Polish treatment of the German minority

[Mad Zeppelin]

[Split from "The Freikorps in Poland"]


I would rather term the time 1919-1939 as "moderate oppression" for the Germans inside Poland (1,2 million in 1919, decreasing to approx. 1 million in 1930). I knew an old chap who had been born close to Posen/Poznan and lived there until 1926 "when conditions became unbearable and my parents decided to leave for Germany" (his dad was a Protestant priest, perhaps a real bad combination in these days being German and Protestant in Poland).
The term "Völkermord" should, however, be reserved for Nazi German behavior, compared to which the Polish/Soviet ethnic cleansing 1945/46 was indeed "moderate".

[wojtop79]

You're right these were relatively moderate oppression - comparing to Nazi policy. Still certainly much worse than what Germans or Poles experienced anytime before 1939 from each others.

I do not know much about post II WW situation of Germans in Poland. But when discussing it one has to consider the circumstances. In 1945 Poland was poor, plundered by Germans and Soviets, destroyed by war, torn by internal conflits (drifting on a verge of civil war against communists with daily military clashes), lacking elites murdered or killed during the war, administration and security forces were rebuild from a scratch with important posts often occupied by people without any preparation - often peasants or even ex-criminals (part of transition to communism enforced by Soviets). Well being of ethnic Germans was probably the very last thing on the list of priorities of the new Polish government. So, when Poles were hungry Germans in so called "transition camps" were starving, when Poles were endangered by bandits profiting on the mess Germans were an easy target for them as few people had sympathy for them.

Still according to legislation killing a German was the same crime as killing a Pole. No orders were issued to any public institution to kill Germans. As an example of anti-abuse attitude of Polish authorities - Świętochłowice Eintrachthütte camp, one of the worst (horrible sanitary conditions, sadist commander, 2000 Germans perished) has been closed in November 1945 after inspection of Polish authorities found out about abuses, survivors have been immediatly released from the camp. In general the legislation was OK, the policy was oppressive towards Germans but It wasn't aimed at destroying them. It's just that being a second class citizen in a very poor and dangerous country undergoing major changes dramatically reduce your chances of survival. Especially if you are a member of the group that caused the poverty and was very nasty to the nation in power. Crimes against Germans in 1945 and later is something Poland should be ashamed of, but are nothing comparable to previous attampts at methodical destruction of the Polish nation by Nazis.

[RCW Mark]

So what? The poles of that time apperently didn't behave any better.

It would be hard for Poles to use their police, judges, adminstration against the German population as they lived in a German state not a polish one.

The killer blow is how well the Poles behaved to their own minorities, on the other side of the country.

While I'm not suggesting that they reached anything like the depths of Nazi Germany, I am suggesting that the Polish attitude to their Jewish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian citizens in 1919 - 1939 was extremely similar to the attitude of the Germans to their Polish citizens from 1900 to 1920 say. Not outright oppression, but a denial of their right to a separate culture, language and identity.

Try as you might, you cannot get away from the fact that 1920 Poland deliberately incorporated millions of non-Poles. And then forced them to live in a Polish state, not a Ukranian/Lithuanian/Belarussian one. It is a bit much to complain that the Germans did likewise.

[henryk]

RCW Mark said:

The killer blow is how well the Poles behaved to their own minorities, on the other side of the country.
While I'm not suggesting that they reached anything like the depths of Nazi Germany, I am suggesting that the Polish attitude to their Jewish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian citizens in 1919 - 1939 was extremely similar to the attitude of the Germans to their Polish citizens from 1900 to 1920 say. Not outright oppression, but a denial of their right to a separate culture, language and identity.
Try as you might, you cannot get away from the fact that 1920 Poland deliberately incorporated millions of non-Poles. And then forced them to live in a Polish state, not a Ukranian/Lithuanian/Belarussian one. It is a bit much to complain that the Germans did likewise.

There are a number of threads on the Forum which use German, Russian, Austrian, and Polish census data to prove that, almost with no exception, all areas of interwar Poland had a majority Polish population. This includes the Wilno and Lwow areas. The few exceptions comprise small patches in Northern Poland with Germans, in now Western Belarus with Belarusians and the southeastern most province of Poland with Ukrainians.
Polish treatment of its minorities during the interwar period was much better than neighbouring countries treatment of ethnic Poles. Harsh treatment was usually a reaction to armed resistance or to harsh treatment in the neighbouring countries. The following article shows this with excerpts from the source. red emphasis is mine.
http://www.electronicmuseum.ca/Poland-W ... intro.html

Tadeusz Piotrowski
From POLAND'S HOLOCAUST Copyright © 1998 Thaddeus M. Piotrowski
by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc. Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640 (USA) http://www.mcfarlandpub.com

After 123 years of partitions by its imperialistic neighbors Russia, Germany (Prussia) and Austria, Poland finally regained its independence in 1918. In the years following World War I, two major problems confronted this young republic: the problem of its forever-straying borders and the problem of its minorities. The resulting six wars fought concurrently by Poland between 1918 and 1921 taxed both - its strength and its resources - to the breaking point. The short-lived Polish-Ukrainian War was one of these, the Polish-Soviet War was another, and the Polish-Lithuanian dispute over Wilno was a third [1].
......................
These territorial acquisitions, along with the thousand-year history of conquest and migration that characterized Central and Eastern Europe, resulted in the presence of a substantial ethnic minority population within Polish borders as well as sizable Polish minorities within the borders of all the neighboring nations: Germany, the Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belorussia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, and Latvia [3].
.....................................
Almost half a century before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act in America, Poland not only had agreed to the League of Nations June 28, 1919, supplementary Treaty of Versailles on the treatment of minorities, but also had passed its own rather progressive constitution in 1921, in which it voluntarily incorporated many of these same civil rights. In post-World War I Poland, there was to be equality under the law for all Polish citizens in respect to their economic, political, cultural and religious interests irrespective of race, national origin, or creed.

Initially, genuine efforts were made to implement that legislation, though not always with success. In spite of the best of legislative intentions, there was (often officially sanctioned) Polish prejudice toward and discrimination against the ethnic minorities, especially in the eastern provinces, in almost every category guaranteed by the Constitution.

The recitation of this litany of civil-rights transgressions begins usually with the incontestable fact that the 1919 Treaty for the Protection of Minorities was unilaterally abrogated by Poland in 1934. Without a basis of historical context, this statement is often cited as "proof" of Poland's bad-faith attitude toward its minorities.

To begin with, this treaty itself, if not its content, was doomed from the very beginning, since the Poles regarded the Supreme Council's demand for its acceptance - in order to receive the formal recognition of the Polish state - both as an affront and as infringement on their sovereign rights as a nation to manage their own internal affairs. It was, after all, a matter both of international principle and of national pride.

Second, although many countries had large minorities within their borders, not all were bound by this humanitarian treaty. The exceptions included Germany and the USSR, which, after their entry into the League of Nations, freely availed themselves of their right as member nations to supervise and criticize Poland's track record. Poland expressed its willingness to allow the League of Nations to continue to supervise its treatment of minorities, provided that the procedure was applied to other member countries as well - a fair request for equal treatment and one that would have immensely benefited the oppressed Polish minorities, among others, of Germany and the USSR. This point was brought home by Jozef Beck [Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs] in a statement delivered to the League of Nations on September 13, 1934.

And finally, the Treaty for the Protection of Minorities, like other such treaties, not only accorded certain rights and privileges to the Polish ethnic groups, but also imposed on them certain responsibilities and obligations: cooperation with the legitimately established government, loyalty to the nation that was to be their home, military service, national defense, and the obligation to obey the laws of the land and to preserve public order - civic duties that were often forgotten and, in the case of the radicals, always disregarded.

However, since Poland did not grant autonomy to Eastern Galicia and, furthermore, adopted a centralist rather than the federalist plan proposed initially by Jozef Pilsudski [5] (to be sure, Poland had its share of radical nationalists), there may also have been other motives for Poland's abrogation of the Treaty. This is borne out by the fact that in the 1930s, many of the policies of the Pilsudski regime were assimilationist. These policies, in turn, led to an escalation of the already existing conflicts between the nationalist leaders and their followers on the one hand and the Polish authorities on the other. Some of the nationalists - the Ukrainian nationalists - resorted even to sabotage and terrorism. Unfortunately, when all else failed, the Polish government finally (in the early 1930s) attempted to address this public danger by launching a military "pacification action" against the Ukrainian nationalists, during which action those in charge sometimes failed to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. Still, far fewer people died in this ten-week pacification campaign in Eastern Galicia than, for example, in the Ukrainian nationalists' relentless terrorist attacks on Polish citizens between 1921 and 1939.

Moreover, the Polish policies of colonization, agrarian reform, and land grants to Polish veterans of war in the eastern territories produced much bitterness among the land-hungry Belorussians and Ukrainians, who resented the settlers and felt that all of the land, most of which was previously owned by Polish landlords, should go to them. Repressive measures were carried out sporadically against the Eastern Orthodox Church. There was also an effort to Polonize the public school system by decreasing the number of ethnic schools and increasing the number of bilingual ones (attended by both Polish and non-Polish children). And finally, preference was given to ethnic Poles over Jews in the professions that were hitherto over-represented by the latter, and proportionate quotas were imposed on Jewish university students. These restrictions were also applied to and affected both the Ukrainian and the Belorussian minorities.

Nevertheless, it is also fair to say that, in the words of Jan Tomasz Gross:
... despite all of this and more, the material, spiritual and political life of all the national minorities in interwar Poland was richer and more complex than ever before or after. [6]

The truth of this statement is borne out by the presence of numerous legal and even illegal political parties, as well as religious, educational, and sociocultural organizations in every major ethnic group. Moreover, the minorities had representation in the Polish Parliament, and all of them had access to the "free" press, which, to be sure, from time to time also ran embarrassing blank patches in the pages of various newspapers.

In assessing the nature end extent of Polish interwar prejudice and discrimination, we must beware of judging the situation in Europe during those years by our own contemporary standards. Although the comparison to the contemporaneous plight of the minorities, including the Polish minorities, in the Soviet Union, Germany, or even Lithuania may be too extreme, what was the situation of the minorities in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s? When exactly did our minorities (specifically our Native Americans and African Americans, but others as well) finally achieve that full integration and equality promised by the United States Constitution? The United States, unlike Poland, embraced a prosperous nation of immigrants.

The point is that in spite of the best legislative intentions, these matters take a long time to sort out in any pluralistic society; the new Republic of Poland - ravaged as it was by World War I, a series of continuing wars, and economic depression - was no exception. The cycle is a familiar one. Previous modes of accommodation break down, giving rise to social unrest and upheaval. Then, new forms of accommodation replace the old, only to eventually produce similar results, and so on and so forth until full assimilation, integration, or independence is finally achieved.

In Poland, the root of the problem lay not in the Polish Constitution, but in its application and in the understandable impatience of the minorities who wanted justice from the newly established Republic and wanted it now. Some nationalist leaders, many of whom were of college age, wanted much more than that. They wanted national independence and the reunification of "their" ethnic territories. Theodore Herzl's words, mutatis mutandis, echo the political aspirations of all the nationalists in interwar Poland:
... I do not consider the Jewish question to be a social or religious [one]. ... It is a national problem. We are a nation. [7]

To Poland, the home of ethnic and religious minorities for centuries, the prospect of housing national minorities (i.e., Polish citizens, who did not regard themselves as Poles by nationality) constituted a grave danger to its very survival. The political objectives of all radical nationalists were, after all, separatist.

The Ukrainian nationalists wanted a unified and independent Ukraine, or at least an independent "Western Ukraine". Their ultimate ambitions are best illustrated in both the old and the new maps of "Greater Ukraine", whose boundaries overreach even those of the present-day vast Ukrainian Republic and meander into the Polish heartland, Belarus, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and the Russian Federation [8].

The Belorussian nationalists also wanted their country reunited, but they dreaded the prospect of being forced to live under the Soviet yoke. Their formula was the same - reunion and independence.

The Lithuanian nationalists wanted the predominantly Polish city of Wilno, the historic capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, "returned" to the Lithuanian Republic.

The German nationalists wanted to continue living in their prewar domiciles, now on Polish soil - but how they wished those domiciles were back in their good old Vaterland, where they belonged!

The Jewish nationalists and the Zionists looked to Palestine and meanwhile wanted to be regarded as a national minority in Poland, a nation within a nation. And that segment of the younger generation of politically active Jews, who were neither Bundists, nor noncommunist Zionists (as opposed to the Zionists who were "covertly or overtly" pro-communist [9]), nor assimilationists, nor Agudar Israel [10] in orientation, not having any territorial claims of their own, wanted all the rights and privileges promised by the communist ideology, which they embraced wholeheartedly. In Eastern Poland, they would have preferred the Soviet to the Polish rule.
....................................
And so, Marshal Pilsudski's worst fears became a reality. After the Polish-Ukrainian War, he said:
... I would not want for anything in the world that Poland would possess spacious territories inhabited by ill-disposed people. History has demonstrated that in the long run such heterogeneous mixture of populations is dangerous. [12]
................................

[Njorl]

While I'm not suggesting that they reached anything like the depths of Nazi Germany, I am suggesting that the Polish attitude to their Jewish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian citizens in 1919 - 1939 was extremely similar to the attitude of the Germans to their Polish citizens from 1900 to 1920 say. Not outright oppression, but a denial of their right to a separate culture, language and identity.

Hi there! Do you have any source to back up your claims?

How do the figures provided below fit into 'denial of their right to a separate culture, language' part of your claim? They are taken from 'Concise Statistical Year-Book of Poland 1932' published by the Chief Bureau of Statistics. Could you provide any similar German statistical data from 1900 to say 1920 for comparison? Eg. number of schools in Germany where Polish was the language of instruction or number of publications published in Polish.



SECTION XV. SCHOOL SYSTEM AND EDUCATION

TABLE 6. LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS IN POLAND (School-year 1929/30)
Number of schools
Kindergartens
Total 1,765
Polish 1,588
Polish and another 16
Ukrainian 47
German 34
Yiddish 42
Hebrew 35
French 2
Russian 1

Elementary schools
Total 26,539
Polish 21,806
Polish and Ukrainian 2.336
Polish and another 311
Ukrainian 790
White-Ruthenian 26
German 768
Yiddish 177
Hebrew 183
Lithuanian 105
Czech 28
French 1
Russian 8

Secondary schools
Total 759
Polish 673
Polish and Ukrainian 1
Polish and another 9
Ukrainian 20
White-Ruthenian 3
German 29
Yiddish 3
Hebrew 11
Lithuanian 2
French 1
Russian 7

Teachers' training colleges
Total 229
Polish 198
Polish and Ukrainian 13
Polish and another 1
Ukrainian 10
German 3
Yiddish 1
Hebrew 3

Trades schools (courses included)
Total 735
Polish 705
Polish and Ukrainian 1
Polish and another 6
Ukrainian 2
German 5
Yiddish 16

Academic schools
Total 22
Polish 22

Number of pupils (in thousands)
Kindergartens
Total 100.5
Polish 93.7
Polish and another 0.8
Ukrainian 1.5
German 1.6
Yiddish 1.5
Hebrew 1.3
French 0.1
Russian 0.0

Elementary schools
Total 3,691.7
Polish 3,129.5
Polish and Ukrainian 332.0
Polish and another 26.2
Ukrainian 93.6
White-Ruthenian 2.0
German 62.7
Yiddish 19.1
Hebrew 20.7
Lithuanian 3.7
Czech 1.4
French 0.0
Russian 0.8

Secondary schools
Total 203.4
Polish 179.5
Polish and Ukrainian 0.5
Polish and another 5.0
Ukrainian 5.7
White-Ruthenian 0.4
German 7.7
Yiddish 0.4
Hebrew 2.4
Lithuanian 0.5
French 0.2
Russian 1.1

Teachers' training colleges
Total 36.3
Polish 31.3
Polish and Ukrainian 2.6
Polish and another 0.1
Ukrainian 1.5
German 0.4
Yiddish 0.1
Hebrew 0.3

Trades schools (courses included)
Total 84.9
Polish 82.2
Polish and Ukrainian 0.0
Polish and another 0.7
Ukrainian 0.3
German 0.2
Yiddish 1.5

Academic schools
Total 45.4
Polish 45.4


SECTION XVI. EXTRA-MURAL EDUCATION, INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL LIFE

TABLE 7. PERIODICAL AND NON-PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS IN POLAND ACCORDING TO LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION (1929, 1930)
Non-periodical publications [Polish/Ukrainian/White-Ruthenian/German/Yiddish and Hebrew/Russian/Other]
1929: 9.611 / 375 / 69 / 273 / 961 / 163 / 632
1930: 9.832 / 410 / 71 / 295 / 1.021 / 112 / 533
Scientific works 2.043 / 46 / 4 / 107 / 151 / 23 / 156
Fiction, poetry & essays 1.307 / 88 / 5 / 11 / 183 / 15 / 8
Popoular publications 1.120 / 99 / 5 / 24 / 135 / 42 / 33
Text-books 579 / 33 / 3 / 14 / 44 / 2 / 47
Public & political matter 4.783 / 144 / 54 / 139 / 508 / 30 / 289
- including pamphlets, leaflets, etc. 1.743 / 65 / 44 / 58 / 431 / 22 / 120

Periodical publications [Polish/Ukrainian/White-Ruthenian/German/Yiddish and Hebrew/Russian/Other]
1929: 1.928 / 86 / 15 / 112 / 146 / 11 / 31
1930: 1.972 / 80 / 12 / 106 / 138 / 13 / 28
Scientific 253 / 13 / 1 / 2 / 6 / 1 / 8
Journal, literary, artistic 781 / 37 / 9 / 59 / 104 / 6 / 10
Economic 196 / 6 / - / 4 / 6 / - / 6
Agricultural 61 / 3 / - / 8 / - / - / -
Vocational 163 / 3 / - / 8 / 5 / - / -
Official (State & municipal) 185 / - / - / - / - / - / 1
Magazines, etc. 64 / 3 / - / 1 / 4 / - / 1
Other 264 / 13 / 2 / 22 / 10 / 6 / 1
Subject not specified 5 / 2 / - / 2 / 3 / - / 1

Regards,
MJU

[RCW Mark]

There are a number of threads on the Forum which use German, Russian, Austrian, and Polish census data to prove that, almost with no exception, all areas of interwar Poland had a majority Polish population.

I'm not fighting on this again Henryk. You know very well that I dispute your "proof". Mainly because what you cite are not censuses. Stop calling plebescites and those other counts censuses and I might be prepared to discuss. Better yet, come to grip with the idea that Ukraine was full of Ukrainians and Lithuania was full of Lithuanians. It's not that hard.

How do the figures provided below fit into 'denial of their right to a separate culture, language' part of your claim? They are taken from 'Concise Statistical Year-Book of Poland 1932'

Njorl: that is fascinating data.

Only 82% of primary schools were Polish, but 88% of secondary schools, 86% of teacher training, and 95% of trades courses. A similar progression is seen in the numbers of pupils: 87% of primary pupils in Polish, but rising to 97% of trade courses. The top level of academic schools was 100% Polish.

A vivid way of looking at this is: there was one Pole in trades course for every 40 or so Poles at primary school. The ratio for non-Poles was one for every 200. So non-Poles were given access to trades education at one fifth the rate of Poles. I'm picking it was worse for university -- do you have the figures?

This pretty much reinforces my case, I think. Poland provided elementary education for all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity. But if you wanted to get ahead then the chances were a lot better if you spoke Polish. That is, speaking Ukranian or Lithuanian as your first language was discouraged systematically, without any need for active repression.

That's not unusual to Poland -- my country tried to crush Maori from being spoken during that time. Britain did it to the Welsh, and the French to their minority languages.

My point is that too many Poles actively seek victim status for the treatment of their ancestors by Germany, when they were doing pretty much the same thing.

[wojtop79]

I am suggesting that the Polish attitude to their Jewish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian citizens in 1919 - 1939 was extremely similar to the attitude of the Germans to their Polish citizens from 1900 to 1920 say. Not outright oppression, but a denial of their right to a separate culture, language and identity.

This pretty much reinforces my case, I think. Poland provided elementary education for all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity

No, it doesn't. There were hundreds of Ukrainian/German/Jewish schools in inter-war Poland while Polish language was forbidden in German schools from 1874 on. Not only there were no Polish schools, also in German schools pupils were punished for singing and talking in Polish - (Example - Wrzesnia, 1901 - 19 parents of Polish pupils sentenced to prison for their kids refusing to reply in German during religion lessons).
Note that France opened it's first secondary school in Arab in 2003, despite of huge Arab minority since 1960s. Considering this Polish interwar policy seems far for perfection but still GOOD even for modern standards.

My point is that too many Poles actively seek victim status for the treatment of their ancestors by Germany, when they were doing pretty much the same thing.

Poland and Poles did bad things, sure thing, yet we are attributed much more than we actually done. Point of these Poles is that most part of publications about XX century Poland is based on either German or Russian sources. Both of these are full of half-truths and whitewashing of both Russia's and Germany's policies. Wouldn't you be a bit angry if history books about NZ were written basing on sources of your former arch-enemies?
Just look at yourself - you are an objective person living far away from Europe, yet you're just repeating some Soviet and German propaganda about Poland mistreating it's minorities and even census data can't change your opinion. It is pretty frustrating to continously face similar attitudes.

[henryk]

Henryk said:

There are a number of threads on the Forum which use German, Russian, Austrian, and Polish census data to prove that, almost with no exception, all areas of interwar Poland had a majority Polish population.

RCW Mark said:

I'm not fighting on this again Henryk. You know very well that I dispute your "proof". Mainly because what you cite are not censuses. Stop calling plebescites and those other counts censuses and I might be prepared to discuss. Better yet, come to grip with the idea that Ukraine was full of Ukrainians and Lithuania was full of Lithuanians. It's not that hard.

To avoid an out of topic response in this thread, I respond to RCW in the thread where the original information was posted.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 8#p1266428

[Mad Zeppelin]

Just stumbled upon this threat and saw that I serve as initiator...

Concerning the "Wreschener Schulstreik" (Wrzesnia school strike), this event - one single case - which is universally quoted (by the Polish side) as example for cultural oppression: The school director forbade the use of Polish in religious instruction. Against this the children and their parents protested. - The spirit of the time generally allowed religious instruction to be held in the mother tongue (even respected by France opposite her German speaking subjects prior to WW1). Thus, the school director was wrong, also by German standards of the time.

I'd rather be interested to receive some information about the second school strike in 1905, which was far more widespread - but doesn't merit attention by our Polish friends so far.

[RCW Mark]

Just look at yourself - you are an objective person living far away from Europe, yet you're just repeating some Soviet and German propaganda about Poland mistreating it's minorities and even census data can't change your opinion. It is pretty frustrating to continously face similar attitudes.

You should understant I'm not really arguing with you anyway, because you are prepared to say "Poland and Poles did bad things, sure thing, yet we are attributed much more than we actually done."

Are you aware how infrequent it is to see a Pole admit any fault. It's pretty frustrating!

There is a large group of Poles who refuse to accept that any decision made in the 1920s or 1930s by their ancestors was less than ideal. They then pollute any discussion about the period by insisting that their opponents never had any right to disagree -- since being Germans and Russians they are automatically the oppressor. Those prejudices continues to haunt modern Polish politics, as I'm sure you are aware.

It would be good if most Poles could accept that not everything that the Poles did in the past was ideal, getting past the persecution complex. No more of the Polish = Good, Russian and German = Bad thing.

That means accepting that in 1920 the Germans had perfectly good reasons for regarding Danzig as German. That the population of the Vilnius region, although not the city itself, had a majority population of Lithuanians. That the Ukraine actually was inhabited by Ukrainians for the most part, even if L'viv itself wasn't. That the Poles did not treat non-Poles as well as Poles in the inter-war period, even if their neighbours were worse.

I wish you luck trying to get your fellow Poles to accept these things -- ideas that are pretty much accepted outside Poland.

[henryk]

RCW Mark said:

That the population of the Vilnius region, although not the city itself, had a majority population of Lithuanians. That the Ukraine actually was inhabited by Ukrainians for the most part, even if L'viv itself wasn't. That the Poles did not treat non-Poles as well as Poles in the inter-war period, even if their neighbours were worse.

I wish you luck trying to get your fellow Poles to accept these things -- ideas that are pretty much accepted outside Poland.

Why should Poles accept false information. There have been a number of messages giving census data which show that Lithuanians were a minority in the Vilnius area and that Eastern Galicia had about the same number of Poles as Ukrainians. Yet you continue to say the opposite without source support. Perhaps it is time for you to accept the facts. It is time you gave sources to back your personal opinions.

[Mad Zeppelin]

Could we perhaps - please - start to discuss fatcs? - The problem is not that data is'nt matching, that's quite normal: but how did each side really perceive what was going on?
I'm not interested in alloting "guild" - but how did people manage to get along?

[Njorl]

Could we perhaps - please - start to discuss fatcs?

Totally agree. Could anyone post data similar to those of mine but pertaining to pre WWI Germany? That would give us some basis for comparison, whether Polish attitude to their Jewish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian citizens in 1919 - 1939 indeed was extremely similar to the attitude of the Germans to their Polish citizens from 1900 to 1920 say. Not outright oppression, but a denial of their right to a separate culture, language and identity.

I'm not interested in alloting "guild" - but how did people manage to get along?

I suspect they somehow managed to get along, with greater or lesser problems (especially in western voivodships). I remember reading opinions on Germans serving in one infantry regiment in inter-war Polish Army - as far as I remember they were better than ones on Jews or Ukrainians (I'll post them if I manage to find them).

Regards,
MJU

[Mad Zeppelin]

The "Posen Provinz" (Wielkopolska, if I get it right) was bilingual to a very wide extent. Although the German administration tried to force Poles to speak German, in practical life Poles of course were able to converse in German and Germans could understand and speak (at least a "light" version of) Polish. German children growing up in Posen Province ended up in being perfectly able to speak both languages. So, I suppose that people actually did get along better than the"official" mind (be it nationalistically German or Polish) would have it.
The province was, however, the battleground over with both nationalisms, German and Polish, did grow and become incompatible in the end. Modern German historians have dubed the province Germany's "real true colony".

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

It might be profitable to look at the German Year Books - statististical annuals - for the wartime years.

A few years ago I was looking at the German population in Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland and found that its life expectancy in 1939-40 was higher than in the Alt Reich. This must at least partially have been an inheritance of inter-war Czech rule.

It strikes me that it often doesn't much matter how well minorities prosper, their pride will frequently dictate that they yearn for their mother country regardless.

Cheers,

Sid.