The growth of telephone helplines in Poland is as good a sign as any that the country is taking every opportunity to air its problems and talk to itself, as it continues its journey of transformation.
Among the lines dealing with alcohol or HIV, you will find one which says a lot about the secrets which society here is still trying to deal with: s a helpline for people trying to find out more about their Jewish identity, a subject which was long suppressed.
The Jewish Hotline has been operating in Warsaw every Thursday evening since October last year and has received hundreds of calls. Some of these are from people who have always wondered about a grandparent whose background was glossed over; some had been sheltered during the second World War by foster parents who concealed their origins and raised them as Catholics; some are just curious about a piece of family history which had not meant much to them until recently.
The helpline is just part of a revival of Jewish life in Poland. It is a community overshadowed by the unparalleled crimes of the Holocaust, many of which were perpetrated by the Nazis on Polish soil at Auschwitz and Treblinka.
The country suffered terribly under Soviet and Nazi occupation in the second World War, and half of the 6 million Polish citizens who died were Jewish.
Many of the few hundred thousand Jews who managed to survive the Holocaust and return to Poland left again, as pogroms and anti-Semitism continued - 2,000 Jews were killed in pogroms in the years immediately after the war.
There were 3.3 million Jews in Poland in the 1930s - the largest Jewish population in Europe. The official figure is now less than 8,000, although community leaders think it must be at least double this.
So it is hardly surprising that a Jewish ancestor or identity would often have been concealed. There are many different stories about how the truth emerges. Sometimes it is a secret revealed by a parent on their deathbed, or it might emerge in papers afterwards. Questions may eventually be asked about someone in old family photographs wearing Jewish dress.
One man discovered he was both adopted and Jewish after 30 years as a Catholic priest; he had an uncle who was a Hasidic Jew, and he finally understood why his foster father had been so opposed to him going into religious life.
People who contact the helpline are given the chance to meet others and to experience more of Jewish life. Some of these activities have been funded by the US-based Lauder Foundation, and one of the driving forces is Rabbi Michael Schudrich. He is a colourful and outspoken New Yorker who has been based in Warsaw since the early 1990s. He talks of people "coming out of the closet" as they connect with their Jewish identity.
"We try to create the smorgasbord of Jewish life for them, through lectures and social evenings. We're open to anyone with Jewish roots. We're not in the business of deciding who is a Jew and who is not, we're in the business of educating people."
He estimates there are about 15,000 Jews in the country, taking a working definition as "some one who has at least one Jewish parent, is identifying in some way with Jewish life, and is doing something about it". Half of these people were not practising Jews five years ago, he says , and a high percentage did not know that they had Jewish roots.
There are now three rabbis serving the nine communities in Poland - a decade ago there were none. Warsaw - a quarter of whose population was Jewish before the war - was without a synagogue until it reopened in 1983. There now is a kindergarten, and the school is oversubscribed.
Anti-Semitism is, however, alive and well in Poland, in a way which is as shocking in its sometimes casual and offhand manner as anything else. Public figures appear to feel free to make remarks about Jewish people which might be said in private in other countries.
A prominent priest closely associated with the leadership of Solidarity has been disciplined by his bishop after a series of public statements about the Jewish threat to Poland.
Last February, the entrance to the Warsaw synagogue was left blackened and charred by an arson attempt. What was also significant was the public reaction. Although it was condemned publicly by most political and religious leaders, the Jewish community feels this was not as spontaneous or as immediate as it might have been.
"There's anti-Semitism in Poland, as there is in many countries," says Rabbi Schudrich. "It's more irksome than problematic. But it's completely unacceptable at whatever level, and now is the time to tackle it."
That's one of the tasks facing the emerging generation of Jewish people. But by their very presence, they are at least disproving one half of the cliche about Poland: that it is a country with anti-Semites but no Jews.
Walt Kilroy is taking part in the Paris-based Journalists in Europe study programme while on leave of absence from RTE.