Some people say Poland is a bleak and depressing place -- some Poles themselves even say so. Given the country's turbulent history, such an assessment might have been understandable in the past. But is it still true today? The Polish flag is red and white, but perhaps it should be black and blue, for all the beatings the country has endured. Poland has been squeezed, squashed, slashed, and stolen -- and literally wiped off the map. It has been patched back together only to be brutalized by occupying forces -- first by German Nazis during World War II, and then by the Soviet Union after the war. - p. 5.