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Say it ain't so...

That's clearly the most bias and one-sided article I ever saw in Wikipedia. In which century are your guys living? But if you really think this German bashing page is necessary, then why not creating a detailed article about Polish pogroms on Jews? Especially the ones that happened after 1945? Or about the Polish aggression against Czechoslovakia in 1939? It’s like you want to continue with propaganda and nationalism like nothing has changed since 1945. Grow up and get a life.

Alex



I had always liked Frederick the Great's "l'audace, l'audace, tojours l'audace!" I'm shocked that this otherwise liberal and forward-thinking gentleman treated Poles that badly - and it sounds like it was some kind of personal vendetta, not just the business of acquiring the Silesian coal mines. I'll never say "l'audace etc." again -- and it was one of my favorite quotes! Apologies for posting it on Halibutt's userpage - I honestly didn't know at the time! --Jpbrenna 03:42, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Anti- Polonism in Germany today

I don't know what's going on in your minds my beloved Poles! I read the article and I have to say that all of it is completely propaganda. You ever been in Germany? 2 million Poles are living here without any great trouble. They are integrated like no other national minority. When you talk about history you maybe right, but when you bring up all the old arguments you can't describe today’s Germany. EVERY single argument in your article was a lie. This is Anti- German and nothing else. You can do better, and you should, cause with things like that in mind good relationships cant be established. We are neighbours, if you like it or not, and we have to life together. The problem is, that you say what you heard, and you hear what you say – and all of this is from Polish sources and they are mainly full of nationalism. Yes you been victims in the past, but you did some wrong things too. Try to read neutral stuff from USA or England and redefine your standpoint. I tried to answer on that article, but than I decided to erase it, cause there is no diffrent way to handle this lies. Greetings from Germany, Volker

Volker, this has been addressed previously. The entire article is tripe, but until someone actually takes the time to go through the necessary channels to get rid of it (I tried once and am hated to this day by the defenders of this hogwash), or until Jimbo Wales gets sufficiently sick of WP being used as a propaganda vehicle for politicized POV-pushing, here it sits. I wish you the best of luck. Tomer TALK 15:28, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more with you, Volker. However, I would warn against identifying Molobo's and Witkacy's POV, for example, with the general public in Poland. True, stuff like that is cropping up time and again in the Polish media, hyped by folks who believe they can benefit from it, such as politicians or journalists. Fortunately, though, most Poles have more sense than that. To save the Polish image on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia's image as a whole, the Augean stable that is this article needs to be cleaned once and for all. However, the fanatical soapboxing of a certain breed of editors really calls for Herculean efforts. I do not feel Herculean enough today, so I will only remove some of the worst slander. --Thorsten1 18:14, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, anti-Polonism was an all-too-reall historical phenomenon. I am a little leery about modern nasty child custody disputes etc. being put on par with invasion, separate facilities for Poles, forced labor, and death camps, but the entire article is not "...tripe..." (Although tripe can be rather good, we don't have any here; there is however a Halibutt involved who might be very tasty pickled with a light cream sauce, though I prefer pickled herring). When you're feeling more Herculean, come back, and we can try to hammer out a better article. --Jpbrenna 19:44, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
I highly recommend grilling halibut for about 20 minutes, and every 5 minutes, braising it with a mélange of butter, soy sauce and lemon juice and lightly seasoning the finished product with powdered garlic and parsley. Tomer TALK 02:02, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
I tried that, but the little guy won't hold still that long. He's pretty slippery. --Jpbrenna 02:42, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

"Poles are living here without any great trouble. They are integrated like no other national minority" Poles aren't reckognised in Germany as national minority, despite the fact that some lived there for generations.--Molobo 12:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

"I would warn against identifying Molobo's and Witkacy's POV, for example, with the general public in Poland" Hmmm...so far I haven't expressed any POV, from where do you know my POV towards this matters ? Anyway parties expressing criticism of modern German attitude towards war (PO,PiS,LPR,Samoobrona,PSL) have together over circa 70 % of votes in public surveys.

"EVERY single argument in your article was a lie." Please point to arguments you consider lies.--Molobo 12:59, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

"Yes you been victims in the past, but you did some wrong things too" What wrong things have Poles done to Nazi Germany, and Prussia to be treated like animals meant to be eradicated ?--Molobo 12:59, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Molobo: "so far I haven't expressed any POV, from where do you know my POV towards this matters" - No, of course you never expressed any POV. I have absolutely no way of knowing your POV about Germans, liberal Polish journalists of Jewish descent, homosexuals and other underlings... :^) "parties expressing criticism of modern German attitude towards war" - I can't help wondering what you mean by "modern German attitude towards war", and how you know about it when you do not even read German, apparently? I take it you are not referring to the German refusal to engage in the war against Iraq, but would you care to elaborate? (rhetorical question, no reply required). "What wrong things have Poles done to Nazi Germany, and Prussia [...]" - Quite obviously our guest Volker did not mean to imply that Poles did "wrong things [...] to Nazi Germany, and Prussia". Even you should be able to understand that. "Poles aren't reckognised in Germany as national minority, despite the fact that some lived there for generations" Not that it matters, but: those "Poles" that have lived in Germany for generations typically do not speak Polish, most of them can't even spell or pronounce their original own names properly. Of course, that is only due to the fact that they were brutally forced to speak German and intermarry with Germans... ;)--Thorsten1 21:02, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

"I have absolutely no way of knowing your POV about Germans, liberal Polish journalists of Jewish descent, homosexuals and other underlings... :^) " Exactly.I am glad you are coming to your senses Thorsten.Several later points of your post are wrong of course but this is not importante to the topic.--Molobo 12:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


Well, I think its waste of time to educate fanatics, but I decided to answer the main lies of your article. Everybody who reads your stuff can see that this is caused by inferior complex, and you paint a picture about yourself with stuff like that, not about my country. And now to the facts:

1. Its not forbidden to teach, learn or use Polish language. 2. You can use any kind of language in Germany, cause this is a free country. 3. Harald Schmidt is a comedian, and he tells jokes for living. He makes jokes about everything. He didn't became awards for being anti- Polish, but for being funny. 4. There are jokes about Poland in German society, but there are much more jokes about Holland, and I never heard them cry like you do. By the way, I have friends from Poland and they told me some jokes used against Germans and they where rude too, but even funny - that’s the way humour works. Maybe the main problem is that you don’t have any sense of humour. 5. Go to wich war you like nobody cares. 6. Nobody in Germany says that Poland started the war, cause we know well about history - it's on you now to learn something about Germany today! 7. We know even about the 5 million Poles that lost their life’s during WWII, and we know that this was around 20 % of the population - this was terribly wrong, and we apologized for that with deep respect for the victims! 8. Erika Steinbach isn't a famous politician nor is she popular. In fact she isn't a politician at all. 9. You don't know anything about history, so don't try to teach it. 8. This article is anti- German and it doesn't help in establishing good relations between our nations. 10. Writing and reading of articles like that can cause some anti- Polonism

From now on I take your article as a evidence of bad taste and strange humour. In difference to you I don’t blame your nation for this stuff, cause sillyness doesn’t know borders or nationalities. Greetings from Germany to your private LaLaLand, Volker


This article does absolutely not describe the truth. My parents for example are polish, and they tought me the polish language without any problems. I myself am studying Polish at a german university. I also know a lot of people, who are of german origin and try to learn Polish. By the way, have you (the auhtor of this article) ever been to cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, and so on? If you have been there, you may have realized, that the most spoken foreign language besides Turkish and Russian is Polish. So speaking polish in the public is no problem here! I invite you to come to Germany and see with your own eyes, that the "facts" mentioned in this article are all lies.

By the way, Pope John Paul II., who was of polish Origin, did speak perfectly well german and very often came to our country as a guest. He always had a warm welcome here! Micha.

Ten Artykul absolutnie nie opisuje prawdy. Moje rodzice na przyklad pochodza z Polski. Uczylem sie od nich mowic po polsku i nigdy nie zauwazylem, ze moje rodzice cierpili pod jakichkolwiek represiach. Ja osobiscie studiuje jezyka Polskiego na niemieckim uniwersytecie i na zajeciach spotykam wiele niemcow, ktore z wlasnej woli ucza sie jezyka Polskiego. Czy ten autor tego artykulu kiedys byl w miastach jak n.p. Frankfurt, Hamburg albo Berlin? Gdyby on byl tam, to by zrealizowal, ze -oprocz jezyka Tureckiego i Ruskiego- jezyk Polski jest jeden z najczesciej slyszanych jezykow obcych w Niemczech. To znaczy, ze mozna uzywac jezyka polskiego bez problemu. Serdecznie zapraszam was wszystkich do Niemczech, zebyscie zobaczyli na wlasne oczy, ze te oznaczane "Fakty" nie opisuja warunki panujace w Niemczech! Pamientajcie, ze Jan Pawel II. nie tylko bezblednie mowil po niemiecku, ale zawze chetnie przyjechal do nas, do Niemczech! Micha.

A propo Papieza, pamietam jak go wygwizdali w Berlinie :) no ale teraz juz nie beda od kiedy [1] ;) poczytaj rowniez [2] i tak na marginesie, co mi spontanicznie wpadlo do glowy - moze wytlumaczysz dla niewtajemniczonych co oznacza "Polenstrich" [3] bo troche nie rozumiem dlaczego w tak przyjaznym dla Polakow kraju, Niemcy nazywaja polskich pracownikow kurwami? (za przeproszeniem) (dodam ze to okreslenie jest uzywane w mediach) --Witkacy 17:14, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Ale to napewno nie dla tego, ze on byl Polakiem, tylko ze jego opinia byla w pewnych politycznych kwesiach, n.p. kontrola urodzen,rola kobiet w Kosciele, Ekumeny (jak mozna odprawiac msze sw. z komunia RAZEM z ksiedzem Kosciola ewangelickiego?) itd. byla bardzo radykalna. Po za tym jestem o 100 % pewnym, ze w polskich gazetach lub na polskich stron internetowych tesz istnieja karykatury Papierza Benedikta XIV. alias Georg Kardinal Ratzinger! Micha.

A wiesz co to jest: Schwarzer Afghane? Moskau Inkasso? Russenschleuder? Coffee Shop? W tym artykule (http://www.n24.de/politik/inland/index.php/a2004090916552992331) to Slowo "Polenstrich" jest uzywane jako synonymus, ktore okresla miejsce, gdzie nielegalne pracownicy szukaja Pracy ("Schwarzarbeit"). Gdy uzywasz takie Przyklady, to prosze opisuj, w jakim kontekscie oni sa uzywane. "Strich" -wiadomo- czesto opisuje miejsca, gdzie profesionalne dziewczyny sprzedaja swoje cialo. ALE: To Slowo w tym kontekscie opisuje miejsca, na ktorym nielegalne pracownicy szukaja pracy (np. jako Mechanik). ""Polenstrich" heißt die Institution, aber schon lange versuchen hier auch Tagelöhner aus der Slowakei, aus Rumänien oder der Ukraine ihr Glück. Je weiter östlich das Heimatland, desto geringer der Stundenlohn. Weißrussen arbeiten ab 80 Cent.". W tym artykule tesz jest opisane, ze tam sa nie tylko Polacy, ale i Czesi, Rumunczycy, Ukrainczycy, idt. To Slowo "Polenstrich" istnieje, bo po 1989. Roku wiekszosc Pracownikow nielegalnych, ktore szukali pracy w takim miejscu, pochodzili z Polski.

Po pierwsze "strich" nie czesto, ale zawsze opisuje miejsce gdzie narkomani lub prostytutki sprzedaja sie za kase. (strich jest gorsze od burdelu i sam o tym wiesz). Ergo: Polak nie tylko robi za obraz wszystkich na czarno pracujacych, ale jest rowniez "kurwa". Mozesz krecic na wszystkie strony - Ty masz jakis kontakt z Polakami w Niemczech? Czy tylko z takimi jak Thorsten?--Witkacy 02:13, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Micha, for adding some sense of reality to this discussion. Can I just remind everyone that the discussion on talk pages should be kept in English so that everyone can participate, (although Witkacy will probably see this as an anti-Polish remark [4]). However, I think you are wasting your time - as Witkacy and Molobo will simply declare you brainwashed and carry on with their regularly scheduled broadcast... --Thorsten1 19:04, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


Even if some people in this forum do not like it, I have to tell you about another personal experience I made. On April this year I worked for a few days as a Volonteer at the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. I had to take care of a Group (about 250 People) of polish victims of this camp, who came here for the celebrations of the 60th Anniversary of the freeing of this camp by the Red Army. I've talked to many of these people, and I asked them, if they still feel something like hate for the Germans. Over 80% of them answered with no! The Victims of these camps, and of course of the whole WW2 are the only ones, who are allowed to blame our grandfathers for what they did! They were the ones who really suffered! One of the Women (it was a women's camp) answered me: "Dlugo w tym miejscu cierpilam, dlugo musialam sie po tym leczycz, ale swoim dzieciom zal nie uczylam!" (I suffered for a long time in this place, I had to cure myself for a long time, but I did not teach my children to hate!). So, if these people can forgive, why can't you? Do you think it's funny to hate germans? If we talk about anti-polonism in Germany, we also have to talk about anti-russism or anti-ukrainism or antisemitism in Poland! By the way, many of these women, some of them came here for the first time after 60 years, told me, that they would have never expected such a warm welcome here in Germany. Micha.

Trzeba bylo zaprosic taka osobe ktora przezyla oboz, na popcorn i wieczorny program Haralda Schmidt'a - napewno by sie wpol zginala z kawalow o "polacken" --Witkacy 01:58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Micha, just for clarification. This article is about certain attitudes, which impute negative attributes to Polish people only because of their nationality. This article isn't created to prove that all German people are bad or should be hold responsible for WWII. We all had grandparents, which survived WWII and they didn't teach us hatred to German people. It would be strange if they did, since they themselves suffered from the same prejudice. But while Germans see nothing evil in the word "Polenstrich" we learn to distinguish Nazis from Germans (e.g. Wermacht soldiers) to be politically correct. Also, would you like if we called all criminals in Poland "Niemiec" or would it create a bad stereotype? There is in Wikipedia an article about Anti-Semitism with parts about Poland. Polish Anti-Semitism is also covered in the article about History of the Jews in Poland. Polish editors contributed in editing the articles. I also started the article "Wisla" Action. However, I don't know about any incidents, where Russian civils would suffer because of Poles. Please, if you think this article doesn't cover facts, point them out, so we could discuss them and work on improving its content. --SylwiaS 03:48, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


Hey, Witkacy! Did you ever see the Programs of Harald Schmidt? I have serious Doubts that you did! So, don't talk about things of which you have no idea!

- Agreed. What Harald Schmidt makes are JOKES based on hamrless and innocent stereotypes. Suggesting this is "racism" or "anti-polish" is simply stupid. If you think Schmidt's few and little jokes are racist, then what's Monty Phytons "Don't mention the War" for you? Balatant anti-German racism or just good humour (which it actually is). It's about the same niveau of US/ UK jokes about "The French". No offence intended.

- I also strongly resent labeling ""Heute gestohlen, morgen in Polen" ("Stolen today, tommorow in Poland") — modern German saying" as a "modern German saying". BTW, it's actually "Kaum gesetohlen schon in Polen." which refers to the fact or car-jackers from Poland who used and still use Germany, Austria and the low countries as hunting ground. Mind you, that's a well established fact. See the according crime statistics for details. --Dwightman 16:16, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem. Everyone in Germany knows that Poles steal cars (or that the car thieves are Polish) eventhough there's no proof of that. Feel free to correct me, but I doubt there are any statistics to prove that there are more Polish car thiefs in Germany than those of German nationality (or any other, for that matter). Similarily, in Poland many people believe that the majority of prostitutes working in Poland are in fact Bulgarians, which is equally disturbing and has absolutely no support in police stats. Halibutt 17:46, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt 17:46, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Actually there IS proof. The phenomenon of car-jacking conducted by eastern-European, mostly Polish crime syndicates - the so called "Autoschlepperbanden" - is a well established fact, backed up by crime statistics. Most of those events occured during the mid and late 1990ties. --Dwightman 18:14, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
I'd might also add that the general anti-German tendencies in this article are quite disturbing. There is a strong focus on "Anti-Polonism" by Germans in this article, but it generously ignores common Polish stereotypes in other nations and cultures, e.b. in the United States, the low countries or the UK. I'd go as far to dispute the neutrality of this article in general. --Dwightman 18:18, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
I tried to make the section less offensive for Germans. Can you give some more examples of positive attitude of Germans to Polishmen? I still don't feel very comfortable with the balance in the section. I somehow would like to mention the case of letter of Polish bishops with "we forgive and ask for forgiveness", but I have some problems with proper phrases about the event. Maybe, you could give me more background on this with regard to the German reaction on the letter? Alx-pl 22:13, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey Halibut. Look at this link: http://www.bka.de/pks/pks2004/index2.html, open the pdf-file, then scroll down to page 116, and you'll see that polish citicens are mentioned on place 3 in the ranking of criminal suspects here in Germany. Just to make it clear, I do not say, that every Pole is a criminal. And this statistic material, which is collected by the federal police, shows, that the number of crimes committed by polish Citicents sank from 8,4 % in the year 1998 to 6,7 % in 2004. So, the number of crimes committed by polish suspects may have been higher than 8,4 %. In Germany we have a spelling: Ist der Ruf erst ruiniert, lebt sich's völlig ungeniert (when the reputation is ruined, you can live without inhibition). So, if the number of crimes committed by Poles was high (sorry, I don't have the exact number) in the 1990's you don't have to wonder about the fact that " everybody knows that polish people steal cars". But -as I said- everybody knows that the truth is that not every Pole steals. If it was the other way round, nobody would ask polish guest workers to help them for example cleaning the house, taking care about old people or working in the field. Micha.

I'm sorry, I don't speak German well enough to check what these stats are actually showing, but it seems that it's actually some 3% of Poles versus some 60% of Germans to commit crimes in Germany. Yet, it doesn't influence the reputation of Germans, does it. Halibutt 16:31, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Micha, please, stop vandalising this article. --SylwiaS 17:01, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear SylwiaS! I do not have to vandalize this article, because it is Vandalizm in its pure form. There is so much in it, written by people who do not know what they talk about, that it's hard to believe, that these people mean it seriously. Volker and I tried to prove this with facts (like the statistics of the Police). Dear Witkacy stop telling german native speakers about meanings of german words! Strich, for example has different meanings, and not -as you said- the only one! What do you think is the translation for "male mir bitte einen Strich auf das Blatt"? Draw me a street filled with Kurwas / Bitches on the sheet? No! It's draw me a line on the sheet. And, yes I do have contact with other polish people. And we are very good friends.

Harmless stereotypes ? I wouldn't call them harmless due to fact that they led to persecution of Poles in Prussia, and mass murder of Poles by German state in WW2. Molobo.

What about the mass murder of Germans by polish people after WW2? Is that harmless to you, Molobo?

There was no mass murder of Germans after WW2--Molobo 18:01, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I think he is talking about the Expulsion of Germans after World War II. NightBeAsT 18:56, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

No he said something about mass murder of Germans by Poles, not about post war population transfer.--Molobo 19:36, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Context

Could we have some context for some of the modern German quotes? Supposedly one author wants to return to the days of the Prussian Empire, but the other author seems to be writing a humorous travelogue where she jokes about how cheap her Polish cleaning lady is and hinting at a threesome with the handsome Polish studs who refinished her kitchen. The gravity of the one is not equal to the other, and the article should have some text dealing with that and not just serve as a copy/paste dump. Actually, the whole bit about the Polish carpenters might be taken as a compliment to Polish manhood, depending on how religious they are and whether or not they want to be some German lady's sex object. --Jpbrenna 00:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I fully agree. It's not a place for common jokes and I really don't think that putting all the rubbish here only because it refers to Poles does any good to the article. We don't want to prove that Poles are lacking sense of humour, do we? --SylwiaS 01:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Context is what this article has been sorely lacking from day one. Thorsten1's keep vote on the VfD, in fact, pointed out this very issue. What I at the time hastily mis-identified as caricatures inculcated in the Polish mind by Soviet-run schools, it turns out, is actually populist and vainglorious political and journalistic rhetoric. No one, not even HKT or IZAK, is denying that the Poles suffered under the rule of various conquerors from the time of the first partition until the victory of Solidarnosc. The problem is, however, that every offense against Poles since time immemorial is held up as this new concept of "Anti-Polonism", which is, frankly, a sham, and an egregious attempt to rewrite history for political gain. What's worse, its proponents use the exact same tactics the Soviet propagandists used to quell dissent: ad hominem attacks, characterization of questioning the legitimacy of the topic as evidence of its legitimacy, black lists, etc. The truth of the matter is that the Hakata was the Prussian equivalent of France' "frankification" of its imperial colonies: the conqueror regarding the conquered as primitive. It was the same as the Hellenization of Alexander's Greek Empire, and the Romanization of the Roman Empire. It is also, as it happens, the same as the suppression of kaszëbsczi jãzëk within Poland. Lumping that together with "Polish jokes", Nazi plans to eradicate the Polish population of Slask and Prusai for "lebensraum", and "You forgot Poland" (which is such a stretch to include in "anti-Polonism" that it shows the whole thing for the utter sham it is), and say that they're all part of some overriding "anti-Polonism" is to create a problem, not only in the minds of those who believe such tripe, but creates a poisoned atmosphere in which the likely response to the accusation of "anti-Polonism" is the actual creation of anti-Polonism. If the likes of some of the worst POV-pushers here (and in other Poland-related articles) are successful, someday soon, people really will hate Poles. Incidentally, my use of the word "tripe" refers not to attrocities committed against Poles during WWII, but to the concept of an overriding "Anti-Polonism", including "You forgot Poland" that fed it. As Thorsten recommended, this article should concentrate on the term antypolonyzm, who uses it, what they claim it to be, why, and to what effect. The stuff in here about WWII attrocities belongs in Nazi attrocities against Poles or somewhere else, perhaps with prominent mention in that article that those attrocities are often cited as "proof of anti-Polonism" by the antypolonyzm-is-a-real-concept crowd. Tomer TALK 01:56, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
I disagree that the entire concept of anti-Polonism is a sham. That being said, it would be a very good idea to have separate articles on Nazi atrocities against Poles, Bolshevik atrocities against Poles, Tsarist atrocities against Poles etc. And to move the "Dumb Polak" jokes somewhere else, or at least contextualize them: "Dumb Polak" jokes are spread by third-graders on playgrounds and immature adults in factories and offices who should spend more time working and less time standing around the water cooler or coffee pot telling jokes. Most of them are more reflective of the ignorance of the teller than the supposed ignorance of Poles. I wish some of them could at least be more grammatical in English. Anyway, the SS and NKVD men weren't saying "Hey, why did they take 911 off the police cars..."; they had far nastier taunts for their victims, I'm sure.--Jpbrenna 03:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

""Dumb Polak" jokes are spread by third-graders on playgrounds and immature adults in factories and offices who should spend more time working and less time standing around the water cooler or coffee pot telling jokes." I don't think Ted Turned the founder of CNN is one of this people.--Molobo 12:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, there is something I hadn't heard about. That is different (although they say Ted has bipolar disorder, so it's not surprising that he did something completely crazy when he was in one of his moods). Put it in the article, but give us some context - where did he say it, to whom. Is there a pattern of anti-Polish statements (like it seems to be with this Florian Ilies) or was it a one-time thing?--Jpbrenna 16:48, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Somehow I completely missed this when it happened. Must have had my nose too far into a Latin book at the time to notice the news. This definitely should go into the Ted Turner article, and it should be noted here.[5] I added the quote about mine-detectors to the Ted Turner Wikiquote, but I'm having trouble finding a verbatim quote about the Ten Commandments and the Pope "getting with it." All I can find are paraphrases. --Jpbrenna 17:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Molobo: You'll find that despite your opinion of Ted Turner, a great many people do think he fits that description. :-) Tomer TALK 20:55, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

He does work pretty hard when he's not in a depressive state. Or when he's not manically calling Jane begging her to get back together. --Jpbrenna 22:20, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

To answer some suggestions here. There were propositions before, how to develop this article and create new ones in this category. I'll paste here one of suggestions, which met with support of others:

I believe that this should be splitted to separate articles: Prejudices about Poles (i.e. Polish jokes and the like); Myths about Poles and Poland; Organised persecution of Poles (Nazi atrocities, Germanizations, school strikes); and even article about Oversensitivness of Poles (As some believe that Poles are oversensitive about their country). Anti-polonism article should mention the word, and list of topics as described above Przepla 6 July 2005 11:02 (UTC)

Prejudices about Poles should also include things like bad stereotype of Poles in American films. There was also a proposition to create an article about History of Anti-Polish attitude and I think that to make some editors happy, we can also create an article about Misusage of the term Anti-Polonism, where we could describe the usage of the term by some nationalists as Tomer strongly insists on. --SylwiaS 02:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey. I didn't say anything about nationalists. I have no problem with nationalism. I have a problem with people inventing a word and retroactively ascribing intent, misrepresenting and dishonestly rewriting history, etc. in this case, demonstrated by the politicized use of the term "antypolonyzm". I would be a fool to imagine that "Polish nationalists" had invented this concept. People would be fools to imagine that the Bolsheviks invented it. In fact, the very name "Bolshevik" is equally dishonest as the word "antypolonyzm"! This crap has been going on for at least as long as history has been being recorded. Sometimes, I have little doubt, the rewriters have won out over those opposing them, and so we have written history that's actually rewritten history. We can't do much about that, but we can stop it dead in its tracks when we see it today. I don't know that "Misuse of the term Anti-Polonism" really requires its own article, in fact, I think quite probably, it's one of the few things that actually belongs in the article on "Anti-Polonism". Oversensitivity of Poles seems to me a POV title, which is even worse than a POV article. Polish nationalism, an article that could develop a lot of the material in Polish history, could probably cover that subject (i.e., allegations of oversensitivity) in about 3-5 sentences. Tomer TALK 03:20, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
Tomer, those people, who misuse the term are called nationalists. Not by you but in general, that's why I used the word. We can also call them far-right nationalistic parties if you prefer. They didn't invent the concept, but they are those people who misuse it. There are also other people, who use the word and describe anti-Polonism but without misusing it, so I guess you didn't mean them. I don't say that this proposition of titles is final, but it focuses on problems not on countries, so I think it's best to start from this point if we don't want to put jokes and atrocities in the same articles.
Also, You forgot Poland is only in links, so I don't understand what more should be done with it. As to the other POVs you see in the article, please, bring them here and give your conrarguments so they might be discussed. --SylwiaS 05:35, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
I'll try to respond in more depth tomorrow (it's 4:38 presently, and I need sleep), but for your consideration, not only is You forgot Poland mentioned in a link from this article, the first article in the non-alphabetical "See also" section of You forgot Poland is to Anti-Polonism. While I consider you (Sylwia) as one of the more reasonable frequent contributors to Poland- and Polish-related articles (although I vehemently disagree with your defense of Witkacy's characterization of my remark as "anti-Polonist"), I can pretty much guarantee you that if I were to go to You forgot Poland and remove the utterly irrelevant link there to Anti-Polonism, Witkacy, Molobo, possibly Halibutt and Lysy and others, would immediately revert. You may not consider it "Anti-Polonist", and I obviously do not. The point is, this article and anything remotely related, even by flight of unspeakably illogical fancy, to it is vociferously guarded as the 5th gospel. A great tragedy wrt the legitimacy of practically every Polish article, has been wrought by the defense of POV-pushing editors, including by you, and in the process, the entire section is seriously flawed. I'm not going to convince Witkacy to stop harassing people or to stop destroying Poland-related articles in order to push his POV, simply because my ancestors left Poland in 1898. I'm now "the enemy", all the more so because I think his agenda is ultimately destructive. You forgot Poland is not the problem, it's simply a symptom. As I have already said, lumping together every offense, or even perceived slight, against Poland, Poles, or the Polish language, over the course of the past millennium, under the banner of "Anti-Polonism" is ludicrous, and everyone outside Poland knows that. Describing the use of the term within Poland, who's using it, why they're using, how they're using it, and such, even to the extent of listing what they consider "evidence" is one thing. This article, however, proceeds from the perspective that the assertions of those who hold by the veracity of "Anti-Polonism", and trots out "the evidence"...never even bothering to mention the origin of the term, or the scope of its use. In fact, all it says is that "Anti-Polonism" is likely to grow! Well, as I've said earlier, if the likes of the POV-pushers have their way, I can guarantee, that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wish for something hard enough, and it'll happen. Kind of a perverse implementation of "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve." Right now, people who believe this crap are victims of their own imaginations. Eventually, they'll become victims of their accusations. Split this up into historically defensible articles, and use this article to discuss political claims of "Anti-Polonism", and abuse of the term, and even link to the historically defensible articles, clarifying that the concepts covered in those articles are used by the antypolonyzm camp as "proof" of antypolonyzm. Anything else is an endorsement of the POV that they are all part of a larger phenomenon of polish-hatred, along with such stupid crap as Polack jokes and You forgot Poland. Tomer TALK 09:59, August 11, 2005 (UTC)


Ten Artykul absolutnie nie opisuje prawdy. Moje rodzice na przyklad pochodza z Polski. Uczylem sie od nich mowic po polsku i nigdy nie zauwazylem, ze moje rodzice cierpili pod jakichkolwiek represiach. Ja osobiscie studiuje jezyka Polskiego na niemieckim uniwersytecie i na zajeciach spotykam wiele niemcow, ktore z wlasnej woli ucza sie jezyka Polskiego. Czy ten autor tego artykulu kiedys byl w miastach jak n.p. Frankfurt, Hamburg albo Berlin? Gdyby on byl tam, to by zrealizowal, ze -oprocz jezyka Tureckiego i Ruskiego- jezyk Polski jest jeden z najczesciej slyszanych jezykow obcych w Niemczech. To znaczy, ze mozna uzywac jezyka polskiego bez problemu. Serdecznie zapraszam was wszystkich do Niemczech, zebyscie zobaczyli na wlasne oczy, ze te oznaczane "Fakty" nie opisuja warunki panujace w Niemczech! Pamientajcie, ze Jan Pawel II. nie tylko bezblednie mowil po niemiecku, ale zawze chetnie przyjechal do nas, do Niemczech! Micha.


This article does absolutely not describe the truth. My parents for example are polish, and they tought me the polish language without any problems. I myself am studying Polish at a german university. I also know a lot of people, who are of german origin and try to learn Polish. By the way, have you (the auhtor of this article) ever been to cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, and so on? If you have been there, you may have realized, that the most spoken foreign language besides Turkish and Russian is Polish. So speaking polish in the public is no problem here! I invite you to come to Germany and see with your own eyes, that the "facts" mentioned in this article are all lies.

By the way, Pope John Paul II., who was of polish Origin, did speak perfectly well german and very often came to our country as a guest. He always had a warm welcome here! Micha.

Well don't measure reality solely by your own personal experience.You didn't have problems but they are Poles both parents and workers which are persecuted by German officials or employers based on their nationality.--Molobo 17:45, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Molobo, it is ridiculous that you are accusing others of relying on their personal experience, when you are obviously relying on the stories of journalists who know that stories on the evilness of Germans always sell like hot cakes in Poland. --Thorsten1 19:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Personal experience isn't comperable to vertified events by media sources. --Molobo 19:36, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

What I would like to see happen with this article

As I've stated previously, this article is an intractable mess of POV, and remains so because all attempts at removing the POV are reverted by the most vociferous POV-pushers. So rather than try to remove the POV outright, I'll just outline my proposal. First, this article should discuss the Polish political term antypolonyzm, as I said above in the #Context section. Then, almost everything in this article should be removed and put into the following articles:

The rest of the stuff can remain, but the context should be crystal clear: these are predominantly old quotes, or political gaffes (just as "antypolonyzm" should be regarded, but that's my POV) which are held up by proponents of this theory. Links can remain to all the articles that discuss such ludicrous things regarded as "Anti-Polonist" as You forgot Poland, but to characterize You forgot Poland as "Anti-Polonist" here is not only ridiculous, but a blatant violation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Comments? Tomer TALK 21:09, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't have explained my view it any better than you did, Tomer. I just wanted to comment that we have an article called World War II atrocities in Poland, which already covers quite a few of the article topics you proposed above. I'm not sure about Ethnic conflict in the European Union, as goal conflicts between EU member states are thankfully not really seen in "ethnic" terms. And Polish oppression in the European Union - that's really way over the top. There is really nothing that would warrant such a name (although Molobo will not agree with this). --Thorsten1 20:25, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
I am a Pole, but I can agree with your opinion that this article has strong POV. I think this article (under this or any other title) is worth making as NPOV as possible, as this will gain more respect for Poles. The article is very long and complicated though. This means that it is very difficult to put straight all the issues. Let me point out two of them from which we should start:
  1. Does the term anti-polonism exist?
    • Yes, it does
      • It is mentioned in many Polish texts (antypolonizm). English is an international language so it makes sense to have this word in English as it is the natural translation of the Polish term.
      • It is mentioned in German texts (Antipolonismus): Die Zeit, Die Zeit, [6], [7]
      • It is mentioned in English texts: [8], [9] (The Relationship of Antipolonism and Sexism in German History (1870-1933/45)), [10].
    • No, it doesn't
      • None of major dictionaries cites the term.
      • Google gives very few results for it: antipolonism (Results 1 - 10 of about 63 for antipolonism), anti-polonism (Results 1 - 10 of about 749 for anti-polonism)
  2. Should the article be so long?
I think these issues should be weighed in the first place as it seems that all the arguments of Tomer are around these points. Can you (all) contribute more points in favour of any of these entries? Alx-pl 09:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Alx-pl, please take the time to also review the comments in the previous section of this talk page. I realize they're long, but I think they'll cast my arguments (ok, disgust) with respect to this article in a clearer light. Tomer TALK 10:02, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'll read it once more and incorporate more of your points concerning the issues above. (I understand that there are plenty of other issues too, but I don't want to dig into them for the time being.) Alx-pl 10:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

That is absurd.Should antisemitsm be divided into World War 2, occupation of Poland, occupation of France, History of Russia etc ?--Molobo 12:20, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Alx-pl-in reality Tomer wants the article to disapear, since previous attempts to delete it have failed.--Molobo 12:42, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

"Long description of the anti-Polonism triggers nationalistic attitudes." Well, we should attempt simply to present facts, with neutral aproach.I don't think hiding them is good, after all we don't serve to create or shape people's attitudes towards events, just present them.It is their own choice what they will think of presented reality.We are not engineers of the soul("inzynierami dusz") after all "inzynierami dusz" ;)

I try to refactor a bit the discussion. I particular, I'd like to have evident that the existence of the article is well justified. Similarly, for the current form of the article. In particular, don't you think that it is better to have a stronger justification than just we, Poles, think this should look like this?
Note, that a form of a description conveys some meaning. In particular, the current form of the article casts a shadow on some friends of mine who are German, French etc. who are not anti-Polish at all. Maybe Tomer can help us, Polishmen, to put the facts in a fashion more acceptable for other nations? Alx-pl 13:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I doubt Tomer can help anybody but those wishing to attack Poland.--Molobo 17:42, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

"it is better to have a stronger justification than just we, Poles, think this should look like this? "

This is already dealt witht in the article.They are links to works of non-polish authors that show antipolish feelings being used in Russia to incite riots against Polish minority etc. We intend to expand the article to include many more examples. Here is one : http://www.mediactivist.ru/action/27 A translation from babel fish of the introduction: "We propose for the propagation the fragments from the remarkable book Of yu. mukhin "anti-Russian meanness", the book, after reading of which, any Pole immediately would be shot down from the loathing and the disgrace"--Molobo 17:42, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Does this excerpt mean that there are Russians who endorse the current shape of the article? Does this mean they support it because it is NPOV?
Note that, a part of the topic anti-Polonism is also how the non-civilised implications of the attitude are dealt with in the societies in which it occurs - see the remark about endavours of Polish authorities in anti-Semitism. I think more stuff of this kind could move the article anti-Polonism more to NPOV. Alx-pl 21:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


What I would like to see happening with this article: DELETE IT!


I agree with Tomer's assessment of this article. Seperate the various persecutions of poles, historically and in modern times, into their own articles, possibly with an overview article, maybe even a series structure, if the individual articles are sufficiently good. I will contribute to this.

As for the term "Anti-polonism," especially in Western Europe and North America, its origin seems directly tied to the aftermath and analysis of western reactions and backlash - often biased and bigoted - to the Communist purge and expulsion of jews from Poland in the 1960's. I don't think it is appropriate to basically co-opt the term as a blanket statement for any sentiment against Poles, modern or historical, real or imagined; doing so would be a form of original research, I believe... leave it to the social scientists, journalists, and other researchers to recognize and label trends in hatred and bias.

With the way this article is, the only thing that can result is a bunch of opurtinistic, whiney, unencyclopaedic soapboxing - prone to failure regardless of what people think, say, or do. --Clapaucius|Talk 03:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC) Untrue If you would read the source material given in links you would see it deals for example with antipolish riots in Tsarists Russia.--Molobo 19:36, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I've already read much about anti-Polonism and I can agree with your statement that this article is really on the verge of being an original research. In fact, I would be glad to have a modest article on anti-Polonism like Anglophobia, Russophobia, Anti-German, because such short articles mean that these nations simply don't care about hostility of other nations, but I think people like User:Witkacy or User:Molobo prefer to be more specific about anti-Polonism. How can you convince them to give up? How would you take into account articles like anti-Australianism or anti-Hellenism? Alx-pl 10:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC) Alx-antipolonism led to murder of 3milion ethnic Poles.I do think its important to educate about it and against it.--Molobo 19:36, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, let's educate then. Alx-pl D 20:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
The anti-Australianism article makes it clear that it is a disfavor based in (1) ethnic differences [Australia is a Western country essentially in the Far East ] and (2) various of Australia's government's historical actions. Short and sweet analysis. No making up crap. The anti-Hellenism article says what the claim is, and even has a section "The "true" antihellenists". In fact, I would say that, in that regard especially, this article could stand well to emulate it. Then break the rest of the content, or proposed content, as the case may be, out into articles where its coverage is more appropriate. Tomer TALK 00:51, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

To everyone

Please, look through latest discussions and try to separate facts from your own opinions and emotions. Then come again, bring the sentences from the article you object to and source your arguments. This article isn’t about all people of certain nationalities but about particular problems. If you say the problems don’t exist then give us sources. I respect your private opinions and experiences but it’s too little to change the article. Also please, it’s really not a place to discuss private opinions of one editors about other editors. If you are interested in improving the article stay here, if you want to drag your private quarrels then go to user pages.

To address some arguments which were mentioned above:

  1. There were cases in Germany, where courts forbade Polish-speaking parents speak Polish to their children. However, it refers only to situation of divorced parents, where one parent is German and the other is Polish. I added the word “divorced” to the article. If you want to additionally edit it to make the case clearer, please, do so.
  2. You forgot Poland, if we create the article Prejudices about Poles we can link it there instead of here, I hope it dissolves the problem.
  3. Pope Benedict XVI (not XIV) has been actually very well received in Poland, (much better than in Germany) and had been also well known as Cardinal Ratzinger. Since his various books were long time ago translated into Polish and popular among students of Theology he was cheered by many Poles before the election. I haven’t seen even one unfavourable article in Polish media about him. Now many Poles await his pilgrim to Poland, so I don’t think we can compare attitudes to the two popes in our countries. Of course Poland is a Catholic country and it may be the main reason, but no one questioned the choice because of his being German or a German army soldier during WWII.
  4. I removed the sentence “Poland is accused of having caused World War II”. It was written by an anon, not sourced and biased.
  5. I too have German friends and I don’t think they are anti-Polinists, but I also don’t remember any anti-Semitic incidents in Poland in 1980s and yet the article about Anti-Semitism says otherwise, so I guess our personal experience is not enough.
  6. To deal with growing anti-Polish attitude in Germany our governments organized Polish-German year in both countries. Maybe we should mention it here to make the article more balanced? --SylwiaS 21:25, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

1-Sylwia there were also cases where workers were ordered to speak German in their own private time.It's in the article in Wprost.Not some mentions but direct quote by the person involved. 2-as to "Poland is accused of having caused World War II".Besides countless German forums where I could find such accusations, Rudi Pawelka of Prussian Trust said that in his speach : http://wiadomosci.wp.pl/kat,29398,wid,7558339,wiadomosc.html?ticaid=1&_ticrsn=5 --Molobo 23:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

1 I know there were, I haven't removed it from the article. I referred here only to the situation parent-children, because many people above said they were speaking Polish at home. So it seems the text in the article wasn't sufficiently showing, to what cases it referred. 2 I have no problem with mentioning in the article how and who accuses Poland, but the sentence I removed was too general and suggested that e.g. German government made the accusations or students were taught at schools that it was so etc. --SylwiaS 00:48, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I put to the article the case you sourced. --SylwiaS 01:31, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

New subsections to Germany section

This whole article is rather disorganized, and I tried to introduce some order. I moved some things around so that they would be placed under the correct heading, but made no other changes except for the removal of this:

German constitution grants German citizenship to Polish-born persons if their ancestors were Germans citizens living on German territory as of 1937. Germany is far from the only European country to do something like this (although it may not be in their constitutions). Austria has done it in the past, Greece has done it for Smyrniote Greeks, the United Kingdom has taken in persons of English, Scottish etc. descent from its former colonies after independence - just about any country that has received expellees has done it. Since no one has explained how this is anti-Polish, I have removed it for now. --Jpbrenna 22:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is NPOV for several reasons:

  • It does not present any information on current
    • Czech anti-Polonism
    • Ukrainian anti-Polonism
    • Lithuanian anti-Polonism
    • Russian anti-Polonism
    • Jewish anti-Polonism
    • Austrian anti-Polonism
    • other (?) anti-Polonisms
  • It hardly presents what has been done and is done in order to prevent anti-Polonism and its bad implications both on Polish and other sides.
  • Is Lukashenko really Belorussian? He speaks Russian and wants Belarussia be a part of Russia? He wants to get rid of Belarussian language and culture. Should his attitudes be labelled Belorussian?
  • There is ongoing disussion above concerning several particular phrases and informations.

Alx-pl 22:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

The article is still a stub - feel free to add new sections of Anti-Polonism in other countries (nations).--Witkacy 23:06, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
I'll do if I find time, but before that (or before any one else will do this) the article is not NPOV. Alx-pl 23:11, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Missing informations about Anti-Polonism in other countries does not makes the article NPOV :)--Witkacy 23:13, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Now that the lacking nations are explicitely mentioned here, it makes it POV. We could pretend it was POV before explicit mention of them. Moreover, there are other problems with this article that make it really POVish. And it is really not the matter of 2 hours of editing to make the article acceptable for everyone. It is a hard work for many people for several wikiweeks. Alx-pl 23:52, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I don't understand the problem with Belarus. About 77% of Poles was against the war in Iraq, over 80% was against it soon before our government finally decided to take our troops back. But who is having the war - Poland or Kwasniewski? It is already written in the article about the totalitarian regime of Lukashenko in Belarus. Even if he is not representative for all people in Belarus, he does represent them. --SylwiaS 03:32, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It is a good point, but it does not address my concern. My concern is that Lukashenko is anti-Belarussian and quoting his attitudes and moves as Belarussian anti-Polonism is at least worth detailed consideration. Note that it is fair to phrase the first sentence of the section like this

'Polish-minority rights are increasingly being abused by the totalitarian regime of anti-Belarussian Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus,'

but it is obviously ridiculous.

In order to address your concern, Lukaszenko's current status as the head of Belarussia is doubtful. He was elected by a referendum which was organised against the rules of Belarussia constitution and with serious suspicions about falsification. You can find related materials here, and [11].

Summing up, the current shape of this section is disputable. I could edit it myself, but I didn't have a clear idea on how to phrase the description which is partly due to the fact that I do not know whether the existence of this section is really to the point. I kindly ask you and others to put more light on the issue. Alx-pl 06:39, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

The section is called anti-Polonism in Belarus, not Belarusian anti-Polonism. Inside the section there are held responsible for anit-Polonism: totalitarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, the Belarus authorities and the Belarus government. There is not even one word about the Belarusian people.
Lukashenko is anti-Belarusian. Of course he is. I don’t know about any country of totalitarian regime, which government wouldn’t be against its own people. But I’ve heard that Hitler was an Austrian, and yet we had the war with Germany. Polish communistic government organized pogroms of Jews, forced emigrations of various minorities and “Wisla” Action. I am very sorry that I was born in a communistic country and persecuted by my own government, but it doesn’t change the fact that all the incidents happened in Poland and this is how they are being described in Wikipedia. So there is nothing wrong with this section, unless we are going to change it in all the articles.
As to the NPOV tag. First of all it is important to understand that this article describes Anti-Polonism, not e.g. Polish-German relations, so it is rather obvious that it refers to unpleasant and bothering attitudes. We can make another article about it and present there the entire cooperation of the two countries and link the article to this one. However, all subjects in this article, no matter favorable or not, should refer only to Anti-Polonism.
NPOV tutorial ends with this: Some Wikipedians, in the name of NPOV, try to avoid making any statements that other people find offensive or objectionable, even if objectively true. This is not the intent of NPOV. Many groups would prefer that certain facts be stated euphemistically, or only in their own terminology, or suppressed outright; such desires need not be deferred to.
As I understand that what is really criticized here is the Germany related section, I’ll move the NPOV tag there. There is nor reason to question Volhynia or harassment of Polish civils during WWII etc. However, in spite of many voices here that the section is POV, I still wasn’t offered any evidence. So I propose to put the tag for a week time. If during that time no one points out anything what should be changed and doesn't provide any sources, I will remove the tag. Let’s assume it will be now put in advance.
What could be possibly wrong in the article and if so, should be changed:
  1. the facts presented there aren’t facts, if so, bring sources, which prove otherwise,
  2. bad wording is used in the article what results in giving rather personal opinions instead of facts, if so, point it out or simply edit the sentence,
  3. the article doesn’t include another point of view, if so, bring sources and we will add the opinions,
  4. this article includes subjects, which shouldn’t be regarded as Anti-Polonism, again, point it out and give sources (for example see the information about German citizenship for Poles, which was removed by Jpbrenna),
There may be of course other cases, which I didn’t list above, if so, get some sources and bring them to discussion.
BTW Wikipedia is work in progress. There is no article, which is complete. --SylwiaS 13:08, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Sylwia, I don't say that any of the facts in the article is false. Many of the history facts are obvious for me as a Pole and I am not going to delete them. I find it simply disturbing that the balance in the article is strongly towards presentation of Polish martyrdom now and in the past. This is the real reason for NPOV here and it is a legitimate reason as it is stated in WP:NPOV#Fairness and sympathetic tone. We can make the article more balanced by introduction of new facts, not by deleting the ones that are already there. Maybe some reorganisation of the material can also help. As you can see, I added NPOV after putting new text to German section so it is not a destructive action. I also actively work on the topic which you can spot reading my Talk edits in the last days.

I do not criticise solely the Germany section. I find the whole section Persistent prejudice against Poles (1945 to present) POV and this is stated in my message above so I'll change the place of the template. I put the label at the beginning initially, because I find the preamble POVish, but I do not have any specific objection by now there as the topic is very difficult and complicated - so I agree with your shift. Note also, that one week for NPOV label is too short as for the time being I am alone with my proposal and the current shape of the article is a result of work of many Wikipedians in a longer period of time. Of course, I would like to encourage you to help in adding the lacking informations. I put the NPOV label because

  • the topic is very controversial and everything should be discussed here, and
    (Note, that if I had put plenty of material instead of starting the discussion, my work would have been still more questionable.)
  • I know little about anti-Polonism and have limited time to reach proper information
    (while the current one-sided shape of the article is disturbing for others)

But, as I said, I am willing to reach the informations. Within this little amount of time I had I could state my objections, clarify them and find some additional info. If you and others can help in clarifying it further, please do not hesitate to write.

Your remarks about Lukaszenko are very interesting and to the point. I have to reconsider them and I'll be back with something more constructive later. Alx-pl 14:12, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's a very good idea to show how our countries are dealing with this problem. I thought that you might find these links helpful. Polish-German Year and Polish-German cooperation --SylwiaS 06:40, 15 August 2005 (UTC)


The current NPOV tag makes the article unreadable.You should either put the tag at the top of the article or top of the whole section.Molobo.

The current version is a vandalism and someone should revert it. I already used my 3rr limit. --SylwiaS 19:16, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Falsificator falsificatorium

The verb in Latin is fallo-fallere-fefelli-falsus; there is no falsificare, nor did the Roman Senate contain any falsifactores. So stop with the "falsification" already! Yes, somehow English has created falsify, but why make matters worse by coining new words according to the pattern? If someone jumped off a bridge would you do it too? Someone has even called poor Halibutt a "falsificator". It sounds like some kind of new and improved refrigerator. Mendax, however; or "mendacious inhabitant of the Lower Dneiper" would be just fine in terms of Latinity or good English usage, although if you are Halibutt you might not appreciate it.

The next malefactor to use a falsific-based word instead of "forgery", "fabrication" or "lie" in English Wikipedia will be sent over to the Latin Wikipedia as a galley slave. If you want to falsificate, take your act to the Romanian Wikipedia; their language at least has the term falsificator, unless Google has falsificated the results. --Jpbrenna 08:14, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Good Lord, I spent zillions of dollars for psychologists, trying to forget the guy who called m a falsificator. Anyway, everybody knows that Halibutts and refrigerators are not the same entities, so I guess all will agree with what prof. Jpbrenna says. :) Halibutt 16:15, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
Just to note, English does have falsification; it is not nearly as common as the alternatives, but it is acceptable. Falsificate and falsificator are not in common usage, and I'll bet not even the OED has them (feel free to get out a magnifiying glass, look them up, and prove me wrong). Anyway, I would like to make a public apology to Alx-pl: I was not trying to single him out. Stylistically, I thought something else would sound better, but there was nothing wrong with his English and I regard him as a very valuable contributor. --Jpbrenna 19:34, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
I will second Jpbrenna's observation. Falsification is a common "nicespeak" word for "a lie". While they are not in common usage, English speakers will readily recognize "falsificate" as a pretentious way of saying "to lie" and a "falsificator" as "a goddamn liar".  :-p One of the nice things about English, however, that Jpbrenna apparently fails to grasp, is its capacity to coin and accept new words. OED is categorically not the arbiter of what is/n't an English word. That said, "falsificator" sounds kinda mealymouthy. Tomer TALK 06:39, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
OED is categorically not the arbiter of what is/n't an English word. <begin delusion of grandeur> That's right, OED is not the arbiter, *I* am! </end delusion>--Jpbrenna 16:37, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

We get it - lots of things are disputed

Some people dispute about 90% of this page. That's fine, but you don't need to add a tag to every single section. One of the reason I created all those subsections to the Germany section, for instance, was to make it easier to edit each sub-topic and make the edit history more specific so people know where to look for changes. Hopefully that will lesson the chance of all-out nuclear option revert war and keep it contained (sorry to have to borrow Cold War terminology). Don't think the Brandenburg-Berlin section is right, for example? Work on it and leave a message here explaining why. When it's done, move on to something else. No need to tag it; the reader will already have seen the tag at the top. Those section tags are for when most of the article is undisputed and only a tiny part is under dispute. I think we have the opposite situation here. I'm leaving a general NPOV and Attention tag at the top of the article. Please don't remove them, and please don't add any more. As Alx-pl said, this is probably going to take weeks, so be patient. --Jpbrenna 20:43, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

So, you recognize 90% of the page may be disputed, yet you regard Witkacy's persistent (and undiscussed) removal of the NPOV tag as legitimate? Just how POV does the page have to be before you regard the NPOV tag as justified? 103%? Tomer TALK 06:41, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
No, I don't. I support leaving the NPOV tag up until we get some of this resolved, at which time we can start using section tags for the parts that are still disputed. --Jpbrenna 09:11, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

The best sollution for this problem is to remove the whole article. It is not 90%, but 100%  !

The main problem begins with the name of this article: Anti- polonism. If you read about Anti-Semitism you will find this definition: “Anti-Semitism is hostility towards or prejudice against Jews, which can range from individual hatred to institutionalized violent persecution“ You cant say that there is institutionalized violent persecution against Poles today in any country! It was different in history, but you have hundreds of articles on Wiki where you describe these sufferings. Some Poles try to establish a point of view that defines the suffering of the Poles where equal to the suffering of the Jews – which is unhistorical and simply a lie. Someone from overseas, who doesn’t know about the background might think, that there is some truth in this article – which is not. You established a fine list of stereotypes and personal opinions by some unfriendly people, but this isn’t Anti- Polonism, cause that means from the definition of Anti- Semitism that you need an ideology behind that. What you even need is some kind of “mass movement” against Poles, which even not existed nor exists. When someone say “Poles are stealing cars” it’s a POV of this person, but not common sense. We are not Anti- Polish, but in some way arrogant about Eastern Europeans in general, which I’m not proud of at all. Its not nice, but as a Pole you know what you say in your country about the “drunken barbarian Russians” at your right, and the “all time Crusaders” on the left side of your geographical map. But when you think my beloved Poles that you are the only ones who had to deal with that kind of stereotypes try to walk in German shoes, and you will find out soon, that you aren’t. In fact some of your “facts” are Anti- German, or stereotypes about Germans. What is brought up here are: lies; stereotypes, some truth mixed with propaganda and the whole style remembers me of soviet times. The only way that I see to deal with lies is not to answer – cause to defend means to take it serious – but to erase. It is obvious that most of the Polish authors here know well about German language, and maybe they have their personal reasons to be so offensive. (Maybe a German girl broke someone’s heart, or a Polish guy had a butthead of Chef in Germany?) You use the knowledge of the German language only for propaganda. But when Wiki is some kind of dictionary you have to base your argument on facts – there isn’t a single fact mentioned, but a lot of propaganda and misinterpretation. You said deleting is not the proper way to handle it, but when you don’t accept to marc this article as disputed it’s the only way. There is a lot of history- writing by Eastern Europeans here on Wiki, which I had learned to life with, but I will not respect anything like this about my country today. Stop lying, and I stop erasing, or mark that article for everyone as disputed. Cause the biggest lie about this article is to say, that it is not disputed; we have to keep the NPOV tag! An idea is to bring all that crap under the article “German stereotypes about Poles” cause its easier to life with this under that headline. I feel deeply sorry about the whole discussion here, cause I have Polish friends, and we have to close the “hating- case” between our nations as we did with the French, cause we are one by culture and we share the same history. But I see that many authors here are feeding hate and nationalism: try to make your peace with reality! Greetings from Germany, Volker PS: What I forgot to mention was, that all Poles I have showed this article where deeply ashamed of it and apologized for this: Does that mean anything to you, that your People are very unhappy with your POV?


“ You cant say that there is institutionalized violent persecution against Poles today in any country! " Except Belarus, and to some extent Russia.Leftover traces of it are seen in Germany. "Some Poles try to establish a point of view that defines the suffering of the Poles where equal to the suffering of the Jews – which is unhistorical and simply a lie" The article isn't about Jews.However both Poles and Jews were classified as subhumans by German Reich. "What you even need is some kind of “mass movement” against Poles, which even not existed nor exists." Wrong.Campaigns against Poles existed in Russia, Prussia, and Germany. "In fact some of your “facts” are Anti- German, or stereotypes about Germans" Please show examples of "AntiGerman" propaganda. "Maybe a German girl broke someone’s heart, or a Polish guy had a butthead of Chef in Germany?) " Or maybe his country was target of extermination campaign. Molobo.

What of your "Anti- Polonism" has left in Germany today? Wasn’t it Anti German to make a Ethnic Cleansing of 14 million Germans that caused 2 million dead? Isn’t it about creating a good tomorrow by tackling the problems from the past what we should do? I know that you are in love with the idea of the chosen country which had to suffer like Jesus did, but that’s only one side of the coin. And I’m not talking about yesterday, cause I’m to young to do so, and I’m sure that you are nearly the same age as I, cause we both know that only Students have the time to fight some meaningless fights as we do here. Look above, and you will see, that I’m not ignoring history, but what I even cant ignore are lies. And everything in the “Germany today”- section is a lie. I read the articles which are linked, and believe me my German is good enough to see the lack of credibility of this sources. Bring fresh stuff and evidences (I’m sure you cant, that’s why you bring all your arguments from history) and than we can talk. This country changed: realise that and stop boring me with your creepy ideas about “what’s going on in bloody Germany”. Volker

Please point to any lie in the article.Molobo " Wasn’t it Anti German to make a Ethnic Cleansing of 14 million Germans that caused 2 million dead?" Incorrect, there was no ethnic cleansing of 14 milion Germans nor 2 milion of them died.You are refering to both exodus from advancing Red Army and population transfer withing Soviet zone of control effecting more ethnic groups then just Germans.The figure includes btw German settlers after 1939, and civilian workers for German occupation force.The death figure is disputable since it refers to 2 milion Germans that went missing not were found dead.Modern estimates show figures in range of 500.000 people.

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