Talk:French prisoners of war in World War II/Archives/2014/May

Edit war

No need for an edit war here. Rjensen (talk) 22:28, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Is there a problem with this text? It's fully sourced to a leading scholars (Fishman): Meanwhile, while the men were gone,their wives became more independent. The Vichy government Provided a small stipend; about 10% took a prostitution to provide essentials for and their children. The government promoted a "cult of the return," with the theme that women earning wages or raising children on their own did so only temporarily until their husbands returned. After the war, there was a a restoration of traditional patriarchal authority in the family.[ref] Sarah Fishman, and Patricia J. Hilden, "The Cult of the Return: Prisoner of War Wives in France during the Second World War," Proceedings of the Western Society for French History (1990) Vol. 17, pp 438-446 [ref]

Yes, sorry for that. Certainly not intended. The stipend is already mentioned above in the text. The prostitution and restoration should certainly be mentioned (provided a more specific page reference is given - that's the entire article cited there!) The "cult of return" I am not keen on - it's a scholarly term that Fishman has tried to invent, but it does not appear anywhere outside that article (in a minor journal).Brigade Piron (talk) 22:48, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

In fact Vichy laid an enormous emphasis on the return. Duchen says, "Vichy propaganda had led PoWs to believe that they were the returning heroes, the 'future saviours'.... " that's a cult, according to two experts (Fishman and Hilden). Wiki rules do not allow us to argue with reliable sources, we report their positions. That's what I did--I reported the article and the terms used by the scholars. Deciding that quote and indeed the whole statement is bad is a very poor editorial decision that shows scant respect for scholars or for fellow editors. In this case there is no real debate among scholars. Leaving out what happened to the wives inside France is unacceptable sexism, i'm afraid. Rjensen (talk) 22:54, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

For the Nth time! I do not particularly object to the inclusion of the information, but I do feel that copying and pasting text directly from an older version is just unhelpful. It's not that I'm arguing against the RS, but we also have to make editorial calls on what information to repeat - we cannot report the whole literature, or anything like it - and I believed it didn't quite make it. Perhaps I'm wrong. By all means, please add sourced text when you think it is lacking - but please make sure it doesn't just repeat text from elsewhere! Brigade Piron (talk) 07:19, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Very bad editing example

Here's the passage that Brigade Piron deleted without any discussion: In the last days of combat in June 1940, German units killed several thousand black soldiers and POWs in French colonial regiments. About 60,000 black soldiers survived, and were treated like the other colonial POWs, but not as well as the French men.<ref>Raffael Scheck, ''Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940'' (2008) pp. 2-4</ref> And here is Prion's comment, which is clearly mistaken: " Can you check your information? It seems unlikely that 60,000 POWs were massacred within the space of a month, even for Nazi Germany" [rj: the deleted text says 60,000 SURVIVED and Piron reads that as 60,000 KILLED; Scheck's book p 53 says the number murdered was in the 1000-1500 range] Rjensen (talk) 23:05, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd urge you to read WP:Good faith and chill out a bit. If you read the sentence before, it says "Around 120,000 prisoners from the French colonies were captured during the Battle of France". If there were only 60,000 left as your source argues, the other 60,000 logically must have either been killed, released or escaped - none of which would be insignificant to the article. By all means, please add your new facts to the article. But please don't just copy and paste from an old article, repeating information already mentioned and sourced elsewhere in the paragraph. If you're really sure, we could always take this to arbitration? Brigade Piron (talk) 07:07, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, I did follow Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle by raising it on your talk page within seconds of your revert? Brigade Piron (talk) 07:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

See also

Further discussion on this point here:

• User talk:Rjensen#French prisoners of war in World War II
• User talk:Brigade Piron#Edit war
• User talk:victor falk#French POWs

Lacunae

This article does not mention (a) any French POWs of the Italians, (b) any POWs of the British in the Mideast or Madagascar, (c) any POWs of Japan in the Far East, assuming there were some, or (d) any Vichy POWs of the Free French (e.g., in Gabon). It is all about French POWs of Germany. I know that about 150 POWs of the Italians were forgotten by the Vichy government, but were treated in accordance with the laws of war by the Italians. The POWs in Syria are described briefly in our article on that campaign. I know there was a POW camp run by De Gaulle's men in Brazzaville. Srnec (talk) 01:13, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

That's certainly valid. The vast majority were POWs of Germany (not come across anything about the Italians) but I think they could certainly merit a section of their own (perhaps merge all these into one section considering the relatively small numbers?). Do you know of any decent sources that discuss this? Brigade Piron (talk) 07:08, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Alternatively, how about a move to French prisoners of war held by Germany during World War II?Brigade Piron (talk) 17:25, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

No, a short section (or sections) is better. I'll do the work myself (eventually), but I haven't the time right now. I thought I'd mention it in case somebody else wanted to look into it, since I don't have a lot to add about, say, the POWs in the Congo. Srnec (talk) 01:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)