I am contemplaying moving to poland for my career. It is still very theoretical at this point, but if I chose to live there, what are some things to keep in mind? If it helps, I am German.
Do I need to learn Polish or can I communicate with many people there in English?

What are some cultural things to maybe brace yourself for, as a vegan, woman or queer person?

Hello, I am a trans woman living in on of the bigger cities in Poland!
Generally, if you live in one of the big cities you should be fine (most of the time). I'm am yet to have any issues, however I do avoid wandering alone at night and sketchy streets in general.
Most of the time even people I know are not tolerant will not give me too much trouble, however this might be very subjective and might vary significantly.
Sentiment online also seems to be not the nicest, and seems to be shifting a bit against our eastern friends due to political frictions and certain country doing some meddling, so I don't know what to say future-wise. It is what it is.

In terms of communication, I feel like most young people know english at least a little bit, and a lot will know it at communicative levels, however older people will most likely not know a word. It should not be a problem at all at restaurants, but might be in a grocery shop or when asking for directions at a bus stop. As a native polish speaker it might also be a bit difficult for me to say, as I don't really try to talk with people in english here lol

As for vegan stuff, well, selections are not the best, but it keeps getting better. Restaurants will often have at least 1-2 vege options, but it's not a given and I always check menu before going. Afaik Warsaw is a bit better for this, but I'd still advice to make sure you'll have anything to eat before going :D
For groceries Lidl seems to have best selection of vege stuff out of the 'common' store chains, but that is still not very wide. Luckily you can get almost everything on allegro (think amazon, but polish), so that works quite nice for some harder to find stuff you might need for cooking (as long as it's packaged ^^).

As for language, the oldest people that were taught english from the beginning of their education as a foreign language are about 35-40. People older than about 50 were taught russian instead, but because almost nobody speaks it anymore they don't, some of them learned english later especially for professional reasons. In some places especially along western border and in Silesia the primary foreign language taught is actually german so some people are trilingual but don't count on it, and these are also people who you could expect to speak good english

Strictly speaking you can even get citizenship without speaking polish (but it helps). You don't need it for residence permit (but you need an address for that) and i see that paperwork for this is done in english. Residence gets you PESEL number and this allows you to make an account in government service (called Trusted Profile) (and also an app) that allows you to do bulk of paperwork through it

In larger cities there generally are vegan options and if you cook on your own even shops in smaller cities (like 50k-20k) are supplied properly. I'd say that places like Warsaw, Wrocław or Poznań are decently tolerant, there's plenty of exchange students from any country in the world maybe except North Korea, and the worst (as in most far right support) are small towns and villages in the east. Public transit is usable to the point that i haven't needed a car for 10 years, and there's an app for that too. Like germans and unlike americans, poles don't do small talk. Contactless is accepted almost everywhere, online banking is fully usable without an app, everything that you can get shipped you can get on allegro. new SIM cards need to be registered before they can be used (ID or passport for foreigners). internet is cheap, fiber is available even in small villages and nobody gives a fuck about piracy

The vegan part of it sounds a little bit like Germany xD since you are Polish (correct me if I got that wrong) may I ask if I should be aware if anything WW2 related? How's the general sentiment towards us Germans?

Uh, there are some people who "hold a grudge", but I wouldn't expect that to be a real issue. I met a lot of people from Germany at work (automotive industry) and sentiment is generally positive, I don't think I ever heard of any incidents or complaints from them.

Some politicians (mostly in PiS) are very anti-German (their main argument against our Prime Minister is that he is somehow a 'German agent'), some give very mixed signals (our far right seems to love AfD while being proud of our WW2 heroes fighting Nazis). General public mostly do not care about Germans, except when influenced by those politics. Generally as a white person without eastern (Ukrainian or Russian) accent you should have nothing to worry about, unless you have very bad luck meeting people – most hate would be targeted to non-white and Ukrainians now (which still sucks, of course).

Just do not say you consider some parts of Poland to be German land and be careful mentioning Wrocław, Gdańsk or Szczecin ever being German cities – that would definitely trigger some people.

I can't decide if I'm happy or sad that nobody has made the obvious joke. :)

👀

Now I am curious, but also a little anxious

This is reassuring, but also... now I need to know more about polish politics. Gad damn. I'm nit gonna sleept tonight, am I? XDD

Aww., just the WWII Germany invading Poland thing, you even mentioned it.

start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_A_and_B

Of course in the automotive industry xDD Happy German engineers are still important in the field, as our automotive industriy gambles with Germanys future a little :'))

and the worst (as in most far right support) are small towns and villages in the east

why is it always the east? 😂 🥹

Thanks for your comprehensive comment. It seems both countries have more in common than I anticipated :)

Not being from Poland, I couldn’t possibly answer truthfully, so I shall gracefully duck out of this one