Would you think of sandy beaches and magic mountains, lavish lakes and wonders of nature when you think of Poland? Or beautiful cities with great architecture, scientific and artistic achievments? No? Most people don't. The image of Poland might not be the best. Most people think of the holocaust and the beginning of World War II, when they think of Poland. 1 million of Jews killed in the – Polish – concentration camp of Auschwitz – Oświęcim – in Polish. Some people may think of the cold war and many partitions and arbitrarily drawn borders shifting the country from East to West by the will of kings, empresses and fuhrers and general secretaries. They think of Poland as a victim. Within the former East Bloc, it didn't really shine, too. Czeckoslovakia had Prague, Hungary had Budapest and Lake Balaton and the German Democratic Republic as communist manifestation of a once powerful German state with Berlin, Dresden and countless family connections between East and West and the pulsating sting of freedom in the territory of the GDR was in a league of its own, as was Russia with its centennaries of Czarist splendor of St. Petersburg and Moscow, the 14 other Soviet Republics which were in principle sovereign, were completely overlooked. Bulgaria still had the Black Sea Coast and nobody knew anything about Albania or Albanians until the Yugoslav Wars, notably the Kosovo War in the 1990ies. Ok, Romania probably had a worse image than Poland. 

But Poland is and was so much more. Because it is historically closest to us, Poland and the Polish people with its Solidarność figurhead Leach Wałęsa and to some extent, the Polish Pope John Paul II were instrumental in bringing down the Iron Curtain and the Berlin wall as well as the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of (Soviet-)Communism in our short 20th century. The fall of the dictatorships and the reunification of Germany and Europe was a direct response to the fight for freedom of the Polish people. I still remember the optimism and positiv mood we all had in the 90ies and early 2000s. Europe and notably Germany has to thank the Poles for this. The irony is that Europe and especially Germany – in all its iterations as Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (with Austria at its helm), the Teutonic Order, Prussia, the German Empire and the most devilish German Reich under the Nazis  – has always played badly with Poland. Of course the Austrian Empire and Imperial Russia have readily taken part in the 3 partitions of Poland.

The Southern chunk of Polands Silesia and Lesser Poland became part of the Habsburg Kindom of Galicia and Lodomeria with Cracow as its capital and Lviv as the easternmost metropolis of the Austrian Empire, whereas Eastern Poland was added to Czarist Russia's regions Belarus and Ukraine.

In earlier centuries, Poland was one of the great powers in Europe and stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Rzeczpospolita an elective monarchy with a strong Polish-Lithuanian nobility and relatively weak Polish King and Lithuanian Grand Duke. The Rzeczpospolita once even came close to dealing a fatal blow to an emerging Russia in 1610 and 1633 when the old Rurikid dynasty of Ivan the Terrible died out and the Romanovs took over after a short intermezzo by Boris Gudonow, ursupator and primarily know due to Pushkin's novel and Mussorgski's opera of the same name.

In 1683, the Polish King Jan Sobieski and his army saved Christendom by sending a relief army to Vienna by fighting of the Ottomans during the Second Siege of Vienna. Many historians agree that this was one of the historical turning points that decided history in one direction or the other, like the victory of the Greeks over the Persians at Salamis. A few centuries later, the Habsburgs thanked the Polish gratefully by annexing huge parts of their country. Well, you could argue that - if the Austrians had not participated in the partition - they could have a worse fate by rather becoming Prussian or Russian and the Austrians only took part in 2 of the 3 partitions. It's all good, right? To my astonishment, I realized that Austrian rule is vied with noastalgic feelings by many in Cracow. You will find plenty of souvenirs with Empress Elisabeth - Sisi - of Austria and other Imperial Austrian memorabilia. You'll notice clearly Austrian architectural influences like in every major town of the former Empire and many cultural similarities – from coffee house culture to cuisine. The other two occupying powers are on a completely different page. The Polish and Germans start getting along, but the Russians were regareded as brutal occupiers. Current political developments emanating from Russia and its leader Vladimier Putin are exacerbating the situation and there are only very few Polish who consider Vladimir Putin anything other than the devil himself.

These partitions till have effects today in infrastructure, demography, political preferences etc.

I have a very personal relationship with Poland, in particular with its Capital Warsaw.