Nice comments people. I read your replies with pleasure, Jaga, Raytan, Skeeterj, Carl, Karl, Joasia and Eric.
Jaga,
I use your centance and replace it with other words and the content is more or less the same, for the recent past:
The German-Duch relations were strange. Germans would like to see Duch people as brothers whereas the Duch (always) seemed afraid to be... Germanized.
But things change, because positive developments during decades. Yugoslavian and Croat presidents apologised to eachothers populations for the crimes both sides commited in the "civil-war".
Duch have a positive attitude towards the present generation of Germans, and see Germany as one of their favorite countries (biggest trade partner, holiday destination and etc.). The same with Poles and Ukranians, and Poles and Germans. A Polish cousin of mine maried a German, with the full aproval of her family. Decades ago Duch or Polish families would not be happy when their daughter would come home with a "kraut" (in Duch "Mof"). Nowadays you hardly hear that swearword anywhere. Only old people (my fahter) use it when they talk about the war, and the German occupiers. I am stil interested how the relationship between Poles from one side and Chechs and Slowaks on the other side is? My mother said that Chechs and Poles are not fond of eachother. I like Chechia and the Chech though. I would see no reason why to dislike Chech people, because I like their country (Bohemia) like I like Poland. But I as a Western-European maybe can not see the differances between two East-European countries. I only see simularities in atmosphere, certain traditions (maybe preserved under communism, while they vaded away in the West), and the communist heritage. When I see or hear things from the east which sound Slavian I am interested.
I do however not always see the destinction between languages and cultures. Maybe that's the reason for my pan-slavian interest. Culture, art and music crosses borders, like the unification of Europe does!
