Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2024/August

Mass shootings

Why did you remove the entire paragraph on mass executions in eastern Poland after June 1941 (this edit)? Explain yourself because it looks WP:OR and WP:DISRUPTIVE. Marcelus (talk) 18:50, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Any particular "you"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:03, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I forget to ping @buidhe Marcelus (talk) 21:07, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

As I explained earlier, the cited sources for this section mostly referred to the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, not the Holocaust in Poland. The figure of 1.5 million or so shooting deaths, for example, refers to Soviet Jews, not polish Jews. I'm not convinced that it makes sense to divide the article by killing method since in Poland shooting and deportation was often combined or occurred at the same place or time. (t · c) buidhe 21:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

@Buidhe I assume your good faith so I explain once again: the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland in September 1939, when Germany attacked the Soviets in 1941 they also invaded the Polish lands under Soviet occupation. On these lands they carried out mass shootings. This is part of the Holocaust in Poland and it is not my POV, but the teaching of most literature. Without these shootings, the figure of 3 million Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust should be reduced by up to a third.

If you think the figure of 1.5 million is overstated, find a better one, but don't remove the whole paragraph because it is a distortion of history. Here are the figures I have: according to Snyder ("Bloodlands") "1.3 million Polish Jews were murdered - usually by arrows - east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line", according to Dariusz Libionka it was more than 750,000. The estimates vary, but they are there and they refer to Polish Jews. Marcelus (talk) 21:49, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

If you have sources that refer to the Holocaust in Poland, rather than the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, I would be interested to see them. The ones that were cited about Soviet Jews include places like Russia, the Baltics, eastern Belarus etc. that are not reasonable to consider part of Poland by any definition.

A significant number were also shot farther west in places like the General Governorate—this is already covered in the "liquidation of ghettos" section and can be covered to a greater extent there. (t · c) buidhe 22:15, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

@Buidhe Please restore this paragraph first. Because without it, 750-1.3 million Polish Jewish victims of the Holocaust who lost their lives on Polish territory disappear. And this is a serious violation of historical truth.

And as for the sources, I have already listed them. The first off the top of my head is Tim Snyder, Bloodlands, 2015 p. 258-259. Marcelus (talk) 22:45, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I can't verify this. Perhaps I'm looking at a different version of the book, but the only time I find the phrase "1.3 million Polish Jews" in Snyder (p. 273) he is talking about the number of victims of Operation Reinhard. (t · c) buidhe 23:16, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, really. If you can't verify such a basic information it says a lot about sources you are using, and really seems like you shouldn't edit this article. Please resotre the missing paragraph, or I will have to report it on the noticeboard, as a historical distortion. As I said I assumed your good faith, but since I already explained you the history of the Holocause in Poland and the importance of this paragraph for this history, you leave me no other option. Marcelus (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Marcelus, could you quote more from the source about 1.3 number as victims of mass shootings? Is this perhaps a foreign-language edition? Because it's not possible for it to say "arrows".

The number itself seems to be high. I found a source that states that "between 1.3 and 1.4 million polish jews were still living" in the Soviet zone of occupation on the eve of Barbarossa, of which 100,000 escaped into the Soviet hinterland: Polish Jews in the Soviet Union (1939–1959). It does not seem feasible that more Jews were shot than were "on hand", so to speak. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:22, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I translated via deepl qoute from the Polish version of the Bloodlands, and checked the exact page on the English version, but didn't verify the text itself, of course it says: The 1.3 million or so Polish Jews on the eastern side of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line were subject to shooting from June 1941, and most of their number would be killed in 1942. And now while I'm reading this it occured to me that Snyder is giving the overall number of Polish Jews under the Soviet occupation, not the number of executed. Sorry for that mistake. Marcelus (talk) 07:41, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

But on the page 275 he is saying: Of the million or so Soviet Jews killed in the Holocaust, fewer than one percent died at Auschwitz. Of the three million or so Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust, only about seven percent perished at Auschwitz. Nearly 1.3 million Polish Jews were killed, usually shot, east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line. Another 1.3 million or so Polish Jews were gassed in Operation Reinhard in the General Government - that was the actual source of my original qoute. Marcelus (talk) 07:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

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

What do you even mean? Articles like Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany, Romani genocide etc etc absolutely exist. What's the relevance to this talk page section? (t · c) buidhe 21:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I was at one point neutral on whether "Holocaust" should include these groups, but you are making it hard to remain so. Perhaps you don't realize how you come across.

Basically, you are saying that they should get separate but equal treatment, which makes me uncomfortable, along with your strange opposition to including Polish deaths. You can't find any materials on the Holocaust in Poland? Really? You were just a party to a whole Arbcom case about materials about the Holocaust in Poland. Yes yes, so was I, but I'm not the one complaining that it's hard to find such sources.

It doesn't seem to have occurred to you that every subtopic of the Holocaust will to some degree need to be refactored because of your unilateral rewrite. This is the epitome of disruption, and I say this as someone cleaning up after you.

Also, look at all the ink that got spilled over at The Holocaust over exactly this point, and you just now respond, here, on another page, in a manner that makes it crystal clear that you don't. Get. It.

The rules, policies, guidelines and essays of Wikipedia all apply to you also. I have an issue with a lede that doesn't reflect the body, and a topic that doesn't reflect its subtopics. We can discuss this civilly if you like, but your behaviour so far indicates that you prefer to deflect even well-intentioned and constructive criticism onto those who are offering it to you. It really isn't that hard to learn to agree with constructive criticism, Buidhe, or at least stop rejecting it out of hand.

Stop stonewalling. You've got a well-earned logged warning for exactly the behaviour you're displaying here. I suggest you give Marcelus a better response than you just did, and stop trying to attack me. I myself am still deep in AGF and don't plan to take you back to AE unless you make me. So enough with the fear responses to comments on content.

I say this with some concern for you. I don't like the way you treat other editors, nor the way you try to OWN topics, but I understand what you said to Nishidani, that you wrote it the best you could. As do we all. This is why it is important that we help one another, and allow ourselves to be helped. Elinruby (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

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

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

Related noticeboard activity

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