Opinion of Poland

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I like Poland - think I picked that up off my Grandad (who in the War, after he got out of military prison, taught English to Polish airmen). Politically it's an ever-changing mess, but that's true of most of the old East (including the former DDR) and I won't hold that against them. Also, Polish grocers here are quite good. I can recommend the one in Hereford - amusingly it was actually there long before the recent immigration (which shows up in where it is; near the Cathedral, rather than south of the Wye where most of the Poles live. Yeah, that's always been the poorest, most working class part of the city. Some immigration-related patterns never change).

Edit: the political attitudes of the recent immigrants and the (much smaller) postwar wave are waaaaaaay different. Most of the former seem to be quite liberal or leftish, but the latter are very conservative.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I seem to recall something about Polish plumbers. It may have been in some xenophobic campaign or somthing. Can someone remind me?

There is (or was) a chronic shortage of plumbers in a lot of Western-and-Northern European countries*. A lot of Polish immigrants to the West were/are highly skilled and included a decent number of plumbers. The rest is easy to work out...

(one other stereotype, here anyway, is Poles as fruit-pickers).

*To the extent that most had (maybe still have, I don't know) a middle class income.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Pity about (the residual, never mind the historic) Anti-semitism.

A pretty common 'disease' in that part of the world, sadly. And at least active participation in the Holocaust was confined to a surprisingly small handful of atrocities... unlike the Ukraine or the Baltics... or...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Pity about (the residual, never mind the historic) Anti-semitism.

A pretty common 'disease' in that part of the world, sadly. And at least active participation in the Holocaust was confined to a surprisingly small handful of atrocities... unlike the Ukraine or the Baltics... or...

Yes; this seems to be a favourite topic of yours....

I'm not sure if favourite is the right word... but... yeah, it is turning into something of a trope. I found out about it (or rather - the extent of it) a few years ago when I was looking up general Holocaust historiographical issues and came across a book on the history of the Lithuanian Jews that had an interesting title. I don't think I've ever read anything that had quite the same sickening effect...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. Really?

More or less true actually... that's one of the reasons why so many moved there in the first place. We're talking late middle ages or so here. Which isn't to say that there was no antisemitism in Poland or anything like that.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Thirteenth century - it was actually illegal for Jews to live in England after that point right up until the Revolution.

It also depends what you mean by pogrom. Antisemitic riots weren't exactly rare after the mid nineteenth century, though, yeah, massacres... last ones would be those sanctioned by Edward I.