Well, actually - my great uncle happened to use his real name in all his 'professional' work (ie, fighting Nazis and Communists), but went by a pseudonym as far as regular living was concerned.
Besides - fake names weren't always quite used the way you mean, either. It would be more like, say, Jan Kowalski, pseudonim 'Wilczek', where Kowalski would be his real name, but for spy stuff, he'd go by just Wilczek [little wolf] - thus he'd still appear on the list as Jan Kowalski.
So in fact - the real list does contain an abundance of correct names. It's just that we don't know who was bad, who was good, the list has been changed 100 times over, and there's always a chance that the name you found actually belongs to somebody else...
Heh... Well, contrary to popular opinion, the letter V doesn't exist in the Polish language. It would've been Bondokowski. And a different name.
There isn't any number 007, either, since all the numbers are file numbers, which means they're long, and have letters.
Too bad slashdot said the list contains spies. Most of them weren't spies, but either snitches, or victims, or completely innocents either way.
I've been reading the news lately due to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and way too many newspapers worldwide either don't mention the non-Jewish victims at all, or - in fact - refer to the camp as a Polish concentration camp. It hurts a hell of a lot, when you're Polish, when you live near Oswiecim (Auschwitz), when you hear people say things like that, and know others will take it and believe it.
My family had a few people in Auschwitz, and although as far as I know all of them survived it one way or another, hearing how Auschwitz was Jews-only, and made by the Poles, just makes it seem to me as if the Nazis won after all.
Well, I live in Poland, and the fact of the matter is I don't really get people.
Take my case, for example. My surname doesn't appear on the list at all, nor does my Mom's maiden name, but I happen to have had a family member who was very, very high on the list of people who were seriously against the Communistic regime and were definitely not to be trusted by the regime. Over the war, he was among those who fought a Maquis-type battle in Poland against the Nazis. Now, this man, my great uncle if I'm correct, had adopted a different surname to use in Poland (since his real name - same as mine - was recognized everywhere due to his actions). I searched Wildstein's List for it figuring that he should've had a file. Indeed, there are ten names that could be him - same first name, same surname. But how can I be sure that any of these are actually him?
See, the thing is, there's 240000 people on that list. That's a lot, yes. But if you happen to notice the name of a person you know, it doesn't mean nothing. Because there's 40 million people in the country, and probably another 5-10 million people who either aren't alive anymore, or live outside of the country. That's a whole lot more. The chances that the person you saw on the list is the person you know are perhaps big, but they're far from being even near 100%.
That said, there's also the whole bad guy versus good guy thing, cos both guys had their own files, and the original coding system of said files (which apparently shows who was which) isn't included with the list. So seeing a familiar name doesn't even mean anything, because - even if it IS the person you're thinking about - they might've just as well been good and gotten written up for that. They might've been snitched on by someone else and ended up there. They might've been forced to work for the Communists in some capacity so the Communists wouldn't figure out what they really did - and that happened a whole lot too. For that matter, their only crime might've been their profession. Journalists, for instance, or policemen, or clergymen, or nuclear physicists... the list goes on and on.
Not to mention there isn't any version of the list that one can be 100% sure of. Not one that's available to the public, anyway, since everyone who has access to the file can change it over any which way they want, then post it on their own site.
In effect, the list means nothing at all.
Well, almost nothing.
It does show how very much the population of this country needs to find out the truth, because everyone is still so unsure of everything that happened in those years back then. That it's more important than pornographical sites says it all.
Personally, I'm not sure what to think of it. It's good that it's been released, I think - since it should make for a good stepping stone for finally releasing the truth (up to now, as far as I know, the only way to find out if you had a file, was to go to Warsaw personally - and not many people can afford the money, or time, to do that). But it's put madness into the society, because few people realize that having your name on that list means, in fact, little to nothing. Unless of course you have a very rare surname. Like mine. My family has nothing to fear, apparently.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, actually - my great uncle happened to use his real name in all his 'professional' work (ie, fighting Nazis and Communists), but went by a pseudonym as far as regular living was concerned.
Besides - fake names weren't always quite used the way you mean, either. It would be more like, say, Jan Kowalski, pseudonim 'Wilczek', where Kowalski would be his real name, but for spy stuff, he'd go by just Wilczek [little wolf] - thus he'd still appear on the list as Jan Kowalski.
So in fact - the real list does contain an abundance of correct names. It's just that we don't know who was bad, who was good, the list has been changed 100 times over, and there's always a chance that the name you found actually belongs to somebody else...
Heh... Well, contrary to popular opinion, the letter V doesn't exist in the Polish language. It would've been Bondokowski. And a different name. There isn't any number 007, either, since all the numbers are file numbers, which means they're long, and have letters. Too bad slashdot said the list contains spies. Most of them weren't spies, but either snitches, or victims, or completely innocents either way.
Thank goodness for people like you.
I've been reading the news lately due to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and way too many newspapers worldwide either don't mention the non-Jewish victims at all, or - in fact - refer to the camp as a Polish concentration camp. It hurts a hell of a lot, when you're Polish, when you live near Oswiecim (Auschwitz), when you hear people say things like that, and know others will take it and believe it.
My family had a few people in Auschwitz, and although as far as I know all of them survived it one way or another, hearing how Auschwitz was Jews-only, and made by the Poles, just makes it seem to me as if the Nazis won after all.
Darn, I didn't know I should add br's into that. First time post and all that, and I can't figure out how to change it... Sorry!
Well, I live in Poland, and the fact of the matter is I don't really get people. Take my case, for example. My surname doesn't appear on the list at all, nor does my Mom's maiden name, but I happen to have had a family member who was very, very high on the list of people who were seriously against the Communistic regime and were definitely not to be trusted by the regime. Over the war, he was among those who fought a Maquis-type battle in Poland against the Nazis. Now, this man, my great uncle if I'm correct, had adopted a different surname to use in Poland (since his real name - same as mine - was recognized everywhere due to his actions). I searched Wildstein's List for it figuring that he should've had a file. Indeed, there are ten names that could be him - same first name, same surname. But how can I be sure that any of these are actually him? See, the thing is, there's 240000 people on that list. That's a lot, yes. But if you happen to notice the name of a person you know, it doesn't mean nothing. Because there's 40 million people in the country, and probably another 5-10 million people who either aren't alive anymore, or live outside of the country. That's a whole lot more. The chances that the person you saw on the list is the person you know are perhaps big, but they're far from being even near 100%. That said, there's also the whole bad guy versus good guy thing, cos both guys had their own files, and the original coding system of said files (which apparently shows who was which) isn't included with the list. So seeing a familiar name doesn't even mean anything, because - even if it IS the person you're thinking about - they might've just as well been good and gotten written up for that. They might've been snitched on by someone else and ended up there. They might've been forced to work for the Communists in some capacity so the Communists wouldn't figure out what they really did - and that happened a whole lot too. For that matter, their only crime might've been their profession. Journalists, for instance, or policemen, or clergymen, or nuclear physicists... the list goes on and on. Not to mention there isn't any version of the list that one can be 100% sure of. Not one that's available to the public, anyway, since everyone who has access to the file can change it over any which way they want, then post it on their own site. In effect, the list means nothing at all. Well, almost nothing. It does show how very much the population of this country needs to find out the truth, because everyone is still so unsure of everything that happened in those years back then. That it's more important than pornographical sites says it all. Personally, I'm not sure what to think of it. It's good that it's been released, I think - since it should make for a good stepping stone for finally releasing the truth (up to now, as far as I know, the only way to find out if you had a file, was to go to Warsaw personally - and not many people can afford the money, or time, to do that). But it's put madness into the society, because few people realize that having your name on that list means, in fact, little to nothing. Unless of course you have a very rare surname. Like mine. My family has nothing to fear, apparently.