Windscreen wipers
Why were their windscreen wipers stolen?
shareprobably because in those days anything that wasn't nailed to the floor was stolen and then resold on the black market or whatever
shareOnly in those days????
I bet nowadays robbery is a bigger problem in Poland than in 1962.
I grew up in communism. I remember my father taking the wipers out every evening and bringing them home. It's not about robbery necessarily. There was a shortage of EVERYTHING in communism and people would resort to all kinds of gestures - they were desperate. I mean regular people would steal wipers - not thieves.
It's hard to undertsand if you didn't actually live through communism. Even now I find it hard to imagine those times looking back. But now I live in New York.
For more on this theme see Milos Forman's hilarious Czech movie THE FIREMEN'S BALL where all the prizes in a raffle are stolen before the raffle draw.
share"I mean regular people would steal wipers - not thieves."
What exactly does that sentence mean? Your premise is absurd, by the very definition of the word, if you steal something from someone, you are a thief.
Oh thank you for saying that! I read that post and scratched my head. I've had people say that to me before and I've had to correct them. It's amusing but also scary that some people can't see that anyone who takes what is not theirs is a thief. Even if you never stole a thing before, the minute you do, you're a thief! Obviously, it's a mindset. Some people don't see certain things as off limits. If they want it, they take it; who cares if it already belongs to someone else.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]