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add critism part

I suggest you add the critism branch cataining critism from all sides for example the number are jus estimated and can not just be true as it is to large --76.68.25.174 (talk) 21:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Lead image: Please provide suggestions posted inline

NO ONE FREAK OUT. All the arguments have been made a couple times already. Post suggested photos, or create a collage and put it in this section so we can reach some kind of consensus on a particular picture. There is a better lead picture than the current one ( hopefully with context that can be put in a caption ). I wasn't able to find one myself and didn't think changing the picture just for the sake of changing it was worth it. Here is what is generally agreed upon

  • A picture that is representative of the scale of the holocaust
  • A picture with context ( victims at X camp during X year)
  • A picture that is not censored ( no "spoiler" tag )

PirateArgh!!1! 17:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

April 12, 1945: Lager Nordhausen, where 20,000 inmates are believed to have died.
The the Nordhausen image fulfills all three of Pirate's suggested qualifications, and seems to have been the best-supported image in the above conversation. It's also a free image, which is a plus, obviously. -- Vary | (Talk) 05:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC) (Sorry for the placement, I didn't really want to put the image next to someone else's comment.)
What does "A picture that is not censored ( no "spoiler" tag )" mean (in Pirate's suggested qualifications, above)? How will you represent the "scale," as suggested by Pirate, of the holocaust? There happens to be a lot of support for the image presently in place. If I can be so bold as to interpret that support, it is because it is a photograph with powerful visual qualities which encapsulates the revulsion that most people feel upon contemplating the event being depicted. The photograph derives from the midst of the event. Furthermore there is no gratuitous gore or evidence of violence in the photograph presently at the top of the article. It is a straightforward, unflinching view of the results of Nazi policy. I think that the offense or discomfort this picture might bring to some readers should be of secondary importance. I think that is in keeping with the Wiki policy that Wikipedia is not censored. Bus stop (talk) 12:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I disagree that there is more support for leaving the image in place than there is for changing it. The argument is not that the image should be removed entirely, only that it doesn't belong where it currently is. So frankly, "Wikipedia is not censored" is a strawman argument here. But those arguments have been made, Bus stop, and this is not the place to be making them again. -- Vary | (Talk) 14:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I also find that there is nothing wrong with the current photo. Off2riorob (talk) 14:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Vary, it is not a pleasant photo, but nor is the subject of the article a picnic in the park. This particular illustration shows the mistreatment of corpses. Should dead bodies be heaped high in a cart, naked to the world? The photograph happens to illustrate the holocaust. I think this photo is perfectly emblematic of the holocaust in that it shows how the indignity inflicted on people continued on, even after death. Bus stop (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Bus stop, you've made all of these arguments before; some have agreed, more have not. There's very little benefit to repeating the same arguments this way. Can you provide evidence that this copyrighted image meets our Non-free content criteria? -- Vary | (Talk) 03:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

And yet again, crickets. One of our most important and highly visible articles, and one tendentious editor - and I'm sorry, Bus stop, but that's what you've been - overrides a clear consensus and stifles a productive conversation with canvasing, florid accusations of 'whitewashing', and walls of text about the 'beauty' of his preferred (not to mention contextless and copyrighted) image. That'll teach me to try to help bring yet another 'somebody should change that' Wikipedia discussion to a close. -- Vary | (Talk) 06:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Ovens

Holocaust ovens

So, terrible to know this actually happened... :( --ConfusedPerson (talk) 05:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What I don't get about the definition

I'm not sure whether the definition is consistent throughout the article. I've always been puzzled by the Nazis' "puppet states" and their role in the genocide. If you measure only the Jews killed by Nazi Germany, the figure is only 5 million: you need to include Croatia, Romania and the other allies of Germany to get it up to 6 million. In the introduction to the article, it mentions only Nazi Germany and not its allies in Europe, but other parts of the article are written to include all the Nazis' allies.

What I don't get is why you never hear the Croatian genocide of Serbs as part of the Holocaust. Say that there is a Jew and a Serb in a Croatian death camp in WWII: is the Jew part of the Holocaust and the Serb not? The Jews killed in Croatia are always included in the Holocaust figures. Seems odd. Epa101 (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You might find War II persecution of Serbs of interest. Stellarkid (talk) 04:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

About killing of Kiev Jews near Ivangorod

There is only one Ivangorod in Ukraine and it is a village. This article in Ukrainian about Ukrainian Ivangorod: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%86%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4_(%D0%A5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%96%D0%B2%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD

While in the article "The Holocaust" Ivangorod is linked to the town Ivangorod in Russia on the border with Estonia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pamerast (talk • contribs) 00:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No russian mention

where was the mention of the holocaust at the same time in Russia? Does anybody know that russia is responsible for more deaths than the Nazi Holocaust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doe4155 (talk • contribs) 19:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

First of all, one has to discriminate between those who die prematurely (from various causes) under Stalin and those who were murdered by Nazi.
When we leave a realm of political journalism and step into the realm of science, it is hard to find a support for such a claim. The quotes below demonstrate that point:
"During the Soviet period the main causes of excess deaths (which were mainly in 1918-23, 1931-34 and 1941-45) were not repression but war, famine and disease"(Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments. Author(s): Michael Ellman. Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 54, No. 7 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1151-1172)
"The nature of Soviet repression and mass killing was clearly far more complex than normally assumed. Mass purposive killings in terms of executions were probably in the order of one million and probably as large as the total number of recorded deaths in the Gulag. In this narrowest category of purposefully caused deaths, the situation is exactly the opposite to that generally accepted. Hitler caused the murder of at least 5 million innocent people largely, it would appear, because he did not like Jews and communists. Stalin by contrast can be charged with causing the purposive death of something in the order of a million people. Furthermore the purposive deaths caused by Hitler fit more closely into the category of 'murder', while those caused by Stalin fit more closely the category of 'execution'. Stalin undoubtedly caused many innocent people to be executed, but it seems likely that he thought many of them guilty of crimes against the state and felt that the execution of others would act as a deterent to the guilty. He signed the papers and insisted on documentation. Hitler, by contrast, wanted to be rid of the Jews and communists simply because they were Jews and communists. He was not concerned about making any pretence at legality. He was careful not to sign anything on this matter and was equally insistent on no documentation."(The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45 Author(s): Stephen Wheatcroft Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353)
"The Third Reich's four-year extermination machine, stopped only by military defeat, still overshadows any other calamity, even when numbers of victims are the main concern."(Amir Weiner. Source: Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter, 2002), pp. 450-452)
My conclusion is that the USSR has not been mentioned in a Holocaust's context quite correctly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
That is the nature of political citations, particularly from the victims viewpoint, facts are much more accurate that the emotional conclusions as to why. Stalinist Russia prisons did have some similarities to Axis practices, but not the primary one of political unification via focusing citizens on common prejudices. Russia was foremost purging the population of political dissidents after unification...though cultural rumor or prejudice was often the quick ignorant yardstick for political assessment. Russia did not make nearly the use of prisoners as military industrial assets as Germany. Russia impersonally killed many, but without the intent of dehumanizing its victims at a personal level.
Truthfully Hitler showed remarkable laxity if he was personally out to exterminate Jews etc as his primary goal. Keep in mind these were unarmed civilians and Hitler had 5 years of open aggression to finish the job. The given citations indicate Hitler paid remarkable little personal attention to the prisoner camp and extermination process, instead delegating more to subordinates than projects he really had interest in. Sure genocide would be the long term result of Hitler's policies -- but first aims?
No the citation facts support that Hitler was worse than genocidal -- in that Hitler was foremost exploiting all the prejudices of German and Axis citizens to promote the mindless political unity of a mob. The citations also indicate that Hitler Germany made extensive use of prison camp members as super cheap, expendable labor and experimental subjects. Until near the end of the war, the prisons were a German industrial asset. That "asset without rights" was the real dehumanization of prisoners, not death nor starvation. But obviously the politically captured supply of prisoners often exceeded demand and "storage" leading to quick executions. If the Jews or Poles had become extinct, the given citations mention other groups Hitler could eventually name to fill his camps with cheap labor and experimental subjects.
The conclusions and anecdotal statements about needing cheaper ways to exterminate are obvious crap in light of the soldiers and materials needed to confine prisoners during the search for "cheaper ways of execution". That German extermination plans failed due to being too cheap or out of money is emotionally appealing but not backed by fact. Ask the Chinese about the 50 cent bullet versus confinement for life or even a week. The gas showers were really naked military experiments in chemical warfare, not the cheapest way to kill Jews.
Bottom line - holocaust prisons were more profitable to Nazi politics and the Nazi military industrial and science complexes than simple executions. Look at your own citations.
65.26.139.168 (talk) 12:31, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Wrong pictures

1st photo MOST Likely shows nazi concentration cmps victims after allied forces liberated them in 1945. Most of the wictims gathered (there) died from starvation - not by systemtic killing. Most of that wictims were non jewish prisoners - as jews were exterminated earlier.

2. There is one photo named Warsaw Uprasing. Warsaw Uprasing burst in 1944 while Warsaw ghetto uprising burst in 1943 - one year earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.38.12 (talk) 16:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong pictures:


1st photo MOST Likely shows nazi concentration cmps victims after allied forces liberated them in 1945. Most of the wictims gathered (there) died from starvation - not by systemtic killing. Most of that wictims were non jewish prisoners - as jews were exterminated earlier.

2. There is one photo named Warsaw Uprasing. Warsaw Uprasing burst in 1944 while Warsaw ghetto uprising burst in 1943 - one year earlier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.38.12 (talk) 16:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Warsaw uprising and Warsaw Ghetto uprising were two quite different events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

eichmann "6 million" citation

Something wrong with this, the way it is worded: "The figure most commonly used is the six million cited by Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS official."

Actually Eichmann cited 5 million victims. According to the Eichmann article, the quote is: "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction." Eichmann countered the claim saying that he was referring only to "enemies of the Reich".Markeilz (talk) 03:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I have added a footnote, and changed the wording to "attributed to". Crum375 (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Good footnote. Thanks for clearing that up.Markeilz (talk) 22:45, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The number of six millions can be readily drawn from the various more detailed estimations, as any number of average that falls between 5.5 and 6.5 millions could be rounded towards 6 millions. Is there any reliable source about how the number actually became prominent in public discourse? I feel a bit uncomfortable about attributing this to a Nazi, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility either.  Cs32en  23:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Evidence shows that as many as 6 million people were killed during the holocaust. However, most scholars estimate that only 3 million were killed for being Jewish. The rest were gypsies, homosexuals, mentally or physically challenged (retarded) people, and people who opposed Hitler and the 3rd Reich. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.202.224 (talk) 06:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Wrong. The common figures are six million Jews and five to six million others. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 10:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Victims and death toll

I have changed the victims and death toll section to better match the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. It does support scholars being divided on whether non-Jews should be included. It doesn't support that Romani are next, then everyone else but Poles, and finally Poles, the way the existing wording in the article implies. Page 45 simply included them all as a long list. Other pages challenge each group, e.g., page 50 states it is difficult to include political and religious dissenters. Therefore I have changed it to be a list as page 45, in order of the numbers killed. Jniech (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Red Holocaust

In connection with the above section, I have a question. Is anybody interested to join the ongoing discussion in the Mass killings under Communist regimes talk page? The question is if the term "Red Holocaust" (mass killing of civilians by Communists) is notable enough to be included into the article, or that would be a trivialisation of the Holocaust?
--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Which one of them? There was an Armenian Holocaust (also known as "The Holocaust")[1], a Cambodian Holocaust, an American Holocaust[2] and an African Holocaust. Virgil Lasis (talk) 14:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Definition and inclusion of "occupied territories" ouside Europe

The North African Territories occupied by Germany (e.g.Tunesia) are not mentioned. Please refer to the article [3] I'm writing on behalf of its editor Professor Shaked [edith.shaked(at)gmail.com]. I will communicate the evolution of this talk to Professor Shaked who certainly will respond and probably take it from there.

Some of the issues are:

1 - the various definitions of "holocaust" are discussed. However, the definition retained "for the purpose of the present article" have not been spelled out, e.g "All Jews" vs. "European Jews", knowing the parts of North Africa were as French colonies part of France.

2 - "occupied territories" are mentioned and certainly the easiest term to define. But there is no map. The partial map and the text are understood by the reader as the European occupied territories. Territories outside of Europe should be shown, listed and associated to Jewish population numbers, beginning, ending.

3 - side issue: the presented numbers are confusing, especially for Germany. I remember rough figures of 600,000 in 1933 with 200,000 emigrated/fled 200,000 died of natural causes and 200,000 murdered. It is evident that the people squeezed between Germany and Russia had no chance. It was different for French which acutally had a "zône libre" connected to Spain. According to Prof. Shaked's article, "A total of 2,575 Tunisian Jews died" as opposed to Denmark's 52.

4 - the text may be amended at appropriate locations with mentions about events in North Africa, e.g. Tunesia.

Please let me have your appreciation of principle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hwd23b (talk • contribs) 21:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Hwd23b (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggest that this article is moved to Shoah or Jewish Holocaust

I suggest this article is moved to Shoah or the Jewish Holocaust.

The title "The Holocaust" is unscholarly, POV and violates the naming conventions ("avoid definite and indefinite articles"). The word Holocaust has been used to describe a number of historical events, and Holocaust should be a disambiguation page or an article on the term which links to the various historical events described as holocausts.

The first modern genocide described as "The Holocaust" was the Armenian Holocaust (the term "The Holocaust" being used for the first time in 1922 - see Richard G. Horannisian, Armenian Holocaust: A Bibliography Relating to the Deportations, Massacres and Dispersion of the Armenian People, 1915-1923). The word Holocaust is also used by scholars to describe the Cambodian Holocaust, the American Holocaust (see for instance David Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press, 1992) and increasingly the Red Holocaust (see for instance Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, Routledge, 2009) and the African Holocaust.

Scholars like Norman Finkelstein rejects the notion that one particular Holocaust can be described as "The" Holocaust. Virgil Lasis (talk) 14:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. We've had this conversation about a thousand times now, and consensus has consistently been that the title should stay as it is. Feel free to study the talk page archives and you'll see that it's been hashed over quite thoroughly. --jpgordon::==( o ) 16:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Article split?

Right now, most of the articles about WWII exterminations of ethnic/religious/sexual/social groups have mostly information specific to their group. This article mainly focuses on the genocide against the Jews, but it also serves as sort of a "main" article about the genocides because of the varying definitions of "The Holocaust". Other than this article, there is really no main article about all the genocides as a whole. This is really more of a proposal for a new article rather than a proposal for a split since most of the information in this article is specific to the Jews. Immakingthisaccounttohidemyipaddress (talk) 20:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

What do you suggest should be split from this article? The article accommodates the definition of "The Holocaust" solely in terms of the crime against the Jews, as well as the definition I favor, of the Holocaust as being the collective Nazi policies of genocide. It's true that Jews were not only (arguably) the sole focus of the Holocaust, but even according to broader definitions of the Holocaust they would have been the largest group of the persecuted. Having read Mein Kampf I can say that Hitler seemed to have had an obsession with them that he didn't have with, say, Romani people. As the article stands, I think none of the sections are overly long and people are able to find what they are looking for regardless of which definition of "Holocaust" they prefer. I think that splitting the article or changing its focus would imply that WP is on one side or the other of the debate about the definition of the Holocaust. --AFriedman (talk) 21:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes the article addresses both the Judeocentric as well as broader perspectives on the Holocaust, but it begins with: "[Holocaust] is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II,"…this to me picks sides clearly in terms of which definition it's favoring (having said that I don't know if a new article needs to be created, perhaps just the debate over the use of the term needs to be stated briefly in the very first paragraph--also when did Shoah begin to mean the same thing as Holocaust? I thought Shoah just referred to the Jewish victims, it's as if the subset of the whole now defines the whole). Historian932 (talk) 03:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The lead needs writing to restore the balance. 95.150.241.216 (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Selection Article Creation

I think a selection Article should be created, and it's odd that it's missing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.177.105.73 (talk) 03:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Holocaust debate over uniqueness -- Holocaust denial

I don't believe that "Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust" belongs in the front of the article but near the end, if at all. I think the article should have a section with respect to Holocaust denial even though there is a complete wiki article on such. I think the discussion of this "debate over uniqueness" in this article is inappropriate and irrelevant. Are we better off for knowing this? How many people are involved in this "acrimonious debate"? And if we are going to put in the views of a handful of 'acrimonious' Jews, why not put in the views of many more Holocaust deniers? The "acrimonious debate" could go into the Holocaust denial section when we have it. I have not made any changes to the article, looking here for discussion first. Stellarkid (talk) 16:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Before I answer, a note: "a handful of <> Jews" does not ring the proper bell, especially not on the talk page of this article. Perhaps that's why there were no responses prior to mine. John Hyams (talk) 21:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, sorry about that. Perhaps I am a bit tone deaf and don't always ring the proper bells. Stellarkid (talk) 05:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Section:Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust

Regarding the section, I have moved the section to before 'See also', although I too think this section should be incorporated in another opinion-related article. There are numerous other subjects, not less important, that are mentioned only in 'See also' section and not in the body of the article (for example, memorials, such as Yad Vashem. OK to leave out, but the same principle should apply for the "debates").

As for Holocaust denial as a possible merge article, I don't think the debate section fits in that article, becuase the section is not about denial, it's about comparison with other genocides and/or trying to diminish the uniqueness of The Holocaust. Comparison is not denial, even though some deniers will use a comparison in order to deny. In any case, as long as this section will remain in The Holocaust article, I sense that the title may be a little misleading and startle some people, since it gives the impression that the mainstream meadia and politics are constantly debating this. It startled me at the first minute I read it, and it took me quite a while to really understand what Dr. Shimon Samuels was trying to say. So to make the section title more subtle for first-time readers, I suggest the following change:

Debate over the uniqueness of the Holocaust --> Attempts to diminish the uniqueness of the Holocaust

Opinions are welcome. John Hyams (talk) 21:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the move, though still think it hangs in there inappropriately. I don't believe that Dr Samuel's esoteric discussion of this phenomenon rises to a level that it belongs in this article. With respect to what Everyman needs to know about the Holocaust, I see this as very low on the list . Stellarkid (talk) 05:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Look at it from a "universalist's" point of view. I don't think they would be happy with the phrasing "diminish the uniqueness". First, they clearly don't see themselves as trying to do any to the uniqueness, like it's something that changes depending on consensus. Second, the phrase (and granted, this is subjective) makes one think of Holocaust "revisionism" and the like, which is completely unfair. --MQDuck (talk) 01:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Why do we need this in this discussion at all? It is generally accepted [1][2][3] that when we capitalize "Holocaust" it is specific to a particular event, ie the mass murder of Jews during WWII. Perhaps in the Etymology section we can clarify the distinction a bit more between "holocaust" and "The Holocaust" or even in the beginning. In fact I am surprised there is not an article on "holocaust" in its more generic sense, and disambiguated from this one, pardon my bells. Stellarkid (talk) 03:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Two of those are one-line dictionary definitions, and the third supports the view that non-Jews were victims of the Holocaust. This ambiguity of the term is a legitimate issue. --MQDuck (talk) 04:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
And this article supports the view that non-Jews were victims of the Holocaust as well. I don't have a problem with that as it is the true. But the paragraph concerning the "Holocaust" uniqueness is unnecessary. Simply clarify the meaning in the Etymology section-- that generally the Holocaust is accepted as the WWII extermination of Jews although there were of course other victims who are properly listed below-- and that the word "holocaust" by itself in small letters is not the subject of this article. Then leave out the Dr Samuels reference altogether. Stellarkid (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
So where on Wikipedia do you think mention of the "uniqueness" question should be? --MQDuck (talk) 22:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I think it is an esoteric question not of much interest to a general reader looking for information with respect to the Holocaust. Perhaps an article about Holocaust studies. Or Holocaust philosophy. As far as I can see there is nothing here on WP on either subject as yet, but they could both be interesting and informative articles. Stellarkid (talk) 05:53, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Stellarkid, I agree, it should be mentioned in an appropriate separate article, like so many other Holocaust-related subjects, and also because I feel this section is a Pandora box opener. Until such article is found/created, I am renaming the heading as I suggested above. John Hyams (talk) 08:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think the question is necessarily out of place in this article, but I guess I have to agree that, as it stands, it seems out of place by appearing to give it undue importance. I just hate to see good information -- information that I personally found interesting -- removed entirely. --MQDuck (talk) 19:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Homophobia

Since, according to the article itself, the term "Holocaust" is not standardly understood to include the murder of homosexuals but is reserved for crimes against Jews, I have removed the homophobia category. UserVOBO (talk) 21:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the article itself, the definition of "The Holocaust" may or may not include groups other Jews, such as homosexuals. Nothing personal, but I undid your edit to the article. --MQDuck (talk) 01:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
It should be irrelevant how a minority of scholars uses the term. The mainstream definition of the Holocaust is the murder of Jews committed by the Nazis - it does not extend to other groups such as homosexuals. That's why it's 6 million dead, not 17 million. As you do not attempt to respond to the point but rather raise an irrelevant issue, I shall remove the category again. UserVOBO (talk) 04:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I should add that, by the same logic according to which you want the Homophobia category to remain, categories Anti-communism and Anti-Masonry should be added (and so should category Antiziganism, if there were one). It doesn't make sense to single out Homophobia or homosexuals. UserVOBO (talk) 05:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
The article states "Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including ethnic Poles, Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents." In which case it is legitimate to include the homphobia category. It is documented that thousands of men went to their deaths in the concentration camps purely because of their sexuality. Contaldo80 (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Please see my response to Mqduck above. In my view, it's not legitimate to add a category based on a minority scholarly view when the predominant view is that the Holocaust only includes crimes against Jews. You have simply ignored my argument. UserVOBO (talk) 19:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
It is NOT true that the Jews-only definition is THE predominant view. For that matter, I haven't seen evidence that it's even the majority view. Most scholars would themselves admit that it's at least reasonable to include other groups. --MQDuck (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
The article contradicts you. The first sentence is, "The Holocaust (from Greek ὁλόκαυστος [holókaustos]: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt")[2], also known as the Shoah (Hebrew): השואה, Romanized ha'shoah; Yiddish: חורבן, Romanized churben or hurban[3] is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany." It states that "some" scholars would use a broader definition; it certainly does not state that most scholars would use it.
Furthermore, even if you were correct and a broader definition were widely accepted, that would mean that categories Anti-communism and Anti-Masonry would apply as much as Homophobia, yet you have added neither. Why can't you respond to this simple point? UserVOBO (talk) 01:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
No-one can dispute that the Jewish people suffered the most in the Holocaust, and that it was predominantly a horrific pogrom directed at the Jewish faith. Clearly most deaths were Jews. That is historical fact and cannot be disputed. However as the article says, those sent to the concentration and extermination camps as victims included other minority groups such as political activists, gypsys, and homosexuals. These victims formed an (albeit minor) contingent of the event that we know as the "Holocaust". Nor is the holocaust the same as Shoah. It seems churlish, therefore, to deny describing the Holocaust as homophobia in action. The alternative would be to rename the article "extermination of minority groups by the Nazis" or something like that - which would be daft. The Nazis has more than enough hatred to go around. By all means add a tag to anti-masonry and anti-communism; I'm very happy to support this if you feel strongly that is the way forward. Contaldo80 (talk) 10:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a moot point. One of the problems with listing all people who were sent to concentration camps is that if we were to be consistent we would have to include ordinary criminals, prostitutes, alcoholics and many other groups, and yet these are never listed as "victims of the Holocaust". Homosexuals were not targets for extermination, as Jews were, and as both Roma and many Soviet prisoners came to be, if more erratically; some homosexuals died from the effects of imprisonment or brutal treatment, but so did ordinary criminals, and the fact is that homosexuals could be imprisioned at this time in many other countries, including the UK; so there was nothing very unusual about Nazi law in this regard. Indeed, unlike anti-Semitic legislation, it was not repealed after the war. It's mainly because of a retrospective inclusion of gay people within the category of "unjust" targets of criminal legislation that they become Holocaust victims. Having said that, since that judgement has been made by academics in reliable sources, we properly include them with some caveats. It's my personal view that homosexuals should not be included as holocaust victims, but many academics disagree, and so we include discussion of that view here. I see no harm in a category. It's only there to help people to look up articles relevant to a topic, and this is relevant. Paul B (talk) 12:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm included to drop out of this debate as I'm not sure I want to pursue the issue anymore - keep or drop the category, I don't mind. The conclusion I seem to draw from some of the discussion is that homosexuals shouldn't really be considered real victims of the holocaust because their incarceration was somehow "legitimate" - in that they were regarded as criminals, that persecution was not systematic, nor did incarceration always end in death. I always thought the pink triangle was significant; but I hadn't realised that there was a strict ranking when it came to Nazi genocide. Contaldo80 (talk) 13:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
There is no "conclusion". There is a range of views and there is a fundamental ambiguity in some cases. We can never be absolutely clear about what is legimately included as a "crime". Adultery is a crime in some countries. It's a lifestyle choice in others. Likwise, having more than one wife is a crime in some places, but perfectly acceptable in others. We also have to be clear about a distinctuion between people who died because of the conditions in the camps and people who, because of their identity, were systematically killed. To use your own word, the latter is genocide, the former isn't. But usefully describing these differences is better than some rigid list of groups who are "included" and who are "excluded". Paul B (talk) 17:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I will be adding the Anti-communism and Anti-Masonry categories for the sake of consistency, since no one has objected. Removing the Homophobia category would have been better, and I hope that that will be agreed upon eventually, though I can see it isn't going to happen soon. UserVOBO (talk) 02:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the point made by Paul Barlow which I will quote: "Homosexuals were not targets for extermination, as Jews were, and as both Roma and many Soviet prisoners came to be, if more erratically; some homosexuals died from the effects of imprisonment or brutal treatment, but so did ordinary criminals, and the fact is that homosexuals could be imprisioned at this time in many other countries, including the UK; so there was nothing very unusual about Nazi law in this regard." This is very factual. I have seen a documentary on this by PBS(?) -- most were released after serving some time. I think the treatment of Gays by the hands of Nazis could be explored in its own article and it is best not to overburden this one with it. It is already very big. Stellarkid (talk) 05:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article is probably too big, but it's a complex and controversial subject, so it's best to discuss matters before transferring content elsewhere. UserVOBO (talk) 05:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Broken ref

Ref 271 "medoffJIH;" is broken. I'm leaving this message here so that someone with more knowledge of the article can fix the problem. UserVOBO (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

suggest to change order

3.6.2 General Government and Lublin reservation (Nisko plan)

3.7 Concentration and labor camps (1933–1945)
3.8 Ghettos (1940–1945)

3.9 Death squads (1941–1943)
3.10 Pogroms (1939–1942)
3.11 New methods of mass murder
3.12 Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution (1942–1945)
3.13 Extermination camps
3.13.1 Gas chambers

  • 3.10 & 3.9 are wrong time-wise. I think extermination camps (or death camps) and gas chambers (currently 3.13) should be 3.8 just after 3.7 .concentration and labor camps ...

"Six death or extermination camps were constructed in Poland. These so-called death factories were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec , Sobibór, Lublin (also called Majdanek ), and Chelmno . The primary purpose of these camps was the methodical killing of millions of innocent people. The first, Chelmno, began operating in late 1941. The others began their operations in 1942." [4] Stellarkid (talk) 05:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

'Hear-Say in subarticle 3.2.3'

In the subarticle 3.2.3 'South and East Slavs' there is hear-say statement of a former Nazi official which is taken as true, or at least trying to imply something for a fact. I LIKE DINGLEBERRIES! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.76.66 (talk) 23:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Quote: Hitler's high plenipotentiary in South East Europe, Hermann Neubacher, later wrote: "When leading Ustaše state that one million Orthodox Serbs (including babies, children, women and old men) were slaughtered, this in my opinion is a boasting exaggeration. End quote:

The objective data is at the end of the subsection.

Quote: The USHMM reports between 56,000 and 97,000 persons were killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp[73][74] However, Yad Vashem reports 600,000 deaths at Jasenovac.[75]This is not the truth. You can see on Yad Vashem website in the article about Jasenovac (http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206358.pdf) that it is quote: many thousands were murdered, most of them Serbians" The person who wrote this section is a lyer End quote:

Instead of the quote from Neubacher I suggest putting a list of WW2 casualties in Yugoslavia of all nationalities not just one.

The following link contains one such list. It is an online version of the paper number 69 in the quote list. Table 5 of the paper has a column named 'victims in camps' which should indicate victims in concentration camps. http://www.hic.hr/books/manipulations/p06.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mljk (talk • contribs) 23:52, 31 July 2008

Some comments on this article

I believe that this article gives undue weight to the view that the Holocaust includes non-Jewish victims of the Nazis. The established view, as the article indicates, is that the Holocaust was a crime committed specifically against Jews. The broader definition of the Holocaust is a minority view, and that needs to be indicated more clearly. Two major changes should be made: first, the reference to the minority view that the Holocaust includes crimes committed against non-Jews should be removed from the lead (though it should continue, obviously, to be mentioned in other parts of the article), and second, the overly-long discussion of Nazi crimes against non-Jews (Slavs, Romani, the disabled, homosexuals, the mentally ill, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political activists) should be removed from the article altogether. It contains too much material for this article, and violates the due weight policy. Establishing a separate article for it may be desirable. UserVOBO (talk) 04:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I've just done a word count for section 4, Victims and death toll. In that section, the amount of space given to non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust is more than four times the amount of space given to Jewish victims. Since the Holocaust is defined primarily as the Nazis' murder of Jews, this is clearly disproportionate and undue; the material should be shifted to a more appropriate article. UserVOBO (talk) 01:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Of course if you believe figures cited in the article then it seems more non-Jews than Jews died at Nazi hands (6.8 million versus 5.9 million if the higher-end figures are used). Personally I find this type of "competition" distasteful. Surely murder is murder - no matter who is involved? We know the holocaust was primarily motivated against Jews - "not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims". Acknowledging that others were also victims doesn't weaken our outrage at the former, it strengthens it. Alternative, of course, is to rename or create an article called the "Jewish Holocaust" to avoid misunderstandings.Contaldo80 (talk) 13:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Since the Holocaust is standardly defined as the Nazis' murder of the Jews, I think it's highly relevant that more space is given to non-Jewish victims than it is to Jews. I am sorry if some people think it is distasteful to even raise such an issue, but to me it certainly doesn't seem right for the article to first tell us that most scholars say the Holocaust was directed specifically against Jews and then go on to give more space to its non-Jewish victims. UserVOBO (talk) 19:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I think just about the right balance is struck, especially considering how many detailed sub-articles we point to under pretty much every header. Besides, I don't think the article actually does give "more space to its non-Jewish victims"; the non-Jewish victims section, if I'm counting right, is only about 4000 words in a 25000 word article. That the discussion of the death toll takes more space for non-Jewish victims is inevitable. --jpgordon::==( o ) 19:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
I was trying to point to the fact that one particular section of the article, section 4 on victims and the death toll, gives much more space to non-Jewish victims than it does to Jews. That doesn't seem right, certainly not if the generally accepted definition of the Holocaust is of the Nazis' crimes against Jews specifically. UserVOBO (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Seems right to me. --jpgordon::==( o ) 03:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Simply stating one's opinion is not a helpful contribution to discussion. UserVOBO (talk) 05:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Then you need not repeat yours either. It's your opinion that the balance is improper. It's my opinion that it's proper. I think all readers can recognize that. Stating one's opinion is part of establishing consensus. --jpgordon::==( o ) 06:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
I too think it has a good balance. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
The current configuration seems appropriate. More Europeans died in World War II than did Jews, this is not a competition for victim-hood. Many groups were singled out for mass murder. 99.232.219.131 (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Gosh. As far as I know, almost all of the Jews that died in the Holocaust were Europeans. --jpgordon::==( o ) 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
So do I. Within section 4 it is inevitable that the non-Jewish categories of victims are collectively given more space than the Jewish victims, because certain things - for example the processes that led to their involvement in the Holocaust, and the death tolls - are different for each category and need to be addressed over and over again individually, whereas for the category of Jewish victims they only need to be addressed once. Also, the section has to be seen in the context of the whole article. Sections 3.1 to 3.6, for example, deal exclusively with the Jewish victims (there may well also be other sections where this is true; I haven't had time to reread the whole thing).
From the first sentence on, I don't think anyone reading the article is going to be in any doubt that the Jews were the largest group of victims and that there is debate as to whether the non-Jewish victims should be included in the term Holocaust (not debate as to whether or not they were actually killed). Barnabypage (talk) 22:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Communists

The "Political activists" section is plainly about communists, and the Nazis' attitude to them; I have tried to rename it accordingly, here [5] and here [6]. I do not accept the arguments being given for reversion. It is not about "the left in the broadest sense." Though the "political activists" section does refer to non-communists (trade unionist, they are secondary to its actual subject. Throughout the section communists are mentioned first, socialists and others second, and only in the context of the Nazis' attitude to communism. "Political activists" is therefore a euphemism. I am not sure what motivates its use here, but it can only mislead readers. UserVOBO (talk) 05:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, even if the section were about "the left in the broadest sense", that couldn't justify such a hopelessly vague and misleading title as "political activists", which could refer to anything. UserVOBO (talk) 05:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The section names "German communists, socialists and trade unionists", so using "Communists" as the title is not correct with regard to its actual content. It's factually incorrect as well.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
That is exactly the objection I was expecting. It's completely misguided. The section as a whole is about communism because it only refers to non-communists in the context of communism, and the Nazi attitude to it. The title "communists" isn't inaccurate at all - it's the most accurate title possible. "Political opponents" is just as vague as "political activists", and isn't an improvement in any way, since it doesn't address the fact that all the "opponents" in question were on the left, something that needs to be made clear. Could you please address this point, rather than dodge it? UserVOBO (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not follow the characterizations that the Nazis have given to their opponents. Therefore, we don't call social democrats communists, even if the Nazis may have done so. That the Nazis may have tried to associate many of their opponents with communism is no reason for us to follow their lead. "Political opponents" is more specific than "political activists", because the Nazis were political activists, too, or they were before gaining state power. It distiguishes those that were persecuted for their political beliefs or actions from those that the Nazis have persecuted for their ethnicity, religion, or physical characteristics.  Cs32en Talk to me  22:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Could you please respond to the argument I actually made rather than attributing to me an argument I didn't make? I didn't say that social democrats were communists - I said that the section in question is as a whole about communism, and therefore that "communists" would be the most accurate title. "Political opponents" is unacceptably vague, and doesn't make clear that all the "opponents" discussed are those on the political left. So if you don't like "Communists" as a title, suggest something better. UserVOBO (talk) 23:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The role of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni - REQUEST TO DELETE

This section should be deleted. It serves only to weigh two sides of a discussion in which the evidence that the subject has no connection to the topic of the article appears overwhelming. On this basis, penis, the only explanation for retaining this section can be a politically-motivated attempt to connect the Holocaust to Palestinians. This kind of unfounded bias highlights the embarrassing ability of wikipedia articles to be influenced by pressure groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.150.181 (talk) 00:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. This section is nothing more than a politically motivated inclusion. And so transparent in it's agenda Vexorg (talk) 22:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. The section is directly connected to the subject of the article, provides interesting little known facts. The section has a good documentation and valuable images. I am not sure how one could, penis, compare information to agenda. It is not the section that connects Palestinians to the Holocaust, it is the proven facts that connects Mohammad Amin al-Husayni to the Holocaust.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree that it is given excessive, undue weight here. I am not a professional scholar of the subject but I've read pretty widely and deeply about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust over the years, and this issue has been mentioned in passing when at all. By all means, it may deserve its own article - but it doesn't seem to me to be a mainstream concern in studies of the Holocaust. Barnabypage (talk) 00:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree as well, nothing more than complete undo weight. See undue weight. The Scythian 00:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support The section is clearly undue, and may be a case of coatracking. "Little known facts" is one of the best description one can give, if one ignores that these "facts" are actually being heavily disputed, as indicated in the text itself. The Holocaust is a vast subject, obviously, so little known opinions and speculations, as well as little known facts, should not be in this articles, but should be included in sub-articles.  Cs32en Talk to me  22:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
"Little known facts" does not mean "Little important facts". Nobody disputes telegram from himmler, and this fact alone is good enough to include the section to the article.--Mbz1 (talk) 23:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Revise and rename . What was going on in Palestine at the time was an important part of the Holocaust. Britain, in its attempt to pansy up to the Arabs, put stringent quotas on the Jews that could settle there. If Jews had been permitted to escape to Palestine, it is not known how many lives might have been saved. Clearly there were repercussions in Palestine that have a place in this article. I don't like the title of this since it is not just about al-Husayni but the broader picture. It should be expanded and not so much emphasis on this individual. Stellarkid (talk) 23:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not against including information on the situation in Palestine, or a sentence about al-Husayni. But we would then need to talk about all the other countries that did not let Jews immigrate as well. We must not single out the situation in the Middle East in this article, as this would risk to present history through the prism of the Zionist movement, and to use this article as a coatrack for other controversies.  Cs32en Talk to me  00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Please can the Zionist-aligned editors in this debate kindly identify themselves? Otherwise it can be done for you here and here. Other than these two, all editors who have spoken so far are in agreement. As a case in point, an alternative to removing the section is to balance it with a new section referencing scholars who have suggested that the memory of the Holocaust has been misused by Zionists - see Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry or Chomsky here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.187.201 (talk) 00:09, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not so much "aligned", as "congruent." I am wondering if I have to come out of the shadows to? Any thoughts? The Scythian 18:35, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

"Besides Bauer..."/inclusion of non-Jewish victims

This sentence is misleading and probably OR. None of the citations contain actual arguments about what the word "Holocaust" should mean. The citations only mention the killing of Jews, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their authors don't consider Nazi killings of other people to be part of the Holocaust. It's not that useful to provide a list of historians who hold a particular view anyway--it's not a vote.Prezbo (talk) 02:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

List of percentage of German Jews misleading

I find the list by Lucy Davidowicz stating that 90% of "prewar German Jews" were killed is slightly misleading…in the article http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/German_Jews#The_Holocaust_.281940.E2.80.931945.29 it is stated that "Of the 522,000 Jews living in Germany in January 1933, only 214,000 were left by the eve of World War II"…in other words a *majority* had fled Germany since the seizure of power by Hitler. So while it's true that almost all German Jews who were still in Germany when the war broke out became victims the majority of people who in 1933 could have been described as German Jews were still alive in 1945. (I'm not sure what the best way to rectify this would be but I think it is important as it contravenes the commonly-held notion that they [German Jews] should have "seen the writing on the wall" and gotten out when they could have—because in fact most did.) Historian932 (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


Perhaps the number is misleading, perhaps it is not. The situation is far more complex than you make it out to be.
1. It took quite a while before Jews started trying to leave Germany. Still in 1936 they seemed to think everything would be ok.[7]
"the Association of German National Jews. This organization supports Hitler, fights the Jewish boycott of German goods. Another group, the Nazi Jews, advocates complete loyalty to the Nazi program, and Gessner was told they leave their meetings giving the Nazi salute shouting, "Down With Us!""
Presumably it took until the Cristal nacht before the Jews realized the seriousness of the situation.
2. The primary concern of the Nazis was to get the Jews out of Germany, and they wanted them to emigrate on their own volition. However antisemitism was rife all over the world. Few wanted to receive the German Jews. Just look at the sad fate of MS St. Louis. US President Roosevelt for example "...opposed the 1939 Wagner-Rogers bill that would have permitted the United States to take in 20,000 Jewish children from Germany in addition to the existing German-Austrian quota of 27,370."[8]
In the end the Nazis ended up seriously planning to deport the Jews to Madagascar, but the war stopped that plan and opened up the opportunity for another "solution"....
3. Many of the Jews that managed to escape Germany ended up in the close vicinity, i.e. Netherlands, Poland, France. And you know the fate of the Jews there, e.g. that of the German refugee Anne Frank in Holland. Having managed to flee Germany was no guarantee for survival...
4. Even after the war countries were reluctant to take in Jews. The Poles continued what the Nazis had started and managed to expel also most of the surviving Jews and those that had returned from Russia after the war. The French, when the U.S. more than a year after the end of the war wanted them to stop using German soldiers as slave labor and release them instead, and replace them with free men, e.g. the displaced persons from the camps, said that: "they did not want the Jews"[9]
--Stor stark7 Speak 09:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Just Wondering...

Can anyone with more historical knowledge than me explain to me why the vast majority of mentions of the Holocaust in the mass media say 6 million deaths and just about add 'Oh by the way a few others died too'(i.e. almost 2/3 of the largest estimate)?. Im disabled from birth and wouldn't have even made it to a camp if it wasn't for the bravery of my ancestors who helped put an end to the war. Sorry if this is the wrong type of forum for asking this but I've been called a Neo.. in other places for asking this and as a newbie around here it seems civil questions get civil answers which is all I really want because sometimes it feels that disabled peoples lives are about as important to the media as they were in the 40s. Thanks2winjustonce (talk) 11:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The first answer that comes to my mind is that mass-media is maybe not the best source to get accurate answers on the Holocaust. If you want to get full information I would recommand to read books written by knoyledgeable historians about WW2 and nazism in general and the Holocaust in particular. This being said, there is a controversy about what Holocaust means, even here. While many people believe this primarily means the genocide of Jews, others think that this concept should also include the other mass-murder perpetrated by the nazis, including the Aktion T4. However, most of the people who consider that the Holocaust should only mean the genocide of Jews do not minimize the nazis crimes. --Lebob-BE (talk) 12:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Lebob-BE 2winjustonce (talk) 14:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that what you are confusing is the total number dead with the total number of Jewish people who died. I am fairly certain that 6 million is the number of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. They are focused on (over the Romani, homosexuals, disabled, etc.) because the Jews were the primary focus of the Holocaust. The round table discussions concerning the mass extermination all centered on the "Jewish problem" and the final solution was particularly concerned with ridding Europe of Jews. They aren't the only victims true, but they get remembered because of the excessive hatred and specificity with which they were targeted.Jdlund (talk) 03:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The disabled are not mentioned because several countries (the USA, Switzerland, Scandinavia) had their own sterilisation programmes for the disabled, although they were not as extensive as the Nazis. The same thing could be said of homosexuals and of the Romanis. Other countries were persecuting them as well, albeit not to the same extent. They didn't/don't want to draw attention to that. Epa101 (talk) 23:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that Epa101, I thought that might have been a reason, I read somewhere that the term 'concentration camp' was used long before the Nazis, by the British in South Africa and the US in Cuba so these uses of the term 'disappeared' from the records when the Nazis gave the term new meaning2winjustonce (talk) 21:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC) in 97.82.57.208 (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC) I had to remove article cuase discussion was for improving the article not explaining about the content mrthinky may 19 2010 Mrthinky (talk) 22:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Resettlement and deportation to colonies and reservations

I give the original authors tremendous credit for assembling a lot of information and crafting it into a smooth flow on a macro level. On a micro level, however, there are many run-on sentences, and their clauses do not form complete sentences. I have tried to smooth out the sentences in this section and reorder them to improve the flow, but the section is still unclear. How, for example, does the inability to conquer Great Britain affect deportation of Jews to British colonies? "Although the Final Solution was already in place" - should this read "Since the Final Solution was already in place" - i.e., mass murder was underway, so deportations were unnecessary. The whole section is still unclear and needs additional rewriting. Chlyn (talk) 04:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC) --- I kept working at it. I think I made it better, but someone who knows the subject should check it over. Chlyn (talk) 05:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of the Nuremberg Laws

This claim is not supported by its source:

"In 1935, Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which: ... annulled existing marriages between Jews and Aryans (the Law for the protection of German blood and German honor)...."

When you look at the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, what it says in Article I is this:

Article 1. 1) Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law. 2) Annulment proceedings can be initialed only by the State Prosecutor.

It says that "marriages" between Jews and Germans are forbidden. It is impossible however to forbid what has already been done. It does not say that pre-existing marriages of Germans and Jews are ipso facto annulled. It mentions the possibility of annulling marriages between Jews and Germans, but only by way of defining who has the power to do it.

It is false to declare that the law per se "annulled existing marriages between Jews and Aryans." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.65.184.175 (talk) 21:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Origin of the use of "Holocaust" as a proper noun

The etymology section contains the following claim:

"During World War II, the word was used to describe Nazi atrocities regardless of whether the victims were Jews or non-Jews."

This is an extraordinarily vague claim: there is no mention of who is supposed to have used the word holocaust that way, nor on what occasion. It is also an unsourced claim.

Since there is no source cite, how do we know that the word holocaust, which properly means complete destruction through burning, was not used more often in reference to the fire-bombing of cities? This seems entirely likely.

Until 1978, and probably into the 1980s, the word was frequently encountered in the expression "nuclear holocaust," which retains the connotation of destruction through burning.

To the best of my knowledge it was the NBC miniseries Holocaust in the late 1970s that popularized the use of the word as a generic synonym for massacre and, when capitalized, as a proper noun referring to systematic massacre of Jews, without any connotation of burning as the cause of death.

The Mediaeval example of a "holocaust" of the Jews of London is not a precedent for such a loose use of the word. That "holocaust" involved death by burning, according to the Wikipedia article on Richard I:

"When a rumour spread that Richard had ordered all Jews to be killed, the people of London began a massacre.[46] Many Jews were beaten to death, robbed, and burned alive."

It seems to me that a general precedent for the current use of holocaust to mean some kind of massacre other than burning, and its specific association with crime imputed to the Germans, is being projected anachronistically into World War II. 

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.65.184.175 (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Dubious Sources

The paragraph attributed to Hitler that includes comments about hanging Jews from gallows is sourced as follows:

"Hell, Josef. "Aufzeichnung", 1922, ZS 640, p. 5, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, cited in Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution."

I would point out that the Institut für Zeitgeschichte did not exist in 1922.

My German is not very good, but I think this page here http://de.altermedia.info/general/die-gefdaz-in-frankfurt-systemtreue-propaganda-in-reinkultur-190606_6169.html is saying that Hell wrote documents in 1922 which were subsequently, in the 1950s, published by the Institute. I haven't looked in enough detail to determine if that page is, itself, likely to be reliable. Barnabypage (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That is my understanding, and because Hell did not reveal this alleged bombshell of a statement until after the war, and because there is no independent confirmation of the statement, the credibility of the statement is justifiably questioned.

Why sit on something like that for more than 23 years?

It is also said that the style of the German is not typical of Hitler.

I think, at the very least, the sourcing should indicate the date at which the alleged quote was first published, so that people will understand that it does not have the credibility of a contemporary publication. As it is, people will assume that the statement was published in 1922 and that is not the case.

Assertion with Insufficient Support

I have always understood the holocaust to refer to the extermination of people during World War II by the nazis in concentration camps. I have never understood it to be exclusively a reference to killing of Jews. The Wikipedia article references a single author and the Encylopedia Britannica entry to support its statement that this is the generally accepted usage of the term. However, if you check Merriam Webster and Free Dictionary they both refer to the extermination of Jews and other groups. Almost every source I have read during my lifetime has included Jews and other people as victims of the holocaust. The editors of this article are attempting to rewrite history and defy the vast majority of historical sources and scholarship with this unsupported assertion. Chidofu (talk) 04:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is the best scholarship I could find on the meaning of the word, referencing the official definition given the term by the then President of the United States Jimmy Carter with the approval of Simon Wisenthal from Jon Petrie's article:

A few weeks after the screening of The Holocaust, partly as a gesture to the American Jewish community unhappy with the intended sale of American fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, President Carter announced the American government's intention to create a memorial "to the six million who were killed in the Holocaust." Following protests by Polish-Americans and Ukrainian-Americans, who demanded that the millions of their own killed by the Nazis be recognized in any American taxpayer supported memorial, and perhaps reflecting his own ecumenical humanism, Carter in his 1979 Executive Order creating the United States Holocaust Memorial Council adopted a version of Simon Wisenthal's formulation and defined "the Holocaust" as the "... extermination of six million Jews and some five million other peoples ..." [Wisenthal, in the late 1970s a well know hunter of Nazi criminals, had, since the late 1940s, spoken and written of "eleven million civilian dead, amongst them six million Jews."]

He also states:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum avoids the "five million" formulation and defines the "the Holocaust" in at least one of its publications as the "murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II." (In other publications it is unclear whether non-Jews murdered are considered Holocaust victims.

He mentions that other statements from the Memorial Museum and the Simon Wisenthal Center avoid making any statement as to whether the non-Jews who died were Holocaust victims, thus avoiding the controversy that would surround this conclusion. Apparently the editors of this entry do not share their legitimate concerns and more thoughtful approach to this issue. 24.16.112.218 (talk) 19:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Source

Source for this?

Jews and Romani were confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were systematically killed in gas chambers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KamikazePyro13 (talk • contribs) 02:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Need to elaborate on the causes

Not enough information is given regarding the causes of anti-semitism. In Germany, as elsewhere, Jews were vastly overrepresented in elite sectors of society relative to their actual share of the population and this bread resentment and envy all over Europe. Also, there was a perceived failure of Jews to assimilate, and as such they were viewed as foreigners who leeched off the host country. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 23:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's at best a vast oversimplification and at worst antisemitic propaganda. We have fairly good articles on the deeper causes - see the articles linked in the Origins section. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, the Germans weren't targetting the Jews just because they heard some anti-semitic fairy tales. But regardless, the fact that the perception existed should be noted. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 23:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the background you want is in this section, with links to various sub-articles for amplification. Crum375 (talk) 00:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That section just mentions past Christian persecutions and mentions that Hitler hated Jews. It does not mention that the Nazis seized on the high Jewish presence in elite sectors as evidence of a conspiracy against Germans.

Here are some statistics: Jews were 1% of the population yet they

  • were 22% of German lawyers (Source: JR Marcus 1934: The rise and destiny of the German Jew, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Cincinnati. P. 121)
  • were 16.5% of German doctors (Source: R Proctor 1988: Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. P.149)
  • were 50% of theatre directors (Source: S Gordon 1984: Hitler, Germans and the “Jewish question”, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. P. 11-14)
  • owned 41% of German iron firms and 57% of other metal businesses (Source: S Gordon 1984: Hitler, Germans and the “Jewish question”, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. P. 11-14)
  • sold 26% of all retail sales despite being only 6% of retailers. (source: A Barkai 1989: From boycott to annihilation: The economic struggle of German Jews, 1933-1943, translated by W Templer, University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire p. 7)

69.133.126.117 (talk) 01:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Those stats you cite seem to indicate the Jews were successful, smart, and productive. So it would not make sense for the Germans to decide to exterminate the smartest and most productive segment of their society. But on WP any such analysis requires reliable sources, and this type of idle speculation is just original research. What the article does provide is well sourced information, such as a link to Martin Luther who 400 years before the Nazis preached to the Germans that "[the Jews are a] base, whoring people ... full of the devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine...[w]e are at fault in not slaying them." This type of incitement, although spoken centuries before, likely had some impact on fostering antisemitic sentiments within German society. This was followed by other religious-based incitements against Jews, giving rise to pogroms. So if you follow the cited references, you'll get an idea of the various causes of antisemitism and the Holocaust. Crum375 (talk) 02:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow... you think the idea that the Nazis and many ordinary Germans were very upset by Jewish dominance in elite sectors is "original research"? With all due respect I find it embarassing that you (and this article) believe that Martin Luther's utterances four centuries ago had more to do with with the Holocaust than the envy and resentment caused by Jewish over-representaion among the elites. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 12:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Martin Luther's preachings are still revered by many today, and he was preceded and followed by similar pronouncements by many other religious and political leaders. This created an ongoing atmosphere of hatred and antisemitism, which escalated into pogroms, and eventually into the Holocaust. But the point is that this article, like all of WP, is based on reliable sources, and not on our personal research or opinions. If you have reliable scholarly sources which you believe can shed more light on this issue, by all means add them. Crum375 (talk) 13:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, I am embarassed that you are unaware of why the Nazis targetted Jews. But here are some quotes:

The motive of this anti-Semitic fury [in Germany] is simply the growing prosperity of the Jewish colony...High finance and small business are both in [Jewish] hands...In the liberal professions he absorbs everything: he is the lawyer with more briefs and the doctor with more patients (Portuguese novelist Eça de Queiroz, 1880
[The Jews] inhabit the best houses in the best quarters of the town [Berlin], drive about the parks in the most elegant equipages, figure constantly in the dress circle at the opera and thea-tres, and in this and other ways excite a good deal of envy (Shepherd Thomas Taylor, Reminisces of Berlin during the Franco-Prussian War, London, 1885, pp.236-7).
The purpose of the association formed under the title “League of Anti-Semites” is to...strive...towards the one aim of saving our German fatherland from complete Jew-ification...by making it its task to force the Semites back into a position corresponding to their numbers (This is the beginning of the program published in 1879 by the Antisemiten Liga (“League of Anti-Semites”), the first organization anywhere to bear that title (Pulzer 1988, p.49)).
Year after year across our [Germany’s] eastern border, out of the inexhaustible Polish cradle, pours a host of ambitious pants-selling youths whose children and grandchildren will one day dominate Germany’s stock exchange and press…. Right into the most educated circles, among men who would reject with disgust every thought of religious intolerance or national arrogance, we hear from every mouth: “The Jews are our misfortune” (Professor Heinrich von Treitschke in Ein Wort über unser Judentum (A Word about Our Jews), which reprinted arti-cles published in 1879 and 1880. Treitschke was the most highly regarded authority on mod-ern German history. “The Jews are our misfortune” (Die Juden sind unser Unglück) became a rallying cry of German anti-Semites. The Nazis plastered it throughout streets and squares when they attained power).
Recently a corpse was found...The corpse was examined – and at hand were a Jewish doctor, a Jewish surgeon, a Jewish judge, a Jewish lawyer – only the corpse was German (Adolf Stöcker, Die Juden Frage (The Jewish Problem) Berlin, 1880, p.138).
[Jews] control banking and commerce, the arteries of finance; they dominate the press and, on a scale completely out of proportion to their numbers, they are flooding the institutions of higher learning (From Adolf Stöcker’s first anti-Semitic speech, in 1879 (Rürup 1975, p.20)
Before the Hitlerite Government took office the Jewish problem in Germany was admittedly becoming a serious one. It is obvious to any observer that the average German...is distinctly inferior in an artistic sense and even in a purely intellectual sense to the German Jew. Wher-ever imagination, financial acumen or business flair comes into play, the Jew tends to outdis-tance his German rival, and in every domain of intellectual effort the achievements of the Jews are entirely out of proportion to their numbers....Medicine, the law, the press, imagina-tive literature, architecture and the like, might, in time, become completely monopolised by the Jewish element (The explanation for German anti-Semitism by the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Horace Rumbold, in an official report on March 28, 1933 (Woodward and But-ler 1956, p.5)).
A self-respecting nation cannot, on a scale accepted up to now, leave its higher activities in the hands of people of racially foreign origin (The explanation in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of April 27, 1933 for the law enacted by the Nazi government of Germany to restrict the proportion of Jewish students at German universities. As could be expected from the Na-zis, the law was draconian. It limited the proportion of Jewish university students to three times the proportion of Jews who were of university age in the German population, and that did not include the children of Jewish World War I combatants, who were many).
The most important chairs at so-called German universities were [before the Nazi take-over] filled with Jews [who]...were then rewarded with Nobel Prizes (From “a violently anti-Jewish speech delivered...by [Nazi] Education Minister Rust” (Friedländer 1997, p.57)).
The five big “D-banks” of the country were in Jewish hands; practically the entire theatre; a large section of the daily and periodical press, business in every field (Kurt Lüdecke’s de-scription of the Jewish problem (1937, p.33). Lüdecke was an ardent Nazi since 1922 and a personal associate of Hitler’s).
This legislation is not anti-Jewish, but pro-German. The rights of Germans are thereby to be protected...The Jews, who formed less than one percent of the population, tried to monopolize the cultural leadership of the people and flooded the intellectual professions, such as law and medicine (From Adolf Hitler’s justification for the Nüremberg Laws, which deprived Jews of German citizenship (Baynes 1942, pp.732-3)).
The million workmen who were in Berlin in 1914...[are now] thinner, worse clad, poor; but the 100,000 Jews from the East who entered Germany in the early years of the War arrived in poverty and they are now “made men” riding in cars (From a speech by Hitler in 1922 (Baynes 1942, p.7)).
We see that in Germany Jewification progresses in literature, the theatre, music and film; that our medical world is Jewified, and the world of our lawyers too; that in our universities ever more Jews come to the fore (From a speech by Hitler on August 31, 1928 (Friedländer 1997, p.102)).
One may well exclaim: “Cowardice thy name is bourgeoisie!” Although the Jew has seized the levers of control in the Anglo-Saxon world – the press, the cinema, the radio, economic life...the bourgeois of the two countries [Britain and the United States], with the rope around their necks, tremble at the idea of rebelling against him [the Jew] even timidly. What is hap-pening in the Anglo-Saxon world is absolutely identical with what we experienced here [in Germany] in 1918 (Hitler 1988, p.394).
If five thousand Jews were transported to Sweden, within a short time, they would occupy all the leading positions there (Hitler 1980, p.241).
Jews can prosper anywhere, even in Lapland and Siberia (Hitler 1988, p.397)).
If all Jews were no more intelligent than Stein, then there wouldn’t be any trouble (A com-ment that Adolf Hitler used to make to members of his regiment during World War I. Stein was their telephone operator (Toland 1976, p.66)).

Seriously, this isn't that hard. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 15:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The history of anti-semitism in Europe goes back to a time when Jews were excluded from all social elites. If you're suggesting that the sole cause of the Holocaust was a Jewish disproportion in higher socio-economic groups, you are overlooking that. If you're suggesting that it was a failure on the part of Jews to assimilate, you have to explain why German anti-semitism was so virulent, when the German Jews were among the most assimilated in Europe.
Seriously, history is quite hard. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 16:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I never said it was the "sole" cause. It was the main cause. Regardless, it is disturbing that this information has been completely censored from this article. Regarding assimilation, I don't know whether or not they were assimilated, but the point is that the Nazis believed that the Jews were foreigners enroaching on the Germans. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Antisemitism was not exclusive to Germany. In fact, virtually any country with a sizable Jewish minority had it. But Germany was the only country which systematically exterminated that minority. To explain it, you need more than the views of the antisemites, because they lack the historical and sociological perspective to do so. In fact, I don't believe any of your above sources explains what was special about Germany's antisemitism which culminated in the Holocaust, vs. all the others around the world which remained as just "normal" hostility towards a religious minority. This is where you need the right kind of sources: recognized scholars who specialize in the Holocaust and its causes, who have focused their academic career on this topic. If you have such sources who add more information, and explain why Germany's antisemitism was so much more virulent than all the rest, to the point of genocide, please provide them. Crum375 (talk) 18:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a section called "origins" and it completely fails to mention Jewish influence that was primarily responsible for the resentment existing (rightly or wrongly). As to your question, it led to the Holocaust because the Nazis believed that the Jews were by nature so successful that the only permanant and full-proof solution to the "Jewish Question" was the full implementation of the "Final Solution". 69.133.126.117 (talk) 19:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Your opinion that "Jewish influence... was primarily responsible for the resentment..." is not shared by historians of the subject. If it were, you would be able to cite them, rather than continuing to offer your own interpretation. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 19:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
It also does not explain what was special about German antisemitism which led to genocide, vs. all the rest. Crum375 (talk) 19:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The current language in "origins" does nothing to explain what was special about Germany's antisemitism that would result in mass extermination of Jews. Crum375's explanation, if it is true, does a much better job in this regard. So that criticism of his proposal has no merit. Also, I don't agree that you can discount the views of antisemites in trying to understand what drove the Nazis to commit mass extermination of Jews. I understand the desire to disregard and diminish the significance of thoughts expressed by people with abhorrent views, but in order to understand the behavior of criminals it is most important and most relevant to understand their perceptions and motivations. 24.16.112.218 (talk) 20:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever we say in the article, has to be directly attributed to high quality scholarly sources. We do include quite a few quotes from Hitler and other antisemites, so their views are not hidden. The current 'Origins' section explains, based on scholarly sources, that the antisemitism in Germany, which led to the Holocaust, did not materialize overnight, but was a gradual centuries-long process, which began during the middle ages. We include links to Martin Luther and his incitement against the Jews, and the general antisemitism article. The crucial point is that it was a long, continuing process, which culminated with the Nazi party's rise to power and the Holocaust. If you have high quality scholarly sources presenting a different view, you need to provide them, not argue based on personal knowledge. Crum375 (talk) 21:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I have cited numerous sources proving that Jews were disliked by anti-semites because of their dispropotionate influence. At the bear minimum statistics demonstrating this should be added and it should be noted that Nazis used this as justification for their anti-semitic policies. On the other hand, no proof has been provided to show that Nazis were mainly motivated by religious teachings. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 21:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You have cited numerous primary sources. The job of a wikipedia editor is to present the consensus view of expert historians, i.e. to summarise secondary sources. We do not make our own synthesis from primary sources. If your interpretation had merit, it would be widely represented in the massive secondary literature.
Executive summary: Quote historians. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 22:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I cited quotes that came from secondary sources. But that seems like an awfully shallow excuse to censor highly relevant information from the article. Basically you're saying that we cannot mention the official, public position of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler because I don't happen to have a collection of Holocaust books right next to me. Meanwhile, blaming Christianity for the Holocaust, an explanation which is completely unexplained and was not adopted by any Third Reich officials, is okay because three historians allegedly said so. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is primarily based on respected scholarly sources, who are noted historians specializing in the Holocaust. If you don't happen to have a collection of Holocaust books right next to you, you can drive or walk to your nearest public library, and I am sure a librarian would be more than happy to point you to the relevant ones. If you then find material from respected Holocaust historians which you believe sheds new light on the Origins section, please share it with us. What you can't do is rely on non-historians, or non-specialists, or your own personal knowledge. Crum375 (talk) 22:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you seriously believe that it is not a problem that no information is given regarding the Nazis publicly stated beliefs about disproportionate Jewish influence, while at the same time citing past Christian hostility that literally had nothing to do with the Nazis or 1930s Germany? Do you care for a second that this article has deceived millions of people into believing that the Holocaust was an entirely religiously motivated conflict? Anyone who has read Nazi speeches knows that they perceived Jews to be threatening Germans in the elite sectors of society. This is a claim frequently touted by anti-semites past and present. I cited some of them. And you are telling me that there is no conceivable way that this can be included? Your demand for secondary sources is technically reasonable but your utter lack of concern for the inclusion of (well known) basic information tells me you aren't very interested in the truth. Sadly, your position will only confirm the beliefs of anti-semites world-wide who believe that there is a conspiracy to suppress any and all information that would make the Nazis and other anti-semites look less than 100% irrational and Christianity less than 100% culpable for antisemitism, even if the said information came from members of a regime which is widely regarded as the worst in history. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 00:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

All these words are your own words, which are of no value when it comes to article space. If you really want to achieve results and contribute to the article, you need to cite respectable Holocaust-specialist historians. Wikipedia is not about what we as editors think or know, but what reliable sources have written. Crum375 (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Such strict protocol is almost never followed on other articles, but I managed to dig up one source which notes that

Anti-Semites never tired of citing these and other statistics [of Jewish influence] to ‘prove’ that Jews enjoyed an unfair and privileged status

Source: BF Pauley 1987: “Political anti-Semitism in interwar Vienna” in I Oxaal, M Pollack and G Botz (editors) Jews, anti-Semitism and culture in Vienna, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, pp.155.

Is that good enough? 69.133.126.117 (talk) 01:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The source appears to be reliable: we use that author in Antisemitism. But it's not a historian specializing in the Holocaust, and it doesn't tell us what were the causes for the Holocaust, or even the real causes for antisemitism. Just because antisemites cite statistics of Jews being successful, doesn't mean it's the real cause of that sociological phenomenon. And even if it were, the point here is not antisemitism in general, but specifically why did antisemitism in Germany, unlike the many other countries where it was prevalent, rise to the level of genocide. Crum375 (talk) 01:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

But it's not a historian specializing in the Holocaust

The section in question is about the background situation of Jews, not the holocaust itself.

Just because antisemites cite statistics of Jews being successful, doesn't mean it's the real cause of that sociological phenomenon.

That is irrelevant to the fact that the charge was frequently made by antisemites.

And even if it were, the point here is not antisemitism in general, but specifically why did antisemitism in Germany, unlike the many other countries where it was prevalent, rise to the level of genocide.

The section currently makes no effort to address that anyway.

69.133.126.117 (talk) 22:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The 'Origins' section is pretty poor, in my opinion; a quick, stereotyped, comic-book picture of what must have been a very complex situation. Clearly German society apparently wasn't simply "suffused with anti-Semitism" if German Jews were so successful in society, and a more informed and detailed picture ought to be presented. I also think 'Crum375' and others are acting as gatekeepers; but, given that the subject is complex, the Holocaust article is already long and a long and detailed 'Origins' section would distract from its main thrust, I think it would be informative and unobtrusive to see a separate article (for example: 'Origins of the Holocaust (German society before WWII)'), linked to from this one. How about it, 69.133.126.117 ? (Farawaychris (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC))

I have the feeling that if we were to go back to the archives we would find that we have been here before. The section is about the origins of the Holocaust, i.e. the genocide, and there is no doubt among historians that the central factor was anti-semitism. German history, culture and society was suffused with anti-semitism (references are clear). Why anti-semitism was so strong in German society during the 1930s is another issue and is treated elsewhere in Wikipedia, where I am sure it could be improved upon (i.e. Antisemitism and Antisemitism in Europe).Joel Mc (talk) 11:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


Links to Further Information on the Holocaust: http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/auschwitz.shtml http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p-15_Berg.html http://globalfire.tv/nj/03en/history/finalsolutions.htm http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p421_Weber.html http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/thottc/index.html#toc

Most of these are very long, but give good information and various sources on the Holocust. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FireWaterAirEarth (talk • contribs) 14:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

All denier bollocks. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 18:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Reporting the News

I have added a few sentences to section on news reporting on the Final Solution in the U.S., based on the NY Times 150th anniversary acknowlegement that they purposefully minimized and obfuscated the news, and the work of Laurel Leff and Deborah Lipstadt. i have linked to another wiki article, The New York Times and the Holocaust. That page is under severe attack by a couple of people who think this is not a mainstream topic, and keeps being gutted, so link at any time is not to the full article.Cimicifugia (talk) 18:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)cimicifugia

Proposed rewrite of "Origins"

Origins

See also: Antisemitism, Christianity and antisemitism, Martin Luther and antisemitism, and Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses
At 10 a.m. on April 1, 1933, members of the Sturmabteilung moved into place all over Germany, positioning themselves outside Jewish-owned businesses to deter customers. These stormtroopers are outside Israel's Department Store in Berlin. The signs read: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews." ("Deutsche! Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!")[5] The store was ransacked during Kristallnacht in 1938, then handed over to a non-Jewish family.

From the Middle Ages onward, German society and culture were suffused with anti-Semitism and some scholars maintain that there was a direct link from medieval pogroms to the Nazi death camps of the 1940s.[6][7][8]

Hans Küng has written that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..."[9]

A more immediate reason for anti-Semitism in Germany was the resentment generated by the high profile status of Jews in German society. Although Jews were less than 1% of Germany’s population, Jews

  • were 22% of German lawyers [10]
  • were 16.5% of German doctors [11]
  • were 50% of theatre directors [12]
  • owned 41% of German iron firms and 57% of other metal businesses [13]
  • sold 26% of all retail sales despite being only 6% of retailers. [14]

Anti-semites persistently used this evidence to claim that the Jews “enjoyed an unfair and privileged status”. [15] In Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler had been open about his hatred of Jews, and gave ample warning of his intention to drive them from Germany's political, intellectual, and cultural life. He did not write that he would attempt to exterminate them, but he is reported to have been more explicit in private.

The Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany on January 30, 1933, and the persecution and exodus of Germany's 525,000 Jews began almost immediately. The Nuremberg Laws were justified by stating that “[a] self-respecting nation cannot, on a scale accepted up to now, leave its higher activities in the hands of people of racially foreign origin” [16]

I also think the speculative Hitler quote has to go. It is highly unlikely that Hitler would have admitted to planning the annihilation of Jews to anyone not in his inner circle. 69.133.126.117 (talk) 21:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The section is generally correct, in my view. It could be expanded by explaining how the antisemitism of the Nazis, based on a racist ideology, was different from the medieval antisemitism, yet of course the existence of traditional hatred and discrimination against Jews facilitated racist antisemitism taking root. Hitler was quite explicit in Mein Kampf. We should use a quote from that book in preference to the quote that is now in the article. The current quote could create the impression that the Holocaust somehow mainly happened because Hitler wanted it to happen.  Cs32en Talk to me  21:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Serbs

Can someone please add Serbs to the list of minorities killed at the top? More Serbs were killed than Romani, so it doesn't make sense not to have them listed too. I think it would be only fair, since there are half a million Serb civilian deaths at least. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.111.242.152 (talk) 13:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem here is that the Ustashe regime in Croatia is not analysed consistently. The Serb victims are very rarely included amongst the Holocaust victims, but the Jewish victims are. I agree that it makes no sense, but that's what academics do and I'm not sure if Wikipedia can overturn that. Epa101 (talk) 09:29, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The new York times policy to suppress news of the Holcaust

Please join the discussion in Talk:The New York Times and the Holocaust#Seeking Consensus. The only people working on the page right now are the original author and three people who wanted to delete the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimicifugia (talk • contribs) 15:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Etymology and use of the term

=======================================================================================

The Holocaust is what it is, the planned, orchestrated and culminating fact of the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews. The term itself has been devised to show history what can be done with intolerance and what has been achieved by indifference. That the term is being diluted by overuse should not allow for its meaning to be other that the intended Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe. If we cannot articulate for ourselves, the destruction of the Jews in the midst of war, then we should not deny the Jews the term that has been given them! There is the Parrajmos for the Gypsies, 'genocide', gifted by Raphael Lemkin to define mass destruction, but why steal further from the Jews of The Holocaust? What cannot be undone is our duplicity, allow the Jews the right to their place in history. After all, we denied them their right to life! As for the tem 'Shoah', the Jews who would seek to use this term to define the Jews of the Holocaust, seek to halt the slide of denial which seeks to deprive them further of what was 'Their Holocaust.' see PATRICK DEMPSEY's:-

Testimony and Fading Memory in the Holocaust. ISBN:-1-904115-00-4

=======================================================================================

I am puzzled by this statement which appears at the end of the subject section:

Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, as a Greek pagan custom.

This appears to assert a startling confusion of fact.

Walter Burkert, the usual authority, directly contradicts the belief that Holocaust was a Greek, and not Jewish practice. He points out that the pair of lambs at the heart of their Jewish sacred ritual were completely consumed by fire. Based on Burkert's comments, the Greeks were surprised at this generosity to the [G]od because their own practice was to reserve the edible portions for their own consumption, except in some rare funerary traditions. So, it would appear that it was the Jews, and much less frequently the Hellenes, who practiced Holocaust in ancient times. Please see Burkert's Greek Religion, 1985, Harvard Page 63.

I propose a small change to the sentence cited above.

Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, which they believe to be Greek pagan custom.

This version preserves the report that some object and their reason, but does not itself assert that Holocaust was a Greek pagan custom foreign to the Jews.

Eisangelia (talk) 20:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Section in "Other Victims"

=======================================================================================

No! see preceding piece on uniqueness for the Holocaust term, if not for the 6,000,000 interred within. Patrick Dempsey.

=======================================================================================

I would like to add a section concerning the "Rhineland Bastards"

Several thousand blacks in Europe, especially in Germany were victims of the Holocaust as well but there is no mention of them in this article.

The U.S. National Holocaust memorial museum has documented this in their exhibits, so I feel it should be added.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005479


Quotes from the above link:

"Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the victorious Allies occupied the Rhineland in western Germany. The use of French colonial troops, some of whom were black, in these occupation forces exacerbated anti-black racism in Germany. Racist propaganda against black soldiers depicted them as rapists of German women and carriers of venereal and other diseases. The children of black soldiers and German women were called “Rhineland Bastards.” The Nazis, at the time a small political movement, viewed them as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler charged that “the Jews had brought the Negroes into the Rhineland with the clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily-resulting bastardization.”

African German mulatto children were marginalized in German society, isolated socially and economically, and not allowed to attend university. Racial discrimination prohibited them from seeking most jobs, including service in the military. With the Nazi rise to power they became a target of racial and population policy. By 1937, the Gestapo (German secret state police) had secretly rounded up and forcibly sterilized many of them. Some were subjected to medical experiments; others mysteriously “disappeared.”

The racist nature of Adolf Hitler's regime was disguised briefly during the Olympic Games in Berlin in August 1936, when Hitler allowed 18 African American athletes to compete for the U.S. team. However, permission to compete was granted by the International Olympic Committee and not by the host country.

Adult African Germans were also victims. Both before and after World War I, many Africans came to Germany as students, artisans, entertainers, former soldiers, or low-level colonial officials, such as tax collectors, who had worked for the imperial colonial government. Hilarius (Lari) Gilges, a dancer by profession, was murdered by the SS in 1933, probably because he was black. Gilges' German wife later received restitution from a postwar German government for his murder by the Nazis. "

further:

"Black prisoners of war faced illegal incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). Lieutenant Darwin Nichols, an African American pilot, was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison in Butzbach. Black soldiers of the American, French, and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never even incarcerated, but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by JakeKnightstick (talk • contribs) 12:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I would be opposed to including this for several reasons. Firstly, there was simply no programme for killing black people in Nazi Germany. The "Rhineland Bastards" were sterilised not killed. Black German citizens like Hans Massaquoi suffered discrimination, but were not imprisoned. Yes there are examples of racial discrimination in Nazi Germany, but that was also common elsewhere, notably in the USA! The US army was segregated, and black US troops were far more likely to be convicted and executed for crimes than white troops were. What this passage shows are ad hoc examples of discrimination, which we can't even be sure were actually racially motivated since white captives were also killed by the SS and Gestapo on occasion. The holocaust is mass murder, not isolated lynchings of uncertain motive and instances of discrimination. Gilges, incidentally, was a communist, and the SS and SA killed many white communists. All of this information, btw, is already in the article Black people in Nazi Germany, copied verbatim from your source. Paul B (talk) 15:44, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Paul Barlow. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I also agree with Paul Barlow--Woogie10w (talk) 20:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Source Misrepresented-Correction Needed

Please remove from article – The source was misrepresented by your editor

From a Chinese perspective, the Japanese occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945 which occasioned the killings of 30 million Chinese, has been called a "Super Holocaust".

The source given was

The super holocaust (in China): remember : 9/18 and the Rape of Nanking By Dan Winn,

This book was NOT published by Peking University Press- It was self published by a Vanity press and does not belong on Wikipedia

See details at Amazon [10]

Please read your rules: Wikipedia:Verifiability# Self-published sources (online and paper)

Thank you--Ojos de Lince (talk) 17:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Please fix this, Wikipedia looks foolish. Who runs things? does anybody check what goes into this encyclopedia.--Ojos de Lince (talk) 14:15, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Number of dead of the political left

For some reason there seems to be no mention of the number of dead among the political left. I remember hearing a number of 2 million dead, but that was a long time ago. Anyone who knows a source for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.61.234.225 (talk) 16:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

This is absurd nonsense, the article would be a laughing stock if somebody put this in--Ojos de Lince (talk) 14:18, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

proper noun?

Why is this a proper noun? The term "Holocaust," if that is what is being inferred, has been used for other "genocides" (naturally as the definition doesn't preclude non-Nazi events). Certainly the other uses should be mentioned, perhaps under a subsection of "etymology" termed "Other uses" or something of the sort.Lihaas (talk) 07:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed repeatedly in the archives. This article is about the event known in English as the Holocaust, not about the history of the word. It's analagous to The Enlightenment, which is not about the word "enlightenment". Paul B (talk) 07:55, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
WP:Consensus can change While not refusing any of the current structure, an accomodation would be to include other references as well. (there is no page for the definition, nor should there be) Under said subject heading on a lower subject in reference to "other uses" as per other articles that have stuff like "media," etc. I already said the prominence for the bigger event should be reflect, agreed there, but that doesn't mean the word doesn't have other connotation it certainly does. As in the "enlightenment," say, that is a proper noun because there is no other era/context where the phrase is used, unliek Holocaust where is has also been used elsewhere. (beyond the Nazi extermination and even within to include not just jews).


Am i making myself clear? or where should i elucidate my view?Lihaas (talk) 09:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
On the contrary, enlightenment is a word in common usage, not restricted in its meaning to The Enlightenment. Barnabypage (talk) 10:26, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't know whether other historical events have been referred to as the "X enlightement", but another analogy would be The Renaissance. Since that term came to be applied to a specific historical period other periods of cultural flourishing have been given the term (the Harlem Renaissance; the Carolingian Renaissance etc). However, these pages are separate from the page on the Renaissance. When we simply say "the Renaissance" we mean the period of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci etc. Other renaissances are qualified as the "x Renaissance". It's the same with The Holocaust. BTW, the history of usage is covered here, but is discussed in more detail in Names of the Holocaust. Paul B (talk) 10:53, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia should be mainstream, most academic sources tell us that the Holocaust was the genocide of the Jews. --Ojos de Lince (talk) 14:06, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
People with knowledge of history will laugh at Wikipedia when they see what was posted this morning. The Holocaust was the killing of the Jews, not all those who were killed in the war. I am new to Wikipedia and now I realize why so many educated persons do not trust the information here.--Ojos de Lince (talk) 14:12, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
That's not entirely true. There are many scholarly books and articles which refer to other groups suffering "in the Holocaust" [11]. In these instances the word is indeed synonymous with Nazi mass murder designed simply to eliminate particular groups rather than for military reasons. So "educated persons" don't all use the word only to refer to Jews. Paul B (talk) 14:57, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Barlow I have seen your page and judge you to be an educated person. The changes that were made today earlier today were a blatant ploy to open the door allowing the inclusion of all killing in World War II from the rape of Nanking to the Atomic Bombings of Japan. I ask the Wikipedia administrators review this case and prevent the Holocaust article being taken over by persons with an obvious hidden agenda. --Ojos de Lince (talk) 17:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Lihaas clearly has an agenda [12], but that's another matter. There is a de facto use of the word within some academic literature to include all groups who were subject to mass murder / extermination by the Nazis. That's very different from the neo-Nazi agenda, which to say that, for example, the bombing of Dresden was a "holocaust", and therefore allied actions are somehow morally equivalent to the Nazi death camps. The first issue has a valid role in this article. The second does not. Paul B (talk) 17:13, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Richard G. Horannisian, Armenian Holocaust: A Bibliography Relating to the Deportations, Massacres and Dispersion of the Armenian People, 1915-1923
  2. ^ David Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press, 1992
  3. ^ http://opinion-forum.com/index/2010/02/israel-and-the-holocaust/
  4. ^ Friedländer 1997, p.102
  5. ^ UMN.edu, "Boycotts", Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota. Retrieved September 6, 2006.
  6. ^ Yehuda Bauer- A History of the Holocaust, 1982
  7. ^ Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1961.
  8. ^ Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, 1975
  9. ^ Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (Doubleday, Garden City NY, 1976), p. 169.
  10. ^ JR Marcus 1934: The rise and destiny of the German Jew, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Cincinnati. P. 121)
  11. ^ R Proctor 1988: Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. P.149)
  12. ^ Hitler, Germans and the “Jewish question”, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. P. 11-14
  13. ^ S Gordon 1984: Hitler, Germans and the “Jewish question”, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. P. 11-14
  14. ^ A Barkai 1989: From boycott to annihilation: The economic struggle of German Jews, 1933-1943, translated by W Templer, University Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire p. 7)
  15. ^ BF Pauley 1987: “Political anti-Semitism in interwar Vienna” in I Oxaal, M Pollack and G Botz (editors) Jews, anti-Semitism and culture in Vienna, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, pp.155.
  16. ^ The explanation in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of April 27, 1933 for the law enacted by the Nazi government of Germany to restrict the proportion of Jewish students at German universities.
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