Talk:Bleiburg repatriations/Archive 6

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Archive 6

Original research regarding Slovene victims

For transparency purposes, this is the entire related paragraph of Deželak Barič 2014, pages 33 and 34:

"Med približno 83.000, morda 84.000 žrtvami, ki so izgubile življenje v času do uradnega konca vojne, so si Slovenci v nastopu drug proti drugemu povzročili okoli 13.200 smrtnih žrtev. Večji del je sicer odpadel na žrtve iz vrst oboroženih formacij - partizanske enote so utrpele okoli 4.800 žrtev, ki jih je povzročila protipartizanska stran v samostojnih akcijah in v sodelovanju z okupatorjem, protipartizanske pa okoli 2.500 žrtev. Ostrina in širina medsebojnega obračuna pa se kaže zlasti v številu civilnih žrtev. Partizanska stran je v celotnem obdobju okupacije povzročila med civilisti 4.233 žrtev, med njimi vsaj 60 aktivistov OF in sodelavcev partizanskega gibanja, žal pa nimamo zbranih podatkov, koliko teh žrtev je bilo aktivnih sodelavcev okupatorja in domobrancev, protipartizanska pa je povzročila v samostojnih akcijah med civilisti 1.009 žrtev. V tem številu so upoštevani tudi aktivisti OF in sodelavci partizanskega gibanja, ki jih je vsaj 660, kar kaže na to, da je bila ost protipartizanskega tabora večinsko usmerjena proti aktivnim sodelavcem oziroma podpornikom partizanskega odpora. V neposrednem sodelovanju z okupatorjem so povzročili vsaj še 227 žrtev. Nimamo pa podatkov, koliko oseb je bilo usmrčenih ali so umrli v taboriščih, potem kojih je protipartizanska stran izročila okupatorjem. Kot smo že omenili, je notranji spopad najbolj prizadel Ljubljansko pokrajino, kjer se je najprej in najbolj zapletel, vztrajal pa je vse do konca vojne in se od tam po kapitulaciji Italije v omejenem obsegu razširil še na Gorenjsko in Primorsko."

"Among the approximately 83,000, perhaps 84,000 victims who lost their lives before the official end of the war, Slovenes inflicted around 13,200 deaths against each other. The majority of them were military deaths - Partisan units suffered about 4,800 deaths caused by the anti-Partisan side in independent actions and in cooperation with the occupier, and the anti-Partisan side had around 2,500 deaths. The intensity of the conflict is reflected in the number of civilian victims. The Partisan side caused 4,233 civilian deaths during the entire period of occupation, among whom were at least 60 OF activists and associates of the Partisan movement. Unfortunately, we do not have data on how many of these victims were active associates of the occupier and the Home Guard. The anti-Partisan side, in independent actions, caused 1,009 deaths among civilians. This number also includes OF activists and associates of the Partisan movement, numbering at least 660, indicating that the anti-Partisan camp was largely directed against active associates or supporters of the Partisan resistance. In direct cooperation with the occupier, they caused at least another 227 deaths. However, we do not have data on how many people were executed or died in camps, after being handed over to the occupiers by the anti-Partisan side. As we have already mentioned, the internal conflict mostly affected the Ljubljana region, where it first began and was most complicated, and persisted until the end of the war and from there, after the capitulation of Italy, to a limited extent spread to Gorenjska and Primorska." Tezwoo (talk) 20:27, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Deletion

Why was this material deleted? "In 2021, the Austrian Parliament voted to ban the commemoration, because of the display of symbols of the Nazi-allied Ustaše movement." This accurately reflects what the reliable source says. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:09, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I can give an explanation for every edit I've made. First for the issue going on for months now regarding the Deželak Barič source, which is in Slovenian language, on pages 33 and 34.

My edit: "In total, around 83–84,000 people lost their lives by the formal end of the war in the Slovene lands. Around 13,200 military and civilian deaths were the result of an inter-Slovene conflict, with Slovene Partisans being responsible for 4,233 civilian deaths, while the Slovene anti-Partisan forces, in independent or joint actions with other Axis forces, caused the deaths of 1,236 civilians, excluding civilian deaths in camps."

Thhhommmasss's edit: "In total, around 83–84,000 people lost their lives by the formal end of the war in the Slovene lands, the vast majority killed by the occupation forces. Around 13,200 military and civilian deaths were the result of an inter-Slovene conflict, with collobarators responsible for around 6,000 and Partisans 6,700. Among nearly 30,000 Slovene civilians killed, Partisans were responsible for 4,233 civilian deaths, while the Slovene anti-Partisan, in independent actions or in collaboration with Axis forces, caused the deaths of 1,236 civilians. The latter number does not include civilians that Slovene collaborators turned over to the Axis and were killed or died in Axis concentration camps."

This is the translation of the related paragraph from Deželak Barič:

"Among the approximately 83,000, perhaps 84,000 victims who lost their lives before the official end of the war, Slovenes inflicted around 13,200 deaths against each other. The majority of them were military deaths - Partisan units suffered about 4,800 deaths caused by the anti-Partisan side in independent actions and in cooperation with the occupier, and the anti-Partisan side had around 2,500 deaths. The intensity of the conflict is reflected in the number of civilian victims. The Partisan side caused 4,233 civilian deaths during the entire period of occupation, among whom were at least 60 OF activists and associates of the Partisan movement. Unfortunately, we do not have data on how many of these victims were active associates of the occupier and the Home Guard. The anti-Partisan side, in independent actions, caused 1,009 deaths among civilians. This number also includes OF activists and associates of the Partisan movement, numbering at least 660, indicating that the anti-Partisan camp was largely directed against active associates or supporters of the Partisan resistance. In direct cooperation with the occupier, they caused at least another 227 deaths. However, we do not have data on how many people were executed or died in camps, after being handed over to the occupiers by the anti-Partisan side."

Which version is a more accurate reflection of this source, in accordance to Wikipedia:Verifiability? Or maybe this version, where the same user introduced these sentences, claiming it is from Deželak Barič p. 33:

"for which Partisan forces were responsible for just 6,700, or 8% of the total." ... "Of 29,459 total civilian victims, the Partisans were responsible for only 4,233." ... "i.e. not counting the vast majority killed by occupiers" Tezwoo (talk) 20:45, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the Slovene Home Guard oath and command part, I don't see a reason to go into details about some oath when it is obvious that the Slovene Home Guard fought under German command. The same goes on for Rösener (who was in charge of anti-Partisan actions in general in the region), and Tomasevich doesn't say that the Home Guard was "under the command" of Rösener. Failed WP:V.

As for the Bleiburg commemoration, it's not an accurate reflection of the source. First, it was in 2020, not in 2021. Second, the parliament did not "vote to ban the commemoration" at Bleiburg. The majority in the lower house of the Austrian Parliament passed a resolution calling on the Austrian Interior Minister to consider banning the commemoration. However, nothing came out of it. Everything was as usual in Bleiburg this year (a week ago) apart from COVID restrictions. (English source (very brief) [1], Croatian source [2]). Tezwoo (talk) 21:36, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Tezwoo - As opposed to your constant, blatant POV-pushing, Tomasevich writes that Rosener was “one of Himmler’s commanders”, that “Rosener took over the Home Guard”...”he [Rosener} developed the Home Guard into the principle fighting force against the Partisans..”. There are photos of Rosener reviewing the Home Guard troops, personally pinning medals on Home Guard soldiers, etc, etc, I also cited directly Tomashevich about the Home Guard’s oath to Hitler and the SS. Tomasevich goes on to say that this “oath made [the Home Guard] suspect in the eyes of the Western Allies”, which is directly relevant to the Allies turning over the Home Guard to the new Yugoslav authorities Thhhommmasss (talk) 22:10, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, why the attacks? Also I don’t get it, aren’t you both basically agreeing that the Home Gaurd did infact suporot and fight for the Nazis? What is the POV push here??? Why must this always be drama? Keep it civil. OyMosby (talk) 20:59, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

You are mixing apples and oranges. Rösener was in overall charge of anti-Partisan operations in the Province of Ljubljana. Saying that the Slovene Home Guard was "under the command" of Rösener is like saying that the Partisan 9th Corps was "under the command" of Dušan Kveder, while he was the head of the Partisan Chief Headquarters in Slovenia. I gave a comment under the "Oath" section here, regarding the oath. Tezwoo (talk) 22:08, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Can we just keep this thread on topic? I asked about the deletion. Please address other issues in separate threads. Mixing threads together is extremely unhelpful. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Tezwoo. So, my question is (getting back to the topic of this thread), why did you not just amend the Austrian information to more accurately reflect the source, instead of deleting it? It is obviously relevant if a resolution was passed in the Austrian Parliament about the commemoration. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The added content was not accurate and added directly to the lead instead of the article body. Sure, I could have fixed it and expanded it myself with additional information. I'll do it now, though users adding material might do a bit more scrutiny as well. Tezwoo (talk) 22:41, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The commemoration has long been controversial, with numerous articles in Croatian media, moves by the Austrian Parliament and Austrian Catholic Church to ban or curtail the commemoration, in fact it has also been controversial with historians, so this belongs in lead, so I will put back a short sentence to that effect Thhhommmasss (talk) 01:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Intro section

@Joy: - why did you delete the facts about what happened before Bleiburg? Most historians, like Tomasevich, indicate that Bleiburg was to a large extent revenge for previous mass killings and collaboration, not only by Ustase, but other collaborationist forces. As many sources indicate, history did not begin in May of 1945, but instead had preceding events which were indeed essential to understanding what happened after May 1945.Thhhommmasss (talk) 20:46, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Thhhommmasss if you actually read the dozen edits I did to improve the lead section after your bad edits, you will absolutely not come to the conclusion that I "deleted facts". Again, please read WP:LEAD to learn what a lead section is meant for, and then we can discuss the matter further. This is not productive otherwise. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:32, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

The reason that Bleiburg is commemorated is because many innocent people were murdered during the events. The communists essentially labeled anyone they saw as a "collaborationist" - including civilians opposed to communism - as being worthy of being executed without trial. The article should make that clear. DayTime99 (talk) 02:09, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

It does so already, it mentions clearly that the military withdrawal had taken civilians with them (mostly as a human shield) and then the reprisals affected the civilians just like the military. The characteristics of the retribution are explained in detail in the article, the lead section merely needs to summarize it, not pontificate on any matter in an WP:UNDUE manner. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:19, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

There is no indication that the civilians were intended to be human shields. Believe it or not, millions of people are horrified by communism and would rather flee their homes than be subjected to it. That's precisely what happened to these poor souls before they were turned back to be massacred. DayTime99 (talk) 08:30, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

No indication?? This is quoted from a source that says so, I know because I myself had added that reference. Please read the fine article. The argument itself is frankly silly - assuming a known genocidal regime had all the best intentions towards its civilians, despite the documented fact that numerous of its bigwigs managed to flee separately, is naive at best. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:52, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Your source says that's what "some" believed, not that it was fact. Also, one thing we can conclude about ethno-centric regimes is that they did care for their own ethnic group, aka their own people. Otherwise they wouldn't be ethnocentric. The idea that these rulers didn't care what happened to their people is naive; indeed, many didn't flee and went down with the ship. DayTime99 (talk) 00:03, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

You appear to have bought their story that they were ethnocentric, whereas in reality they were more like a cult that used its ethnicity as a vehicle. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:26, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

@DayTime99: Ustashe had a really bazaar way of showing love to its ethnic group. So much so that historians say that under no other ruling regime did Croats face such persecution than under the Ustashe. Meaning it was way worse than being under Yugoslav rule. Historians noted that many citizens saw this has a major backwards step on the road to a true independent Croatia that has been so long worked on. The Ustashe gave up swaths of lands to Italians to annex and put Slavs there in concentration camps. It is evident this regime cared only about power via Greater Croatia and perverted serial-killer violence via genocide against Serbs scapegoated as the “aggressor” “out to harm Croats and their nation”. I get more horrible suroised the more I learn of the forms of executions used. Psychopaths free to roam with no laws to stop them. This happens again in the 90s where many areas had complete societal break-down. Making the neo-Nazis showing up at Bleiburg all the more ironic. I hope Austria goes through with banning the ceremonies. OyMosby (talk) 17:16, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

infobox

Silverije, nominally, you're correct about the nature of infoboxes, but this one carries a fair bit of weight because we've been persistently having trouble summarizing this article in the lead, just look at the talk page section immediately above for an example. Framing this as a "civilian attack" and only as a "death march" does not actually reflect what the article says. If the belligerents never declared an end to the war, and if they are still referred to as "prisoners of war", they can't possibly all be described as civilians. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:27, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, I think I haven't invented anything, but only repeated terms and numbers from the text. Not all of them, there are too many of them. If you think that some terms are less appropriate (e.g. death march), you may change them, but there is no need to delete the whole infobox. As for civilians, the fact is that civilians were there present, not as majority, but still they were there. Of course, the majority of people there were soldiers and they can be referred to as prisoners of war, can't they? Some of them possibly tried to disguise themselves as civilians, but those can be viewed as exceptions. --Silverije 00:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

A more appropriate statement would be that the great majority of Bleiburg-related victims were collaborationist soldiers. Data from very complete Slovene research indicates some 90% of Slovene Bleiburg-related victims were members of collaborationist armed forces, mainly Slovene Home Guards who fought under the command of the SS. The Croatian 1990's State commission, whose primary goal was to find victims of the Partisan side, while ignoring others, found a total of 13,300 Bleiburg-related Croatian victims, of whom 84% were members of collaborationist armed forces, while the remaining 16% are listed as "other or unidentified“. Excavations at places like Tezno showed no evidence of civilians, only military, i.e. NDH soldiers and Chetniks Thhhommmasss (talk) 02:19, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the most confusing part is that the topic is three-fold - the first part where we describe the final march towards the Austrian border and what happened there, which is clearly for {{Infobox military operation}}; the second part, the death march back, that's the abuse that is also mostly about military POWs and military perpetrators, so it's technically also a military operation; the third part, the effect of the first two on civilians, this would classify as a civilian attack, but even that is moot as the numbers are unclear and we have the whole collaborator/human shield controversy about it. I searched for some other articles for precedent and found:

• French prisoners of war in World War II - good article, no infobox
• Soviet prisoners of war in Finland - B class, no infobox
• Executions during the Irish Civil War - B class, no infobox
• German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war - C class, infobox civilian attack
• NKVD prisoner massacres - start class, infobox event
• Finnish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union - start class, no infobox
• Pursuit of Nazi collaborators - start class, no infobox

So there is really no general consensus about how we set up an infobox in this kind of an article. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The pattern of the names of these other articles also indicates that we should split up these topics. I'll see if I can have a go at it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a split yet, but I'll try a rename to Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators first, as that is a way more descriptive title than this one. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

"Repatriations"?

A quote from the Zoran Milanović article:

In September 2008, Milanović made a highly publicized visit to Bleiburg to commemorate the repatriations.

...where "repatriations" links to Bleiburg repatriations, i.e. here. I've just tagged it with {{clarify}} because an average reader would definitely be confused as to why would "repatriations" be commemorated ("commemorate" = "To honor the memory of (a person or event, for example), especially with a ceremony."[3]) The answer is clear: what is being commemorated aren't actually "repatriations", it's something else, and to me it makes no sense to name it differently in the left-hand side of the wikilink in order to make it clear(er). Ergo, the current article title is not right. GregorB (talk) 15:21, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Good grief, not this again. This article is about the repatriations from Bleiburg, which is why it has this title. Read the archives. What happened when they got back to Yugoslavia is the subject of other articles, and this should just summarise them. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:46, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

This article is actually about the whole series of events, of which the "repatriations" are probably the least important aspect, so it's odd to me that the title focuses on it, and this oddness is apparent once the article is wikilinked from elsewhere, as noted above. I'm not trying to rehash the old arguments, this is a new one. Just saying, anyway. GregorB (talk) 07:25, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Peacemaker67 this is actually inaccurate, we have no other article about what happened when they got back to Yugoslavia. We have Bleiburg killings, Bleiburg tragedy, Bleiburg massacre all redirecting here, which is the result of historical titles; there is no redirect for the death march topic which is actually the most relevant one. In the most recent thread, someone added an infobox, and it became that much clearer that the article covers several distinct topics. I think it's time for a split. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

This discussion continues in #Article title below. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:45, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Article title

The move to "Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators" looks like a poor choice. It raises concerns about WP:COMMONNAME because it is not a common name for the article's topic in published sources, whereas previous titles for the article are found in published sources: Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators (no results found); Bleiburg repatriations (various published sources found); Bleiburg massacre (various published sources found). The title also seems too vague for this article because such a broad topic should include material such as the pursuit and attempted assassination of Ante Pavelić, the successful assassination of Vjekoslav Luburić and similar, the extradition of Zdenko Blažeković, Andrija Artuković, and similar, etc. These Yugoslav pursuits of Nazi collaborators do not seem to be the intent of the article's scope. Doremo (talk) 10:02, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I have reverted the change until a proper consensus is formed.--Darius (talk) 11:07, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Doremo, FarSouthNavy, "Bleiburg repatriations" is the result of an earlier compromise, I'll look for the exact link in the article talk pages and link it, but it was never a great compromise and there's a bunch of references to this multi-faceted topic that are *not* about the facts of repatriation, but about the other aspects, mostly the executions. I've been going through the entire list and a case for WP:NDESC is very apparent. Have you considered that? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:13, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Bleiburg repatriations/Archive_3#Requested_move - moved to Bleiburg repatriations - moved to compromise title support by rough consensus at end of this discussion June 2012. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Amusingly enough, upon re-reading that discussion, I see that you (Doremo) were explicitly undecided :) and I will also note that I explicitly said to Mike Cline at the time that using repatriations in the title requires an article split in order to not play into the biased arguments. All this is to say - there has been no real consensus about the existing title for decades now, and I wasn't trying to move in order to prejudice the discussion, rather, to actually guide it to an actual resolution. Also, it should be noted that Google Books search finds a lot if you don't constrain it, https://www.google.com/search?q=Yugoslav+pursuit+of+Nazi+collaborators&tbm=bks&pws=0 - most of the results I see there are clearly about these events. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:26, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

That discussion weighed the merits of "Bleiburg massacre" versus "Bleiburg tragedy", both of which implicitly limit the scope to events in Bleiburg and their aftermath. If this article were expanded to cover "Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators," to do justice to that title it would surely need a subsection called "Bleiburg massacre/tragedy/repatriations"—which would be well served by a focused article with that title. As for the Google Books search, constraining the target phrases with quotation marks is quite important. Doremo (talk) 12:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

No, that's the whole point of descriptive titles - they are not necessarily copied from sources verbatim. Regardless, see what I wrote below - would you agree to a move of (the bulk of) this topic to "Bleiburg death marches"? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

If that is a or the common name for the event, I would have no objection. I have no objection to Bataan Death March as a common name. Doremo (talk) 12:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

In any case, I sprinkled a fair few redirects now after reading the incoming references, and will proceed to make the incoming links match their context, so Special:WhatLinksHere will become more explanatory. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:29, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I also found a recent secondary source, by one of the Croatian historians previously referenced in the article, that discusses, in English, the use of a single term for the events, and they say the international consensus is death marches. But are y'all in turn going to complain about the very graphic nature of that if I tried to move to that? :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

To avoid the confusion with post-war less intense pursuits, I added redirects with the word "Partisan" and with "1945", which should be specific enough (the Partisans are clearly associated with the period of the war, unlike everything afterwards). --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I've gone through most if not all of the links to the article, and what links here in article namespace now shows a mostly accurate list, largely true to context. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:35, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I went through it a few more times to tie up most loose ends. The current counts for the various titles/redirects are as follows. Given the limitation of not being able to skip navigation template transclusion links, I included the searches for the two titles that templates link to, which also helps quickly illustrate the context from where the links originate.

• Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators [4] - 38
• Independent State of Croatia evacuation to Austria - 29
• Yugoslav death march of Nazi collaborators - 12
• Bleiburg commemoration - 11
• Bleiburg death marches - 10
• Bleiburg repatriations [5] - 10
• Bleiburg repatriations piped [6] - 8
• Surrender at Bleiburg - 5
• 1945 Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators - 5
• Yugoslav Partisan killings of prisoners of war - 5
• Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators piped [7] - 2
• Bleiburg [Mm]assacre - 2+1=3
• Bleiburg tragedy - 1
• Yugoslav Partisan crimes after World War II - 1
• Partisan reprisal killings - 1
• Yugoslav Partisan death march of Nazi collaborators - 1

--Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:43, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The term Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators now has 4 links, after I went through them all, these are indeed supposed to refer to the generic meaning - I since found a place to redirect this to. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:51, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Regarding number of deaths in the infobox

The citation of 50,000 to 250,000 estimated deaths is from an article by Croatian historian Vladimir Geiger, which lists estimates by many sources. The estimates of over 100,000 are mainly from highly-biased Croatian émigré sources, which is like citing Serb pro-Chetnik émigré sources estimates on Jasenovac deaths. There are no reliable sources today that claim over 80,000 deaths, Grahek-Ravancic specifically states claims of hundreds of thousand Croatian deaths demographically impossible. The most widely cited source is Zerjavic, who estimated 55,000 to 65,000 total deaths, including Slovenes, Serbs and Montengrins, with a third of these deaths coming from the final battles, so even not all of these are from the postwar executions. Geiger himself states he believes Zerjavic's numbers are the most credible. Numbers from Tudjman and 1990s Croatian 1990’s State Commission are even lower (had Zerjavic access to the latter, he might have well revised his estimates). So the non-RS estimates over 80,000 should be eliminated from infobox, else in Jasenovac infobox similar estimates of up to 700,000 and more victims should be listed Thhhommmasss (talk) 20:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

See, this is why I initially reverted the whole idea of the infobox, because I was absolutely certain that we're going to have to go through endless iterations of this crap. Silverije, just saying "numbers of deaths are from the text! (see section: Number of victims)" doesn't mean you're relieved of the responsibility of summarizing the information. Taking the wildest possible range out of all the information in the article and stuffing it in the infobox isn't actually MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:53, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

A more appropriate summary of estimated deaths would be 35,000 (to include Tudjman's estimate, as member of Yugoslav Army HQ at the time, a highly knowledgeable source) to 80,000. On top of that, Zerjavic's 55,000 to 65,0000 estimate should be highlighted, since he is most cited, with the notation that this includes Croatian, Slovene, Serb and Montenegrin victims, and also includes some one-third killed in battles prior to surrender (actually Zerjavic Bleiburg estimate includes some guesstimating, and given 1990's Croat State Commission numbers of 13,300 Croat victims of Bleiburg, may be high) 21:42, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Goodness gracious, and now from this side of the argument again... Thhhommmasss, if someone saying a number because they were a member of a group connected to the topic, that's literally the most obvious definition of a primary source, and such a thing is absolutely not more relevant than secondary sources from later. Please read WP:PSTS. As for Žerjavić, the reason I didn't use his detailed numbers is because I used the estimates that were referenced in later analyses to his work (by Tomasevich etc). Again, refined secondary sources and a consensus of reputable sources analyzing original research is clearly better than the latter. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:06, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I've not found a single source where Zerjavic mentions 70,000 Bleiburg victims, much less 80,000. Here is Zerjavic in his last word on the matter in 1992, quoting his own book:

"The same publication also deals with the losses of Croats and Muslims after the end of the war, near Bleiburg on the Austrian-Yugoslav border and on the so-called "The way of the cross". Based on the number of 12,196 Croats who were extradited by the English from the Viktring camp near Klagenfurt and the number of prisoners captured by the Yugoslav army, the total number of killed Croats and Muslims could amount to between 45 and 55 thousand. 41,000 emigrated. In addition, in connection with Bleiburg, about 1.500 to 2,000 Serbs and Montenegrins lost their lives, and about 8,000 Slovene White Guards"

That totals 55,000 to 65,000 victims. Zerjavic is a secondary source, the source that everyone else cites, and we can safely assume that Zerjavic is the most expert on citing ZerjavicThhhommmasss (talk) 07:40, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

The article text literally says this. Please amend it if it's not accurate, *then* screw around with the infobox. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:54, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Both Tomasevich and Grahek-Ravancic for some reasons thought that Viktring was somehow separate from Zerjavic's Bleiburg estimates, and added the 12,000 to his Bleiburg estimates, thus counting it twice, when from the above citation it is clear that Zerjavic already specifically included Viktring. David Bruce McDonald also cites the exact same figures as does Zerjavic above, as does Geiger (in table 10 on page 113 of the elsewhere cited 2012 source), but then Geiger writes that Zerjavic's totals of 55,000 to 65,000 "is equal" to ca. 70,000. So what we have is "rounding up", with then Grahanek-Ravancic further "rounding up" to 70,000 to 80,000 Geiger's already "rounded up" numbers. Given that Zerjavic is the widely cited source, we should stick with Zerjavic instead of double-counting and rounding up by other source. I'll make the change in the text 08:23, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

While doing so please make sure you personally are not the sole arbiter of what the authors were thinking, rather do it based on what the sources say. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:26, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Refer to WP:OR for more information, as usual. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Like I said, McDonald and Geiger cite exact same numbers as Zerjavic. But 1+1 does NOT equal ca. 3 in any real world 08:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

If this is supposed to convince us all here that Jozo Tomasevich and others can't do basic math, you're in the wrong forum. Please focus on the topic at hand. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:00, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Isn’t Tudjman often cited as downplaying the statistics for the number of ethnic Serbs murdered by the Ustashe regime during the genocide? Why is he now a valid figure not probe to nationalist influence? He is even comonly listed on multiple articles for doing so. Why would he be a reliable source??? That is my only point that I wish to raise after reading this. OyMosby (talk) 13:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

McDonald cites Tudjman and states that it looks like he was trying to equate the Jasenovac and Bleiburg numbers, thus likely shading the Jasenovac numbers down, while shading the Bleiburg numbers up. There are multiple separate sources, including cited by Mitja Ferenc, the leading Bleiburg researcher in Slovenia, which cite numbers from the time of 30,000 to 35,000. These were all internal intelligence estimates, with no apparent motive to shade the numbers one way or the other. The Croatian State Commission of the 1990's, led by a member of the Bleiburg honor guard, and per Geiger only interested in finding victims of the Partisans, came up with 13,300 Croatian Bleiburg victims

My point on Zerjavic is that Zerjavic is the best on interpreting Zerjavic, so he should be directly cited. McDonald cites exact same numbers from Zerjavic as above, so does Geiger in his detail, so does Pavlakovic, etc. Plus there are articles citing Zerjavic on the Croatian scientific portal, Hrcak, which give 50,000 as Zerjavic's estimate for Bleiburg Thhhommmasss (talk) 19:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Your point is wrong. This is not how an encyclopedia works. Please read the links I gave you earlier, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, etc. Focus on the parts about how you can't base everything on a single source or a single interpretation of a source, etc. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 06:55, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

All the other sources state Zerjavic as the most widely accepted, citing him for 50,000 to 70,00 victims. Is your point that one can only cite the 70,000 number, plus one can't cite Zerjavic himself? Thhhommmasss (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

You are contradicting the current article content references in that statement. I can't argue like this, this is meaningless. Please read WP:NOTAFORUM. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

References

"Partisan reprisal killings" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Partisan reprisal killings and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 January 27#Partisan reprisal killings until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The claim that the British knew the prisoners would be killed

In the opening paragraph of the lead, a claim was added that the British knew the Partisans would kill the prisoners after they handed them over. The three sources used for this claim are Blanka Matkovich's Croatia and Slovenia at the End and after the Second World War (1944-1945), John Prcela & Stanko Guldescu's Operation Slaughterhouse and Metod Milač's Resistance, Imprisonment, & Forced Labor: A Slovene Student in World War II. This seems like an WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim that requires multiple reliable sources to back it up. Upon a closer look at the sources however, none of them pass WP:RS, certainly not for this topic.

Blanka Matkovich is a right-wing revisionist who advances the theory that the Jasenovac concentration camp was a labor camp where no mass murder took place. In addition, she has claimed that Jasenovac was used as an extermination site after the war by the Partisans. One book was written about it with Igor Vukić and other negationists. Another was co-authored with Stipe Pilic. The historian Rory Yeomans describes her as a "prominent... negationist historian" whose latest book is "manipulative, poorly researched and transparently agenda-driven" and that these kinds of tropes "will be familiar to scholars of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial." The prominent Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein has stated that Matkovich played a role in an opinion piece by a non-existent person named "David Goldman" that was published in the Jerusalem Post last year which fabricated claims about Goldstein and denied the extent of the killings at Jasenovac. This led outcry from Goldstein and Holocaust researchers, and the piece was purged from the site and the newspaper apologized. Here she admits that the person who wrote the article was an acquaintance of her organization and gloats about it.

John Prcela is a Franciscan monk turned "historian" who claims that the Yugoslav Partisans committed a "genocide" and a "holocaust" against Croats after WWII (while ignoring the Ustashe genocide) in which 600,000 people were killed. According to Prcela, Jasenovac was a "work camp", the Ustashe "defenders of the Croatian people" and the NDH rulers "freedom fighters" among other lunacies.

Milač was a prisoner at the camp so besides the conflict of interest, he's a WP:PRIMARY source. The quote isn't in full and it's not clear but by itself is certainly not enough anyway.

I don't have an issue with this being added to the article if reliable sources back up this claim, but using right-wing negationists is unnaceptable for this type of article. --Griboski (talk) 05:11, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Griboski I fully agree with your statement to the point where I have nothing to add but ditto with all the referencing of your statements. I mean, referencing Blanka in any of the articles talking about WWII is already a huge WP:REDFLAG considering there are many and I mean MANY different sources showing she was definitely driven towards destroying anything that was not right-winged so I don't see why would her statements even be legitimate in these types of articles because, as you have mentioned, this would definitely be one of the true examples of WP:EXTRAORDINARY.

Cheers, Боки ^{Talk page ↔️ Contributions} 05:43, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Before removing sourced information that the British knew the Partisans would kill the prisoners, it would be appropriate to first find some sources stating that the British did not know the Partisans would kill the prisoners. The information is supported by multiple published sources; whether an individual editor agrees with the political orientations of the authors of those sources is really not relevant. Doremo (talk) 07:51, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

No, it would certainly not be appropriate to do that. In the absence of reliable sources (being published means nothing) stating they did, we should just remove it. If sources are later found that state one way or the other, then we add that then. The two things do not follow. BTW, this question is completely wrong-headed from the start. They were NOT prisoners of the British and the British DID NOT "hand them over". What the British did is refuse to accept their surrender and direct them to surrender to the Partisans. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

This is obviously a widespread claim by various authors that is supported by a variety of sources (with publishers including Northern Illinois University Press and Peter Lang). At most, it would be appropriate to modify the text to something like "Various authors claim that the British knew that those returned would be killed,^{[4][5][6][7][8]} whereas others claim they did not.^{[citation needed]}" Doremo (talk) 10:24, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Actually, no, that's a classic violation of WP:WEASEL. For this to not be the case, you need a contrast of a large amount of reliable sources, as opposed to 'various' sources. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:15, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

No, we don't typically cite far-right genocide/holocaust deniers, especially on a WWII article and as PM & Joy said, what matters is that sources are reliable not simply "published". An editor should do some research on the reliability of authors before adding them, particularly in controversial articles. If there is an abundance of acceptable sources supporting this claim, then they should have been added instead of pushing to keep obvious non-RS. --Griboski (talk) 13:50, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

There seem to be already other sources cited for this, so I've just dropped these ones. I don't necessarily think that you should be referencing twitter.com in source analysis here, BTW, but it seems pointless to even bother with sources of questionable reliability. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:12, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't sure about citing twitter either but the issue with some of these authors is that because they are relegated to the fringes, they sometimes fly under the radar and they don't even come across the radar of respectable institutions enough to be analyzed. Funny enough, that twitter link was among the top results when I searched for Matkovich and her admitting that she played a part in the whole David Goldman fiasco just confirmed Goldstein's claims, so it seemed appropriate. The Yeomans piece on Balkan Insight is the one bit of deconstruction about her academic work, at least in English sources. Meanwhile, this flattering report on Prcela takes the "Croatian genocide at the hands of the Yugoslavians" as a fact (apparently Croats didn't count as Yugoslavians) and says nothing about his far-right sympathies; it's just journalistic laziness.

I don't pay much attention to this article, I only found it strange that these sources were used. My only concern was that this claim wasn't just something peddled by the far-right. I tried to find other sources collaborating this but couldn't, so I am glad they were replaced. The cited works now seem OK. --Griboski (talk) 13:50, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Requested move 16 January 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. There's consensus that the proposed title is not optimal. There seems to be some interest in other changes to the title and/or scope of this article: feel free to continue those discussions. (closed by non-admin page mover) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

---

Bleiburg repatriations → Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators – As discussed in multiple talk page sections above, this article title is accurate for a portion of the events described here, but it's not the most commonly referenced portion. What happened at the border at the hands of the British was not the most relevant aspect of the matter (and this was a documented talking point, that there was 'Western betrayal', but it's long been documented as meaningless), and the repatriations were merely the trigger for the next phase of the Partisan pursuit, which was the most notable aspect of the matter because of its brutality.

I submit this descriptive title (per WP:NDESC) because it combines multiple aspects of the story while focusing on the most generic parts in order to inform a neutral reader (as opposed to various biased parties who like to soapbox about this) - that the Partisans and the Nazi collaborators were the two main protagonists (the British and the Red Army each played a role but a secondary one), and using the word pursuit (in Croatian this would be potjera) which focuses on the fact that there was a mass pursuit from around Zagreb to the northern borders of Yugoslavia, where the repatriations happened and then back into the latter (in some cases way further south than around Zagreb). I didn't find a concise way to describe the pursuit further because it was a complex evacuation including military and civilians and then a combination of a series of extrajudicial death marches, apprehensions into custody of a judicial system, and seemingly arbitrary releases as well as massacres in a large number of locations and large numbers of diverse people. I also didn't find a meaningful way to maintain the keyword Bleiburg, which is popular, but at the same time means very little to a neutral English reader.

In preparation for this, I've gone over most if not all references in other articles to this one, and based my findings on the context found there. Most articles refer to the assorted killings in the death march back. In turn a fewer but significant number primarily talk about the mass flight of the NDH at the end of the war - some of these talk about cases where this was actually successful (cf. Pavelić, ratlines etc), and in turn some talk about cases where it wasn't and the subjects were later formally prosecuted (i.e. they weren't subject to summary executions that are the most popular topic). In turn a fewer number of articles refer specifically to the legacy in the controversial commemoration, and then some specifically discuss the repatriation aspect, or specifically the surrender, etc.

-- Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose: As already discussed above, "Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators" is a very broad topic, significantly beyond the scope of the event known as "Bleiburg repatriations" (etc.) and its aftermath. Doremo (talk) 12:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Doremo, no, above we talked about "Yugoslav pursuit" which can be a broad topic and indeed redirects elsewhere already. "Yugoslav Partisan pursuit" means something that happened during the existence of the Partisans, which ceased immediately after the war. --Joy [shallot] (talk)

It's too broad. "Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators" would encompass chasing people that fled anywhere (e.g., Albania, Bulgaria, etc.) or that went into hiding in Yugoslavia. I see no benefit to the suggested move from a title that is already precise. Doremo (talk) 13:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand. I don't recall a single article about any such things happening. Even if it happened and it's somehow magically under-documented in 2022, how can these possibly be comparable to the final pursuit at the end of the war?

Also, now that you mention that, the current article title is not actually precise compared to the article content, because the repatriations are one in a series of events covered by the article and by its sources, and indeed they didn't actually all happen at Bleiburg but at other locations as well, so it's also technically imprecise as well. The current title is an old compromise from an earlier discussion that doesn't really have standing in sources. It's pretty much a violation of WP:CRITERIA. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose for now. I don't think the proposed title is a good descriptive one. Distinguishing between the Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators and the Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators, as current redirects do, is misguided. I'm not seeing the big problem with "Bleiburg repatriations" that needs resolving and I'm not reading the earlier sections. I wonder if the article shouldn't be split into two, one on the retreat and surrender of collaborationist forces and another on what happened after. Srnec (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2022 (UTC) The struck text was supposed to be deleted before I originally clicked save, because I did cave and read the above sections. Srnec (talk) 05:07, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Why is it "misguided", what is your rationale for saying that? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I mean that even I, who actually know a little bit about Yugoslavia in WWII, would not catch the subtle distinction. My first thought on seeing the RM was, "Does the word 'Partisan' need to be there?" Tito was, after all, the prime minister of internationally-recognized Yugoslavia at the time. I also think there is a slight equivocation in the meaning of "pursuit". Srnec (talk) 00:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Srnec for the subtle distinction, that's fair enough. But then your argument is really incongruous - how is the use of repatriations *not* equivocation, a euphemism? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose What occurred was part of Yugoslav Army operations (ie post-1 March 1945), not Yugoslav Partisan ones. It may be that a page move is needed, as "Bleiburg repatriations" is pretty loaded (and inaccurate, most of those supposedly "repatriated" didn't even leave Yugoslav territory), but I don't think this move is to the best title. Happy to continue to discuss what that might be though. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I doubt most readers would really distinguish WWII Partisans and their army organization at the end of the same war, that's too much of a technicality and against WP:COMMONNAME principles. Do you have any suggestions, would you use one of the terms used elsewhere, or a descriptive title, or split, or...? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 16 January 2022 followup

Extraordinary Writ thank you for encouraging further discussion by stopping it :P I'm not sure why everyone just went mum all of the sudden, but it's not clear what the consensus here really is. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, you never responded to my suggestion of splitting. Neither did Peacemaker. What I meant by "equivocation" is that in the proposed title "pursuit" refers to a military pursuit, while in the other title it refers to a variety of means that are mostly not military. In other words, the titles are parallel in construction but not parallel in meaning. I still think a split might benefit readers. Srnec (talk) 03:36, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Srnec oh, I already agreed with that beforehand so I just didn't repeat myself ([8]). Do you want to go ahead and draft something? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Amanuensis Balkanicus thank you for your contribution to the lack of further discussion by littering my watchlist with these kinds of edits :P there was no consensus to use this euphemistic and imprecise title [9] This is really stretching my assumption of good faith - you're completely ignoring the multitude discussions that explicate the fact that *the existing title* is euphemistic and imprecise in many, many contexts, and just blithely reverting with no actual rationale. Please don't use a weird interpretation of WP:CONS as a stick to beat people over the head with, that is not its purpose, it's more like you're disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:02, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi, Joy. That wasn't my intention at all. Sorry for cluttering your watchlist. But the move discussion did not end with a consensus to move. The title you have suggested has its issues, for example: 1) yes, "repatriations" is a euphemistic term, but "pursuit" isn't much better, especially considering that tens of thousands of people were shot and thrown in mass graves, 2) the Yugoslav Partisans weren't the only ones involved in the Bleiburg events; at some point, it became the new central Yugoslav government, 3) not all those killed were Nazi collaborators and 4) the title doesn't specify where the events took place and isn't representative of the article's scope. Judging by the title, the scope should be extended to collaborators in the rest of Yugoslavia. But of course, that isn't what the article is about. Honestly, I don't understand why the article isn't just titled Bleiburg massacres, killings, etc? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 19:07, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the average English reader correlates "repatriation" with "mass killing" more so than they do for "pursuit". The latter is at least a more common word - the Flesch-Kincaid grade level for the two words is 44 vs 9, and while this isn't the Simple Wikipedia I don't really think we should be content with 44.

I don't see the distinction between the Partisans, the People's Liberation Army, or the Yugoslav government in 1945 to be a very clear or critical issue in identifying who's generally relevant for the title. Indeed, when I tried to just use the more generic term "Yugoslav" that covers them all, it was instantly criticized by Doremo for being too generic, as they also pursued Nazi collaborators in other venues. So this is an argument that apparently has no actual solution.

Likewise, I don't think it's useful to distinguish the civilians from Nazi collaborators in the title. The group was clearly led by a multitude of collaborators, and they generally used the civilians as a human shield, but we don't have any documentation to say that civilians didn't go willingly - hence a group description doesn't seem so unfair to be untenable. In any case, the phrase can have some words added to address that - "1945 Yugoslav Partisan pursuit of Nazi collaborators and civilians".

There was previously a lot of complaining about "massacres", "killings", partially because the part up to the surrender didn't fit that description. This is the problem with having an article that covers both the Battle of Poljana and what happened at the Bleiburg field and what happened at Tezno trench etc. This is why the notion of splitting the article is still relevant.

I also wish to reiterate for the record that the Talk:Bleiburg repatriations/Archive 3#Requested move discussion in 2012 was documented as not actually resulting in a clear consensus, rather the closing admin called it a rough one. Careful readers will notice how my conditional support for it back then wasn't actually confirmed (we only got input from two other people that were arguing in the sub-thread with me, not the others). So, while the passage of time makes this somewhat moot, this has in fact been a practically unsolved WP:AT issue for decades now. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

@Joy: Thanks for taking the time to delve into the background of the situation with me. I'm sure you have better things to do on a Saturday. :-) I had no idea the situation was so complex but it definitely makes a lot more sense. I can sense your frustration with the status quo, but when I made my edits I wasn't sure why you had made that particular change to so many articles, most of which are on my Watchlist, without the article itself being renamed, which is why I decided to be bold and return it to the present title, imperfect as it is. However, if you started a move discussion today I would definitely support Bleiburg repatriations and massacres, or some variation thereof. What I notice going through the 2012 discussion is that most of the users commenting are no longer active. So what may have been difficult to pull off 10 years in terms of renaming may not be so difficult in 2022. The key word is engagement, and you're right, in January not too many users participated in the discussion you initiated. What do you think the best course of action going forward is? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Amanuensis Balkanicus I think a WP:NDESC application would be best, but nobody has yet come forward with a clear example that wouldn't be instantly shot down. I'm thinking it's likely to persist for as long as we're not completely sure how the articles about these topics should be organized. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:12, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

title and lead, again

This edit is making the lead section worse, because we're no longer summarzing what's in the article but instead trying to effectively come up with explanation for these clumsy and/or POV titles. I don't think it's in the readers' best interest if they're instantly spammed with weird terminology matters just because we still can't agree about a normal article title and instead engage in busywork based on the manual of style. WP:AT is a policy and it's supposed to be addressed before any style issues. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, after going in to fix this, I observed that there was just so much new source citing in the lead. We would be well advised to review MOS:LEADCITE as well. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:30, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

In the meantime we had another edit like that. And the bot happened to archive /Archive 6#"Repatriations"? and /Archive 6#Article title as well. I feel like this talk page is like a tumbleweed rolling across the desert, except when something bold is done, and I don't actually get the sense of a collaborative editing process from that... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I have to say that this isn't the sort of article that is going to easily attract that sort of cooperation. The article in general has too many fringe sources and sources that have been examined and had their claims discounted by highly reliable scholars specialising in the era and issues, such as Tomasevich (2001) and Booker (1997). Tomasevich's examination of the whole matter between pages 751 and 768 should be one of the main sources for the article. The scope of the article should also be narrower, as the article is already over 11,000 words (73kB), I suggest an overarching article about treatment of Axis and Axis collaborationist troops attempting to flee into Austria after the German surrender (using a descriptive title), and individual articles for the main routes (Bleiburg repatriations and Viktring repatriations). Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:42, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, then let's look at that source and what it does - it talks about this in the section "The end of the collaborationist regimes" and it starts off by dismantling the idea that the surrender to the British was an important matter. So why would we ever want to insist on the matter of 'repatriations' in the article title? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:38, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

victim number lead mumbo jumbo

I've removed this text from the lead:

Croatian historians estimate that 30,000 captives were killed.

References

The article says:

Estimates of vary, but according to Croatian historians, around 30,000 of them were killed on the way, most of them in Tezno and Macelj in Slovenia.

This is clearly of lesser quality than the citations to specific historians in the rest of the article. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

This had been added in [10] together with a duplication of a reference, so I'm going to continue to assume good faith. Lead sections of controversial topic articles aren't the best place for newbies. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

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Minimization of the nature of the event

I have been on Wikipedia for a while and just recently decided to set up an account to add and improve articles related to Croatian history. My first experience was in trying to make small improvements in the article "1918 protest in Zagreb" where I felt bullied by an "editor" that acted in a curt and glib manner while undoing improvements - in effect for reasons that he merely did not like the improvements.

From my experiences with Wikipedia I feel like there is at minimum and anti-Croat bias (based on 70 years of Yugoslav anti-Croat propaganda) and possibly even Croatomisia (hatred of Croats). Some people try to maximize the "bad", to make the Croats look evil while others minimize the plight of the Croatian people.

This article is an example of what gives a feeling of Croatomisia. The "Bleiburg Massacre" has been minimized to "Bleiburg Repatriations" and information about the war crime committed against the anti-communist (anti-Yugoslav) Croatians, Slovenes, and Serbs.

It seems that only about 1/3 of this article is about the main issue - the war crime, the massacre of refugees and prisoners of war. The other 2/3s feel like they are minimizing the war crime or justifying the war crime. The gist of the message given here is "The Croats were bad people and deserved it".

Note: 1. WWII was a time of war and people do bad things. Even the USA has committed war crimes in modern times (even though they have not been directly charged since they are the USA) 2. Did some Croatian soldiers do "bad things" - of course they did. 3. Did ALL Croatian soldiers do "bad things" - of course not. 4. Croats, in fact, may have done fewer "bad things" than did others.

The question we should not ask is "Is there Croato-misia on Wikipedia?" but we should ask, "How can we eliminate Croato-misia on Wikipedia?"

Croato-misia = Croat + hatred = hatred of Croats.

TACM = Truth About Croats Matters ZidarZ (talk) 13:33, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Prisoner of war claims

There are 15 mentions in the article, including in the Infobox, that this had to do with POWs or prisoners of war. Yet on page 774 Tomasevich writes: "But as in the case of the defunct Independent State of Croatia who had crossed into Austria near Bleiburg, the British neither accepted the Slovenes as prisoners of war, nor used them against the partisans, but instead decided to return them to Yugoslavia" Therefore unless some confirmation can be provided that Croat and Slovene collaborationist forces were granted POW. status, I suggest this be taken out Thhhommmasss (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is that the British did accept some of those fleeing Yugoslavia as POWs and then repatriated them in accordance with Yalta, but others they did not accept the surrender of, and merely barred their path and directed them to surrender to the Yugoslavs. The situation at the head of the largely NDH column at Bleiburg appears to have been the latter, in the main, if not entirely. The two different circumstances need to be clearer in the article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:17, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Deželak Barič referenced material

Material attributed to p.12 of Deželak Barič is not entirely sourced IMO. The relevant passage in the cited source reads (in Slovenian here, I assume machine translation is widely available):

Z napadom sil osi na Kraljevino Jugoslavijo 6. aprila 1941 in hitrim vojaškim porazom jugoslovanski del Slovenije (Dravska banovina) ni bil le okupiran, temveč tudi razkosan med tri okupatorje iz sosednjih držav. Slovensko Štajersko, severni del Dolenjske, Mežiško dolino in Gorenjsko (10.261,09 km2 z okoli 800.000 prebivalci) si je prisvojil nemški okupator, večino Dolenjske in Notranjske ter Ljubljano (5.544 km2 s 340.000 prebivalci) italijanski, Prekmurje (997,54 km2 s 102.000 prebivalci) pa madžarski. Nekaj vasi v okolici Bregane je pripadlo Neodvisni državi Hrvaški. Če štejemo Avstrijo kot del nemškega rajha, so jugoslovansko Slovenijo torej okupirala države, v katerih je v obdobju med obema svetovnima vojnama živela številna slovenska manjšina, skupaj kakšna tretjina naroda.

Vsem trem okupatorjem je bil skupen namen izbrisati slovenski narod kot etnično skupnost, pri čemer so se razlikovali glede časovnega roka, ko bi ta cilj dosegli, in tudi glede načina. Najostrejša sredstva je uporabljal nemški okupator, podobne raznarodovalne metode je uporabljal madžarski, medtem ko je italijanski okupator sprva ravnal bolj taktično, svoje dejanske namene pa je razkril že v času med svetovnima vojnama z ukrepi proti primorskim Slovencem. Nekatere oblike nasilja so izvirale neposredno iz okupacijskih načrtov ter sistemov in so jih okupatorji začeli izvajati kmalu po okupaciji. Nemški okupator je takoj posegel po zapiranju narodnostno izpostavljenih in protifašistično usmerjenih oseb in političnih emigrantov s Primorske, rasnem ocenjevanju ljudi, množičnem izganjanju prebivalstva itd.. Ti ukrepi niso bili v nikakršni povezavi z odporom. Odpor je nato spodbudil nove oblike okupatorjevega nasilja, deloma preventivnega, predvsem pa represivnega, tj. je kaznovalnega značaja in so se izražale v množičnih zapiranjih ljudi, v množičnih odgonih v konfinacijo in internacijo, v pošiljanju na morišča, v plenjenju in uničevanju premoženja itd.

The relevant sentence of this article says Germany, Italy, and Hungary carved up Slovenia, and set out to entirely wipe out Slovenes as an ethnic group, through expulsions, ethnic cleansing, and forced assimilation. While the intention to "wipe out" the Slovene people as an ethnic group seems supported by the referenced source, the listed means do not appear explicitly backed up by this source. The entire article is available here [11] for reference. -- Tomobe03 (talk) 17:17, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

On page 27, Dezelak-Baric writes: "In accordance with the set goals of denationalization ["raznarodovanje" - i.e. the wiping out of Slovenes as a people], the expulsion of the population was most urgent for the Germans. Initially they planned the expulsion of 260,000 Slovenes, almost every third inhabitant of the German occupation zone. For a variety of reasons, they could not fully implement these terrifying intentions, but still expelled around 80,000 people" Page 118 of the same source states: "The next part of the plan was the quick and total Germanization of the still remaining population"... On pages 85-92, Tomasevich also describes the efforts to change the ethnic composition - mass expulsions, or ethnic cleansing of Slovenes, and forced Germanization, i.e. assimilation, performed with the collaboration of the local German minority, etc. Canadian historian, Gregor Kranjc, notes that the Germans created committees that examined numerous individual Slovenes, classified the great majority as of "inferior" Balkan, negroid and mongoloid races, subject to expulsion, and that Himmler promised to continue the expulsion of the rest of the 260,000 initially planned Slovenes, upon the final victory of Nazism.

On a procedural note, please sign contributions to the talk page for reference.

At the outset, I do not dispute that the expulsions are well documented and referenced. I'm worried that a specific (potentially legal) term need be backed up appropriately.

The Tomasevich reference seems unjustifiedly wide and should be narrowed. For example the particular sentence is largely supported by a single sentence on page 85 which reads: [Germans] planned to achieve these goals in three ways: by the large-scale expulsion of undesirable Slovenes, especially the intelligentsia; by the transfer in of Volksdeutsche from the Italian-annexed part of Slovenia, northeast Italy, and east and southeast Europe; and by the Germanization of the remaining Slovene population. Granted the term "ethnic cleansing" was not as widely used at the time Tomasevich wrote the book, but I assume that Deželak-Barič would have been well aware of the term and would make some reference there, but there is none at p.12 (cited in the article) or p.27 mentioned above. Granted, Deželak-Barič may have not been particularly concerned with legal terminology, but I would expect there would be a published reliable source dealing with that aspect explicitly and my remark was aimed at pointing out that the article would benefit from a more direct reference for a very specific term used.--Tomobe03 (talk) 08:29, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Ethnocide

Just because one of the cited sources uses that term doesn’t mean we use that term. Unless Tomasevich and the other source also say ethnocide, we compare and contrast. ie we say where they agree and we say where they differ. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you’vemisunderstood. Sources need to be reliable for what they are being relied on ‘’Delo’’ is hardly reliable for a claim of ethnocide. To state this in the article we need at least a couple of academics working in the field of genocide/ethnocide/crimes against humanity stating it was ethnocide, not some newspaper article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:00, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Tomasevich and many others state that the Germans sought to wipe out Slovenes as an ethnic group. Claiming that is not ethnocide is same as claiming that the extermination of a people on ethnic grounds is not genocide, Here is the Oxford dictionary definition of ethnocide: "The attempt to eliminate a culture, generally through forced assimilation to a colonial or imperial culture". There are lots of claims in the article that cite a single source, such as Geiger's claim that most estimates cite 50.000 to 200.000 victims ob Bleiburg, when other sources in fact cite different figures Thhhommmasss (talk) 18:52, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

No, that is not how we operate in en WP. we state what Tomasevich says and then we state what others say. We don’t interpret what Tomasevich says as meaning “Ethnocide” because we think that is what he means. ie we compare and contrast, we don’t conduct original research. We do not say that Tomasevich uses a term he does not use. That fails verification, and isn’t acceptable on en WP. I hope you are not using this approach with other materisl where sources differ in their descriptions. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 19:35, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

In what I cited, Božo Repe, a leading historian at the University of Ljubljana, stated that ethnocide is ethnocide, yet you state I can't cite him, despite the multiple claims by single authors that are cited in the article. Explain that to us allThhhommmasss (talk) 20:26, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

What I am saying is that ethnocide is supported by Repe. It is inappropriate to use the weasel words “and others” based on a report in Delo. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

There, I deleted what others stated that this was ethnocide. I look forward to your efforts to delete all existing cited claims by Italian media in the article about Foibe, since these are clearly not authoritative 20:57, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Don’t get snarky with me mate. I’m entirely neutral in this issue, and am only interested in high quality sources being used. If you have concerns about Italian sources of poor quality and their claims, feel free to raise them here on the talk page. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 21:08, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Is citing a leading Slovene historian "snarkY". What are the wikipedia rules whereby that is prohibited? Thhhommmasss (talk) 21:28, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

My reference to snark is your desire to see me look closely at Italian sources. I have suggested you raise any concerns about them here. Repe is fine for the claim of ethnocide, I never said he wasn’t. What I was not happy about was you using an article in Delo by a political journalist (not a historian) to bolster Repe’s description of what occurred as “ethnocide”. For claims of this nature, only high quality sources are acceptable. Such an article is not a high quality source. Are there scholars who specifically disagree with Repe on this matter? That is how we achieve NPOV, not by “backing up” Repe with a short article by a political journalist in a newspaper. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:06, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I eliminated the reference to Delo. I welcome contrary authoritative references who claim that wiping out an entire ethnic group is not ethnocideThhhommmasss (talk) 22:15, 9 October 2023 (UTC)