Talk:The Holocaust in Poland

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Mass shootings

Why did you remove the entire paragraph on mass executions in eastern Poland after June 1941 (this edit)? Explain yourself because it looks

WP:DISRUPTIVE. Marcelus (talk) 18:50, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Any particular "you"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:03, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I forget to ping @buidhe Marcelus (talk) 21:07, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I explained earlier, the cited sources for this section mostly referred to the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, not the Holocaust in Poland. The figure of 1.5 million or so shooting deaths, for example, refers to Soviet Jews, not polish Jews. I'm not convinced that it makes sense to divide the article by killing method since in Poland shooting and deportation was often combined or occurred at the same place or time. (t · c) buidhe 21:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe I assume your good faith so I explain once again: the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland in September 1939, when Germany attacked the Soviets in 1941 they also invaded the Polish lands under Soviet occupation. On these lands they carried out mass shootings. This is part of the Holocaust in Poland and it is not my POV, but the teaching of most literature. Without these shootings, the figure of 3 million Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust should be reduced by up to a third.
If you think the figure of 1.5 million is overstated, find a better one, but don't remove the whole paragraph because it is a distortion of history. Here are the figures I have: according to Snyder ("Bloodlands") "1.3 million Polish Jews were murdered - usually by arrows - east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line", according to Dariusz Libionka it was more than 750,000. The estimates vary, but they are there and they refer to Polish Jews. Marcelus (talk) 21:49, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you have sources that refer to the Holocaust in Poland, rather than the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, I would be interested to see them. The ones that were cited about Soviet Jews include places like Russia, the Baltics, eastern Belarus etc. that are not reasonable to consider part of Poland by any definition.
A significant number were also shot farther west in places like the General Governorate—this is already covered in the "liquidation of ghettos" section and can be covered to a greater extent there. (t · c) buidhe 22:15, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe Please restore this paragraph first. Because without it, 750-1.3 million Polish Jewish victims of the Holocaust who lost their lives on Polish territory disappear. And this is a serious violation of historical truth.
And as for the sources, I have already listed them. The first off the top of my head is Tim Snyder, Bloodlands, 2015 p. 258-259. Marcelus (talk) 22:45, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can't verify this. Perhaps I'm looking at a different version of the book, but the only time I find the phrase "1.3 million Polish Jews" in Snyder (p. 273) he is talking about the number of victims of Operation Reinhard. (t · c) buidhe 23:16, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter, really. If you can't verify such a basic information it says a lot about sources you are using, and really seems like you shouldn't edit this article. Please resotre the missing paragraph, or I will have to report it on the noticeboard, as a historical distortion. As I said I assumed your good faith, but since I already explained you the history of the Holocause in Poland and the importance of this paragraph for this history, you leave me no other option. Marcelus (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Marcelus, could you quote more from the source about 1.3 number as victims of mass shootings? Is this perhaps a foreign-language edition? Because it's not possible for it to say "arrows".
The number itself seems to be high. I found a source that states that "between 1.3 and 1.4 million polish jews were still living" in the Soviet zone of occupation on the eve of Barbarossa, of which 100,000 escaped into the Soviet hinterland: Polish Jews in the Soviet Union (1939–1959). It does not seem feasible that more Jews were shot than were "on hand", so to speak. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I translated via deepl qoute from the Polish version of the Bloodlands, and checked the exact page on the English version, but didn't verify the text itself, of course it says: The 1.3 million or so Polish Jews on the eastern side of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line were subject to shooting from June 1941, and most of their number would be killed in 1942. And now while I'm reading this it occured to me that Snyder is giving the overall number of Polish Jews under the Soviet occupation, not the number of executed. Sorry for that mistake. Marcelus (talk) 07:41, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But on the page 275 he is saying: Of the million or so Soviet Jews killed in the Holocaust, fewer than one percent died at Auschwitz. Of the three million or so Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust, only about seven percent perished at Auschwitz. Nearly 1.3 million Polish Jews were killed, usually shot, east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line. Another 1.3 million or so Polish Jews were gassed in Operation Reinhard in the General Government - that was the actual source of my original qoute. Marcelus (talk) 07:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, if the victims weren't Jewish it doesn't count, Marcelus. Roma, homosexuals, Poles... /me bites tongue.... are all supposed to be treated in separate hypothetical articles. Which don't exist. As for you, GGS, as I pointed out previously, the article history is illuminating. Elinruby (talk) 20:41, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you even mean? Articles like
Romani genocide etc etc absolutely exist. What's the relevance to this talk page section? (t · c) buidhe 21:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I was at one point neutral on whether "Holocaust" should include these groups, but you are making it hard to remain so. Perhaps you don't realize how you come across.
Basically, you are saying that they should get separate but equal treatment, which makes me uncomfortable, along with your strange opposition to including Polish deaths. You can't find any materials on the Holocaust in Poland? Really? You were just a party to a whole Arbcom case about materials about the Holocaust in Poland. Yes yes, so was I, but I'm not the one complaining that it's hard to find such sources.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to you that every subtopic of the Holocaust will to some degree need to be refactored because of your unilateral rewrite. This is the epitome of disruption, and I say this as someone cleaning up after you.
Also, look at all the ink that got spilled over at The Holocaust over exactly this point, and you just now respond, here, on another page, in a manner that makes it crystal clear that you don't. Get. It.
The rules, policies, guidelines and essays of Wikipedia all apply to you also. I have an issue with a lede that doesn't reflect the body, and a topic that doesn't reflect its subtopics. We can discuss this civilly if you like, but your behaviour so far indicates that you prefer to deflect even well-intentioned and constructive criticism onto those who are offering it to you. It really isn't that hard to learn to agree with constructive criticism, Buidhe, or at least stop rejecting it out of hand.
Stop stonewalling. You've got a well-earned logged warning for exactly the behaviour you're displaying here. I suggest you give Marcelus a better response than you just did, and stop trying to attack me. I myself am still deep in AGF and don't plan to take you back to AE unless you make me. So enough with the fear responses to comments on content.
I say this with some concern for you. I don't like the way you treat other editors, nor the way you try to OWN topics, but I understand what you said to Nishidani, that you wrote it the best you could. As do we all. This is why it is important that we help one another, and allow ourselves to be helped. Elinruby (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: while some shortening might be good, wholesale removal of long-standing content is not likely to be a best practice. I'd suggest slight shortening/clarifying that some sources consider those events part of The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. It would be good to see what Polish historiography says on this topic. This could be relevant, sadly, I am having trouble accessing it right now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:01, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Minor update: whatever error they were having, it's fixed. In either case, it's pretty clear that Polish historiography, as shown by this paper (which should be machine translatable), studies this topic and considers those people to be Poles (ethnic Poles, Polish Jews, Polish citizens of other ethnicities, etc.), not Soviet citizens. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Related noticeboard activity

[1] Elinruby (talk) 21:27, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Soviet or Polish Jews in the areas invaded in 1941

For what it's worth, it seems most books about the Holocaust list these victims as Soviet Jews, for example:

  • "Almost 900,000 Soviet Jews were murdered during such operations under German control in 1941" (Gerlach, p.70)
  • Longerich 2010: section "MASS EXECUTIONS OF JEWS IN THE OCCUPIED SOVIET ZONES, 1941". There is no mention of "Polish Jews" in this section; the next mention of "Polish Jews" is on page 264 in the next part, "Genesis of the Final Solution on a European Scale", section "Reflections on the Fate of the Polish Jews in the Summer of 1941" (referring to the areas occupied by Germany in 1939)
  • Beorn 2018, chapter "War of Annihilation: The Invasion of the Soviet Union"—no mention of "Polish Jews" in this chapter. There are a few mentions of "Poland", most of them comparing the Nazi policies in Poland in 1939 to the Soviet Union in 1941, although it does mention the Lviv pogrom as happening in Poland.
  • Dan Stone 2023 The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, same comparison of "Soviet Union" and "Poland" (“Yet if what had happened since September 1939 in Poland was shocking, what would take place in the Soviet Union after June 1941 was of another order still”), no mention of "Polish Jews" in the chapter "War of Annihilation" dealing with the invasion of the Soviet Union
  • Cesarani 2016, Final Solution: does mention Polish Jews three times in the "Barbarossa" chapter, but all of them refer to Jews living west of the areas invaded in 1941

I think these sources substantiate my concern that Reichskommissariat Ostland and other areas east of Bialystok and the General Governorate are most often not considered part of the Holocaust in Poland. (t · c) buidhe 23:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then we can mention this in the text. It is consistent with World War II casualties of Poland claim that "Contemporary Russian sources include Poland's losses in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union with Soviet war dead" - and I guess Soviet propaganda seeped through to many Western sources over the years. Just like many estimates conflate Soviet with Russia, ommitting Ukraine (see World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union#Estimates_of_losses_by_individual_Republics for context). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Great, so all five of these historians are all infected by Soviet propaganda? Any evidence to back up this claim?
I realize the question of nationality is not straightforward when it comes to areas that were part of Russia prior to World War I, part of Poland for about 20 years (although most of these areas had a majority non-Polish-speaking population), then part of the Soviet Union for about 2 years. That's why I think we should follow how most reliable sources on the topic divide it up. (t · c) buidhe 07:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS. I'll ping User:Dreamcatcher25 who knows much more than me about what Polish historiography may say about this. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:50, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think these sources substantiate my concern that Reichskommissariat Ostland and other areas east of Bialystok and the General Governorate are most often not considered part of the Holocaust in Poland, and you are judging on what, because none of your sources actually confirm that. Obviously works that describe the entire history of the Holocaust may, for the sake of argument, use this and that choice of terms, which, for example, will speak of Jews killed in Polish lands occupied by the Soviets as "Soviet Jews". But this is irrelevant to us. Especially for this article. Following your logic, we can't talk about
Holocaust in Ukraine
will cover the area of Ukraine within modern borders; and the fact that they will overlap geographically is no problem.
Also you are ignoring sources that are more precise. For example: Snyder, Bloodlands, 2015, p. 275: Of the million or so Soviet Jews killed in the Holocaust, fewer than one percent died at Auschwitz. Of the three million or so Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust, only about seven percent perished at Auschwitz. Nearly 1.3 million Polish Jews were killed, usually shot, east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line. Another 1.3 million or so Polish Jews were gassed in Operation Reinhard in the General Government. Or Yad Vashem: In June 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans began to imprison the rest of Polish Jewry in ghettos and to deport them to concentration and slave labor camps.
Or look at the numbers given by USHMM: Poland. Jewish population of Poland in 1937: 3,350,000. Deaths: 2,770,000–3,000,000 and Soviet Union. Jewish population of the Soviet Union in 1939: 3,028,538. Deaths: approximately 1,340,000. There is a clear distinction here and the inclusion of Jews murdered in Soviet-occupied territories after 1939 among the victims of the Holocaust in Poland. As I said, without them, the number of Holocaust victims in Poland would have been smaller by one third. Marcelus (talk) 08:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good point about Lithuania (also,
Holocaust in Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia...). Some sources simplify things, others go into detail. This article is one where we go into detail in the context of Polish citizens and Polish territories, even if one or the other or both was not universally recognized back then or later. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:49, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Exactly, besides, we should check the sources which have the same scope as the article, so "Holocaust in Poland", not Holocaust in general. Marcelus (talk) 14:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Polish citizens" and "Polish territories" according to what standard? They became (mostly) Soviet citizens and Soviet territories in 1939 and for the most part haven't been Polish since then. Besides, by your own proposed standard, it is not as if Bloodlands is about the Holocaust in Poland either. Maybe they are covered in sources whose stated topic is the Holocaust in Poland, but I'd like to see it. (t · c) buidhe 17:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Polish citizens" and "Polish territories" according to what standard?. What kind of argument is it? By the same standards by which the territories occupied and their inhabitants by Germany were "Polish." Or do you deny that too? Perhaps you have sources in which Poland did not exist at all?
Maybe they are covered in sources whose stated topic is the Holocaust in Poland, but I'd like to see it, for what? So you can remove them also? Marcelus (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe try wp:agf? (t · c) buidhe 19:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, I was assuming your good faith until I explained you the history of the Holocaust in Poland, in other words your only excuse was an ignorance. Marcelus (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What standard, hmmm. Would you like to rename 1941 pogroms in eastern Poland to 1941 pogroms in eastern Germany or 1941 pogroms in western USSR? Also, does it mean that in Jedawbne, Soviet/German Jews were killed by Soviets or just Germans? Do elaborate on your logic, I find it... fascinating. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:31, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe, Piotrus, and Marcelus: In Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands (Polish edition, 2011, p. 442) I found such interesting assesment (my rough translation from Polish):

In historical works on the Holocaust, individuals residing east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line are often labeled as Soviet Jews. However, this description is imprecise as in 1939, at the outbreak of war, the majority of Jews who were later murdered in that region, held Polish citizenship rather than Soviet citizenship. Referring to them as Soviet Jews also reinforces a narrative that marginalizes or overlooks the Soviet invasion and occupation of its western neighbors. If these individuals were considered Soviet Jews, it would imply that their homeland was the Soviet Union and that the war began with the German invasion of the USSR [in 1941 - D25]. In reality, however, the war commenced with the German-Soviet alliance [in 1939 - D25] resulted in the destruction of Poland, placing the Jews in question within the borders of the enlarged USSR.

Hope it helps to some extent.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 19:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that settles it. Marcelus (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews, 2003, p. 301: In Kraków the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (BdS) of the Generalgouvernement, SS-Oberführer Schöngarth, organized three small Kommandos. In the middle of July these Kommandos moved into the eastern Polish areas and, with headquarters in Lvov, Brest-Litovsk, and Białystok, respectively, killed tens of thousands of Jews. Marcelus (talk) 08:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Archives missing from box

The box listing Archives for this page is missing the links to Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/February, Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/March, Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/May, and Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/June. I can't see how to fix it, so will ask around to see if anyone else does. DuncanHill (talk) 20:46, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It has now been fixed. DuncanHill (talk) 21:15, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@
discussion forks. After starting a discussion here, it would have been better to link to here ([[Talk:The Holocaust in Poland#Archives missing from box]]) at the village pump discussion or the other way around. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Failed verification

[2] While it's possible that we are looking at different versions of the book, the text is not on the cited pages of the 2003 edition. Oddly, the one I'm looking at does discuss Poland on these pages, but still does not support the text, which makes me wonder what is going on. Could you provide quotes from the source? I am not entirely sure Weimar Republic policies are relevant to discuss, but that is secondary to the verifiability issue. (t · c) buidhe 17:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Various laws of interwar Germany aimed at Polish Jews are discussed by Hilberg on pages 188-189. It's weird that you can't find them. Marcelus (talk) 20:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, can you provide a quote from the source that supports the content? (t · c) buidhe 01:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A second factor was the German perception of Polish Jewry. These Jews were at the bottom for some time. They had been singled out and targeted repeatedly before the war. In recent memory were the thousands who had been transported from Germany to the Polish frontier in 1938. Fifteen years earlier individual Jews holding Polish citizenship had been deported as undesirable by the Bavarian Government. Still earlier, on April 23, 1918, Polish Jews who were unskilled laborers and who had sought entry into Germany’s eastern provinces were banned by the Prussian Interior Ministry on the ground that they were not interested in work but immigration, and that they were morally unreliable as well as physically unclean, carrying typhus to Germany. Armed with such conceptualizations, the Nazi regime in Poland was less considerate and more drastic than in Germany itself. Typically, no concessions were made to Polish Jews who had been veterans of the German or Austro-Hungarian armies in the First World War. There was little hesitation to produce housing densities for Polish Jews that were far higher than those for German Jews, or to lower food rations for Jews in Poland below those allowed for Jews in Germany. Moreover, in Poland, unlike Germany, there was no need for precautions whenever anti-Jewish measures could have painful repercussions for the non-Jewish population. There was no imperative to be mindful of the welfare of Poles. Here you go. Marcelus (talk) 10:49, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for posting this. Nevertheless, it does not fix all of my concern about verification. Neither Hilberg nor the other source cited say that Polish Jews generally had a lower status than other eastern Jews; according to the quote, it was only true "for some time" (when?), a qualification missing in your text. By 1941 it was clearly Soviet Jews from east of the 1939 border who were considered "worst". (t · c) buidhe 01:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A second factor was the German perception of Polish Jewry. These Jews were at the bottom for some time. Marcelus (talk) 07:53, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Risk of denunciation

The article says: "Many Jews tried to escape, but surviving in hiding was very difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation." Is that really how it's called - denunciation? I'm having trouble thinking of an alternate but it just doesn't seem right to be using this without qualification. Ben Azura (talk) 20:33, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Attribution

Text copied from Marceli Godlewski to the Holocaust in Poland. See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a repetition in the text of "Resettlement plans". "At this point, efforts to concentrate Jews in a compact territory were abandoned". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.242.10.158 (talk) 01:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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