Talk:Jacob Gens

Couple of questions

Hello, Ealdgyth, thank you for the article. I made some substantial changes to the article - I hope you don't mind. I think it made it easier to navigate and has a better logical flow. But I do have some questions:

1. He persuaded the Gestapo man in charge of the roundup to let the Jewish police do the actual rounding up of deportees - is there a name for the man? In general, can some responsible Germans be named? The article has names of a couple Jews, two Lithuanians (who are not really involved), and zero Germans.
2. The Judenrat employed over 1500 people in September 1942 conflicts with 10 July 1942, the Judenrat of the Vilna Ghetto was dissolved. Can this be clarified?
3. Gens also took responsibility for carrying out the death sentence imposed on five men - when?
4. Wittenberg was tortured to death by the Gestapo and that he was given a cyanide pill by Gens' second-in-command - if tortured to death then why give the pill? Can this be clarified?
5. running that part of the ghetto administration like a military operation - can this be expanded upon? Like, how do you run a hospital like a military operation?
6. One of Ephraim's also survived the Holocaust - one of Ephraim's what?
7. I want to add this article to {{Holocaust Lithuania}} and I am thinking that the "Perpetrators" row would be most appropriate as he did round up the Jews in Oct-Dec 1941 and fall 1942 - March 1943. Agree?

Thank you! Renata (talk) 03:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

While you've certainly made some improvements, some changes also managed to disconnect sources from the information that they source. When you moved "Officially, the duties of Gens and his policemen were to carry out German and Judenrat's orders and provide law enforcement functions for the inhabitants of the ghetto. Included in the first duty, and considered by the Germans as the single most important task, was the uncovering of any anti-German activity on the part of the inhabitants of the ghetto." you removed it from the sourcing Three Tragic Heroes pp. 112-113 and stuck it in front of a set of sentences sourced to the same book, but to page 114. Source/text integrity is very important - when you move stuff around you have to make sure that you move the sourcing with the information.

Another problem is that the "In late October 1941 the ghetto was subject to an "aktion" which selected a portion of the ghetto for deportation. Gens, backed by the Jewish police force, was responsible for deciding who was sent to resettlement (and death) and who remained in the ghetto. This brought him into conflict with the ghetto's rabbis, who told Gens he was acting against Jewish law. Gens disagreed, arguing that it was lawful to give up some people to enable others to live." bit describes one single event - but it's been rewritten to imply that it applied to all of the aktions in October through December. The rabbis, however, objected to one specific deportation in October.

As for putting him in the perpetrators - that's not borne out by the sources - very few Holocaust scholars would consider any Jewish person a perpetrator because they didn't have the power to actually resist German orders. None of the works consulted for this article call Gens a perpetrator - they may not think he chose correctly when he went along with the Germans, but there's a reason he's included in a book entitled Three Tragic Heroes. My suggestion would be to have a victims line, a resistance line, and keep the perpetrators for the Germans or the locals who collaborated. Gens would fit on the victims line. (It's also missing Wittenberg, who is very clearly an important figure in the resistance.

1. Most of the sources don't give names - the description in the source implies that it wasn't the head of the local Gestapo, but doesn't give a name.

2. Judenrat here is shorthand for "Jewish government".

3. Sources are not clear on when this occurred.

4. The exact circumstances of Wittenberg's death are unclear - it's not known exactly what happened after the Gestapo took him.

5. The source doesn't explicate this, unfortunately.

6. I'll check this, but I believe it's a daughter.

I'll try to sort out the sourcing in a bit, I just got up. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:52, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jacob Gens/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I am going to review this article for possible GA status. Reviewer: Shearonink (talk · contribs) 02:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Passes the threshold "immediate failure" criteria: No cleanup banners, no obvious copyright infringements, etc Shearonink (talk) 03:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   "More recent scholarship"? Who/what/where/when...more specifics are needed. And the wording of this statement is somewhat clunky and needs to be smoothed-out/adjusted. The complete sentence is "More recent scholarship has come to see that view is not really helpful and that because of the unique nature of the destruction facing the ghetto leaders, including Gens, no one could have expected that the Nazis were aiming at the complete destruction of the Jewish people."

   Do you have any suggestions on a better way to word this? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   Stated the way it is right now implies that there are multiple people saying this or that a scholarly consensus has developed and that is not backed-up by the cited reference. It is from a single writer and he doesn't mention others' opinions. If you want to retain the present reference you could state your case and then include quoted material (either using quote marks or with a box-quote template), maybe something along the lines of:

Vadim Alaskan, of the the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, states that "...Holocaust historiography treated people such as ...Jacob Gens ...as instruments of destruction in the hands of the Nazi killing machine. ... Applied retrospectively, these charges for the most part are judgmental and add very little to our understanding of the events. Neither Jewish functionaries nor "ordinary" Jews had any practical or psychological experience in dealing with the grim reality of the Nazi occupation, because never before in their long history of persecution had the Jews experienced an assault of such magnitude and careful design.

Took your wording. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

1. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   Scrupulously sourced.

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Ran the copyvio tool and no problems were found. I am, however, troubled by the somewhat-close paraphrasing from "On the Other Side of the River: Dr. Adolph Herschmann and the Zhmerinka Ghetto, 1941-1944" by Vadim Altskan.

   For instance, Altskan's article states:

   They were portrayed as delusional, selfish, and naïve Jewish functionaries, easily tricked and outmaneuvered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Applied retrospectively, these charges for the most part are judgmental and add very little to our understanding of the events. Neither Jewish functionaries nor "ordinary" Jews had any practical or psychological experience in dealing with the grim reality of the Nazi occupation, because never before in their long history of persecution had the Jews experienced an assault of such magnitude and careful design

   and the WP article

   In the period immediately after the end of the war, Gens, along with other ghetto leaders, was considered to have been collaborators with the Nazis who were outwitted by the Germans and contributed to the destruction of the Jews. More recent scholarship has come to see that view is not really helpful and that because of the unique nature of the destruction facing the ghetto leaders, including Gens, no one could have expected that the Nazis were aiming at the complete destruction of the Jewish people

   I'm not seeing anything other than summarizing the source here. The sentence structure isn't quite the same, the words are different, and we are supposed to convey the essence of the source's thoughts. Which means that we need to be close to what they wrote so that we accurately reflect the information. I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it, but I'm not seeing it as too close at all. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   See 1b above. If something like this adjustment is followed, that will take care of any possible paraphrasing issues with the present paragraph. Fixed.

2. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   The Death and Legacy section seems somewhat truncated to me. Could additional facts from other sources about Gen's time in the Ghetto be added like from David Laskins' book "The Family: A Journey into the Heart of the Twentieth Century" https://books.google.com/books?id=Up7X4zkJLxsC&pg=PT207#v=onepage&q&f=false. or from "Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust Through Diaries" (edited by Robert Moses Shapiro) or other sources.

   I'm not comfortable adding information about general life in the ghetto (which is what I think you're asking me to add since looking at the mentions of Gens from Laskins' book on googlebooks doesn't show anything new not mentioned in the article) as that information should properly go in the article on the ghetto. And taking information from diaries/chronicles would be using primary sources - which we're not supposed to rely on.

   *I am not saying that tons of daily life details should be added, just that, as one is reading the article, the narrative is moving along, July 1943 is mentioned and then, all of a sudden, "the Germans" ordered Gens to report to Gestapo HQ. Who ordered him to report? Why was he told to report? are questions without answers at this point. Also, primary sources are not unilaterally prohibited. WP:PRIMARY states that "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia,..." and WP:ANALYSIS says that "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources..." Both of the above sources are not facsimile editions of diaries, they include editorial statements and conclusions.

   I will be frank - I'm not seeing anything in the google books preview of the first that isn't in the article (except maybe the name of Kittel). I've already spent close to $100 getting sources for this article ... I'm not really inclined to spend more money unless I have a good idea of what exactly you're looking for that is contained within those books. As for why the name of who told him to report isn't in there - I have conflicting sources. Both Schneidman and Tushet give a different person (Neugebauer) as the person who ordered Gens to report to the Gestapo headquarters. Gilbert, citing different sources, just states that the Gestapo ordered him to their headquarters. And the book listed above gives Kittel as the Gestapo chief who ordered Gens there. In the interest of simplicty (this IS a GA nom, not an FAC), I settled for the summary of the not naming this bit of trivia of who ordered him to the HQ. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   Ah, well, sources do differ on this point that is true. As to who ordered Gens to the HQ...One man's trivia is another man's killer I suppose. Moving on...

   After my most-recent read through, I think that the article has an over-usage of the term "the Germans" ("The Germans appointed him,,,", "the Germans ordered the creation...", "the Germans murdered..." and so on). The people who did all these things were Nazis, or members of the Gestapo or collaborators, they weren't just "the Germans".. And many of the Jews in the Ghetto were Germans as well. I think it is important to delineate the difference.

   I haven't used "Nazis" because we can't be sure that many of the people were Nazis - see Christopher Browning's work on the functionaries who worked in the east - not all of them were Nazi party members. I could see a few changes to Gestapo, but Germans fits them all safely without assuming that someone was a Nazi party member or was a member of the Gestapo. As for the Vilnius ghetto containing German Jews, that's not true. They were Lithuanian Jews, not German Jews. Yes, a few German Jews were sent to eastern ghettoes, but as far as I know, not to Vilnius. I know some were sent to Warsaw/Lodz/Minsk, but all of the Jews in Vilnius' ghetto appear to have been Lithuanian (or perhaps other Baltic Jews). Ealdgyth - Talk 17:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   • I am going to give you an extreme example of what I am referring to...

   The term is unnecessarily used within a single sentence or in close proximity to another use of the term. When the term is used again and then the term is used again without perhaps changing to an appropriate pronoun like "it" or "them", then the term becomes the term's own worst enemy.

   I can see your point about being correct in the terminology used for whichever group, but I think some of "the Germans" could be replaced with the appropriate pronoun. For instance, this sentence: "During the deportations Gens tried to secure more work permits from the Germans but the Germans refused." should be changed to "During the deportations Gens tried to secure more work permits from the Germans but they refused." Also, if "the Gestapo" is an appropirate name to use for a group in a statement, please change those where you see fit.

   Ah, I take your point on the repetition. I've gone through and changed some to "Gestapo/Occupying forces/them" etc as appropriate. Does that help? Ealdgyth - Talk 15:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

   Much better, thanks, Shearonink (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   For the most part, lays out the facts of Gens' life dispassionately but I do think some of the content needs copy-editing.

3. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   I am wondering why local Gestapo chief Bruno Kittel, who ordered Gens to be shot, is not mentioned. The wording in "Death & legacy" is problematic.

   Bruno Kittel had more to do with Gens' daily life in Gens' final months than the man who killed him. Why is he not mentioned?

   Because he's not mentioned in the two main biographies of Gens as being central to Gens' last months. That would be Shneidman and Tushet. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   This issue has been explained to my satisfaction. Shearonink (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

4. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

5. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Are there any photos of Gens? Maybe a photo of where he grew up, or sketches of photos of Vilnius ghetto... I did find this file on Commons: File:Ghetto jacob gens selbstmordversuch.jpg

   There are photos, but their copyright status is unclear and I'm not comfortable digging into the problems of figuring out whether they are still under copyright or not. I have seen that drawing, but I'm not clear on what it attempting to portray - the image of Gens being almost shot seems a bit NPOV to me. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   Agreed about that sketch. I would assume it was done after the fact as an "interpretation" of the event, somewhat akin to Currie & Ives rendition of Booth's assassination of Lincoln (as seen in File:Assassination of President Lincoln.jpg).

6. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Well-written dispassionate account of the main points of a man's life, compete with the controversy about his time in the Vilnius ghetto. The only improvement might be to possibly flesh out some details of Gens life in those last few months (between July 1943 and September 1943), and possibly provide some more details about the occupying forces' actions those last few months. (I don't even know if it is possible, considering the records that are available...just wondering who ordered the ghetto to be completely shut-down etc. - but, then again, I am somewhat of a history nerd...) Shearonink (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Aktion

Aktion in German means Operation in this context. In German, nouns are always capitalised. The plural is Aktionen. So, should the article talk about "Aktion/Aktionen", or "operation/operations"? I don't like "aktion/aktions. --John (talk) 17:39, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Aktion is a widely accepted term in the Holocaust literature. The plural, based on a quick search in Google books, is pretty evenly split between Aktions (2410) and Aktionen (2830). Renata (talk) 20:52, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with Aktion if most times it's capitalized. I generally leave the capitalizing or not capitalizing to the MOS-geeks. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:22, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

AmEng v BritEng

Which are we adopting here? Throughout the article, especially around dates, we use BrEng date format, while elsewhere, we use an AmEng comma after the start of sentences and AmEng spelling of words, such as "theater" and others... Cassianto^Talk 09:12, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, I learned to use British date formats in college so it's ingrained at this point... I'm surprised I didn't spell "centre" and "theatre" after all these years on Wikipedia working on British articles. We can switch the dates, since I'm more tied to the spellings than the dates ... but ideally we'd keep both Brit dates and Yank spellings... Ealdgyth - Talk 11:52, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I would be opposed to the idea of mixing American dates with British spellings, if I'm perfectly honest. It's very "tabloidesque" what with The Sun doing it on a daily basis. I would pick one style and keep to it. This, of course, benefits from the fact that the subject matter is neither British nor American, but Lithuanian, so it is entirely up to you which style you use. Cassianto^Talk 13:31, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I would prefer British dates with American spellings, actually. If that's unacceptable to others, then American dates with American spellings, as those are a bit easier for me to remember to do "correctly". Ealdgyth - Talk 13:42, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Hey, you're writing it, so it's up to you. Personally, I couldn't care less about the MOS, but bear in mind that some think it's the Holy Grail, so they may bring up MOS:ARTCON, when you get to FAC. Cassianto^Talk 15:17, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Consistency of dates is fine with me. If y'all could give an example or two of what you consider to be "British dates" here that would be really useful for me. And whatever we go with, we should drop an editing template to let folks know. Shearonink (talk) 14:05, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

dd/mm/yyyy or 11 June 2017 would be BrEng; mm/dd/yyyy or June 11 2017 would be AmEng. Cassianto^Talk 15:03, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I do like the "11 June 2017" format as opposed to using numerals. I'm with Ealdgyth on this - Brit dates & American spellings. Shearonink (talk) 15:35, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Questions

It's a great article. I think it is almost ready for FAC.

• Jacob Gens[a] (1 April 1903 – 14 September 1943) was a Lithuanian Jewish army officer and head of the Vilnius Ghetto police force who became the head of the Jewish self-government instead of the disbanded Judenrat. Why "instead"? I figured this one out. Are these edits ok?
• There was something else. It will come to me! --John (talk) 22:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Harvard citations

Any objections to using {{harvnb}}? Renata (talk) 00:16, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I personally am not fond of the Harvard cite style. In my opinion the harvnb complexity presents a barrier to less-experienced editors wanting to contribute (especially since Wikipedia presents the various Cite ref templates as the general example to work from). But that's just me - if the editorial consensus is to convert the present refs to Harvard, I'm ok with that. Shearonink (talk) 00:38, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I dislike them which is why I didn't use them when I started the article. I'm opposed to switching. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:05, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Sobol's Ghetto

Current text reads: It depicts him as an inhumane lackey of the SS. This straight-forward description conflicts with both our own article on the play (Ghetto_(play)#Characters) and with a lengthy discussion in Holocaust Literature ("Gens emerges as a deeply complex character"). Renata (talk) 19:48, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

From the source: "The destruction of European Jewry is here reduced to a morality play at best, a piece of agit-prop, at worst, which pits power against powerlessness; the former is represented by SS officer Kittel and his Zionist-Revisionist lackey Jacob Gens, while the anti-Zionist chronicler of the ghetto, Herman Kruk (erroneously called Herschel in the play), represents the humane alternative to the exercise of raw power. Small wonder that Sobol recasts the Vilna ghetto into a Brechtian cabaret."

"Inhumane lackey of the SS" is a wholly inadequate summary of the above. Another source on moral complexities in Gens' character. And another. That's three quite lengthy discussions on the play that discuss complexity, moral ambiguity, and tragedy of Gens' character (which mirror academic debate discussed in our article). Renata (talk) 23:28, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine if you want to summarize and add. I recognize I'm not a literary critic or even much interested in the concept. I don't get my nose out of joint over the addition of sourced information. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:32, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Expansion of ghetto

On the bit on "Gens went to Major Narušis, an acquaintance from the Lithuanian Army and in late 1941..." I am not comfortable with including this information here.

1. The map of Vilnius Ghetto shows expansion in September 1942. Detailed Chronicle of the Ghetto has an entry for enlargement on 9 Sept. 1942 (entry copied from diary of Herman Kruk - page 352). Arad has the same info on page 331. I found no other references to any other enlargements of the ghetto (and I searched deep for that).
2. The story seems to come from Gens' daughter's interview (page 94) and she is not a reliable source for that. (The way she describes the expansion "to the left of the gates along Pylimo street" is not where maps show the expansion was).
3. Timing does not make sense - in "late 1941" Germans were killing the Jews in Ponary by the thousands...
4. I can't find this Major Narušis. It could be Simas (later commander of a Litauische Bau-Bataillon), but that's just a guess.
5. The story is not repeated in other books, most notably Kruk and Arad.

Any passionate feelings for keeping the info? Renata (talk) 23:28, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Not really. Feel free to remove ... Ealdgyth - Talk 23:33, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Query

Query: Jacob Gens does not have a biography tag on the talk page; I think it should have one… however, the other tags are FA-class. I'm hesitant to assign FA to the bio tag without the article being looked at for featured article status for that particular tag. What is the protocol in this kind of situation? thanks, FeanorStar7 16:04, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Sledgehammer. Nut. Why the need for an RfC? Cassianto^Talk 17:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

when I went to edit this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies

it told me to use the Rfc template... "This list is updated by Legobot; your edits will be overwritten if you edit this page.

To get listed on this page: Add Rfc|bio at the beginning of the talk page section where the RfC is taking place. For more information, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment"... --FeanorStar7 19:33, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

FA status is granted by a wikipedia-wide process. There is no specific requirements for the various wikiprojects. If the article has FA status - it automatically means any wikiproject considers it an FA. The same thing happens with GAs. There is no need for this RfC. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:49, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Template added. Thanks for pointing out that it was missing. Renata (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

thanks very much; I wasn't sure that it was the case that since other projects used FA that it would extend to a tag that wasn't there. that's why I used the RfC.--FeanorStar7 21:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

...or you could've been bold and added it and seen where it had got you. At the very worst, you'd have been reverted, and a discussion could've followed after that, per WP:BRD. Cassianto^Talk 21:48, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Great. A speedy close of this RfC can take place then. Cassianto^Talk 20:35, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

This is all that was needed. Absolutely no need for a WP:RFC. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:17, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Just for future reference...

See DE Wiki for the film Ghetto for where the supposed image that keeps trying to be put in here comes from. It's an artist's impression of the actor protraying Gens in the film doing an event in the film which we have no idea if it ever happened or not. here is the google translation of hte page, making it pretty clear it's not an accurate image of Gens. --Ealdgyth (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Could be put to "Legacy" section? With appropriate caption that this is "artistic interpretation"? Renata (talk) 16:40, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's a great idea here, honestly. There isn't really any support for the idea that Gens contemplated suicide when confronted with commands from the Germans. It might work well in the article on the play, though... I feel like it would be too much out there. I should look into doing a fair use on one of the actual photographs of Gens that are out there, I've been busy moving and just haven't had the time.