[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Germans speaking Polish

[Jerry Frank]

I agree in part with your ideas, Nellie but I think you have missed 
one key factor.

That is that the marketplace language in Prussian parts of modern day 
Poland would more likely have been German.  Therefore the Pole would 
be expected to communicate in that language and here the German would 
look down on the Pole.  In the Russian portion of modern Poland, the 
official language was Polish but Germans were allowed to run there 
own German schools and therefore they retained their language and 
culture.  Here the Pole, in the majority, would look down on the 
German.  The marketplace language here would be Polish and the 
Germans would have to learn at least some of it to 
communicate.  Pastors of course were obligated to learn Polish 
because their records had to be written in the Polish language - just 
as they had to learn Russian after 1868 so they could write in that 
language when it was forced on the people.

I can't speak much for the Germans who came directly out of Russian 
Poland but those from Volhynia could often communicate in at least 4 
languages - German, Polish, Yiddish, and Russian.  They learned 
German in their schools; they needed Polish to communicate with their 
landlords and some of the residents; Yiddish was required to 
communicate with the Jews in the market towns because Volhynia was 
located within the Pale of Settlement; and Russian was essential to 
communicate when they performed military service.

I don't deny that there were prejudices even in those years but the 
language would be learned out of necessity as suited to the region 
where they lived.


Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca



At 05:20 PM 31/10/2005, Posnsrch at aol.com wrote:
>
>
>In a message dated 10/31/2005 2:12:34 P.M. Central Standard Time,
>ger-poland-volhynia-request at eclipse.sggee.org writes:
>
>
>I  have no firm facts for this but I believe that, in most cases, the
>Germans  would use German as their primary language but would know
>enough Polish to  function in the marketplace.  The pastor would be
>fluent in both  languages.
>
>
>I do have a few facts from one particular area of America (Dakotas) when it
>comes to Germans speaking Polish.
>
>My 4 lines were all German. They and other German-speaking relatives and
>friends in the Dakota Territory could not/ did not/ would not speak 
>Polish. NO
>Polish.
>
>They felt that Germans were "better" than Poles. None of the Germans were
>Catholic...they all were German Lutheran. In Germany, if the Polish people
>spoke Polish on the streets or in the marketplaces, they were 
>disciplined  by the
>German officials. (Not to say this was right, it is just the way it was  in
>the areas of Berlin, Posen, Bromberg, and Novorad, Russia, where my German
>family lived.)
>
>One of the reasons that the whole lot of them (German ancestors) came  to
>America because Germany allowed the Poles to begin to build their 
>own  schools,
>open their own churches, and the Germans had great anomosity toward  them.
>
>This was not just my family; this was a well-known attitude that was held
>with most all the Germans in Dakota Territory. Their sons and 
>daughters  could
>NOT date a Pole here in America; that brought great shame. Many small  towns
>would not allow Catholics to build a church in their towns. This applies
>certainly to all the Germans whom I knew and my gr grandparents 
>knew. It even
>continued in Mpls/St Paul in the 20's 30's and 40's. Germans would 
>not work  along
>side of "Polacks" on the assembly lines of WWII.
>
>Now, it may sound radical to say that they thought they were "better", but
>that idea was often held in the old country. i.e. Russians were better than
>Germans, Germans were better than Latvians, etc. When my grandmother was in
>Russia, the Russians would not speak German and did not respect 
>the  Germans. The
>Russians built houses, even towns, for the German workers  who came from
>Germany to work in the fields. (They even had their own  cemeteries. 
>There are
>areas that even today have the German Cemeteries behind  the Russian 
>Cemeteries,
>and the German Cemeteries are grown over with weeds and  not taken care of.)
>
>
>
>  It sounds terrible to write, but as a child, I know all of this as a  fact.
>It isn't right, but even today, prejudice and biasness is still alive
>(perhaps not toward a Polish person - perhaps toward a Mexican, a 
>Black, etc.)  It
>does not make it right, and I am just reporting the way it was. If it was
>different in the areas where some of you grew up, that is great, and 
>please  share
>with the list.
>
>Nellie, a  68-yr-old root digger