious leader of the Soviet Union. That's what comes from your staying home and not attending party meetings.” Turning on another worker, he asks him: “Who is Gierek?” The man doesn't know. “He never heard of our own Polish leader!” the chairman exclaims. “That's what comes of sitting home and not attending meetings.”
From the back of the room comes a voice: “I have a question for you, Comrade Chairman. Who is Nowak?”
The chairman is baffled: “I don't know.”
“Aha!” says the man in the back. “If you would sit home and not go to so many political meetings, 7ou would find out that Nowak is sleeping with your wife.”
Another joke from the communist era:
A farm worker greets Josef Stalin at his potato farm.
“Comrade Stalin, we have so many potatoes that, piled one on top of the other, they would reach all the way to God,” the farmer excitedly tells his leader.
“But God does not exist,” replies Stalin.
“Exactly,” says the farmer. “Neither do the potatoes.”
A Tale of Two Dogs
The story concerns two dogs who meet in Warsaw's Old Town Square. One is a sleek, well-fed hound. The other, a mangy cur. The sleek-looking dog tells his new aquaintance that he has come on a visit from Prague, where, he adds, there is plenty to eat and drink. The Polish dog is amazed. ''With all you have at home, why have you come here?'' he asks. ''To bark,'' answers the Czech dog.
A Pole in Moscow in Sovjet times
A Pole who finds himself in Moscow wants to know the time. He sees a man approching him carrying two heavy suitcases and asks the fellow if he knows the correct time.
''Certainly,'' says the Russian, setting down the two bags and looking at his wrist. ''It is 11:43 and 17 seconds. The date is Feb. 13, the moon is nearing its full phase and the atmospheric pressure stands at 992 hectopascals and is rising.''
The Polish visitor is dumbfounded but manages to ask if the watch that provides all this information is Japanese. No, he is told, it is ''our own, a product of Soviet technology.''
''Well,'' says the Pole, ''that is wonderful, you are to be congratulated.''
''Yes,'' the Russian answers, straining to pick up the suitcases, ''but these batteries are still a little heavy.''
Poland is like the USA
'Why is Poland just like the United States?''
''Well, in the United States you can't buy anything for zlotys and in Poland you can't either, while in the U.S. you can get whatever you want for dollars, just as you can in Poland.''
The most expensive parrot
A man enters a pet shop in Warsaw some day, seeking to purchase a parrot. He points to a fine colorful bird and asks how much it costs.
When he is told it costs 70,000 zlotys, he whistles in amazement and asks why it is so much. ''Well, the bird is fluent in Italian and French and can recite the periodic table.'' He points to another bird and is told that it costs 90,000 zlotys because it speaks French and German, can knit and can curse in Latin.
Finally the customer asks about a drab gray bird. ''Ah,'' he is told, ''that one is 150,000.'' ''Why, what can it do?'' he asks. ''Well,'' says the shopkeeper, ''to tell you the truth, he doesn't do anything, but the other birds call him Mr. Secretary.''
Colonel Weintraub
Colonel Weintraub Is an Inevitable victim of the purge of Polish Jews in high positions that began in 1968 as the official reaction to Israel's victor/ over the Arabs In the previous year's Six Day War. When the ax comes around to Colonel Weintraub, his military superior tries to cushion the blow for this dedicated old soldier by summoning him to field headquarters and telling him sadly: “Weintraub, I'm afraid you have to leave the army because we now require higher academic qualifications for a colonel.”
“How high can you get?” Weintraub replies. “I am a doctor.”
“I didn't know that!” the general exclaims.
“I never said so, because when I first joined our army, they didn't like people with diplomas,” Weintraub explains.
The general excuses himself and, from the back room, phones the Central Committee in Warsaw: “Look, he is a doctor, so I can't pretend he's underqualified. What should I do?” After listening to further instructions, he returns to Colonel Weintraub and tells him: “The truth is that you have a Jewish name.”
“But I'm not Jewish,” says Weintraub. “My name is Kowalski, but when I joined the army, my chief was a Jew, and to obtain a better position, I took the name of Weintraub.”
Back to the back room goes the general to break the news to Warsaw. And Warsaw tells him what to do—which is to tell Colonel Weintraub: “Look, we accept that you are Kowalski and you are a doctor. But we must drop you anyway—to show that we are not discriminating just against Jews.”
Source: New York Times, MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN, Special to the New York Times
Published: May 11, 1986, Warsaw.
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Post by jeanne on Feb 6, 2018 23:02:23 GMT 1
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Blizzard of '78 which I wrote about earlier in this thread. The news reports here are filled with memories and reminiscences of that incredible, memorable, and also tragic (for some) storm.
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 23, 2019 23:10:11 GMT 1
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Post by pjotr on Feb 24, 2019 22:05:53 GMT 1
When I see this I think, it must have been hard time for my babcia (grandmother) in Mickiewicza Adama 24, Poznań , and my aunts, uncles and cousins in Poznań, Warsaw and the other Polish family members in the Poland of 1979. mapa.targeo.pl/poznan%2060-836%20mickiewicza%20adama%2024,20,16.9066049,52.4113021?data=eyJmdHMiOnsicSI6InBvem5hbiA2MC04MzYgbWlja2lld2ljemEgYWRhbWEgMjQifSwid2luIjoic2VhcmNoLWZvcm0ifQ== |
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