Poland

Core values & worldview

If you want to understand a Pole, start with the fact that for more than a century there was no Poland on the map. Between 1795 and 1918 the country was divided among Russia, Prussia and Austria, and being Polish was something you did, by speaking the language, going to Mass, reading Mickiewicz, playing Chopin, rather than something a state did for you.^•

Then, after twenty years of independence, Germany and the Soviet Union destroyed it again in 1939. Many Poles carry an instinct, handed down in family stories, that freedom is fragile and that big neighbours cannot be trusted.^•

Freedom and honour. The old motto “for our freedom and yours” is used with pride: Poles fought in the American Revolution, Napoleon’s wars, the risings of the nineteenth century, the Battle of Britain and Monte Cassino. Honor (honour) and godność (dignity) are strong words in Polish, and many Poles respond badly to being patronised, especially by larger Western countries.^•

Family and hospitality. Family remains the centre of life for most Poles, and Sunday dinner, name days and holidays bring the generations together. There is a saying, Gość w dom, Bóg w dom, “a guest in the home is God in the home”: a guest will be fed far more than they can eat, and refusing a second helping takes persistence.^•

Faith as identity. For many Poles, Catholicism is woven into national identity: through the baptism of 966, the defence of Jasna Góra against the Swedes, the Church’s role under the partitions and communism, and John Paul II. That is changing fast, but even many non-churchgoing Poles still baptise their children, marry in church and visit family graves on All Saints’ Day.^•

Irony and a habit of complaining. Poles often joke that they are a nation of grumblers and experts in everything. Under communism, ironic humour was a survival tool. Admitting things are going well can feel like tempting fate, which visitors sometimes mistake for pessimism.^•

Daily life & customs

The year has a strong Catholic rhythm. Wigilia, Christmas Eve supper, is the most important meal of the year: it starts when the first star appears, includes twelve meatless dishes and carp, and begins with family members breaking the opłatek wafer and exchanging wishes. A spare place is laid for an unexpected guest. At Easter, families take baskets of eggs, bread and sausage to church to be blessed on Holy Saturday, and on Easter Monday (Śmigus-dyngus) people soak each other with water.^•

On All Saints’ Day, 1 November, almost everyone visits family graves. Cemeteries glow at night with thousands of candles in glass lanterns, one of the most moving sights in Poland.^•

Name days (imieniny), the feast day of the saint you are named after, have traditionally been celebrated as much as birthdays, with a round of “Sto lat”.

Poles address strangers and colleagues formally as Pan (Sir) and Pani (Madam), and move to first names only when invited, sometimes with a small ritual toast called bruderszaft. Shoes come off at the door; flowers are given in odd numbers; three kisses on the cheek are a common greeting among friends and family.^•

Sport is passionate and broad: football, volleyball (the men’s team are recent world champions), ski jumping, which turns winter weekends into national TV events, and speedway motorcycle racing. Many city families have a działka, an allotment garden, or a cottage in the country.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

The Second World War. Poland lost about one in six of its citizens. Warsaw was destroyed, the elite was targeted by both occupiers, and almost every family has stories of death, deportation or forced labour.^•

The phrase “Polish death camps”, for camps that Nazi Germany built and ran in occupied Poland, causes real anger. Say “German Nazi camps in occupied Poland”.^•

Poles and Jews. For a thousand years Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, almost entirely destroyed in the Holocaust. Many Poles take pride in the thousands of Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and feel accused when Polish complicity is discussed. Many Jews remember Polish hostility as well as rescue. Historians have documented both. This is one of the most sensitive topics you can raise, and it is best approached with real knowledge and humility, not slogans from either side.^•

Katyn and Russia. The murder of about 22,000 Polish officers and others by the Soviet secret police in 1940, and fifty years of Soviet lies about it, still shape Polish feelings towards Moscow.^•

Betrayal by allies. Many Poles feel that Britain and France abandoned them in 1939, and that at Yalta in 1945 the Western powers handed Poland to Stalin. “Nothing about us without us” is an old Polish principle.^•

Volhynia. The mass murder of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in Volhynia in 1943–44, and Polish reprisals, remain a painful issue between two nations that are otherwise close allies.^•

Smolensk. The 2010 plane crash that killed the president and 95 others is still a raw and politically loaded subject.^•

Stereotypes. Old “Polish jokes” in America and the “Polish plumber” image in Western Europe, used to stoke fears of migrants, still sting.

Modern attitudes

Politics. Polish politics has been dominated since 2005 by the rivalry between Law and Justice (PiS), national-conservative and Catholic, and the liberal, pro-European Civic Platform (now Civic Coalition) led by Donald Tusk. PiS governed from 2015 to 2023 and clashed with the EU over the courts; a broad coalition under Tusk took over after the October 2023 election, which had the highest turnout since 1989. In 2025 voters narrowly elected Karol Nawrocki, backed by PiS, as president, keeping the country closely divided.^•

Religion and morality. A 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that almost completely banned abortion set off the largest protests since 1989, led by young women. The share of Catholics in the census fell from 87.6% in 2011 to 71.3% in 2021, and those refusing to answer the question rose to about a fifth.^•

Security and the world. Poles are strongly pro-NATO and pro-American, and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine brought out an extraordinary wave of help: nearly a million Ukrainians were living in Poland under temporary protection in early 2025. Defence spending is the highest in NATO as a share of GDP.^•

Migration. A country of emigrants has quickly become a country of immigrants, mostly from Ukraine and Belarus but increasingly from Asia. Poles have welcomed Ukrainians far more readily than migrants from the Middle East and Africa, and a hardline stance on the Belarus border since 2021 has wide support.^•

Not all Poles are the same

“Poland A” and “Poland B”. The wealthier, more liberal west and big cities and the poorer, more rural and more conservative east vote very differently. Historians point out that the dividing line roughly follows the old border between the German and Russian partitions.^•

Generations. Grandparents may remember the war or Stalinism; parents grew up under late communism and the hard 1990s; young Poles have known only the EU, cheap flights and smartphones. Young Poles are much less religious and more liberal than their parents, though young men have also swung towards the nationalist right.^•

Regions and minorities. Silesians, with their own dialect and strong regional identity, and Kashubians on the Baltic coast have campaigned for recognition of their languages. Poland is home to small Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, German, Roma, Tatar and Jewish communities, and the Jewish community, though small, is growing more visible.^•

Believers and secular Poles. Some Poles are devout; others are angry with the Church over its politics and its handling of sexual abuse; many are somewhere in between.^•

Polonia. Millions of people of Polish descent live abroad, in the United States (especially Chicago), Germany, Britain, Ireland, Canada, France and Brazil. Many Poles who left after 2004 have since returned.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Food. Pierogi, żurek, your favourite grandmother’s dish, or the twelve dishes of Wigilia are safe, warm topics.
• Their city or region. Kraków versus Warsaw is a friendly rivalry; Gdańsk, Wrocław and the mountains around Zakopane are all sources of pride.
• Culture and science. Chopin, Skłodowska-Curie, Copernicus, Szymborska, The Witcher, or Polish cinema.
• Sport. Robert Lewandowski, volleyball or ski jumping.
• Their family’s story. Many Poles have family that moved, often more than once: from the eastern borderlands to the west, abroad and back again. Listen.

Topics to approach carefully

• The Holocaust and Polish–Jewish relations. Avoid “Polish death camps”, and don’t assume either collective guilt or collective innocence.^•
  • Poland Holocaust law: Government U-turn on jail threat — BBC News, BBC (2018)
  • The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland — Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic (eds), Princeton University Press (2004)
• Domestic politics. Families are split between PiS and Civic Coalition; find out where someone stands before making jokes.^•
  • Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom — Brian Porter-Szűcs, Wiley-Blackwell (2014)
• Smolensk, abortion and the Church. All can be painful and polarising.
• Russia. Most Poles are deeply distrustful of the Russian state; romanticising it, or “explaining” its war, will land badly.^•
  • Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment — Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva and Wojciech Materski (eds), Yale University Press (2007)
  • Poland and Poles as seen by Ukrainians 2023 — Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue (fieldwork by Info Sapiens), Juliusz Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue (2023)

Common misconceptions

• “Poland is in Eastern Europe.” Most Poles see themselves as Central Europeans, with a thousand-year history tied to the Latin West.^•
  • Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2001)
• “Poland is poor.” Poland has been one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies since 1989 and is classed as a high-income country.^•
  • Poland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
• “Poles are all devout Catholics.” Faith still matters, but Poland is secularising quickly, especially among the young.^•
  • National Population and Housing Census 2021: national and ethnic, linguistic and religious structure — Statistics Poland (GUS), Główny Urząd Statystyczny (2023)
• “Poles and Russians are basically the same.” The languages are related, but Poles are Catholic, use the Latin alphabet and have spent centuries resisting Russian rule.^•
  • God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
• “Poland only suffered in the war; or Poland was complicit.” Both are half-truths. Poland was a victim of two occupiers and had no collaborationist government, while some individual Poles also took part in persecuting Jews.^•
  • Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin — Timothy Snyder, Basic Books (2010)
  • Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland — Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski (eds), Indiana University Press / Yad Vashem (2022)