DBWI Poland doesn't have a colony in the new world

In 1602 the spanish empire was in deep debt and in order to pay this debt one of their diplomats went around to friendly catholic countries looking for help. One of these countries was poland, due to the relative chaos of the polish court a fraction of noblemen made a deal with spain to buy an island from them.

The Poles thought they were going to get a larger island like cuba but instead ended up buying what many considered at the time useless island of Isla de Pinos. Many felt that the country had grossly over paid for the island and several people lost their jobs.

Dispite initial misgivings the country held onto the island, and it became Poland's only colony. When the Partition happened through some oversight of diplomacy and a desire to prevent the prussians, austrians, and Russians from getting a colony in the new world by spain, england, and france the island became the only part of poland that was still free and owned by poles.

Through luck, irrelevance, and diplomacy the island remained in polish hands and grew in population as polish nationalists fled to it. The islands population grew and when the mother country regained its independence after world war 1 the Island which had declared itself the last out post of poland returned to the fold.

Then in world war 2 Poland was once again conqured by outsiders and the free polish forces fled to the Island to regroup. When the war was over the Free Polish forces were not allowed back into their former country and remained on the island. Eventally they gave up on ever regaining the motherland and became their own country.

But what if this odd turn of history didn't happen?

What would the world look like if Poland didn't have a colony in the new world?
 
Well for one we would see a lot less Polish Jews in the New World I would imagine. When Germany expelled the Jews from Poland, they mainly ended up on that island. It would be hard to imagine where they would go in an ATL where Poland didn’t have the island
 
Well for one we would see a lot less Polish Jews in the New World I would imagine. When Germany expelled the Jews from Poland, they mainly ended up on that island. It would be hard to imagine where they would go in an ATL where Poland didn’t have the island


Why not good old America? They already had a large Jewish/Ashkenazi community that came from several parts of Europe, including eastern Europe.
 
Why not good old America? They already had a large Jewish/Ashkenazi community that came from several parts of Europe, including eastern Europe.
Because America put severe limits on Jewish imigration just before WW2

Although, in defense of American society, without food and military surplus survival equipment donated by american charities, people on the island would not have survived the war
 
Because America put severe limits on Jewish imigration just before WW2

Although, in defense of American society, without food and military surplus survival equipment donated by american charities, people on the island would not have survived the war

Definitely. America has always had a hesitant relationship with it's Jewish population. On one hand, during this time, they still held very strongly to the ideals of brotherhood, equality and liberty they inherited from the French motherland during the Enlightenment. On the other hand ... well, they still shared many of the prejudices of the rest of Western Civilization.

I always felt that American culture inherited the traditional French-Poland bromance that had lasted for centuries as well, so they probably helped as well. (And it goes both ways. Poland sent support during the most recent spat of New England successionist violence in America, and their President even visited Montreal after the Senate bombing)
 
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