Talk:Kielce pogrom

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 August 2022

Under the section "Evidence of Soviet Involvement" there is a "citation needed" at the end of the sentence "(the pogrom happened on 4 July, the same day the Katyn case started in Nuremberg, after the Soviet prosecutors falsely accused the Nazis of the massacre which was actually committed by the Soviets themselves in 1940)." for the Katyn Massacre mentioned at the Nuremberg Trials providing motive for Soviet involvement. This reference "https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/07-01-46.asp" provides evidence for that assertion. 2601:58C:4201:2400:8F8:77A5:A5CC:4E2B (talk) 15:28, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

This is a 24,000-word page. Do you have a particular place to pay attention to? This is a case of "I ain't reading all that". SWinxy (talk) 05:04, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Gonna procedurally mark this request answered as we are awaiting input from the IP. —Sirdog (talk) 05:30, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

All you have to do is control "f" the quote I provided. There is a missing citation at the end of the second to last paragraph of the section "Evidence of Soviet Involvement". Insert the citation I provided. —2601:58C:4201:2400:8F8:77A5:A5CC:4E2B (talk) 11:38, 24 August 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:58C:4201:2400:4449:66CE:1EE1:2B1F (talk)

Evidence of Soviet involvement

An analysis of sources:

• Krzysztof Kąkolewski

• Our article says, Kąkolewski was a Polish author, life-long scholar, investigative journalist considered the pillar of the Polish school of reportage, as well as dramatist and screenwriter. Quite a description but being a historian is not one of them.

• Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's Holocaust

• Not usable. Lambasted by two specialists; the sole admiration is from Cienciala who is a noted scholar but not an expert in the domain.

• Anne Applebaum

• Pop-historians; seriously?

• A primary source from IPN.

• ?

• Aleksander Wat

• Our article says, Wat was a Polish poet, writer, art theoretician, memorist, and one of the precursors of the Polish futurism movement in the early 1920s, considered to be one of the more important Polish writers of the mid 20th century. Undoubtedly a polymath but not a historian.

• Stanisław Krajewski

• Our article says, Krajewski is a Polish philosopher, mathematician, writer, and activist of the Jewish minority in Poland. Admirable but not a historian.

• Jan Śledzianowski

• The pl.wiki bio (Google Translate) says, Śledzianowski was a Polish Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Kielce, sociologist, theologian, and professor of theological sciences. None of these make Śledzianowski a historian.

• Michael Checinski

• The pl.wiki bio (Google Translate) says, Checinski was an officer of the PRL military counterintelligence. [..] He worked for the RAND Corporation and George C. Marshall European Center For Security Studies. Some nat-sec guy; not a historian. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

What does Jan Grabowski — one of the most acclaimed historians in the field — say?

The theme of Polish innocence resurfaces in the Wikipedia article on the July 1946 Kielce pogrom. The deadliest pogrom in postwar Europe, this event claimed the lives of 42 Polish Jews, the majority Holocaust survivors, when a Polish mob enraged by tales of ritual murder attacked their neighbors. Misleadingly, over a fifth of the Wikipedia article comprises a subsection entitled ‘Evidence of Soviet Involvement,’ which suggests that the Kielce pogrom was somehow planned by the Soviets. This theory has been roundly rejected by all serious scholars and today finds an audience only among fringe Polish nationalists and conspiracy theorists wishing to prove that Communist Soviets, not Polish antisemitic masses, bore responsibility for the massacre.

When the topic is as controversial as this, attracting fringe crackpots, policy guides us to use the highest quality sources which, in this context, equates to works by academic historians. Instead, we have a travesty. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:15, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Who are these "fringe crackpots" you're referring to? Anne Applebaum is about as maintstream and reliable as it gets. Volunteer Marek 20:20, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

There is no requirement that we restrict ourselves to the work of academic historians. Even if we accept that it means we should be using academic sources there is no logic to limiting it to historians (why exclude political scientists, sociologists, etc). Thats not how policy guides us. Anne Applebaum for example is generally reliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Who among the above is a "political scientist" or "sociologist"? Obviously, I did not mean to imply that historians — in the narrow sense of the word — have the sole claim over the TRUTH. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:11, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

The one who you yourself labeled as a "sociologist" perhaps? Volunteer Marek 20:23, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Nope because the label is unsourced :-) On a serious note, you need to show that Śledzianowski is considered as a sociologist — than a theologian — by peers. And then establish his repute that will allow his narrative to stand on an equal footing with that of Grabowski, Tokarska-Bakir et al. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:31, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

So why did you call him a sociology? And is there an established hierarchy here where someone is "first a sociologist, than a thelogian"? I don't think that's how that works. It's just interdisciplinary. Volunteer Marek 20:35, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

They didn't, its a quote. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:36, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Good, because that is what I thought you meant and I was like "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" IMO Applebaum can be used here, with attribution of course if people feel its necessary. I do think you're largely right about the rest. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:14, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. On restrospection, I should have phrased better - historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and many other disciplines make the cut! But, not theologists or music-scholars for the case in hand! TrangaBellam (talk) 20:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Will you also allow philosophers? Volunteer Marek 20:24, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Please bring sources if you wish to challenge my deletion; that would perhaps be a better utilization of your time. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Recent scholarship

• A discussion about the events in Kielce is ongoing and actually from the very beginning it has been living proof of how post-war politics of memory works. Analyzing the Kielce pogrom, various variants of provocation were considered; the alleged agents provocateurs were as follows: Polish communists, the Security Offce, the Soviet authorities, and so on. Apart from high church offcials, this approach was taken by Stanisław Mikołajczyk and it is still popular in various modifcations. The investigation by Poland’s National Remembrance Institute (IPN), the relevant texts of which were published in 2006 (Kamiński and Żaryn 2006), however, did not confrm the conspiracy hypothesis, supporting the concept of a bottom-up pogrom.
  — Chmielewska, Katarzyna (2021), Hopfinger, Maryla; Żukowski, Tomasz (eds.), "Alternative Narratives of the 1940s Versus the Politics of Memory", The Holocaust Bystander in Polish Culture, 1942-2015: The Story of Innocence, Cham: Springer International Publishing, p. 82, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-66408-4_3, ISBN 978-3-030-66408-4

• Translation of Joanna Tokarska-Bakir's acclaimed monograph on the pogrom is to be published by Cornell University Press in November but till then, we can depend on this excellent interview.