Talk:The Holocaust

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Public portrayal of final solution

Deleted without comment by SlimVirgin:

However, the public characterization of the campaign against the Jews was with terms like "deportation" (Aussiedlung), "resettlement" (Umsiedlung) or "evacuation" (Evakuierung) and the plan to kill them instead was not explicitly divulged to most branches of the German government, the public, or those in Hitler's personal audience.

Seems quite relevant to Berenbaum paragraph. He says all of Germany participated in the killings, this other source says they were told it was deportation. Fourdee 00:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

See my response to you at the "Ausrottung - extermination, eradication, or extirpation?" section - it's just as applicable here. Crum375 03:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Who believed it was killing and who believed it was deportation is irrelevant. Every arm of the bureaucracy was involved in it. No one disputes that. And it was genocide. No one disputes that either. Therefore, every arm of the bureaucracy was involved in the genocide. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You have some peculiar notions of relevancy. Fourdee 05:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I have been blocked for 24 hours, not that I did not give as good as I got, for calling Fourdee a troll or racist. Fourdee has moved onto other topics where white "race realists" dominate. From my talk page:

It's actually an INSULT to the typical Southern US racist to call F. a racist. Your average racist will only lynch n------ that are guilty of murder or rape. F. will murder, he does not believe in the term murder, anyone for any reason he feels fit as just 2 of his many statements proclaim:

"I don't know for a fact if all or any of the charges are true but personally I'd string em all up from a tree no more questions asked. And that's no troll, bro."

"I don't want any job now or ever where it would be a problem if they knew that I felt it might not be murder to kill someone who propositions or sexually touches your wife, or that it might not be wrong to use violence to defend your family, community, ethnicity, nation, race, etc. from whatever threats they might face."

But even dead clocks are right twice a day. After publication of, "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust," there was much controversy, even at the Holocaust Museum, over such sweeping claims by a young scholar over the knowing participation by ordinary Germans.

To me, in the introduction "Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation." and the whole section 2.1 is this "ordinary German" arguement, and with no opposite point of view, it weakens the ENTIRE article.

If the introduction and section two are so one sided, technically true or not, why should I or anyone believe the rest of the article? Undog 21:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I have not read the “World Must Know” Book, but looking at Amazon, to see if I have not missed a new noteworthy book, it seems to be an old 1993 book, not a 2007 book unless a reprint/new addition. Looks educational, something nice to sell at the Holocaust Museum library but not that scholarly or novel. Undog 21:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This is another example of why Wikipedia is a joke and a pest in academia. The “genocidal nation” quote is not even right, maybe close but not right, likely taken out of context, largely plagiarized without credit, and in a Goggle search of both the right quote and wrong quote, it was irrelevant.

I went to the library and checked out the 2007, The World Must Know book, which is not a bad book at all, published by the Holocaust Museum.

Here is the book’s section “quoted” in Wikipedia.

Genocide as State Policy

7 paragraphs later

Nazi Germany became a genocidal state. The goal of annihilation called for participation by every arm of the government. The policy of extermination involved every level of German society and marshaled the entire apparatus of the German bureaucracy. Parish churches and the Interior Ministry supplied the birth records that defined and isolated Jews. The Post Office delivered the notifications of definition, expropriation, denaturalization, and deportation. The Finance Ministry confiscated Jewish wealth and property; German industrial and commercial firms fired Jewish workers, officers and board members, even disenfranchising Jewish stockholders. The universities refused to admit Jewish students, denied degrees to those already enrolled, and dismissed Jewish faculty. Government transportation bureaus handled the billing arrangements with the railroads for the trains that carried Jews to their deaths.

Here is what is on Wikipedia, moved up, taken out of context, from page 103 of a 250 book the third paragraph:

Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."

Note the change from “state” to “nation” and from “Nazi Germany” to the country, likely in a point of view edit to broaden the quote, to broaden the guilty to every German, to give it the meaning of the “ordinary German” thesis.

The changed quote along with other editing is again repeated in a section 2.1 titled with

“Compliance of Germany’s Institutions, “ which is a misleading title since it suggests full knowledge and active participation in genocide:

Michael Berenbaum writes that Germany became a "genocidal nation."[7] Every arm of the country's sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process. Parish churches and the Interior Ministry supplied birth records showing who was Jewish; the Post Office delivered the deportation and denaturalization orders; the Finance Ministry confiscated Jewish property; German firms fired Jewish workers and disenfranchised Jewish stockholders; the universities refused to admit Jews, denied degrees to those already studying, and fired Jewish academics; government transport offices arranged the trains for deportation to the camps; German pharmaceutical companies tested drugs on camp prisoners; companies bid for the contracts to build the ovens; detailed lists of victims were drawn up using the Dehomag company's punch card machines, producing meticulous records of the killings.

I doubt that the following quotes are in context either, but it’s a waste of my time to try to correct. To me, it seems like 100 times the effort has been made on this article keeping the neo-Nazis, idiots and holocaust deniers at bay, than the effort it would take one decent academic to write a good article.

The scary thing is that someone took a wrong quote that has no relevance outside of Wikipedia as measured by Google hits, the misquote likely not believed by the real quote’s author, and made it important. Undog 01:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, the terms “genocidal nation” and “genocidal state” appear by top Google hits to be applied, falsely in my opinion, to USA and Israel far more than Nazi Germany, indicating to me that it’s largely a BS ill-defined term as opposed to the definable crime of deliberate genocide by specific individuals. For example, does 1%, 20% or 50% of a population of a country have to know, maybe participate, in genocide to make it a genocidal nation or state? This should have been obvious to any academic reader and was likely why it was on page 104 and largely ignored. Undog 02:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Berenbaum reliable, qualified, unbiased source?

According to his CV, he is not a qualified historian at all, more like a theologian or philosopher:

Queens College, 1963–67; A.B. (Philosophy) 1967.

Jewish Theological Seminary, 1963–67.

Hebrew University, 1965–66.

Boston University, 1967–69, (Philosophy).

Florida State University, 1971–75, Ph.D.(Humanities: Religion and Culture), 1975.

What more biased source could there be? Yet Rabbi Donald A. Tam of Emory University's Department of Jewish studies is a "biased" source according to Crum375? Seems to me "unbiased" or "reliable" in this context means "Jewish, thinks the holocaust is 'evil', lacks any degree in history, AND happens to agree with what I want in the article." Not only is someone such as Norman Finkelstein automatically "not reliable", even Rabbi Tam is "biased" according to Crum375, if he happens to have reported something which might conflict with what Crum375 wants in the article. Could there be a "reliable" holocaust commentator who does not believe the holocaust is objectively evil? It seems to me the "field" of holocaust studies is dominated by Jews who push a certain agenda and demonize anyone who disagrees, Jew or gentile.

We have a microcosm of this on wikipedia - a number of people, many of them admins, work together to maintain only one certain point of view under the premise that it is "almost universal" when in fact the control over this is so absolute that it's impossible for there to be any other credible points of view by their standards. Wikipedia is controlled to portray their point of view, the "field" of holocaust studies is controlled to portray their point of view, one might go so far as to say the university system (given Finkelstein's fate) and the media are controlled, through various means, to portray this point of view. "Berenbaum's wife is the president of the California chapter of the Motion Picture Association of America". You don't say? Anyone who challenges the status quo is labeled "anti-semite" even if he is the son of holocaust survivors himself. If you point out that maybe some agendas and individuals are exercizing control over acceptable truth, you are automatically "unreliable", "biased" and "probably a Nazi". Something's absurd here, that's for sure.

Obviously we need to take this to dispute resolution and let some people who are not regular editors of this article decide what is what. This is nonsense. This article is not balanced and there is absolute resistance by the "owners" of it to introduce the very least cited balance from esteemed experts such as Rabbi Tam.

In closing, I'd like to remind Leifern and everyone else of some wise statements he makes on his personal page:

• A neutral point of view means, among other things, that a reader should walk away from an article with a clear sense of what the controversy is all about.
• It is a true statement to say that "some people believe the earth is flat," even if the earth isn't flat.
• Having said that, I appreciate that the same events look different depending on your point of view. This means that a neutral point of view should be recognizable to to both (or all) sides, even if there is much else they disagree about.
• Looking to the majority to decide political issues makes sense; looking to the majority for the truth is foolish. Everything we hold to be true now was once only believed by a heretical minority.
• The next question after someone says: "The majority of people/nations/experts believe X" should be "why?" not "why do you believe differently?"

Apparently, Leifern and many others feel those are principles to be applied only when convenient. In these circumstances I can't work with any of you. Fourdee 05:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed! What less qualified source could there be than someone who has studied at four universities and a theological seminary, has a PhD in Humanities, who has worked in Holocaust studies all his adult life, and who was the project director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum? I bet he's never even heard of the "eradication project." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

That's certainly not a description of an unbiased historian. In fact, he's not a historian. I'm not disputing that his statements should be included in the article, just that he is more credible than Finkelstein or Rabbi Tam or any other sometime professor who publishes on this topic. Your standard for credibility requires that the views be "approved" (in your estimation, without citation) by an amorphous body of Jewish people who constitute what you believe is the field of holocaust studies, and whose views preclude treating as credible anyone who disagrees with any of their key assertions. Finkelstein's credentials are just as good as Berenbaum's, and he is widely regarded as a respectable scholar, yet because you don't feel that his ideas fit with mainstream "holocaust scholarship" he is probably completely precluded from mention in the article.

Anyway, between you and the other editors parked on this article, I am unable to make any change at all that doesn't fit with your perception of the right POV. And this POV bias, despite being contrary to NPOV, is rigidly enforced through a combination of tag-team editing, threats of administrative action, abuse of adminstrative privilege, personal attacks with the approval of administrators, revert warring, etc., etc. You seem determined to exclude any counter claims and have stated as much explicitly. Something needs to change. Nothing I say seems to make any difference here. Fourdee 06:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Fourdee, Finkelstein does not write about the Holocaust itself. He writes about modern political and cultural use of the memory of the Holocaust. His scholarship is simply not relevant to this article. Paul B 10:27, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I was not trying to include Finkelstein he is merely an example of what I think the problem is with the sort of "consensus" involved in rigidly portraying only one view of the events. Dissenters of any sort, here and in academia, are promptly demonized and ostracized. At any rate, there are quotes of Berenbaum (for example) saying that the holocaust is "absolute evil" - should we include that in the article summary? If so why not? Why is his campaign to label all of Germany as participants in "mass murder" any more or less valid than his assertion that the holocaust was an example of "absolute evil". If we're going to quote the man, let's quote him. I think the fact is, this is no kind of impartial historian, this is a theologian with an unabashed agenda to paint the Nazis (not even just the holocaust) as "Absolute Evil" and a clear personal interest in the matter. How is a "field of study" with such brazenly biased "scholars" the reliable absolute authority on the matter to the degree that no other view is allowed to be expressed in the article at all?

This is a case of only mice being "reliable" citations for an article about cats. Since cats kill mice, and mice say that's murder, and all the mice and dogs agree that's murder, it's murder and that's a fact. The mice said so, and nobody knows being killed by cats better than mice. Fourdee 11:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Er... it's an article about people killing other people, and your analogy is troubling on a number of levels. MastCell ^Talk 23:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Serb victims?

In one part of the article it is stated that 600,000 people were killed in Jasenovac, most of them ethnic Serbs, but it is not mentioned in the introduction, even though some other groups (e.g., Freemasons, with far less victims) are mentioned. I would put it in, but i can't because of the lock. Also, these other groups are discussed in separate paragraphs, and there is only a link to an article about genocide of Serbs. 89.216.191.247 23:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Croat-on-Serb war crimes are not the same as Nazi planned murders. Paul B 00:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Kurt Waldheim

Kurt Waldheim died today, another victim of the campaign to paint all Nazis as mass-murderers. Even Simon Wiesenthal went to bat for Kurt, at great risk to his reputation and standing in the community. I think what happened to Waldheim and Wiesenthal has a lot of similarities to to how the Berenbaum citation is being used (twice) in this article to paint all of Germany as part of mass murder. Keeping in mind Berenbaum thinks the Nazis were "absolute evil" I'm wondering if some of this isn't an attack on nationalism itself, or an attempt to punish the Germans in particular and make it impossible for them to have or express ethnic pride. Just my two cents. Anyway, requiescat in pace. Fourdee 03:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you ever been to Germany? They don't have much of a problem expressing national pride. Paul B 17:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"the campaign to paint all Nazis as mass-murderers" There has to be some sort of Wikipage where talk page classics like this can reign in splendor. Gzuckier 18:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Merging Judenfrei

A consensus is emerging on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Judenfrei that the dictionary entry like article Judenfrei, which can not be expanded without further context, be merged into The Holocaust. Accordingly, I have placed the {{mergefrom}} and {{mergeto}} tags.

Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure where the best place for merge be. Considering the timeline, I have tentatively placed the {{mergefrom}} tag into the section dealing with the Wannsee Conference, but there's probably a better place, or a better structural way for dealing with the merge, so I won't mind relocating the {{mergefrom}} tag as the matter gets discussed. Digwuren 08:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What we have here is WP:SPA attacking articles in Category:Holocaust in Estonia. I do not see a need for a merge. -- Petri Krohn 15:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Opposed You have a strange notion of consensus. Taemyr 00:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment from someone otherwise uninvolved. I just read through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Judenfrei (result of debate was "Keep" with a caution from the closing admin to have the merge discussion here) and thought Taemyr had some excellent suggestions for expansion of the Judenfrei article beyond what it is now. Quote, "How common was it to proclaim yourself judenfrei before Nazism, and who did so? How did this change in Nazi Germany, in conquered areas? What was the political consequences of proclaiming your establishment/area as such? How did the concept fit in to the nazi manifest, into nazi propaganda?" Those are exactly the kinds of questions that I had about

Although Digwuren in the AfD debate clearly favored (and favors here) a merge of Judenfrei with The Holocaust, I thought his reply to Taemyr in the AfD discussion also suggested ways to expand Judenfrei: "Understandable questions, although a bit Nazi-centric. My understanding is that before the Nazis initiated systematic ethnic cleansing against Jews at Kristallnacht, the word was not used in 'proclamations' but in antisemitic descriptions of what the 'ideal world' would look like. Thus, Nazi usage would be the first time the word was actually a matter of proclamations." So, what was the usage before Nazism, and what impacts did it have? (In the interest of full context, Digwuren went on to say, "As for political consequences -- this is an even more interesting topic and merits considering various sovereigns' explicit prohibition of Jewish people settling down. However, this does not belong to this article, and has been extensively covered in articles such as Antisemitism and Antisemitism in Europe (Middle Ages)."

I tend to agree with Taemyr on this, but please don't count me as a "vote" in this discussion, since I'm not familiar enough with Holocaust-related and antiSemitism-related articles on Wikipedia to know what best should go where. But, perhaps this can at least be food for further discussion of the proposal. --Ace of Swords 19:52, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Jews more important than War

At the end of the "Climax" section there is a line in particular that states:

"Few people realized that for Hitler and Himmler killing the Jews was more important than winning the war."

I feel statements like this are biased and not based on any actual cited evidence from both Hitler and Himmler.

(EvanBittle 17:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC))

I'm not sure it's bias, but it certainly uncited speculation. One could equally argue that with the war all-but lost bar a miracle, eliminating Jews and other "threats" to the Nordic Race was the next-best use of resources given Nazi ideology. Paul B 17:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It has it's own bizzare, but logical (fro Nazis) rationale.--Freetown 01:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Factual inaccuracy

Paul, you're reverting to a version that isn't so well-written with the claim that it's factually inaccurate. Can you say exactly what the inaccuracies are? Version below. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Even more hotly disputed is the extension of the word to describe events that have no connection with World War II. It is used by Armenians to describe the Armenian genocide of World War I. The terms "Rwandan Holocaust" and "Cambodian Holocaust" are used to refer to the Rwanda genocide of 1994 and the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia respectively, while "African Holocaust" is used to describe the slave trade and the colonization of Africa, also known as the Maafa.

You are resorting to your usual empty assertion that your version is "better written". Well, that's a meaningless statement. As for the factual inaccuracies, these have been discussed in detail on this page over several days. You have contributed nothing whatever to that discussion. Paul B 23:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The current version (which I did not write) is better written, and the onus is on you to show what is factually incorrect. I've looked through the page and can't see anything, so please say here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I will not repeat what is already written in detail in the section on 'extension of the word'. Paul B 23:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Tell me again, copy and paste it, or give me a diff. Or else leave the section as it is. As for your claim about my "usual empty assertion" about the writing, here is before the rewrite, and here after. People can judge for themselves how empty my assertions are. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

So you can't even bother to read a section on this page, and becuase of that I have to leave your version alone? What bizarre interpretation of policy is that? Paul B 00:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

New catagories

Is it realy topical to mention the other 'holocausts' on this artical's page? The Maafa has it's own page. Creating a catagory for 'Historic holocausts and genosides' may be a good way sorting this out. Remember Gengis Khan and Julius Cǣcer were no pasafists! The holocaust is the gratest peek of human brutalaty since Gengis destroyed Chin Bajing.

Who suports creating {catagory:Historic holocausts and genosides}?--Freetown 01:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

So {Catagory:Genoside} has been added since my last viset about a year back. It needs more entries. I was intreaged by the '228 insodent' article I found in it.--Freetown 02:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have seen it to.--86.29.248.58 03:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the way this is currently handled [1] is appropriate. The fact that other events are sometimes called holocausts is undeniable and is an important thing to consider in this topic. There is no need to go into it in great detail of course and we currently don't Nil Einne 16:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Requesting specidic articles on the extermination of the Soviet POWs and Operation "Erntefest"

From Holocaust victims (which I co-wrote):

thumb|200px|Soviet POWs in German captivity

During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, millions of Red Army prisoners of war (POWs) were arbitrarily executed in the field by the invading German armies (in particular by the notorious Waffen SS), died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner of war camps and during death marches, or were shipped to extermination camps for execution. According to the estimate by the USHMM, 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in the German custody out of 5.7 million (compared to only 8,300 out of 231,000 British and American prisoners).[2]

The invading German armies killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs through starvation, exposure, and summary execution, in a mere eight months of 1941-42.[3] According to the Holocaust Museum, in October 1941 alone, almost 5,000 Soviet POWs died each day, and by the winter of 1941, "starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions". At least 140,000 up to 500,000 were executed in the concentration camps by the methods of shooting, gassing, and burning alive.[4]

From gendercide.org:

"This little-known gendercide vies with the genocide in Rwanda as the most concentrated mass killing in human history."[5]

--HanzoHattori 09:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Also requested, so-called Operation Harvest Festival - the November 3, 1943 murder of 18,000 Jews near Majdanek ("in the number of victims, the largest single-day, single-location killing during the Holocaust") and tens of thousands in the following days.[6][7] --HanzoHattori 10:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello? --HanzoHattori 19:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• Um, hello? So start the articles. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't even know how to call it. Genocide of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany? Extermination? Crimes against? Treatment of? Holocaust of? Operation "Erntefest"? Operation Erntefest? Operation Harvest Festival? --HanzoHattori 20:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

'Harvest festival' was not an operation against Soviet POWs, I think. Martin Gilbert, 'The Holocaust':

'its [Erntefest's] object being the murder of those survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising who had been held since April in labour camps ... in the Lublin region. In a few days, 50,000 Jews were shot in ditches behind the gas chambers of Majdanek, among them more than 5000 former Jewish soldiers of the Polish army' (p 627)

IIRC, there's something about it in Browning's 'Ordinary Men', but I've returned that to the library. I think it was a 'tidying up' operation, which wiped out the surviving (work) ghettos, not POWs. HTH. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 22:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I know, I wrote "Jews". I asked for the name of the article. --HanzoHattori 06:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Also Aktion Erntefest is popular name. --HanzoHattori 00:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh great. You guys were so helpful. --HanzoHattori 22:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

D-Day

There is a box with links to D-Day, a Normandy landing photo, and part of one section head refers to D-Day. This seems pretty far removed from the topic of The Holocaust. I tried to remove it, and was reverted. Would someone explain the relevance? Or better yet, can we form consensus to remove some or all of this material? Jd2718 20:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

D-day is the most important milestone of WWII in Europe, and the ground invasions led to the Nazis being defeated and the camps liberated. There is no logical reason to remove this that I can see. Crum375 03:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

D-Day is not part of the Holocaust. There are several milestones of WWII in Europe that were arguably more important. And D-day did not lead directly to the liberation of any extermination camps. In fact, the article does not make any of the three claims that you present here. Jd2718 03:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

What milestone of WWII in Europe is more important? And the article does mention D-day in the D-day section. By removing it you are removing an important milestone and time reference that puts the Holocaust into perspective. Crum375 04:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

For the camps and ghettos? Stalingrad and the Soviet advance. Most important for the war? I don't think we want to touch this. And as far as the article mentioning D-day, I did not remove that single anecdote, but that's all that's there. What I have removed is: 1) the phrase D-day from a section heading where there is one story about one person who did something based on hearing about D-Day. I also removed a largish D-Day link template. I also removed one photo of the allied landing.

I beg to differ, but there is no other single clear cut milestone - the Soviet advance and Stanlingrad were not clearly defined events, that are considered the 'beginning of the end' of the war in Europe. D-day serves as a clear timeline demarcation, and therefore is important to include in the section heading, like the year or date, as it provides perspective to the unfolding of the war around the Holocaust. Crum375 04:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That would be the only such heading in the article. Might I suggest instead that the box at the opening of the Liberation section include a bit about D-Day (and a bit more about the Soviet advance - they took Majdanek before the western allies broke out of Normandy, and the timing of some of the 'smaller' (none were really small) acts of resistance seems to coincide with Nazi setbacks on the eastern front that they may have learned of). I also note that while there is a rough progression of the intensity of the killing in the article, there is no strict timeline, with some sections jumping back and forth. Jd2718 05:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, D-day is the most critical milestone in WWII. To leave it out removes an important timeline perspective of the war that's raging around the Holocaust. I see no reason not to leave it the way it was. Crum375 13:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Your opinion is simply unsupported. In addition, there are three distinct pieces to the edit, none of which you've addressed. Jd2718 21:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Again, D-day is the most important milestone of WWII, and provides a critical reference point in the timeline of the Holocaust. It is equivalent, in US-centric perspective, to Pearl Harbor. We don't need to dedicate a section to it, but I just don't see why we need to suppress it. Crum375 21:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Crum, look at the section you have been reverting. Does D-Day make any sense to be mentioned specifically in that section? Now look at the following section, Liberation. I suggested that it would make some sense to mention Allied advances, including D-Day, there. Do you agree? In addition, look at the image you have been re-adding. How does this enrich the article? Now look at the set of links you have been re-adding. Click them. Do they go somewhere a reader of this article is likely to want to go? Jd2718 00:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see at all a problem to mention D-day in that section heading, as it indicates an important timeline point in the execution of the war that unfolded around the Holocaust. The image is emblematic of D-day, and represents the 'boots on the ground' of the western allies, which signaled the beginning of the end for the war and the Holocaust. The D-day links are only links - we don't amplify - a user who wants to know more about D-day and Normandy landings, that marked the most significant turning point of the war, can click and find out. I see no major issue in including it as it's fairly small. Crum375 01:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That's June 44 for the landings and October 44 before they reached Germany. If you believe that D-Day ended The Holocaust, then source it. Then we'll look at that source. It is, at best, a major stretch. Jd2718 15:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not saying D-day 'ended the Holocaust'. What I said was: D-day was the most important milestone in the timeline of WWII, and it was the beginning of the end of the war, and therefore the Holocaust. As far as the dates, Bergen-Belsen was only liberated in April 1945. But the point is not that the allies rushed from Omaha Beach to Birkenau - it is simply that with boots on the ground (in the western front), it signaled the final act of both the war and the Holocaust. Suppressing this important event and timeline point makes no sense. Crum375 15:17, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Come now, Crum, D Day was not remotely "the most important milestone in the timeline of WWII". The German army was pulverised by the Soviets (Stalingrad? Kursk?). The main Death Camps were in Eastern Europe, not in the West. It wildly distorts history to put D Day in such a prominent position. Paul B 15:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not saying D-day directly caused the liberation of the camps; we are just using it as a timeline point, like an important date. And it is not mentioned that prominently - the section title in question is: "Escapes, D-Day, publication of news of the death camps (April–June 1944)", which refers to the fact the at least one famous escape sequence was affected by D-day. In the links box, we also include the eastern front advances. This is simply a marker of the western boots on the ground, which signaled the end to the war. We are not over-promoting it, but we should not suppress it either. Crum375 19:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Jd, can you say why you feel the Normandy landings were marginally relevant? Holocaust survivors would be unlikely to see them that way (and don't, in my experience). SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't prove a negative. But the death camps were closed as Soviet troops advanced. As I mentioned to Crum, Majdanek was taken while the Western allies hadn't broken out of Normandy. The Holocaust in Hungary was stopped, and hundreds of thousands spared, because of the invading Red Army. American troops had not yet entered Germany. The link to the Holocaust is indirect, and there are other events from the War which might be mentioned first. There could be a place for D-Day, but images and section heads? No. Jd2718 00:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I rather agree. And I'd venture that Germany's defeat at Stalingrad had rather more direct implications for the camps. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I came to the discussion page just because I was wondering why that photo was there. D-Day was undoubtedly an important day, and the photo is relevant on the Battle of Normandy page, but seems out of place on a page about the Jewish holocaust. Treating it as a timeline point makes no sense because there's no photographic timeline, and the photos that are in the article aren't in temporal order. 172.159.69.47 16:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Consensus regarding D-Day material

SlimVirgin and Crum have been re-adding the D-Day material without consensus. Thoughtful comments are receiving "I like it" responses. Please, if anyone has reasons to keep the D-Day stuff, share it. Otherwise we need to keep it out. Jd2718 02:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It's there to help orient people regarding the timeline, and how as the Allies were moving in, the Germans were still deporting people to Auschwitz. If you want to add material about the advances from the east, please do so, but there's no need to remove what's already there. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I've sourced the connection between the two. I've also changed your section heading here to one more in line with WP:CIVIL. Do you have any further objections to the material? Jayjg ^(talk) 04:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

D-Day was not directly conected to the Holocaust, but did bring about it's final colapse with the liberation of the camps.--Freetown 04:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The Battle of Normandy article does not even MENTION the Holocaust (obviously), and so does the D-Day too (obviously). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Operation_Overlord (a purely military affair) is NOT in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Holocaust (click it to see what the Holocaust was about). Any link beyond the timeframe and "it too involved Nazis" is purely artifictial. This battle was part of the World War II. It happened because Germany invaded Poland and then a lot of other countries, and then the other countries decided to liberate the occupied countries and then invade Germany (and so they had to land in the west again, after being badly bogged-down in Italy), not because of the Holocaust (even after they knew everything about it).

Actually, if the Allied leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and their governemnts) cared about the Jews at all, they would do anything politically or by a military means (like bombing), and they did exactly NOTHING, even after having all the proof they wanted. The camps were libetared only when the froontlines of the war passed through, coming not only from the west and from the east too. See also: International response to the Holocaust (no Normandy mention here, too) - to summarize. I'll quote: "While the Allies were at war with Nazi Germany, and were engaged in a massive military campaign of unprecedented scale against it, they did little if anything to either stop the ongoing slaughter of millions of Jews and other minorities, or to save and absorb refugees." The D-Day material in the Holocaust article is some kind of a feel-good fable. --HanzoHattori 08:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Scanning this discussion, (a month later) I find only Crum's essentially "I like it" argument and SV's tenuous "timeline" arguments in favor, and a wide consensus to delete the material. Jd2718 01:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

NPOV again

I'd just like to point out, as a gypsy, that it is quite offensive to me to say that "The Holocaust... is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II". Though the primary target, the holocaust was much more than a campaign to kill jews. Our textbooks, our vernacular, is all geared toward the belief that the holocaust was only about the jews. You can go so far as to ask people, and there will be people who do not even know that the holocaust involved groups other than jews. The opening paragraph needs to be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaark (talk • contribs)

You've just explained yourself why our lead is written as it is. At Wikipedia, we don't add our own opinions; we report only what reliable sources report. As you said yourself, most of the textbooks and scholarly studies view the Holocaust as the genocide of the European Jews, so our lead reflects that. But we do explain this in the article, and we give details of other groups who were the victims of German genocide. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, all the textbooks I've seen in California describe the Holocaust as the systematic Nazi extermination of eleven million people, six million of whom were Jews. The other five million consisted of Gypsies, gays, handicapped, Free Masons, etc.--71.108.56.95 00:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Textbooks change annually, often based on political whims. All we can do at WP is to collect the best possible sources, which for historical events would be publications by respected scholars and historians, and summarize their views in a balanced fashion. If you read the lead and the Definition sections, you'll notice that we specifically address the issue of which groups are included in 'the Holocaust'. Crum375 00:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

About 5,500,000-6,000,000 Jews, 2,500,000 Gypsys, 1,500,000 poofs and 50,000 disabled were murdured in the Holocaust acording to a British book I read.--Freetown 04:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the first paragraph should be changed. The Holocaust was not a uniquely Jewish event, and whilst the second paragraph may detail other groups affected by it,the first paragraphy makes it seem as though the event harmed the Jes more than anyone else. Just because Jews were targetted specifically and in greater numbers than others, that does not make the hardships faced by all touched by the Holocaust any less. It's been estimated around 11 million people were killed as a result of The Holocaust, seeing as 6milion of those were Jewish, it seems very wrong to portray it as a mainly Jewish event.

Exhumation image

I have removed the exhumation image (with a mistaken edit comment) because we are over our size budget and I don't think it adds that much to the article. However, I am open minded, and other comments are welcome. Crum375 15:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:The War Against the JewsTable.png

Woah. That is a screenshot of a Wikipedia page which exists at The War Against the Jews. The table would be big, but I think a screenshot of a table is a bad idea. What should we do? Also, can someone get the citation of the page number? The refernece is only to the book, which, is very incomplete. Thanks. gren グレン 19:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Spelling

"togther" isn't a word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.203.235.207 (talk • contribs)

Thank you. Crum375 20:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Death Toll

The statistic of 9 to 11 million killed in the Holocaust, as cited by this article's introduction, is a low estimate by even the most conservative of standards. As the footnote suggests, the figure is likely well over 12 million. Does anyone else agree that this statistic should be changed? I can cite plenty of sources that would put the death toll much higher. Notecardforfree 08:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

True that the count of 9 million is pretty low, but I see 11 million a lot and that is I think the most agreed upon number...6 million Jews and 5 million additional minorities. Perhaps the range should be changed slightly...maybe 11-13 million?

Final Solution Fraud

Other than a handfull of terrorists no French Jews were killed in 4 years of German occupied France. So Hitler was either the world's greatest incompetent or the "Final Solution" theory is a fraud. John celona 13:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• And your sources for these assertions are? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 13:45, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• For starters, lets count the 41 children aged 3-13 in the children's home in Izieu caught in Klaus Barbie's net.(Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945: The Years of Extermination. HarperCollins, 2007, p. 601.)...Do we really need to count further? Joel Mc 14:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, that's easy: all children are terrorists by default. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 14:18, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• According to The War Against the Jews, about 90,000 'terrorists' were killed. Crum375 14:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

L'ancien maire de Paris, ville qui compte la plus importante communauté juive de France, les a toujours aidés. Ils viennent lui demander d'assister à la commémoration de la rafle du Vélodrome d'hiver du 16 juillet 1942, au cours de laquelle 12 884 juifs furent arrêtés, avant d'être déportés dans les camps nazis, où la plupart furent exterminés. Ils ne doutent pas qu'il viendra. "En 1995, la reconnaissance des fautes commises par l'Etat", Béatrice Gurrey, 26 Janvier 2005, Le Monde. Gzuckier 14:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Consider the source Couldn't get a rise out of anybody last month? Gzuckier 14:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, there were about 600,000 Jews in France before the war and the same number after; not much of a "Final Solution". It is true that some "non-French" Jews living in France were deported and died. John celona 13:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why people are playing silly games here. Yes, it's a fact that most Jews who were French citizens were not deported, because Vichy refused to do so. But many thousands of Jewish refugees were deported and a number of Jewish French citizens were also deported, mainly opponents of Vichy. Does that make the Vichy regime innocent? Hardly. So what is the point being made here? What do you want changed? I certainly fail to see why these well-known facts somehow prove that Hitler was "incompetent" or that the Final Solution was a "fraud". Paul B 14:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The fact that a systematic extermination was not undertaken in France means neither that Hitler was incompetent, nor the "Final Solution" was a fraud. It simply means he didn't have a motive for undertaking such a thing at that point in time. Had he been freely able to, he may well have began such a thing, but it's reasonable just to assume that it wasn't high on his priorities at the time. It's not incompetent of him to think strategically, nor does it imply what happened elsewhere is a "fraud".

Proper title for Odessa massacre

Do you think Odessa Holocaust is a proper title? Please take a look at Talk:Odessa massacre#Odessa Holocaust. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 22:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The first para in The Holocaust#Jewish resistance

"Jewish failure to resist the Holocaust" - this is simply wrong thing to say. Martin Gilbert wrote: "In every ghetto, in every deportation train, in every labor camp, even in the death camps, the will to resist was strong, and took many forms." That entire paragraph looks like a POV editorial on the modern politics. IMHO, it should be rewritten along the lines of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust#Types of resistance and JEWISH RESISTANCE (USHMM). ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I have replaced it with a relevant quote and a few refs. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

NPOV revisited

'Slaughter' should absolutely not be used; see Slaughter, Auschwitz#Individual_escape_attempts and WP:AVOID#Sadly.2C_tragically.2C_slaughtered_and_other_words_that_editorialize_death. There is consensus that it is linguistically inaccurate, contextually inappropriate and editorially positioned.

Those who want to use it to speak to the intensity, carnage or brutality of the killings should know that the rest of the article does perfectly well at doing so. Furthermore, using it states that the victims were only of the status of animals—unintentionally supporting the position of the Nazis. —Parhamr 04:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Historians use it in scholarly works. That's good enough for us. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

"It is used" and "good enough" are such weak arguments; this has been discussed repeatedly and is going in circles. I am using the WP:MOS in my position for edits while you appear to only be maintaining the status quo—even when in the wrong. Please provide defense of your position that is wholly in line with the policies of wikipedia. —Parhamr 04:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You were the one who added it to Words to avoid, presumably after your last attempt to remove it. [8] SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Correct, I added it. First, I added it to the talk page on April 30. After no reply but with previous discussions that seemed to support it, I added it to the policy on June 3. Was this wrong? Was a month without contest not enough? —Parhamr 04:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You can't censor WP. If reliable scholarly sources use a term, we may use it also. Crum375 04:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Verifiability, which is policy, says that attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" … I have not seen any citations in this or other article that state 'slaughter' is used in "reliable scholarly sources." Please provide it. —Parhamr 04:48, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example of the term being used in a typical context. I am sure we can find many more. The issue is to find the best word to convey the size and brutality of the killing – 'mass killing' sounds clinical, and could also be applied to a mass mercy killing. We should use the proper language, and not white-wash it, as long as we have reliable scholarly sources using the terms in this context. Crum375 04:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that white-washing is bad and the deaths/killings/murders during the Holocaust were horribly brutal and violent—we have the same goals and desires. I think we do not have the same idea of how (or if) white washing is occurring here. One argument I specifically want addressed is: do you agree that 'slaughter' dehumanizes the victims? Have you read paragraph two of this section? Also, your source there is "The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority" … their name outright indicates POV.

Slaughter dehumanizes the victims. "Slaughter" doesn't; it just describes what happened. Anyway, point is: we use the terms the academic sources use. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Parham, if you read any of the scholarly literature, you'll see that the term is used liberally, and you really should do some of that reading if you want to edit this article. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:02, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I am copyediting for style; not content-editing for accuracy of claims. Style and method (neutral and verifiable) trumps content—any material that is challenged and for which no source is provided may be removed by any editor (WP:CITE).

You've been given a source. There are hundreds more where that came from. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding that source—[9] is it a reliable source? —Parhamr 05:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Yad Vashem is possibly the most comprehensive and most reliable scholarly source about the Holocaust. Crum375 05:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Yad Vashem's publications state:

"I don't think that we, today, should use a term that was used during the Holocaust with quite a different connotation." —Professor Yehuda Bauer, Director of the International Center for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem [10]

"The collective blame laid by Israelis on the victims as people who went 'like sheep to the slaughter' was due to ignorance of the circumstances of the Holocaust and the ways in which it took place." —Frumi Shehori [11]

"If Jewish resistance was glorified, the six million Holocaust victims were often anything but. Those who did not resist with arms (or at least flee the Nazi onslaught) were often portrayed in the literature as having gone to their deaths 'like sheep to the slaughter.' " —Dr. Robert Rozett [12]

Therefore it is most proper to not use 'slaughter.' While it is used at times, it is either done as a colloquialism or with specific context referring to sentiment at the time that is not adequately understood in the context of wikipedia—as we understand the word 'slaughter' today. My final recommendation is that if slaughter is used, it only be used in such context to discuss the aforementioned attitudes and not to be used outright as a verb. Either way, addition of a section or article about the 'sheep to slaughter' metaphor might be necessary. Thoughts? —Parhamr 07:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

One man's take -- the word "slaughter" captures what took place in a way that no other English word I can find does. (Capturing as it does connotations of volume, process, bureaucracy, dehumanization, and moral distance through systematization.) It is pejorative, it seems to me, to the slaughterer, not to the victims. If you feel the larger metaphor of slaughterhouses has no place in this article because it somehow implies that all of those who were forced into this system were compliant, as sheep are, then you are, perhaps, reading more into the single use of the term that appears here than I am. Plus, as Slim points out, it appears to be quite common in the literature.

Sorry if this is not what you expected when you asked for a comment here. BYT 12:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not an expert on grammar, usage, propriety and such. However, I think that general policy on deaths may not pertain precisely to an extreme event like The Holocaust. I think this may be the rare exception to the rule. I don't think almost anyone is offended by the term slaughter in reference to this event. I would endorse using it here, but not in general. That is just my opinion (which I was asked to make on my user talk page).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

See also this thread, especially Hertz1888's excellent comment (which I endorse, as well as the other above responses). Crum375 14:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Is all this discussion about a single use of the word "slaughter" in this article? It hardly seems worth it. In some contexts, of course, it could have specific, inappropriate connotations, but here it seems simply to be acting as a stylistic variant, like "massacre", etc. I don't think it's worth arguing about. --Macrakis 15:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a pervasive argument about the appropriateness of words; one which SlimVirgin dominates to assert that any words not in-line with 'sympathetic' literature is forbidden. Certainly sympathy is deserved, but not here nor in this context—the article's content in general speaks for itself about the horrible atrocities. Look at the history for some of User:Fourdee's edits—SlimVirgin is always there to revert. —Parhamr 18:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed she is. Fourdee was trying to add that we should refer to the Holocaust as an "extermination project."

It's not a question of sympathy, but of using the English language correctly and sticking closely to what scholarly sources say. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But it seems like inappropriate picking-and-choosing when the immediately preceding source states in interview that slaughter should not be used. —Parhamr 04:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe he is referring to the famous phrase "sheep to slaughter", which is an entirely different issue. Crum375 04:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No, read it—

When people used them after the Holocaust, it was something quite different, and very objectionable. Jews were not sheep. Jews were Jews, Jews were human beings; they were led not to slaughter, but to being murdered, which is something quite different. Therefore, I don't think that we, today, should use a term that was used during the Holocaust with quite a different connotation.

— Professor Yehuda Bauer

—Parhamr 05:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

…and by that—have any of us ever seen a slaughter? In person? Performed one? Slaughter is a loaded word that is not proper in this context because we readers and editors do not understand it as it was once used. —Parhamr 05:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems peculiar to me to cite mostly jewish sources and other sources with a personal fixation and agenda regarding the holocaust as the standard for what is a "neutral" what to phrase killings. Whatever standard applies to any mention of killings on wikipedia should apply here. I could repeat my belief till I'm blue in the face that no value-judgment is a fact, and people might agree for the majority of articles, but on this one those who are camped out on it are intent to have this mention of slaughter left in. I don't see what more can be done here. "Slaughter" is probably a lot less objectionable than "brutal" since it is not so much of a value judgment to say that what happened is similar to what happens in a slaughter house. However, I wonder why we don't introduce some of these very same scholars calling the Nazis "absolute evil" and such. I mean, if that's what the body of holocaust scholars say, it must be a fact, right? -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 19:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The use of the word "slaughter" is not simply a value judgment in this context, but is also a factual description of the extent, speed, and nature of the killing. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

'Slaughter' means-

1/ The intentional killing of an animal by humans or animals,

2/ The mass killing of animals by the forces of nature,

3/ The mass killing of humans by the forces of nature (as in a eathquake or flood),

4/ The inhuman, methodical and genosidal killing of humans by other humans (the Holocaust),

5/ The axidental or negligent killing of humans by other humans (man-slaughter). --Freetown 04:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Possible solutions

1. Leave slaughter in; no change
2. Leave slaughter in but make a note to acknowledge it is pejorative
3. Leave slaughter in but add a passage from Yehuda Bauer to explain its careful use
4. Replace slaughter with massacre to be accurate but still borderline colloquial
5. Replace slaughter with genocide to be contextually proper, legally defined and historically significant
6. Replace slaughter with mass-killings
7. Replace slaughter with mass-murders

I support 2 and 5 —Parhamr 20:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

…does nobody care to resolve this? —Parhamr 04:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It's already resolved. The term 'slaughter' is extensively used by scholarly sources in this context and is entirely appropriate. Crum375 04:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

See quotes above —Parhamr 05:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Parhamr, you are missing the point of those quotes. What Bauer is referring to is the socio-political issue of 'sheep to slaughter', not the term 'slaughter' per se. Crum375 05:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, it is neither predudical or non-predudical. It's all in the way the article is written as a whole, rather than the indervidual wourds used in it. Genoside and mass-murdur are equily aplicable to the topic to. Legaly speaking Genoside and mass-murdur are used in referance to it --Freetown 05:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Why argue about the use of 1 word, it's whole the event not just 1 word that counts!--Pine oak 05:42, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

He's right.--Freetown 05:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Is just 1 word realy that inmprtant!--86.29.246.148 02:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Bauer's quote (above) describes his own epiphany, and he's welcome to it, but I hardly see how it relates to style guidelines here.

If the term is used descriptively in contemporary Holocaust literature to describe what happened to Holocaust victims, and if it is not used as part of an explicit metaphor comparing those victims to passive sheep (which would be inappropriate) then in my view it's accurate and probably the best choice, given its overtones of wholesale butchery and dehumanization.

(By the way -- I'm not at all sure that sheep, or members of any other species, do in fact line up without protest to be slaughtered. We'd need to ask someone from PETA, I guess, but it seems unlikely that animals would have to be stunned with electric prods if they were as docile as all that.) BYT 16:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The Serbs (again) and other notes about the victims

Someone is keen to continue inclduing the Serbs killed by the Croats into the victims of the Holocaust. They're in the infobox, they're in the article, which I thought is about "the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II (...) [and] other groups were persecuted and killed by the regime." Serbs were not targeted by the Germans as a nation - in fact, there was a Serbian fascist state (something along the Vichy France, only more vicious - and yeah, the article is bad, so you'd have to read further elsewhere) through the war, just as was the Croatian one (complete with the Serbia's SS legion of the Serbisches Freilligen Korps, etc).

It's roughly on the same scale as would be including the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in the occupied Ukraine and Poland (including things like Massacres of Poles in Volhynia), or maybe the crimes of the Soviet Union 1939-41 - I think this is just silly, and it's also annoying. But you know Yugoslavia, and you should also know how they falsify history and how, like Associated Press said this, "Casualty figures from other conflicts in the region, especially during World War II, were often manipulated by politicians, and statistics and death tolls were used to justify attacks against other ethnic or religious groups"[13] (and I don't think Wikipedia is a place for this).

Also, what do you think about the article of Holocaust victims? I think maybe most of the summaries would be moved there (and further edited), and here only a short list with some commentary and the links to the main articles (like Porajmos for the Roma) - something like this, I'm not sure how it would be done, just sayin'. --HanzoHattori 09:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Serbs were also killed en masse in Kosovo. I think that it is important, as it still has a huge impact on politics in the Balkans. However, if we are defining the Holocaust as what the German government did, then you are right: they never really targetted Serbs that badly.

I don't think that the comparisons with Poles in the Ukraine is right. Around 80,000 Poles died in that massacre, but around 500,000 Serbs died in Ustasha Croatia, and then there were those who died in Kosovo too. Only the Jews sufferred more than the Serbs in this period. I think that the reason why some Wiki users feel strongly about it is because the Serbs tend to get forgotten. I can understand some of their annoyance. Epa101 10:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually some estimates say 500,000 Poles were killed by the Ukrainians. But this doesn't matter, because - how many Serbs were killed by NAZI GERMANY? No, I don't mean the anti-partisan operations. And as I noted - the Balkan figures are notoriously unreliable. Anything Hitler saying against the Serbs, maybe? No puppet Serb state after all? "Suffering" - about 60% of all Soviet POWs were killed (mostly starved to death by being given even less than the others).

Actually, I'm deeply annoyed by the treatment of the Serbian issue. Look at the wikipedia whitewash of Milan Nedić - not a fascist, no crimes by Serbs (it was all Germans and "Nazi Croats (Ustashe), Nazi Albanians (Bali Kombatare) and Nazi Bosnian Muslim"). You know, because everyone else in Yugoslavia were Nazis, but the Serb collaborants were just patriots. --HanzoHattori 13:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Auschwitz-Birkenau official total toll is 1.1 to 1-5 million, not 1.4 for Auschwitz II alone

Update yourselves.[14] --HanzoHattori 10:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

And this applies to the other camps as well, I guess. Estimates change constantly, so the figures should be updated accordingly (it used be "2.5-4 million" for the Auschwitz system, you know). I think the museums know the best. --HanzoHattori 10:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not know why you would say museum web-pages know best. Perhaps museum curators do, although what goes into a web-page or museum display typically oversimplifies for public consumption. I would suspect that a peer-reviewed journal article, or reports from the US, Uk and Soviet militaries, would "know best" - certainly better than a museum web-page. Museum web-pages are just more accessible. But when researching to write an encyclopedia, we can and should do better, even (especially) if it means working harder. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:49, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Heck no. Soviet propaganda (4 million) "knows the worst" - totally imaginary numbers (not only such incident, of course: see Maly Trostenets extermination camp etc. - they appearently either entirely invented every figure, or presented several times the actual one). You know they would have balls to actually accuse Germans of Katyn, etc. Totally unreliable. And museum researchers do their job[15] they are paid for, why do you think they botch it, badly? --HanzoHattori 16:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

What's with all the removal of material? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I removed some of this, then [some guy says I was in fact "restoring" his removals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:HanzoHattori#My_edits] while doing mine, and now I'm baffled. I'm not sure what he did. --HanzoHattori 08:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I meant why did you remove what you removed? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 08:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Jesus! He says I "restored", you say I "removed"... uh, WHAT? Also, I just did the work on the version you reverted to, and then you reverted to the earlier(!). Decide already! — Preceding unsigned comment added by HanzoHattori (talk • contribs) 04:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I tell you what I did, if it's not obvious. I removed various redunant links (including oddities like links to Ilse Koch etc.) leaving only the main articles, the Serb-Croat Balkan issues (as I already wrote) except the killings of Jews and Roma (before the Germans took over soon, anyway). Plus I addded various stuff, like the short infor on the poles (who were only mentioned in the intro and the table) and dates, and corrected ome various things (most important the Operation Reinhards vs general Final Solution, and did the sub-section on Reinhard in which 2 m died), added intelinks to the countries etc.

The other guys was removing random stuff appearently, to make it "look better" and not "frankly laughable"(???). --HanzoHattori 09:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, the thing on "Spanish POWs" was very, VERY strange. The Spain was neutral/pro-Hitler. They only sent volunteers for Hitler (the Blue Division to the Eastern Front), so the ones to kill them would be the Soviets. --HanzoHattori 09:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Length

I would like to move sections 2 and 3 (Distinctive features and death toll) to their own pages, just because of the length of this one. Does anyone object to that? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 08:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

No that would be daft, as what defines the Holocaust is its distinctive features and death toll. To move them would be somewhat stupid --Hayden5650 09:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with SlimVirgin, the article is too large at 126kb total size, and it's difficult to load. Spinning off an article is perfectly acceptable according to Wikipedia:Article size. There's nothing 'daft' about it. The content isn't lost, you create a new article and leave a summary style section such as the Jewish victims section. If you have different content in mind to spin off, then please propose it. – Dreadstar † 09:25, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

You "agree" 126kb is too long, so you revert to 134 kb with odd random links and stuff? Wow. I'm amazed by your logic. --HanzoHattori 09:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring the WP:CIV for a moment, yes I do agree and so does the Wikipedia MOS Guideline on the subject. I've perfomed a more accurate size check, and the current readable prose is appproximately 81kb, which falls between the "almost certainly" and "probably should be" divided range for the article's size. This is according to the above-linked "rule of thumb for splitting articles", which states:

• 100 KB Almost certainly should be divided up
• 60 KB Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)

More importantly are the readability and browser load-time issues. The article is too long to be comfortably readable, and too large to be easily and quickly loaded by the average browser setup.

Your comment about my reversion to a presumably larger version being logical; yes it is perfectly logical. The reversion of contested edits made without consensus has nothing to do with the article size issue being discussed here. Each is irrelevant to the other. Had the reversion been to a drastically different size that was obviously way above the limits described here, would be an entirely different matter. – Dreadstar † 15:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think Wikipedia can survive with an article like this being 126 kb long. (Also SV, you aren't, in fact, not "several people", are you?) --HanzoHattori 09:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, Wikipedia can 'survive' a lot of things, that doesn't mean it should be put in that position; especially when it's something that can easily be addressed according to Wikipedia guidelines. I do not see the relevance of your comment on SlimVirgin not being 'several people'. I recommend you confine your comments to the editorial content of the article and stop making comments about the editors who are opposing your view. – Dreadstar † 15:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I would oppose the move of the Distinctive features section to its own page. I believe that it is often the case that someone coming to the article for the first time is very likely to have in her/his mind why all the fuss, how is this different from the genocides that we are witnessing today. The educative impact of this is crucial if it is not to be repeated. I don't think anything needs to be added to the section as there are convenient links for those who want to know more.Joel Mc 08:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe by 'move' SlimVirgin means that we should create a Wikipedia:Summary style section in this article, with a link to a child article that contains more detail. This is a normal, standard means of dealing with articles that have grown past a certain size, as this one has become.

If you don't agree to creating summary style sections for the two sections that Slimvirgin has indicated, can you suggest other sections that could be spun off into child articles of this one? – Dreadstar † 09:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

When I first edited this section 10 May 2007 [[16]] it was reverted with a faulty explanation. Slim Virgin proposed the incorporation which became the present "Distinctive features" section and I agreed. (see my exchange with SV [[17]] You will have to forgive me for understanding SV's suggestion literally, but I would still be opposed to cutting anything in at least the first two sections (I am not sure that the medical experiments are really distinctive of the Holocaust.) I guess I am agnostic about the feeling that the article is too long (I have just reread it and am not uncomfortable with its length) and am not sure how spinning off of the "Death toll" to a "child" article would look, although I would imagine that there would be some opposition from other editors. I assume that you don't mean that my opposition to creating Wikipedia:Summary style for the "Distinctive features" section is conditional on my suggesting "other sections that could be spun off into child articles", but I will look again at the article to see if I have any ideas. --Joel Mc 10:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

None of the sections particularly jumps out as being one we could obviously move to its own article. I'll try to find time to go through it and tighten all the writing. It's likely we can lose quite a bit that way, and it might be enough. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 10:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Length details

SlimVirgin - first you fight to keep the various quotes and stuff about D-Day, then you want to shorten the cut stuff like who died and how many? --HanzoHattori 09:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)\

You're just chopping out bits randomly. It needs to be done properly. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 10:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not. It's a system, and easy one - replacing "bits" (randomly-chosen links sections) with the main articles.

for example, the massive linkspam of:

• Further information: Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.
• For uprisings: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Białystok Ghetto Uprising, Marcinkance Ghetto Uprising, Sobibór extermination camp, Żydowski Związek Walki, Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa.
• For Jewish partisans, volunteers, and escapees: Yitzhak Arad, Bielski partisans, Masha Bruskina, Eugenio Calò, Jewish Brigade, Jewish partisans, Abba Kovner, Dov Lopatyn, Moše Pijade, Haviva Reik, Special Interrogation Group, Hannah Szenes, Rudolf Vrba, Alfréd Wetzler, Shalom Yoran, Simcha Zorin.
• For how stories were preserved in the Warsaw Ghetto: Emanuel Ringelblum, Oyneg Shabbos (group).}}

with the simple

{{main|Jewish resistance during the Holocaust}}

--HanzoHattori 10:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I am somewhat lost as to what her objectives even are. I don't know what she is trying to achieve. Get rid of some of those stupid quote boxes it looks like a bloody magazine article. --Hayden5650 09:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Appearently odd links to Ilse Koch and Irma Grese (ah, them random ugly German women of the SS) or a randomly-generated list of major concentration camps (including some small camps in Norway or whatever, but excluding many large ones in germany and Poland) is the most improtant. HanzoHattori 09:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay so

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Holocaust&diff=147418152&oldid=147417108

What I wrote already. Oddities removed, various things corrected, some (important) stuff actually added but the article's smaller anyway. Can we have oh-consesus now? --HanzoHattori 09:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to have also it more integrated with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims if possible, including consistency (including moving stuff, in either direction). --HanzoHattori 09:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

With respect to gaining consensus, you've got my support. --Hayden5650 09:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and also change

There are many examples of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust, most notably the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of January 1943, when thousands of poorly armed Jewish fighters held the SS at bay for four weeks, and killed several hundred Germans before being crushed by overwhelmingly superior forces.

to

There are many examples of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust, most notably the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of January 1943, when the poorly armed Jewish fighters rose up against the final wave of deportations to the extermination camps, before being crushed by overwhelmingly superior forces.

The former is a myth. Most of the liqidation was the Jews hiding or escaping from Germans, which is what many did for years elsewhere (and they were not thousands). Any positional fighting ("holding at bay") ended in few days, not weeks. (You may be confused by "bunkers". "Bunkers" were hiding places.)--HanzoHattori 10:06, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

So WHERE'S THE DISCUSSION? All you can do is reverting "because no consensus", and then continue blah-blah-blah on this and just ignore this, because you reverted so now you can ignore and wait it out (while whining it's "too long" after enlonging back yourselves). Typical wikipedia.

Or should I consider this "the consensus'.

I'm out for weekend. --HanzoHattori 20:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, major frustration time. I asked for the help to make several related articles, and got none. But when I upgrade this one existing myself, I get instantly reverted because "no consensus" (and for removing offtopic, non-important, and redunant stuff from the "too long" article, becuase I made it not "too long" enough). And when I ask for this "consensus", I get silence from the reverters (both two of them, also called "several people") instead of any discussion, just continued whining about "too long". You know what guys, screw all this - have your "too long" article including Ilse Koch, or stuff about "Spanish POWs", or (SO UNIMPORTANT) police raids on Berlin gay clubs, and the details of the D-Day (?!?!? with the picture and links to the all beaches and WHAT), instead of total 4 sentences and 1 main link of 200,000+ to 1.8,000,000 killed Poles or the super-short detail on Reinhard (merely ~2 million, who cares, let's instead confuse this with Endlosung in general) I dastardly added without oh-"consensus". So much better! Really! Jesus, wiki. --HanzoHattori 20:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I also noticed there was a thread on the D-Day (un)importance. It's totally unimportant (it's not a general article on WWII). What MUCH more important was the camp/railway (non)bombing issue - and I don't think it's touched at all. This was something what would make the real difference. Actually Allies did NOTHING to stop any of this, D-Day included (it was part of the war, and as such unrelated according to the Western leaders, and they much more cared to kill the German civs by bombing than free the German camps). --HanzoHattori 21:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey, HanzoHattori, thanks for stepping up to the plate, reverting your own edits, and coming here to discuss this! Awesome! It's a great display of Wikipedia editors working together in a collaborative way to make our project better! I am sorry I didn't respond sooner, but my real life took over after my last edit..had to go to bed, get some sleep and then work today. Give me a little time to digest all this stuff, and hopefully we can move this thing forward to everyone's satisfaction! I am so glad to see this kind of cooperative editing!– Dreadstar † 21:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Content dispute

What I'd like to try, is to set up a sandbox where we can collect and discuss the elements of the disputed content for this article. We can discuss there, while not clutering this page with all the many posts I expect we'll have! Hope this is ok with everyone!

The sandbox is ready, please follow the format I've layed out. If there are any issues or problems with it, let know and I'll fix it!

• The Holocaust disputed content sandbox.

– Dreadstar † 01:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

So, what now when there's no discussion? Reaching consensus otherwise, I guess. SV is against my changes but won't tell which exactly and why, and Hayden5650 is appeareantly supporting me after all. You? --HanzoHattori 06:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, and also: I don't think "my" Auschwitz bombing debate is actually really, REALLY needed. It wasn't in the original version, and it's not in mine - it's just the main article of International response to the Holocaust (instead of the usual random-link flood of Évian Conference, Bermuda Conference, International response to the Holocaust, Voyage of the Damned, Struma.). I just mentioned this in the quite silly subject of detailing D-Day (including the spam-link list of the Normandy beaches) in the article about the Holocaust. --HanzoHattori 06:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to remind, the changes are here[18] (plus Warsaw correction). --HanzoHattori 06:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus as far as I can tell. I believe the lack of discussion may be due to the fact that some of the disputants were away for the weekend. We still need to reach consensus for the changes to the article you've proposed. I've responded to your statements about this process in more detail on the sandbox page (thanks for the feedback, btw!). If you truly believe we have consensus for your changes, let me know and we'll move on to the next step. – Dreadstar † 06:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There's no consensus for these changes. I can't even see the point of most of them. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 10:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

For WHAT and why? --HanzoHattori 18:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Once again, I call for calm and patience. Even now I am going through the changes in the diff you presented with your proposed changes. The sheer number of changes in that diff are quite remarkable. It is going to take me a while to gather, format and present them in the sandbox. Then we can look at each proposed change individually to see if we can all agree on what to include. – Dreadstar † 18:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust memorial day

Hear is a intresting link- [[19]]

Positive Effects of the Holocaust for Jews

There should be something written about the positive effects of the Holocaust for the Jews. For example, after thousands of years of persecution from all countries in the world, including England and America, these countries and the rest of Europe would dare not put a foot wrong when discussing Jews, and persecution of any notable scale has been relegated to some backwater 3rd World Countries which the US Army could quite easily take care of, should the need arise. --Hayden5650 10:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There was nothing positive in the Holocaust. Even their God died in Auschwitz. --HanzoHattori 17:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Positive? Ther is still anti-Semitism in these countries and it wasn't the Holocaust in which everyone decided to just stop hating Jews for no particular reason. Reginmund 22:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The King or Queen of England is hardly going to get away with expelling them all from Britain though, now are they? There's 'racism' in every country, but the Holocaust brought an end to 'state sanctioned racism'. You might say the Holocaust made the world a safer place for Jews --Hayden5650 00:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Mm-hm. Well, find some reliable sources that say that. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I wonder why the Eichmann's lawyeres didn't try "But there were also positive effects" line of defense. --HanzoHattori 06:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Would they get away with expelling any other race? NO. Not in a democracy like the U.K.. Compare to most European countries, Jews have had actually little persecution in Britain. I don't understand why you are singling them out from all other minority groups. They are as just as vunerable. One would assume because of your previous extremist POV pushing, you are just looking for an excuse to say that the Holocaust was a good thing. Reginmund 23:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

No, young Reggie. I said it may have had a positive consequence. Sometimes it's good to find something positive from a negative situation. --Hayden5650 00:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Young Haydie, "may" is a weasel word which if left unsourced, implies original research. Two things not allowed here. Oxygen may be harmful to mammals since it carries hostile bacteria. Maybe we should imply that oxygen is a bad occurence in the atmosphere. BTW, "Reggie" is an incorrect shortening of "Reginmund" as "Reginmund" is the cognate of my given name, Raymond. "Reggie" on the other hand is short for "Reginald". Reginmund 01:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Hayden5650, I consider your behavior uncivil and ask you to proceed - only if you have verifiable reliable sources - with extreme caution. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 01:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• In all fairness the holocaust was probably the deciding factor in the creation of Israel, at least thats my two cents.

Agreed. I don't know that I would characterize the effects as "positive". However, the key point here is that it is not for us to determine what the effects were and whether they were positive, negative or neutral. Find a reliable source that makes this argument and we can consider inserting it into the article. --Richard 19:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust dispute diff

I have finished scanning the disputed diff and placed the significant edits on the Sandbox page. There are sections for each segment of the diff, and a comment subsection for each. Keep the discussions there short and civil, and focused only on content. I will refactor any comments placed inappropriately on that page. Let me know if you have any questions. I will be notifiying the list of disputants shortly. – Dreadstar † 01:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

New changes

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Holocaust&diff=148943806&oldid=148929099

I may explain or discuss anything if needed. --HanzoHattori 15:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Why did you remove homosexuals and Jehova's Witnesses? You may explain. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey! They were small groups. JWs for sure WELL under 10,000 dead (high of 5,000), and homosexuals probably. I changed the list for the main groups ("most notable"), most in their hundreds of thousands for sure (actually MILLIONS in the case of the SPOWs). The exception of the disabled which may be in their tens of thousands, but even their the minimal estimate is higher than highest ones of the JWs and HSs combined (and high ones are the hundreds of thousands too). These I listed were actively targeted for extermination (mass executions), while the 2 small groups I ommited in the intro were "just" persecuted (imprisoned, starved, humiliated, tortured, but not gassed). Also, the article says much larger group was the Freemasons ("80,000 to 200,00") - but I didn't feel about including (here adding) them either (I don't know enough, and I guess they would better be just counted among the politicals, if they weren't already). It's the question of choosing - there were already chosen some, other small groups were ommited (Italian POWs for example are ommited completely, even if 10,000 were killed in a single shooting massacre, and untold others died in concentration camps - and again, more than the JWs and the HSs combined). You may also take a look at Holocaust victims. I'd like also to notice all the stuff about the SPOWs in this article was added by me - before this, the death of 5,000 dead JWs seemed more important then ~3,000,0000 dead SPOWs. Hint: it wasn't really. (The murder of the SPOWs at its peak was actually more intense any other in the history including this of the Jews and this in the 100 days in Rwanda, it should have it's own article.) At least, this is my opinion. --HanzoHattori 19:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Also I placed them in the most probable order of magnitude from the highest number down (now: "Soviet POWs, political prisoners, Roman Catholic Poles, Roma people, and the disabled people of Germany"). I also noted it was the disabled of Germany and the annexed territories, they weren't killing them everywhere (unless theywere also Jews or such). Plus I added interlinks there and elswehere but I guess the reason for this one is pretty obvious. --HanzoHattori 19:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to know why they are removed. Why do you make lots of small changes? It makes it harder for me to compare the changes you have made with what came before, not to mention using the revert function--but maybe that is my technical failings --Joel Mc 16:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Every time I do I think I did everything. Than I see Bełżec spelled as "Belzec" or what not, so I go and correct.

I've reverted the changes made by HanzoHattori, he made them without consensus and needs to discuss everything on the talk page before making the changes again. Let me know if there's anything I missed reverting. Thanks! – Dreadstar † 17:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I can discuss anything, but leave it being there. Any controversional changes can be discussed and I'm very open to this, just old version is really, REALLY bad by too many very neutral reasons, including wrong spellings, bad interlinking, lack of Poles at all(!), etc. Really - jusr compare them both! --HanzoHattori 19:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Your changes need consensus before they are implemented. – Dreadstar † 19:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought we have reached the consensus? You stopped questioning anything, I showed you no one else is joining (as predicted), and you asked what now. And you removed even these old changes. I don't understand. Also the link is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Holocaust&diff=148983308&oldid=148957353 because I did some more interlinking after. --HanzoHattori 19:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Split the lemma

In my opinion the lemma should be split in a real holocaust lemma and another lemma on other Nazi crimes. The holocaust is specific for the extermination of Jews and Roma on basis of birth (racial determined). The other crimes were directed against a lot of other categories of people, but they all lack that they were only condemned just from birth certificate. Typical for the holocaust is the organized mass murder in an industrialized way. Only Jews and Roma were in large groups murdered in gas chambers, other people were only on a small scale sent to the gas chambers. In the lemma on Nazi crimes a separation in all kind of categories can be made (resistance, real and assumed opponents, Soviet POW's, Spanish refugees, escaped and recaptured western POW's, dropped agents, Slavic people, non-white people, Jehova witnesses, freemasons, gay people, disabled, retarded people, mentally ill, hostages, victims of acts of terror, refusers of the Arbeitseinsatz, hungry looters, criminals, etc., etc., etc.). Robvhoorn 19:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

So, you believe when a Jew or a Gypsy is gassed it's "real holocaust", but when a Pole, a Soviet soldier, or a mentally ill German is also gassed it's a "Nazi crime", Ummmm... okay. But what if they are gassed in one chamber at the same time? --HanzoHattori 20:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Still on: The first people mass-gassed were the German retards (thank you wikipedia). The first people gassed with Zyklon-B were groups of 250 Poles and 600 Sovsoldats. Keepin' it real enough? As for the small groups of victims (you also forgot non-Jehova Witness draft resisters and sometimes their familes, army deserters, and some other groups large at least in comparision to the Allied bomber pilots and some other REALLY small groups), appearently only 2 are important, which is discussed around (for some reason "traditional" JWs and male gays - but it's must-be stuff, then okay). --HanzoHattori 20:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

As I already indicated, I do not deny that other persons were gassed. My father (resistance) escaped such gassing (Aktion 14f13) because the gas chamber in Dachau was not yet ready and a member of his resistance group (not Jewish) underwent the experiments with the ice water baths. I mentioned a lot of other groups of victims, even victims not yet mentioned in the article, but my etc. etc. etc. indicates that there are many other groups to recognize. In my opininion the holocaust should be restricted to the victims of an attempt to a total annihilation on basis of racial grounds. The other victims should be treated in a separate article: their fate was terrible (as I know from close observation of survivors of several kinds) but it is something else as holocaust. In my country a monument was erected for gay victims, now it appears that the number of gay victims in my country was zero. Nobody was sent to a concentration camp because he was gays, but of course there were many gay victims because in any group there are gay men. Only in Germany gay men were sent to concentration camps; the number of such German gay victims is less than 10.000 as someone investigated in Bad Arolsen. Robvhoorn 21:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The odd small homocidal gas chambers at the KL Dachau were built but never used for murder, and the resistance members were rather shot (or sometimes hung publicily, in the East at least). Also yeah, there were Jewish gays etc everywhere, but the thing was Germans wanted German gays to stop being gay and reproduce their glorious master race. It was meant to be a therapy. A shock therapy. With experiments in the search of "cure". Also I read the survivors had to remain in the jails after the war, because actually homosexuality was a crime in the Weimar too. But here in Wikipedia people appearently want them (and the Watchtowerists) mentioned very prominently, so oh well. --HanzoHattori 13:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Also am important thing when discussing the gays the greater general brutality towards them was by the individual guards and other prisoners (of course especially kapos), not the policy of the German leaders. But it's one of these things few people dare to discuss, because the camps were so hellish places not only because of these who guarded, and these who survived were often these least humane or moralistic. The Jews except kapos or sonderkommandos were also the low caste, but under them were still some others. Germans actually sometimes (Auschwitz) tried to make the life of the Roma better but failed (it's a pretty odd story, but who ever said there was any logic) and in the end gassed them ("sadly", wrote Hoss). --HanzoHattori 14:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Prisoners in Dachau to be gassed were sent to Hartheim. My father called Dachau in comparison to other camps a heaven on earth (note he was a Muselmann and nearly died of typhus), so what do you call hellish. The treatment of gay people was not so harsh as that of Soviet POW's or Jewish people. Furthermore, in many cases gay people could trade their services with capo's in change of food stolen from other prisoners (stories I heard many times from inmates and it is also described in inmate accounts, but it concerned non-German gay people without pink triangle). So, there were major difference in both the treatment and the attitude of gay people. In comparison to the numbers involved, millions of Jews op Soviet POW's against thousands of gay victims, too much attention is paid to the gay victims. In my opinion the lemma should be split in aone of the holocaust of Jews and Roma and another of the other crimes; irrespective of the fact that in both cases millions of people were victims. Robvhoorn 18:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The camps were "hellish" in general, conditions varied from camp to camp and changed for worse towards the end of the war. I do agree the gays get "too much attention" (look at my contested edits somewhere around), but I also think selecting only the Jews and (some of) the Roma as the "only true victims" is very far-fetched. I believe the "Nazi war crimes" as other then the holocaust were much mundane than the camps or the einsatzgruppen, it was things like the indiscriminate bombing, roundups for the forced labour, or the organised pillage and deliberate wantan destruction in occupied territories. (but these things were on this was on the Allied side too, especially USSR - who also had their own exclusives, like the mass rapes the Nazis weren't into ironically because they were too racist for this) I guess the Holocaust was the KLs and the Einsatkommandos in whole, and the things immediatelly related. --HanzoHattori 19:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Things are much more complicated. Before summer 1942 some camps were worse than later in the war; the regimes were released in the summer of 1942 because Germany needed more labour force so that more prisoners should be kept alive longer. Jews were treated worse than other prisoners in the same camp. However, most Jews were sent directly to the gas chambers or to special camps for Jews. In a camp as Auschwitz the regime was less horrible than in camps as Mauthausen, Flossenburg, Natzweler, Gross Rosen and some others of category 2 or 3. So, in the end among the survivors often the non-Jews survived a more horrible fate than the Jews, because the Jews had hardly any chance to survival except a few in less horrible camps as Auschwitz and similar camps (here I neglect the psychological effect of the knwoledge that your relatives and neighbours are all gassed next door). In my opininion the holocaust concerns the total elimination of certain groups on basis of race (but that is already a ridiculous word with respect to Jews). therefore shoud it be treated separately. And so the conception of holocaust is understood in at least the West European countries that suffered under the Nazi terror. The brutalities in the concentration camps can of course not be compared to other Nazi crimes, because they are much more horrific and sadistic. Because the holocaust concerns the total elimination, inluding babies and old, in a industrial way, it differs from other crimes. But with respect to the other Nazi crimes you can also make a differentiation in several types, one more horrific than the other.

Auschwitz less horrific? Auschwitz is a symbol of horror. Also it was a system of many sub-camps. The light camp was rather for example Bergen-Belsen, until it stopped as the camp system broke down. As of the babies etc, I guess you are aware the Germans would frequently enter a village (later even in the West) and just kill everyone, but not only this, and I don't really see much difference between the Warsaw's 1944 Wola massacre and the 1943 liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, maybe the details as of the main methods of slaughter (gassing vs shooting). It was in the both instances: enter the district, supress the resistance, kill everyone. You're aware of the Generalplan Ost, right? (one may say these were "just" examples of the absolutely ruthless warfare, old-style - but again, the GPO)--HanzoHattori 21:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue is not what Robvhoorn or HanzoHattori think. The issue is what do scholars of the Holocaust (from Yehuda Baer to Dominick LaCapra) and leaders of victimized groups claim. We need to represent all major points of view. If an important scholar or recognized organization of one of these groups makes the distinction Robvhoorn makes, we include it - but not because it fits Robvhoorn's criteria, rather, because it is verifiable. And similarly, if a major scholar or acknowledged representative of a group has argued against this distinction, we have to include that too. Anything else is violating NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Probably you never talked with survivors of many different camps as I did. For the survivors of Auschwitz the most horrofic episode is the moment they entered Gross Rosen during the death marches, while Gross Rosen in 1945 was less horrific than in 1941. Of course Auschwitz is a symbol of horror, but that is because of the nearby gas chambers, which were formally not a part of the camp. The physical situation of the prisoners in Auschwit was less worse than in camps of category 2 and 3, simply because the Germans needed the manpower. Dachau is also a symbol of horror, but it is realy one of the mildest camps (of the major camps only Buchenwald was less horrific) and still many ten thousands of people died there. I have spoken with many survivors of Dachau and who were also in other camps (e.g. Natzweiler or Neuengamme). I don't know how to classify the mass murder in Warsaw, maybe you can call it a part of the holocaust because the plan was to gas the Jews and now the Germans opted for an other method to murder them. Many crimes occurred in large numbers and were horrific and barbaric, but are in my opinion not a part of the holocaust. Robvhoorn 07:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The chambers at the Auschwitz I and II were inside the camp. At Buchenwald it was good to be a communist, but the Jews were screwed, and the Soviets were only sent to be killed. Bergen-Belsen was the light-regime major camp 1942-44. --HanzoHattori 22:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess that not only the opinion of scholars is of importance, but also that of the surviving victims. The not Jewish and not-Roma survivors of the massmurders do not feel themselves, or their relatives or friends or comrades, as victims of the holocaust, but as victims of Nazi crimes. Only surviving Jews and Roma feel themselves victims of the holocaust crimes. Robvhoorn 12:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I think rather Jews are the only ones to call it Shoah, etc. --HanzoHattori 13:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Good, you agree with my points entirely. Now all we need are verifiable sources for the various views. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Article protected

I've had the article protected to stop the edit warring over the disputed content being added by User:HanzoHattori. Hanzo, I suggest that you stop trying to revert to the massive changes involved in that single diff, and to present any changes you would like to see made in the article. That diff is not acceptable. I advise going slowly and adding material in a manner that other editors can easily see and view your changes. Your edit summaries continue to be uninformative. This style of editing has been objected to several times and it must cease. There is no consensus for your changes, SlimVirgin and I have both objected to your changes. – Dreadstar † 19:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You? I discussed with you, you stopped objecting and asked for "next step" (no one else joined). You revert to the version which claims Jasenovac was an extermination camp (it wasn't), and Chełmno extermination camp is linked as Chelmno (click them!). And so on. It's just a badly made article. The only thing I thought was above average was the quotes (well done, unlike awkard ones in the Arkan and Iwo Jima articles I removed), and I was impressed by the section about the overall responsibility of Germany, not just the folks in SS and police (een if there's mentioned "government transport offices arranged the trains for deportation to the camps", but not the Deutsche Reichsbahn itself - needs a cleanup and interlinking, too). --HanzoHattori 19:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You need to re-read what I wrote, I did not 'stop objecting' and give consensus. Since no consensus was reached, I asked you what you thought the next step should be. I was hoping you would opt for my suggestion to make small edits, slowly implemented, with clear edit summaries; instead you chose to continue your edit war. I don't think reverting back to the version containing your massive and disputed changes is appropriate and I oppose it completely. I suggest you find another way, perhaps taking it up the chain. – Dreadstar † 19:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

What is disputed? Okay, you guy may have all the homosexuals you want in the intro. Yay. I'd go and insert this NOW, but no, protected. So no yay. Anything else? --HanzoHattori 20:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You will need to propose any changes you want to make to the article. Merely re-citing the disputed diff or any other diffs is not appropriate. The article is too long and the diffs are too massive to easily review. I also think comments such as the above stretch WP:CIV, and make it more difficult to gain the cooperation of other editors. – Dreadstar † 20:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Dreadstar, for slowing this thing down. This is the second time I had to wade my way through a huge number of small edits, done seconds apart. It is not conducive to a reflective response. --Joel Mc 20:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

6 million

(Original note removed by author; let it stay removed.) --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Check the sources cited in notes 24-30. 15:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. The article discusses the number of Jewish victims, showing the various estimates by reputable mainstream scholars and experts, along with their variability. If you have an equivalent high quality scholarly source that you believe can significantly add to that section, by all means add it. Crum375 15:12, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Bah. I should have read the article. --Richard 15:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Estimates of Holocaust deaths

This starts out as a question for User:Stephan Schulz about a comment that he made on Talk:Holocaust denial but I am placing it here as being more appropriate to this Talk Page than to that one.

On Talk:Holocaust denial, User:Stephan Schulz commented that estimates of Holocaust deaths range from 5.1 million to "somewhat beyond 6 million". In my very cursory review of Google results, I've only seen estimates ranging from 5.1 million to 5.9 million. I'm curious what estimates there that are beyond 6 million.

And, yes, I realize that this a hugely inexact science. Nonetheless, I think it is worthwhile to understand what the differences are between estimates. So far, I have only seen two kinds of estimates: one that goes country by country based on a "estimated percentage killed" and another which provides total deaths in concentration camps.

I'm sure the people who have conducted these estimates have been very thorough and have methodologies which have been both defended and criticized. Any links to online resources in this regard would be much appreciated.

I would like to see a more in-depth treatment of these studies and their methodologies. (The underlying agenda being to lay out the numerical case against Holocaust deniers such as Igor the Otter.)

--Richard 17:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No one will ever know the correct number of victims. Eichmann himself, who supervised the Final Solution, and presumably received the best available reports, claimed the number was 6 million, and this appears to be the most commonly used 'ballpark' number.[20] Our job is to state the views of the most reputable scholarly sources on this topic, which we already do in the article. There is no point in having prolonged discussions about this issue – if someone has a better source, that can add additional insight into this topic, then go ahead and supply it. Otherwise, idle speculations and original research don't belong here. Crum375 18:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

...in particular, since there are many different definitions of "Jew", and for many victims it will be hard to retroactively decide if they fulfilled each or any of those. But for Richard: The Holocaust article has estimates up to 6.2 million. But, if I may: Don't lay out "the numerical case against Holocaust deniers". At best they will ignore you, at worst they will try to pick minor discrepancies and generate a lot of hot air from them. The evidence for the Holocaust is overwhelming. There is no need to elevate the deniers position by arguing on their turf. --Stephan Schulz 22:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay

Can be at least the completely non-conteroversional edits implemented? or do i have top explain why Chelmno link instead of Chelmno extermination camp is wrong? Geez, people. --HanzoHattori 07:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources

The "Climax" section (perhaps an unfortunate choice of words as well--please think these things through) contains no citations sourcing its content even though it purports to provide a quotation (that is, in an actual "quotation box") of Himmler's which comes "closer than ever before to stating explicitly that he was intent on exterminating the Jews of Europe". It seems to me that the assertions made in the section are significant and need to be cited or else this constitutes OR. Further anything in quotation marks, especially anything that has been translated from a foreign language and so is not a strict quotation, warrants special attribution. The footnote numeration jumps from 138 to 141 on either end of this section, so I'm not sure if there was some kind of editing error here. I'd like to throw in a "citation needed" flag but, alas, the administrators in their wisdom have locked the article. Perhaps one of them, SlimVirgin for example, could flag the section on my behalf.

The article is locked, but in the meanwhile, here are some sources for Himmler's Posen speech:

• holocaust-history.org
• historyplace.com
• nizkor.org
• nationalsozialismus.de (German)
• Yad Vashem
• ess.uwe.ac.uk

Crum375 23:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cfd for Category:Holocaust in popular culture

Category:Holocaust in popular culture is up for possible merging or renaming.

Cgingold 23:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

User-conduct RfC & disputes on Holocaust article

See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/HanzoHattori.

I initiated this user-conduct RfC on August 3 because of problems with HanzoHattori & another user that we'd been having on Battle of Washita River. Thanks to an article RfC I also initiated, our problems with the Washita article seem to be mostly taken care of; but comments from other users responding to HanzoHattori's RfC showed that other people besides us were experiencing some of the same problems on other articles, most especially this one. Today someone suggested that his & the other RfCs were "only" about the Washita article. So I wrote a plenty long response which refutes that view, including a detailed history of the recent disputes at The Holocaust, to which I am an outsider. But perhaps those of you who have been part of the disputes here, or who simply wish to continue work on the article but can't because its fully protected, might care to take a look at the RfC and comment.

I also suggested there that we found our article RfC to be immensely helpful in getting the Washita article back to where we could edit again. Perhaps people here might consider doing the same.

Best wishes. --Yksin 00:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Nazi

The word Nazi is an abbreviated form of the German word Nazional.Fijielope 13:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. It's a phonetic abbreviation of "Nationalsozialist". --Stephan Schulz 17:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

And was created as part of wartime propaganda because it sounded similar to "nasty". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.70.4.172 (talk) 01:12, August 21, 2007 (UTC)

Nope, wrong. It's a Germany word, attested well before the war. "Nasty" is not, and there is no similar word that would fill in. --Stephan Schulz 06:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

How were there any survivors?

How did millions of jews live to tell the tale if the nazis were truly trying to kill them all?

If Germany was too stupid and inefficient to accomplish that, how did they fight off most the industrial world for 6 years? They were a nation the size of Montana.

Yet, they couldn't kill their jews? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.206.195.109 (talk) 18:01, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. Germany has 82 million people and Montana has less than one million. Reginmund 19:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about land size, but whatever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.206.195.109 (talk) 19:42, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

These may be honest questions or may be trolling so I'll treat them as honest.

You should read the alleged details of how it worked and who survived. There's nothing about the basic allegations of the holocaust that doesn't make sense. Part of the problem was that the SS was trying to hide this and didnt want to do the shootings out in the field anymore... So they systematized it and went as fast as practical. The supply lines and trains were interrupted so that was a problem. Many jews were used in factories and labor camps and only died from more or less natural causes. Also I believe there was debate over what to do with german jews and they didnt start executing them until it was clear they would lose the war.

The problem with looking at the actual numbers of people killed were is that it is impossible for anyone to do honest work on the topic. So the jewish-dominated academic journals publish their prevailing view and anyone who doesn't agree gets the finkelstein treatment. Anyone who doesn't use these numbers is labeled a racist, and often is, let's be honest, a crackpot conspiracy theorist. Most of the people who care about "jewish lies" are either convinced everyone is out to get them, or are people who don't necessarily see the nazis as a bad or wrong government. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 20:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention that it's illegal to be a Nazi supporter (or holocaust denier) in most places where it is likely anyone would view them in a positive light. Especially given the bad-PR, worst-possible-light-phrasing, blacklist treatment that Naziism gets from every (strangely jewish-controlled) mass media venue. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 20:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Also not analyzed in this article are things like how many catholics and jews by marriage were killed as jews. Or questions like whether the official classifications for people to be exterminated (or gotten rid of at any cost) were always used or if certain people of questionable character who had been placed in charge of the program became overzealous without many other officials knowing or having any ability to intervene. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, why did the Germans allow the Red Cross to provide humanitarian aid to the jews inside the camps? How come the official red cross documents did not state that 1,000,000 jews died, let alone 6 million. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.206.195.109 (talk) 13:32, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

Because they knew that if they violated the existing treaties on prisoners of war they would be treated as war criminals. Also because it wasn't common knowledge that they were killing people wholesale, it was a hidden process. Some people were definitely ordered "not to be allowed to live" if they couldn't be deported for example jews, communists, etc. but most people were just supposed to be imprisoned or deported. People who were just jews by marriage and a small part jew were not legally executed but it is an interesting question to what extent they were. Catholics became a target of opportunity because many protestants have a grudge against them especially priests etc. I think these are much more interesting questions than how many jews and communists were executed during the final stages of the war because why wouldn't they do that to those prisoners? Stalin killed many many times more people for even worse reasons. This article is overblown with propaganda full of questionable numbers for not-very-wrong killings of bad persons festering within the borders of germany and neighboring areas. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 18:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but Wikipedia is not Usenet. Talk pages are for discussing improvements of the article only. 24.106, try Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities if you are really interested in the questions. Make concrete suggestions for improving the article if you want to contribute here. Thanks. --Stephan Schulz 19:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah, waaaaaaaaaaaaah." That's you, Steve.