Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2021/November

Other necessary revisions

A greater focus on temporal progression, as used by many historians, might well elucidate the Holocaust as a process. Then we would not need separate sections for Poles and other ethnic groups, but simply indicate their roles within the main narrative, where it belongs.

1. Background
2. Ghettoization, Aryanization, forced labor
3. Deportation to extermination camps
4. Hunting down survivors, remaining German labor camps (i.e. Deblin–Irena)
5. Aftermath; including the August Decree trials, long-term effects on the Polish economy flight of most of the surviving Jews, etc.

The only featured article on the Holocaust in a particular country, The Holocaust in Slovakia, is structured in a mixture of temporal and thematic ways; there is no separate sections for collaboration and rescue, German and Slovak roles etc. rather these themes are discussed in a single narrative progression. (t · c) buidhe 05:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

There's always a problem with organizing things chronologically. You end up with a timeline not an article. Thematic organization, as we have now, is more suitable. Volunteer Marek 19:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I didn't suggest a timeline (indeed the Slovakia article is not remotely a timeline), I suggest a structure that presents the Holocaust as a process that was coordinated by German occupation authorities and implemented by a wider variety of actors. Many scholarly works, such as Gates of Tears take this approach. The current structure falls short at enabling the reader to understand how the Holocaust was organized and implemented. (t · c) buidhe 22:30, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The approach you outlined looks very much chronological. Of course there is some need for chronology but like I said, I think a thematic approach is better. Volunteer Marek 00:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem with the current organization is that it is not really based on the approach taken by sources. The national minorities section is arguably SYNTH since I cannot find a single source which discusses the role of "national minorities" in the Holocaust in Poland.[1] (t · c) buidhe 07:03, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The title may be somewhat SYNTHy but the topic is most certainly covered (see sources within the article). Certainly the role of Selbstschutz, Sonderdienst and similar formations, as well as that of UPA, Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions, Ypatingasis būrys, in the Holocaust is definitely discussed in sources. Volunteer Marek 00:19, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I cannot find a single source which discusses the role of "national minorities" in the Holocaust in Poland It's very easy to find.Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 Paperback – Illustrated, January 9, 2007 by Tadeusz Piotrowski which is writing about [2] . Based on primary and secondary sources in numerous languages (including Polish, German, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian and English), this work examines the roles of the ethnic minorities in the collapse of the Republic and in the atrocities that occurred under the occupying troops.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 01:15, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

References

The lead

• I see two problems in the lead.

1. Something is wrong with numbers on the page. It say 3,000,000 Polish Jews were killed by Nazi, and it was 98% of all Jews who lived there. At the same time, it tells 350,000 survived. How is that? The contradiction is glaring, right in the infobox and the lead.
2. Obviously, Nazi killed millions more people, not only Jews, during the Holocaust in Poland, and I think they also should be mentioned in the lead. My very best wishes (talk) 14:58, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Simply looking at one of older versions, it seems to be without such problems:

The Holocaust in German-occupied Poland was the last and the most lethal phase of the Nazi "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) marked by the construction of death camps on German-occupied Polish soil. The genocide officially sanctioned and executed by the Third Reich during World War II, collectively known as the Holocaust, took the lives of three million Polish Jews and similar numbers of Poles, not including losses of Polish citizens of other ethnicities.[8] The extermination camps played a central role in the implementation of the German policy of systematic and mostly successful destruction of over 90% of the Polish-Jewish population of the Second Polish Republic.[9]

Every arm of the sophisticated German bureaucracy was involved in the killing process, from the Interior Ministry and the Finance Ministry, to German firms and state-run trains used for deportation of Jews.[10][11] German companies bid for the contracts to build the crematoria in concentration camps run by Nazi Germany in the General Government as well as in other parts of occupied Poland and beyond.[9][12] My very best wishes (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

That version is better stylistically but one issue was the "similar number of Poles" phrasing. Three million non-Jewish Poles may be roughly the number that died at the hands of both Nazis and Soviets, but it's probably too high as a number for just the Nazi victims. Volunteer Marek 17:47, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The 98% figure as stated only refers to the Jews who were in Poland at the time. Saying that 350,000 survived as you inserted is misleading because it combines those who were and weren't in Poland at the time. Common usage of "the Holocaust" in scholarly works only refers to the persecution of Jews rather than non-Jews as has been established by consensus on the Holocaust article. (t · c) buidhe 14:45, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I didn't "insert it". I restored original text. How would you want to word the sentence in a way that accounts for those who were and who weren't in Poland at the time.

I have no idea what your last sentence is referring to since no one here is claiming that the term "the Holocaust" refers to anything other than the persecution of Jews. It appears to be a non-sequitur? Volunteer Marek 19:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

"The 98% figure as stated only refers to the Jews who were in Poland at the time." That's not true. This is what the source says: "on the territories controlled by the Third Reich at most only 2 percent of Polish Jews survived.". The numbers don't add up, one of the figures must be wrong. Most probably it's the 98% one, the source mentions it only in passing and the numbers weren't the main focus of the article. Całkiem anonimowy (talk) 21:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

There were 3.3 million Jews in Poland before the war. Around 300,000 managed to get to Soviet Union after German invasion. That left about 3 million within Poland. 2% of that is about 60,000. About 230,000 survived in Soviet Union. That gives 290,000. That's less than the 350,000. The discrepancy probably has to do with different methods of estimating these numbers, rounding, differences in definitions, as well as differences in population (in particular some survived by escaping to the West via Romania - I don't know how significant that number is). These kinds of estimates by their nature are very difficult and each component will have error and when you add them up these errors ad up to, so it's not reasonable for the numbers to match perfectly. Volunteer Marek 00:11, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my question! Given that, something like "destruction of over 90% of the Polish-Jewish population of the Second Polish Republic" would be probably a more fair statement. But whatever you guys decide here. This subject is way too far from my interests. P.S. I did visit Yad Vashem in Israel (that was an incredible spiritual experience), just as I did visit Poland long time ago and heard some interesting stories with family photos (also a memorial of sort), not on this subject though. My very best wishes (talk) 05:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Just to clarify it was My very best wishes who inserted the 350,000 figure (check the article history), I don't know where they got it. Although some sources do calculate it that way, I personally think that one should not bundle in Jews who were in the Soviet Union, out of reach of the Nazi genocide, with those who survived in Poland. It gives a misleading impression of how deadly the event actually was. (t · c) buidhe 01:52, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the numbers do add up within estimation errors, but the main issue is that the article is clearly misquoting the source. The source states: "on the territories controlled by the Third Reich at most only 2 percent of Polish Jews survived." Obviously, "on the territories controlled by the Third Reich" is not the same as "Jews in Poland at the time". Changing this to be in line with the original would also make the text much less confusing to casual readers. Anyone can notice that 350,000 isn't close to 2% of 3,000,000, which could cause them to dismiss this whole article as unreliable. I surely couldn't make sense of it until I checked the source. Relatively random (talk) 07:26, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Maybe leave out how many survived, as it seems to not be that accurate or simple. Let the reader work out what the number is from the numbers killed.Slatersteven (talk) 09:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)