Talk:Michael Karkoc

Ukrainian American

Since the man in Minnesota hasn't been confirmed to be Michael Karkoc the Ukrainian war criminal, should the lede call Karkoc "Ukrainian American"? The claim that Karkoc has moved to the United States would seem to fall under the same WP:BLP restrictions as any other statement that the two are the same. Rklear (talk) 15:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed and  Done. You may want to see the comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Michael Karkoc.--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:52, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

what about his memoir? In which he confirms his military service? How can you say his identity is not confirmed, just because his son is still in denial? -- Y not? 02:20, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between investigative journalism and a convictions for war crimes. We need to be careful here. If he has not yet been convicted of war crimes, we should not assume because some journalist connected a to b to c that he is the same person, or that this same person has done all the things he is accused of. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:35, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

who said anything about war crimes? All it says is that RS names him, conclusively, as a "top commander" in a division of the Waffen-SS. The recent edits have cast his very identity is weaselly terms, but his identity is not in any doubt. The war crimes are mere conjecture, and it should say so explicitly. -- Y not? 08:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

the word war crimes appears twice in the (relatively) short text, and allegations that this guy participated in a massacre of civilians are put forward. We are not the judge and jury here, and we should be very careful in reporting allegations, no matter how well sourced, esp when this guy isn't a celebrity so the section of a bLP on crime applies here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:06, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It may be useful here to remmeber Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed for decades to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. Her claims were believed by some but ultimately refuted; more to the point is that she claimed to be someone she was not. I can't imagine why anyone would write a memoir professing to be a Nazi war criminal, but the point is that, until that memoir is borne out by independent evidence, it's not for us to assume its veracity. It's not exactly a reliable secondary source. Rklear (talk) 12:43, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, no problem with the re-weaseling. We can unweasel later, as this thing shakes out. Meanwhile, I have downloaded and started to read his memoir. Should be exciting times. -- Y not? 16:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Birthplace

An IP has just changed the country of Karkoc's birth from Soviet Union to Poland. He was born in 1919, and it is tricky to make hard and fast statements about who was sovereign where in that part of Europe at the time, so it's probably worth reaching some consensus about this.

Looking at the article on Lutsk, it seems obvious that Soviet Union is wrong. Lutsk was seized by the Germans shortly before the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, then handed off to a Ukrainian nationalist movement. However, the Polish Army didn't capture the town until May 1919, when Karkoc was two months old, so Poland doesn't seem right somehow, either.

I would suggest either saying that Lutsk was in Ukraine for purposes of Karkoc's birthplace, or leaving the country off altogether. Rklear (talk) 13:05, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I'll change it to Ukraine. -- Y not? 13:24, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Karkoc

Moved comments from my personal talk page

Hello CH. Did you delete the birth date point unintentionally? You said "copy edit" in your summary, but in actuality deleted the item sourced from the video report. Surely if you think the birthplace thing should go in there, so should the birth date thing? -- Y not? 22:12, 17 June 2013 (UTC) As I said in the comments, the print material just mentions year of birth. Videos are not generally considered a reliable source, print is much better. I am trying to edit what you've put in to ensure that it matches the source material, but thanks for taking out "village" for Lutsk. That was an accident.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC) Oh, by the way, I was also confused by the entry of one month and day - and an update to another month and day.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I had a brainfart about the dates Videos are perfectly fine sources. The video thing didn't stop you from pointing out Horodok! I also didn't like edit about his notable subordinates. It feels like you're intentionally trying to cast doubt on his Naziness and suppress as many elements of the article as you can. Why? -- Y not? 00:58, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Horodoc is in the USA Today article - about 1/2 down the web page.

Regarding moving the comments about convicted subordinates to notes, I'm just trying to keep it as neutral as possible until there's more confirmation of a connection between the (potentially) two Michael Karkocs - per User:Obiwankenobi and User:Rklear.

If they disagree with my edits, I'm cool with that, since they seem to be much more "in the know" about this kind of situation.--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:19, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Please remember, there are (at least) three possible outcomes here:

(1) it's the same guy, and he committed war crimes, and will be prosecuted and/or deported

(2) it's the same guy, but there's no solid proof he was there during war crimes. So at worst, his provable crime is being a collaborator with the Nazis and lying on his immigration application. So he gets deported.

(3) it's not the same guy, it's a case of mistaken identity. Believe it or not, there are people born with the same name, on the same day. It happens, well, ALL THE TIME.

This article should be very careful about not deciding on the facts. Already, there is a bit of SYNTH going on here. Remember, we are not the legal team, assembling the facts of this case.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:29, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Dak and Malazhenski

Re: Obiwan's edit summary "pertinent and interesting but also indirectly accusing him of war crimes" -- yes, of course the sources strongly suggest that SS Lieutenant Karkoc is responsible for war crimes! Without the war crimes, why are the media even paying attention? What I think y'all are trying to do is introduce doubt as to the equivalence between Nazi Karkoc and Minnesota Karkoc, correct? For that reason, I moved the sentence into the paragraph about Nazi Karkoc. After all, we are already repeating RS's accusations against Nazi Karkoc of commanding the unit that torched Chlaniow. What is the difference between that and repeating RS's accusations of his commanding a convicted war criminal and another confessed war criminal? Are you guys seriously just trying to revert everything I write? I am dumbfounded at the awkwardness of your approach. -- Y not? 14:18, 18 June 2013 (UTC) The whole article "indirectly accuses him of war crimes". We can still do that, while pretending that there were two different Mykhailo Karkoc^s, yes? -- Y not? 14:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The AP article states, and I quote, "Though records do not show that Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes, statements from men in his unit and other documentation confirm the Ukrainian company he commanded massacred civilians, and suggest that Karkoc was at the scene of these atrocities as the company leader." Again, we should be very careful here. There is a line from WP:BLPCRIME, which states "For people who are relatively unknown, editors must give serious consideration to not including material in any article suggesting that the person has committed, or is accused of committing, a crime unless a conviction is secured". So I think you need to tone it down. Again, you are not on the legal team investigating war crimes, you are building a biography of a living individual. Until a conviction is secured, we should eschew all insinuations that this guy actually committed war crimes.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

So should we just delete the whole thing until a conviction is secured? After all, nothing has been proven in court? -- Y not? 15:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

One thing I remember reading awhile back is that it's important to be neutral, present the information objectively, and let people make up their own minds.

Are you saying that it's better to have nothing than to be neutral and objective?

I think that you may have the mistaken impression that because it's important to be neutral until conviction that we're trying to cover for someone who commited the atrocities. That's absolutely and categorically not true.--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:33, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This is also a bizarre case, that is also rapidly developing. There may be two Karkocs, or there may be one, but the extent of what he actually did (or provably in a court of law did) is not the same thing as the allegations in a single AP story. Read Adolf Beck case, or Lillehammer affair. People make mistakes, sometimes fatal (in the case of the Moroccan waiter), and in this case, the investigator is an amateur nazi hunter, not a prosecutor. This may all turn out to be true, but until then we have to be careful and not basically convict this guy before he's had a chance to mount a defense. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:40, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I am sure you're not a Nazi coverer-upper, Carole. There will never be a conviction for this one. He's just too old. I guess I'll unweasel it after he kicks the bucket. I am going to go edit something else for a while, I am starting to own this thing I think. Reading this guy's proud-ass memoir is making me sick to my stomach. See you much later. -- Y not? 15:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Take care.--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:07, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Flag

There was the deletion and then return of a flag in the article. The reason for deletion was that the image wasn't a correct depiction.

The source for the file does show a different depiction, with the swastika on an angle.--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:09, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

maybe we can ask Nokka -- Y not? 00:00, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I did on ruwiki -- Y not?

Great, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Warsaw uprising

SS-Galizien did not participate in suppressing the Warsaw Uprising. I think (not 100%) though that parts of the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion (USDL) did, which is where Karkoc took part in that.Volunteer Marek 22:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

weaseling?

The USDL allegedly took part in war crimes against civilians in Ukraine and Poland, although these have never been proven - that last part looks like someone just adding in their own personal opinion. Either a) Sources say that they took part, b) Sources say they didn't take part or c) Sources say that they might have but it was never proven. Somehow I doubt sources say c.

There is a Polish Wikipedia article on one of the war crimes that this unit was supposedly involved in pl:Pacyfikacja Chłaniowa i Władysławina, as well as a dedicated article pl:Ukraiński Legion Samoobrony. Looking at these the main source for the war crimes part appears to be this book: [1]. It was published by this publisher [2] which at first glance looks reliable, although I don't currently have access to the source itself.

I'm going to remove that weaseling and substitute a cn tag instead pending actual verification.

It might also be worth mentioning in the article that the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion was a OUN-M (Andriy Melnyk) rather than a OUN-B (Stepan Bandera) formation.Volunteer Marek 00:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Pane Marek, is it possible to find any Polish language sources about this 1972 Teodozy Dak prosecution? Maybe some contemporaneous articles? I would like to write a stub if there's enough coverage. -- Y not? 02:38, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

"Marek" by itself is fine. Or call me chłop if you're into that sorta thing. Anyway. I have no idea what you're talking about.Volunteer Marek 05:04, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Dude who served under K in the USDL, and was convicted for war crimes in Poland in 72. Can't find crap about it in the English language sources. -- Y not? 10:57, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't see much on him. Just that he (probably) commanded a platoon and was tried in 1972.Volunteer Marek 22:05, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

BLPN report

I've raised some issues regarding mentioning the Minnesota guy at BLPN. - Sitush (talk) 09:40, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Sitush: - I did jump the gun in stating that there was a formal request for his extradition - thre was not. That was my mistake. However, there should be some mention that Poland has stated that they will be conducting that action. It has been picked up by not only the AP, but also Minnesota Public Radio and MSN.com. I have included the following changes below: What do you think? Dinkytown talk 16:48, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

On March 13, 2017, the Government of Poland stated that they will formally requested from the United States the extradition of Karkoc to stand trail in Poland.

References

The Polish government have not identified him. AP did that. - Sitush (talk) 16:55, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Sitush:@TonyBallioni: It looks like User:TonyBallioni has already made a similar statement here, and I will support his position statement. Dinkytown talk 23:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Sitush's concerns about the letter of the BLP policy and the government not releasing his full last name. I think the Washington Post piece I linked to at BLPN might alleviate this a bit, but because so much of it is repeating the AP and Guardian stories, I would prefer another source before we cite it anymore strongly than the AP identifying him as the same Michael K. that the Polish government released a statement about. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:09, 15 March 2017 (UTC)