Talk:Rab concentration camp

Isn't that last paragraph a bit harsh? I'm seeing possible NPOV problems there.--Bedford (talk) 14:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I've clarified it. If you read the article from the IHT it explains quite clearly Italian "amnesia" about Rab and other fascist era atrocities. The npov tag should be removed. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 17:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Concentration Camp?

To call this camp a 'concentration camp' is extremely biased and incorrect. Prisoners were held in similar conditions to prisoners of war, are prisoner of war camps called concentration camps? Of course not that would be stupid the same goes for this camp. The operators of this camp did not kill its prisoners like the Germans did, it was more of a jail. Starvation was a result of low food, people in Italy were starving as well - normal citizens there was a food shortage everywhere not just in this camp.

POV

As per the two editors above, this article was/is (if Alasdair has reverted it) extremely POV. It insults Italians with this "amnesia" ethnic attack and also there was something about Berlusconi who was only a child when this prisoner of war camp existed. - Gennarous (talk) 15:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The article is not POV. It is factual and well-sourced. Judging from your comment that "also there was something about Berlusconi who was only a child when this prisoner of war camp existed" you haven't even read it properly. If you have any proposed changes, please bring them to the talk page for discussion. Many thanks. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 17:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Its not a NPOV, because its presented in a strongly anti-Italian, revisionist view. No it isn't, the numbers of deaths have no source for the, do not remove citation tags next to them until you have provided a source to back up your highly contentious claims. Do not remove POV tags when three people on this talk have said your write-up is POV. Silvio Berlusconi has absoutely no connection or relevence to this article, picking at random an out of context quote does not belong in an article like this. - Gennarous (talk) 18:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

What I'm trying get across is (as have two other users), the way you've twisted the article, it makes it sound like some sort of Holocaust, extermination camp, when its simply a prisoner of war camp. Things that exist in ALL wars when prisoners are taken, even the Allies took prisoners and put them in camps. These people were not systematically slaughtered, like in Nazi concentration camps where people were put into gas chambers, etc. The ones who died, did so because around that period (the early 40s) Italy and the things it controlled had started to crumble and was poorley organised, people died in Italy too of starvation from the country been ripped in half. The picture you're painting does not reflect reality, or neautrality. - Gennarous (talk) 18:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As I have said, if you have any proposed changes to make I am happy to discuss them here. Until then, I will ask you once again not to remove text that is peoperly sourced from this or any other article. Thank you. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You have said one thing, but done another, typical communist behaviour. I have provided discussion above, you have avoided discussing it completely in your reply. How is that "happily disscussing" anything, when you've point blank ignored it? Three people have told you that you are wrong, yet you continue. I will be removing your edits tomorrow when you are at school. Thank you. - Gennarous (talk) 19:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Please restrict your comments to the content, not the editor. Thank you. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 19:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

wtf, do you even know what you're writing?! None of your edits make sense, you call the Partisans "civilians" ("terrorists") and then "POWs". Do you even know how outright stupid that sounds? I suggest you cool down, immediately, the rab concentration camp was not a POW camp as it contained Partisan combatants, suspected Slav anti-fascists, and other "enemies of the state".

It most certainly was an extermination camp, much like Jasenovac. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 14:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Please provide evidence that it was an "extermination camp", the prisoners were not "exterminated" or put into gas chambers like Nazi camps. Some people only died for the same reason Italian citivens in Italy died, food supplies were short in Italy controlled areas. Under what logic are you using that Yugoslav Partisans (people who were actively trying to kill, attack, the Italian troops) could not be taken as prisoners of war? Do you know what a prisoner of war is? Were they prisoners? Yes. Were they engages in open warfare against the Italian soldiers? Yes.

I suggest the Eastern Bloc neo-Balkan nationalists control their emotions and stop trying to turn Italian articles into some sort of holocaustal Nazi articles, when that just simply isn't the truth of it and there are NO sources to back up claims. The Italian soldiers were not placing in these prisoner camps just any people who happened to be Slavic or something like that, this was specifically enemey forces who were trying to kill them in war. How these delusional neo-Balkan nationalists dare even try turn that into something as disgusting as what the Nazis did to everyday Jewish people is just offensive in any possible way.

I have provided sources about these so called Yugoslav Partisans prisoners and their well known actions of terror, mass murder and rape which even have articles dedicated to them on Wikipedia; Bleiburg massacre, Foibe massacres, 1944-1945 Killings in Bačka. When these prisoners were set free they returned to that terror cell as the "Rab battalion", commiting ethnic cleansing against Italians in the area as well as Hungarians. Click on the links of those "massacres" they comitted and try to explain yourself. - Gennarous (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your 'sources' (I won't even begin to discuss your opinions) perhaps we should avoid using Nikolai Tolstoy as a credible source. I'll point up a few choice quotes about his writing on Bleiburg, Yalta etc in an article by Alistair Horne about the Aldington v Tolstoy libel case:

"Trying to weave a way through the tangled cobweb of truths, half-truths, and downright inaccuracies woven by Tolstoy proved to be one of the longest and most arduous tasks I have ever undertaken as a writer".

"...in it (The Minister and the Massacres) Tolstoy jeopardized what claim he had to be a serious and objective historian by his tendency to shape the facts around conclusions he had already formed".

"...his writing came increasingly to reveal a fanatical obsessiveness that was more Slav than Anglo-Saxon. Appalled by the injustice inflicted upon his fellow White Russians, and dedicated to the cause of seeing that it should be requited on a public platform, Tolstoy progressively persuaded himself that the repatriations had flowed from an evil conspiracy".

See http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-8313967.html
AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 19:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Which source would you prefer to use about the Yugoslav Partisan commited war crime the Bleiburg massacre? There seemts to be quite a lot in that article to choose from, though personally I don't see why Nikolai Tolstoy's source should be discounted. He is a real historian correct? I can't say I'm an expert on him specifically. Thanks. - Gennarous (talk) 20:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The specific reason why Tolstoy should be discounted is in the words of Alistair Horne above, who, unlike Tolstoy, is a real historian. Meanwhile, the 'source' you give regarding Bačka specifically does not say anything of the kind. It says "Although it is usually claimed by German historians (Dokumentation, 1961) that Yugoslav Germans were banished from Yugoslavia forcefully, this was not the case". Please go and read it, and then remove that link. Thank you. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You're looking at the wrong part in that book for the second part, Backa should be highlighted in a bright yellow text. However in regards to the brutal Holocaust commited by the Yugoslav Partisans in Bačka against the Hungarians, I found a better source.[1] So that one is sorted. As for Tolstoy/Horne thing, which source would you suggest using for that massacre in place of Count Tolstoy's scholary report? Thanks. - Gennarous (talk) 21:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Will someone PLEASE explain why the killings in Bačka should even be mentioned in the article? What?, are you trying to somehow justify the mass-murder of hundreds of thousands of Slavic civilians in Italian-controlled Yugoslavia? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The information provided is about the prisoners, the Yugoslav Partisans were the prisoners in this POW camp who were captured by the Italians. And when they were released they rejoined it and commited such atrocious acts, this is essential information to the article if we're to show a NPOV. Also it would be nice if you could curb unsourced accusations of "mass murder", since these prisoners, like people in Italy at the time, sadly died because of poor organisation and lack of availability of food. If you would undo your blanking of the article and read the sources provided on the subject, this is shown. On all of these talk pages, I have see your "clique" attacking Italians like on the Dalmatian Italians article, but providing nothing in the way of vertification. Vertification is what Wikipedia works on, not opinion and personal revisionism. Are you trying to apologise for the Yugolav Partians (the prisoners) by covering up entirely the crimes mentioned above?- Gennarous (talk) 21:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Am I to understand you have proof that the Dalmatian Partisans held in the concentration camp were the exact same ones that committed the killings in Bačka? Your sources are also completely partial and unreliable in this matter, just because Italian troops were incompetent, does not mean they were incapable of mass-murder ("guitar-warriors", lol). (I would also love it if you didn't lecture me on the way Wikipedia works.) --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Lomis' wholesale revert of sourced information

• 1) we don't removed sourced information on the prisoners (some of which are from books), when they are sourced from a book.
• 2) the first link from the old version this one is a dead link, it says "404 Not Available". Note Lomis seems to have WP:STALKed me here after his months of trying to attack Alessandra Mussolini. - Gennarous (talk) 19:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I've asked an impartial Wikipedia Administrator to review the "NPOV" of your edits. You obviously are not even trying to maintain an impartial view, you are a radical anti-communist, not that this is necessarily a bad thing in itself, but this stance is highly influencing your judgment in this article.

As far as I can understand, you are:

1) Doing your best to relativize the suffering of thousands in a fascist concentration camp.

2) Trying to find excuses for the holocaust (The Axis powers committed the holocaust, not just the Nazis. Among others the Independent State of Croatia).

3) Describing Allied troops as "terrorists".

4) Making inconsistent edits on the whole, while adding unrelated information to present your own personal version of events.

Please stop and discuss each controversial edit. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You're accusations are wild.

1) No, I'm presenting a NPOV backed up with sources. Rather than the ultra Balkan nationalist POV "version". Twisting history to try and paint the Italians as "holocaustal" is wide revisionism.

2) This is clearly a gross personal attack of the highest order. Especially since on my userpage, I clearly have a box which says I oppose all forms of Nazism. This includes the Nazi Holocaust. May I suggest you read about what the Nazis tried to do in Napoli (where my family are from) during WWII? Hitler ordered to turn the city to "mud and dust". Nazism is as digusting to me as Communism and I would never defend or apologise for them.

Non of the sources provided (on either side) attempt to present the Italian POW camps as "holocaustal" or "etermination camps". Unlike the Nazis who gassed millions of Jews, this isn't the case provided here. This is the opinion of extreme Balkan nationalism and history revisionist looking to slur so called "Italia irredenta" who they hate so much.

3) Bleiburg massacre, Foibe massacres, 1944-1945 Killings in Bačka. Please provide any proof of your wild claim that I called the Allies, France, Britain and the United States "terrorists".

4) you seem to be writing about yourself and the anti-Italians here. What is inconsistent? Inconsistent is you and a couple of your friends, wholesale removing vast chunks of heavily sourced information from an article because it doesn't agree with your hardline non-mainstream view. But you never provide anything in the way of sources to back your claims, ever. Thanks.- Gennarous (talk) 21:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

1) No, to say that Italians had nothing to do with the 1.7 million dead in Yugoslavia is revisionism. Please try to be realistic. I have personally heard eyewitness reports of the burning of the town of Bol on the island of Brač by an Italian blackshirt punitary expedition. I have heard eyewitnesses speak (and read media reports) of a peasant mother and child executed by firing squad in the town of Supetar, after the child stole, and supposedly gave the Partisans, a bag of flour from the Italian gentleman's house she worked in.

I'm honestly still hoping we may be able to work together here.

2) This is not a personal attack as I only commented your edits, not your person (that's why they call it a "personal attack"). Please read up on personal attacks before making such accusations.

I agree (and I'm proud, in part) that Italians were certainly not nearly as responsible for the holocaust as the Nazis, but they aren't innocent of it. It is a well-referenced fact that Jews (for example) and other non-combatants were held in Italian concentration camps, including the Rab concentration camp (see references in text).

I assume you would agree with a movement that claims half of your country belongs to another (like the Italia irredenta)?

3) The Yugoslav Partisans are recognized as "official" Yugoslav Allied troops in November of 1943 by the Tehran conference, you don't appear to be very knowledgeable in the history of the Yugoslav front. (The USSR is also part of the Allied powers.) I repeat, you call Allied troops "terrorists".

4) You need to make up your mind as to whether the Partisans were soldiers or civilians, your text is contradictory.

--DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 22:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

If I may, I'd like to offer some suggestions, not on the article content, but on ways to discuss the content...

The material in this article is obviously very difficult to write about in a neutral way. Even with the best of intentions, it is difficult for anyone to read about these events without feeling some sort of emotional reaction, especially if someone shares a personal link to any of the ethnicities or participants. I would recommend that all sides be aware of this, and do their best to be sympathetic to the difficulties involved, and to give allowances for what might seem like "kneejerk" reactions from other editors. Based on my reading of the discussions here, I see intelligent individuals who have different views, and are trying hard to discuss this matter with someone that they don't entirely understand, and perhaps don't entirely trust. But I feel that all the editors here are trying to edit in good faith, there is just some difficulty in communicating. So my recommendations are:

• Please try to focus strictly on the discussion of the article's content.
• Stay excruciatingly civil.
• Don't refer to each other, or which politics or ideology you think that the other may possess. Even saying something like, "I think you are <fill in belief system here>", though it might be meant as a statement of fact, could be taken as a personal attack. Just stick to the article.
• Don't refer to your own personal experiences. It tends to make you closer to the topic, and it's more apt to get emotions involved. Plus, if you "open" yourself with a personal anecdote, it can be that much more painful if it's not accepted graciously by the other side.
• As much as possible, keep discussions source-based. Instead of saying, "It's obviously true that <stuff>", say "According to <sourceA>, this situation is described as <stuff>."
• If there's a particularly controversial part of the article, it can help de-escalate things by temporarily removing it from the article and bringing it to talk for discussion. That method can reduce the sense of urgency involved in discussing something on a "live" article. If you feel the need to delete something from an article, moving it to talk instead of wholesale deleting it is often a "softer" way of dealing with things.
• Try, as an exercise, to avoid using the word "you" in your posts. Rewriting things in the third person can be a very useful way to keep emotional distance.
• Instead of looking at the article as a binary "either/or" on different viewpoints, try to see if it's possible to come up with a compromise wording that includes both sides, such as "There are varying viewpoints on <topic>. Some sources say <viewpoint A> and others say <viewpoint B>." That'll help the article to stay neutral.
• If it still seems impossible to proceed in a way that everyone is willing to accept, try one of the other steps in Dispute resolution. Request comments from other editors, post on a message board, or perhaps request a neutral mediator.
• Think about the above steps, and think about things you've already posted. If there's anything which you think could have been worded better and/or more gently, go back and change it! There's no need to keep harsh words on a page. The other person has already read them, and it does no good to keep the insult there -- indeed, it can continue re-opening the wound each time they see it again. So please, consider going back to old posts and removing anything which might be construed as angry or uncivil. Such acts are not one of weakness -- they will make you look like an extremely emotionally mature individual, and further, the removal of the comment can have an extraordinarily powerful effect on de-escalating a situation. It's worth trying.  :)

And good luck. This topic is a really tough one, you have my sincere best wishes. --Elonka 00:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks , Elonka, I'm sure we'll all do our best to follow Wiki guidelines. However, without pointing any fingers I fear that the uncompromising attitudes displayed thus far may very well turn into an edit-war. We are in serious need of unbiased Admin mediation to prevent that escalation. If you yourself are not able or interested in getting more involved in this (admittedly small) matter, I wonder if you could otherwise help out with that problem? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Further editing

Before any further (uncompromising) edits are made, I'd like to make it clear that, while one should always add new information, the current text and wording of the article are thoroughly and exactly referenced. In other words, this text is direct from reliable sources and should not be altered or brought into different context (as per Wiki regulations). None of us sinister "anti-Italians" wrote this stuff, its basically copy-paste, and I think it should not conform to the personal needs of any of us involved editors. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Here are the main problems with the version suggested by Gennarous:

• frequent use of derogatory words and phrases for many involved factions that apparently offend the editor for some reason (among others the local Allied forces).

for example: "...were the so called Yugoslav Partisans, a Communist terrorist organization...", "...prisoners of a communist concentration camp from..." (Goli otok was a maximum security prison for convicted criminals.)

• frequent addition of words and phrases used to relativize referenced info in the text.

for example: "It is claimed that the camp held around 10,000...", "Another 800 prisoners from Rab allegedly died later...",

• additions of offensive, unreferenced (incorrect) info,

for example: "...the Yugoslav Partisans and formed the Rab battalion, going on to commit atrocities mentioned in the above section.", "...this was not an extermination camp, like some of the Nazi camps, this was merely a prisoner of war camp..." "the Eastern Bloc lack of development and standards of human life which it is still trying to recover from." (Yugoslavia was obviously not even in the Eastern Bloc, and its citizens enjoyed higher standards of living while it remained intact, than they do today.)

• addition of unrelated info on atrocities committed by the Partisan faction, that do not have anything to do with the concentration camp specifically and deteriorate the neutrality of the article (the numerous atrocities committed by the Italian faction not being included).

With all due respect I must surmise that the User:Gennaro appears to have some agenda against (or for) one of factions involved and is not striving towards an NPOV article. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 02:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)