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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.[1]

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)

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)

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)

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—

—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

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)

These were former Spanish Republican figthers exiled in France and other countries after the Spanish Civil War.

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:
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!

– 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)


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)

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)

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

This category is being considered for merging into Category:The Holocaust in accordance with Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Categories for Discussion policies. This does not mean that any of the articles in the category will be deleted. They may, however, be recategorized.

Please share your thoughts on the matter at this category's entry on the Categories for Discussion page.

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. 24.206, 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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.206.195.109 (talk) 19:59, August 25, 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, this is directly related to the content of the article. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 22:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
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

A classic example of soapboxing. Reginmund 23:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I have a hard time seeing how this has any chance of improving the article.... --Stephan Schulz 23:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

That's just observing some political facts. Soapboxing is the offensive agendas and user pages many ultra-left-wing terrorists use on wikipedia. We have to understand why this article is full of lies before we know which material can be retained and which is spurious. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 00:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

That is still soapboxing to say that this article is full of lies. We don't buy original research. You need to cite sources. Reginmund 01:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not adding material to the article I'm trying to establish what should be added or removed and what sources are nonsense. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
You should have mentioned that before. Well, which ones are? Reginmund 01:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
All the ones by jewish authors. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
We need sources that say that they are incorrect. Otherwise, you are engaging in original research just to say that they are wrong. Reginmund 01:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
The article lacks credible sources. How can you have a bunch of jews tell you about what supposedly happened to them at the hands of the Nazis? -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
The fact that the sources are authored by Jews is not a candidate for discreditation. You'll have to do better than that. Reginmund 02:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Please ignore the troll. Look at edit history. - Jeeny Talk 03:54, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This talk page is pretty large at 132KB, I suggest a little archiving - and this rather soapy troll-y section might be a good place to start... Dreadstar † 04:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

In that case, maybe Fourdee should be blocked. Reginmund 05:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Apparently someone agrees. --Stephan Schulz 07:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Archived

I archived a big chunk to Talk:The_Holocaust/Archive 16, feel free to move any still 'live' conversations back or add more of the above to it. I basically left the 'protection' conversation on down, and archived the most recent soapy, troll-y stuff..;0 Dreadstar † 07:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


You removed some good material dealing with the core problems on this article. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 11:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
There's tons of good material in the sixteen archives. That's one of the downsides to this flat-text discussion format. --15:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpgordon (talk • contribs)

Article's problems

  • biggest problem is that almost the only experts cited are jewish and often related to people who were in camps, deported, etc.
  • many deaths lumped together were from natural causes like food shortage, disease (allies to blame for not giving medicine), transportation interruption (allies to blame), bombings, overwork in the same sort of factories everyone has to work in during a war, etc.
  • many deaths were of communists, sympathizers and insurgents (everyone shoots rebels and archenemies)
  • does not well address which deaths were authorized by which authorities
  • does not discuss defenses offered by Eichmann, guards or other people who have been accused, convicted or never charged with crimes related to these various activities lumped together under "holocaust" in this article
  • does not offer balance between attitude that executing enemies of the nation is a commonplace event in human history and the attitude that somehow this particular killing of civilians is worse than all others

This article, while similar to the truth, is not fair and avoids some very interesting questions about what really happened in favor of parroting a few tired invectives against the Nazis. In fact it contains some severe distortions and near-slander, as well as turning a complete blind eye to the opinions of supporters of the Nazis, and focusing excessively on one group that happened to be victimized by them. This article is also part of a campaign to both exaggerate the failures of the NSDAP and downplay its successes, as well as paint it in a bad light which is a status apparently especially reserved only for the NSDAP - that is the status of "absolute evil" which is the opinion of many of the "experts" cited on this article about the NSDAP - "absolute evil". That's not NPOV that's rubbish. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 02:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ignore the troll, please check contribution history. - Jeeny Talk 02:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that he hasn't been blocked indefinitely. What is stopping that action from being executed? Reginmund 03:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a highly-watched article (and talk page); we're perfectly capable of dealing with people of various opinions, and do not need your disputes with him to be dragged here. Thank you for understanding. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not reasonable for this article to get a more-than-fair treatment when there are many other similar articles about incidents in european history that people wouldn't want any hint of bias in. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There's also little or no discussion of any defenses of exigency or following lawful orders that were given at the trials (kangaroo courts) in this article. Many Nazis were convicted and hanged just because a few people said they were cruel at the camps. It's a silly thing to focus on and make disproportionate to people like Stalin, Lenin, etc. I view the hangings of Nazis as almost entirely warcrimes against people whose actions had been greatly exaggerated in a smear campaign and revenge plot. It's disgusting the extent to which people were executed merely for having been Nazis or allegedly cruel which even if it were true is a crime sure but how many witnesses did it really take to prove it. Especially when it was clear the communists were the real threat. Most of the blame for the holocaust really lies on the allies and it's an absurd kind of newspeak where this magic tally of many of the casualties caused by the allies are applied to whatever tally the nazis had rung up fighting everyone's enemy - the communists and nihilists. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Reginmund writes, "I'm surprised that he hasn't been blocked indefinitely. What is stopping that action from being executed?" Fourdee probably will not be banned until (unless) he starts getting into revert wars over the article contents. As long as he just makes his comments on the talk page, Jeeny is 100% right: ignore him (and periodically archive talk). Spend your energy improving the article contents/style. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I find racist rants hurtful, however probably not grounds for blocking. Besides, the anti-semitic statements resemble so closely the whispered rumors spreading around Germany (and elsewhere)in the 1920s--later to hatch into full blown Nazi Propaganda lies--that they can provide lessons to us all: then few countered the statements and even fewer expressed any solidarity with the targets of such racism. However the continual breaking of WP rules is grounds for blocking. ButI suppose the guy just slips by with his rather phony claim to be trying to improve the article by questioning the identities of the references but since when does blood trump facts? Besides, how does one come so confidently to the conclusion about the ethnic/religious/ identity of a writer. Is it his/her name? Thousands of Kleins, Kaufmanns, and Blums would beg to differ. Traditionally a Jew is defined as having a Jewish mother, but that clearly undermines the use of family names. Or perhaps our editor would use the time-dishonored definition of at least three Jewish grandparents...--Joel Mc 15:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
There's no secret conspiracy between jews to lie about the holocaust, defame german nationalism, attack concepts of european race or ethnicity, and depending on coincidence of political philosophy, promote communism and nihilism, or right-nihilism as in libertarianism. These conspiracies are not secret. Neither side in this matter "whispers". As to what's a jew: these authors cited are jews. If any with ashkenazi or hewbrew sounding names are not in fact descended primarily from jews feel free to indicate that. I'm sure most of them are, by whatever measure, jews with a such a serious bias that they don't even know when they are lying anymore. Certainly there are a great many non-Jews involved in this broader agenda of left-nihilism but they don't really seem to be showing up on this article. This is a special interest of people who feel personally offended by the killing of a group they sympathize or identify with - people who should've just recused themselves from speaking as an authority on the topic at all, if they had any kind of integrity or even sense of self. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 15:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from making racist remarks unless you can provide a list of verifiable sources for your claims. If you do not intend to edit this article, please stop lurking on this talk page, no matter how much pleasure it gives you. --Mathsci 18:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This article certainly is not a pleasurable place to "lurk" considering it is part of a very successful smear campaign against one of the most beautiful and philosophically sound governments in human history. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 22:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Since you are being so frank, I would like to ask you 3 questions. Firstly, what are your views on the revisionist British historian David Irving? Was he wrongly bankrupted and imprisoned for his views? Secondly, do you sympathize with the British National Party and Front National? Thirdly, do you not think that some of your statements here might seem extremely offensive to WP editors whose relatives perished in german concentration camps? --Mathsci 04:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not intimately familiar with David Irving's work. Of course I do not agree with laws against being a Nazi sympathizer and against questioning interpretations of the holocaust. These are heinous laws which in my view justify a use of force to counteract them. It's not even a level playing field in the game of politics.
  • Yes I personally support both the BNP and the FN and would support them if they adopted much stronger platforms but of course as a descendant of both ethnic groups I would hope that they could maintain platforms which are not at odds with each other. Rather than infighting between ethnic groups hopefully all these movements can identify the common and intertwined cause of defending the European ethnicities against destruction through loss of habitat and interbreeding with non-europeans.
  • Why aren't the statements already on this article extremely offensive to people who may identify or sympathize with the Nazis or german nationalism? I'm extremely offended (and upset and hurt) by the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre - guess what, that's why I don't edit it. If one is so wrapped up in a topic that you cannot stand to hear that there is another point of view, perhaps it's best just to avoid it altogether.
-- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 04:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
  • David Irving is one of the main historians (now discredited and disgraced) to represent your own WP:POV. I am quite surprised that you have never heard of him.
  • Is it not precisely those people, involuntarily affected by the holocaust, who might wish to see a balanced account on the main page? Surely your intent is not to bully them away by deliberately making outrageous and exaggerated statements on this discussion page?
  • As far as I am aware, here and elsewhere on the WP you seem you to have made no attempt to provide any verifiable sources to support your minority claims. As you may be aware, WP is not about truths or points of view: it is about verifiable claims.
  • BTW could you please explain what you mean when you write "necessary killings". This seems like a very unfortunate choice of words. --Mathsci 12:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I am familiar with David Irving, however his books are not the sort of material I would read because I already understand the basic facts and problems of bias as I outlined above and this has not been a primary area of interest for me in the past, although it is becoming so.
  • How can someone who was the victim of a purported crime be the sole arbiter of what is a "balanced account". How is the treatment in this article and on wikipedia in general of persons with differing points of view, such as revisionists and nazi sympathizers, not bullying?
  • Actually I have provided sources when appropriate. I view introduction of new material as something I can do after these initial discussions about bias, otherwise the debate over a particular source will be mixed with this more general discussion about what is a reliable source and what is biased. In Nazi Germany all the reliable sources said things polar opposite of what the current jewish- and marxist- controlled social sciences academia allow to be published. Anyone who challenges the prevailing attributions of guilt for the holocaust, makes discussions of any cases for exigency by the Nazis, or questions which deaths were a result of which actions - anyone who does that is de facto labeled "not credible".
  • I think I said "largely justified or unavoidable". I also said I do not agree at all with any wholesale killing of Ashkenazi jews that occurred. However I do not disagree with the choices the Nazis made or their justifications. I take more of a neutral-sympathetic view to it, where in the exigency of dealing with the terrible and certain threat to destroy all of mankind from the communists, the perhaps erroneous association of Jews in general with leftism, and the imminent approach of extremely unsympathetic enemy armies, it was necessary to ensure that these unwanted persons did not continue to exist in or around Germany.
Thanks for taking the time to talk - this actually could be very useful in dealing with any proposed revisions I may have for the article, so that we at least will understand each other's motivations and justifications. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 19:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Y'know, it is quite a relief to hear from an outright, unashamed admirer of the Nazis and their predations, rather than these folks who insist on covering their hatred of Jews with pseudo-historical appeals. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
" In Nazi Germany all the reliable sources said things polar opposite of what the current jewish- and marxist- controlled social sciences academia allow to be published. Anyone who challenges the prevailing attributions of guilt for the holocaust, makes discussions of any cases for exigency by the Nazis, or questions which deaths were a result of which actions - anyone who does that is de facto labeled "not credible"." We have a similar problem here. Anybody who thinks dogs can't speak perfect English is automatically labeled "not credible" and the ruling anti-dog cartel gets to put their biased view forth as mainstream. Gzuckier 19:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't hate Jews at all. I think Ashkenazi Jews are fine people and should probably be considered as Europeans. When I talk about a jewish media- or academia- oligarchy I am is just observing the ethnic group and apparent agenda of the people involved.
I do think that ethnic group ("tribe" or "family") is the core functional unit of humanity and is one's most important obligation, bar none. I see a ethnic nationalism as a beautiful thing on an emotional level, on the level of physical aesthetics, and most importantly to me as a profoundly meaningful philosophy that spans many elements of religion, natural science, politics and social philosophy.
On the other hand I see primary targets of the Nazis, the communists, as the ones who promote various destructive, nihilistic, anti-human, anti-nature, anti-god, anti-ethics, anti-nation, anti-individual beliefs which I can only classify as "purely evil and wrong".
However my admiration of ethnic nationalism is not what we are here to discuss. What is at question here is if this article is reporting an impartial history, or if it, and the academic field promoting this study, have been set up primarily to portray these mundane and largely justified or unavoidable acts as "murder" and to paint ethnic nationalism as "evil". -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
"Mundane and largely justified or unavoidable". Ah. I see. WP:CIV and WP:NPA forbid me from saying what would be appropriate here, so I'll just ignore you from here on out. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 01:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't care whether I offend policies, since fourdee doesn't care whether he offends intelligence. Recently his name keeps popping up on the talk pages of two articles I watchlist. This is one of them, the other one is Talk:Race and intelligence. I sometimes check fourdee's diffs, but never see any substantiated information, no references, nothing of relevance. I do see a lot of confused rambling, pseudo-factoids and labels being thrown around - I have to assume that this is what he means by "I challenge assumptions. Sometimes it may appear to be devil's advocacy". But no devil would hire this lousy advocate who shows a very poor understanding of history, genetics, social sciences, or any other established form of knowledge, including logic. I hope he reconsiders his contributions here. Otherwise, by and by, he will be ignored by a lot of editors. It's far more healthy to ignore the likes of fourdee than to respond to their insults. Fourdee needn't reply at all, for I intend to do as jpgordon does. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
As is typical, the details are woefully lacking, but the assertions are bold - in fact I've never seen this editor contribute anything to these talk pages he mentions and I gather he has nothing to contribute or a limited ability to engage in debate. He is so frustrated by his inability to formulate a direct answer that he resorts to this fist-slamming temper tantrum and personal attack. It's very likely that this person has no idea what specifically is wrong with my conceptions of history or genetics (or "social science"), and is simply angry or dumbfounded. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 04:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
As typical of you, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. - Jeeny Talk 04:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

About Estimates

This article is highly in need of the next remark:

Demographic estimates of the Holocaust suffer from the same problems as estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe and thus will always remain a controversial topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.45.96.167 (talk) 16:04, August 26, 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)


In the "Death Marches" section of this article,the last paragraphs begins with the following lines: "The largest and best known of the death marches took place in January 1945, when the Soviet army advanced on Poland..". The choice of word "best" to describe such a tragedy is most insensitive on the part of the writer and I would request the editor to replace it with the word "worst" -- Rahs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.199.132.81 (talk) 09:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

This seems to a problem with parsing English. "best kown" is acting a single adjective here (it's not the best one we know, but the one we know best). I'll add a hyphen to make this obvious. --Stephan Schulz 13:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Or "most well-known" or "most infamous" ? They are a bit awkward, though. Jd2718 15:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I wonder about the point of saying one atrocity is better known than others. If there is a point, it might be worded as "most widely known" or "most notorious". Wanderer57 17:17, 15 September 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)

I have submitted the total deaths to be approximately 271.000 and referenced the proof, the [Official Red Cross Recordings] about the number of deaths. This submission has been edited out, and reverted to six million without any references or proof. I believe this is vandalism, but the page is no longer editable. The act can still be seen on the history tab. Please discuss. Rhino666 15:14, 10 October 2007 (GMT+1)

"http://musliminsuffer.wordpress.com" is not a reliable source. Consensus on this is clear. Paul B 13:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

So you say that because the source is not reliable, the document seen on the source must be fake? Or shall I find another source for the proving document to be seen? Rhino666 15:46, 10 October 2007 (GMT+1)

Paul is right. It's not a reliable source. Radical-Dreamer 14:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand that the source is not reliable, but what about the [proof] itself? Rhino666 15:55, 10 October 2007 (GMT+1)

This is not a proof. This could have been faked quite easily. Several reliable researches have already stated that the numbers are between 5.5 - 6 million. Radical-Dreamer 14:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Please state these reliable researches, because they are not referenced in the main article. Rhino666 16:15, 10 October 2007 (GMT+1)
Proof of what? The document seems to refer to deaths in the 1970s, though I can't quite read it. The 271.000 total number of deaths is dated 31st Dec 1978, and the other deaths are also from the 1970s. Perhaps the document records deaths of of former inmates of the camps in the 70s. I don't know. Paul B 14:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
It is not about the deaths in the 1970s, it is about the deaths in the concentration camps (which is written there), with the information updated in the 70s. There were no concentration camps in the 70s as you know, so it could only refer to the Holocaust. Rhino666 16:20, 10 October 2007 (GMT+1)
The concentrations camps of Eastern Europe, especially East Germany were open and functioning in the 1970's. Many Germans died in the concentration camps after the war. Killed by Russian and then East German governments. However, as for the "prof" in question, some of the camp names on the "prof" do not match any known camps let alone the designated extermination camps (check against the lists yourself). Numerically the number of camps doesn't match either. There are way more known concentration camps, and far fewer extermination camps then the number of camps on the "prof". I also ask you why does the International Red Cross title a document in English and then present the rest of the chart in German except for three key headings necessary for English speakers interpretation. Also, the agency is know as International Committee of the Red Cross and titles it's documents thusly. The choice of the Arolsen archives as the source is clearly due to the limited accesses and thus assumed secrecy of the files. However, the German government has stated that the protected files are mostly about non-Jewish Deaths including German repatriation after the war. the protection of the files is for keeping the names of people safeguarded, not the data about the Holocaust. Finally, the International Committee of the Red Cross has never publicly recognized the numbers suggested by this "prof". Dkriegls 06:35, 15 October 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:
Crum375 23:03, 6 August 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)
Yeah, it's pretty weak and out of place. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Archived

I archived a big chunk to Talk:The_Holocaust/Archive 16, feel free to move any still 'live' conversations back or add more of the above to it. I basically left the 'protection' conversation on down, and archived the most recent soapy, troll-y stuff..;0 Dreadstar † 07:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Number of dead at Auschwitz

This page cites 1.4 million dead, but if you click on the link to the Auschwitz page they cite 1.1 million dead in the comprehensive introduction. Now I am well aware that these numbers are individual historian's estimates, but I feel that in the interests of coherence (i.e. it's a bit messy to have different numbers cited in different articles in wikipedia), that there are two possible remedies: 1. use the same numbers in all articles (but which ones?) 2. present the numbers as a range, e.g. 1.1-1.4 million. This would again create the problem of which sources to range, but given that one is using a larger sample this would seem to give improved veracity. Additionally, this would impress upon readers that these numbers have been arrived at in different ways. As a provisional suggestion, I would think that the range should be from the low conservative estimates (which are often based on what can be ascertained through direct records), and the slightly larger estimates, but which are equally valid, that employ for example pre and post war population statistics and eyewitness accounts/admissions e.g. Eichmann's. If this seems sensible it would seem that it could be taken as a convention for numbers cited in Holocaust articles, although in some parts this is already the case. Comments? Tsop 07:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Presenting the numbers as a range seems like a good option to me, but it's not a matter I'm terribly knowledgeable about. I generally just watch this page for vandalism and racist POV pushing. ornis (t) 08:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

probable inaccuracy

towards the bottom (in ('Climax') the claim is made (unreferenced) that "At Auschwitz, up to 20,000 people were killed and incinerated every day". Is this true? 20,000 a day is 140,000 a week. That means in ten weeks you have 1.4 million -perhaps the total number over two years. This single claim is not required in the context and probably should just be deleted (unless someone can source it). Can any user make the change or what is the deal? Tsop 09:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

This protection level of this article has been reduced to 'semi' so that editors may now make any necessary changes.- Gilliam 09:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Maybe the claim is inaccurate - surely it needs to be sourced. But "up to" does not mean "on average." Toward the end of the war I believe rates of murder went up drastically; there is no reason to think that the maximum number of people killed in a week is anywhere's close to the average. I think the problem in the sentence is "every day." No sentence that has this syntax "Up to ... every day" make sense. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I found the number unlikely based on the other figures quoted in the article. "According to Rudolf Höß, commandant of Auschwitz, bunker 1 held 800 people, and bunker 2 held 1,200." A few sentences on: "The gas was then pumped out, the bodies were removed (which would take up to four hours), gold fillings in their teeth were extracted with pliers by dentist prisoners, and women's hair was cut". So in twenty-four hours it might be possible to kill six loads of two thousand people, which is 12,000 people. It doesn't say how many gassings a day were performed, but it seems like an unlikely high number. Have deleted the sentence.
Tsop 02:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
As far as capacity, you may wish to note that Yad Vashem says: "Four chambers were in use at Birkenau, each with the potential to kill 6,000 people daily." [21]. Crum375 03:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


Racist definition of Holocaust

The definition of Holocaust should include all people, not just Jews. It is largely Jewish scholars that omit everyone else. It appears this is solely because the rest don't really matter to them. --Salom Khalitun 20:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The article does mention the diverse victims of the Holocaust. Political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals were sent to concentration camps as punishment. Members of these three groups were not targeted, as were Jews and Gypsies, for systematic murder. Nevertheless, many died in the camps from starvation, disease, exhaustion, and brutal treatment.- Gilliam 20:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I do wonder if Mr. Khalitun read as far as the second paragraph of the article. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I see the second paragraph and the list of other peoples, yet the definition of Holocaust in this article refers to Jews, largely because Jewish writers are only concerned about the Jewish victims. That is as racist as the Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust. If the massacre of Jews is called the Holocaust, what is the massacre of non-Jews called ? Is there really no name for the murder of so many people. --Salom Khalitun 01:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Nobody has provided any opposing reasoning. According to Wikipedia guidelines there is therefore consensus. Anyone who wants to restrict the Holocaust to only Jews, when so millions of others suffered the same fate, is being racist and heartless anyway. --Salom Khalitun 14:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
The "last man standing theory" of discussion does not work. Consensus about what? If you read the article, we do not define Holocaust - in fact, I would claim that it is not the task of an encyclopedia to define anything. We describe how the term is used, and have two very reliable sources for the current lead sentence. We also immediately mention the non-Jewish victims in the next sentence. Your edit has a number of problem. It drops the references from the first sentence, it omits some other information, and it contains the (mis-)leading and unsourced phrase "Jewish scholars do not ..." when what they allegedly do is neither universal among Jewish scholars, nor restricted to Jewish scholars. --Stephan Schulz 15:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Garbage ! The article very clearly defines the Holocaust as being only "the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II". That is a racist definition. It should be "...up to 11 million people including Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's winesses, ......" It doesn't matter if they merely "mention" others. They are wrongly not included in the definition. You can not have a "reliable source" for this definition. It's not physics or astronomy, it's purely opinion. I can get you references that include all victims. It wouldn't make any difference. The "last man standing theory" is defined in the guidelines as consensus. --Salom Khalitun 18:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC) Are you Jewish ? Is that why you are putting forward such poor reasoning yet clinging on to a racist definition.

  • It is you who are a racist anti-Semite. This is clear in the ad homenim and slanderous remark, "It appears this is solely because the rest don't really matter to them." All major Jewish organizations make it plain that the Nazis killed many other people, and had genocidal policies toward the Roma. The word "Holocaust" is not a generic word referring to any slaughter. It historically refers to the Nazi's genocidal campaign against the Jews - that is how the word was first applied to genocide (prior to the nazi campaign against the Jews, the word holocaust did not refer to genocide and was used in other, often innoccuous, ways). Now, to claim that the Nazis hated Jews does not mean that the Nazi's hated only Jews; to claim that the Nazis conducted a genocidal campaign against Jews does not mean that the Nazis conducted a genocidal campaign against only Jews. You do not understand simple basic logic: to say that "X occured" is not the same thing as saying "Y did not occur." But as you are a racist you are probably incapable of logical thought. At this point I see no reason to continue responding to a blatant anti-semite. The discussion is over. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Apparently you have trouble with comprehending the English language. No, the article does not define the term. It describes it. This is something completely different. And of course we can have reliable sources about history, and of course history is not "just opinion". If you have reliable sources that show a more inclusive use of the word, by all means bring them on, and we can incorporate them. I don't know what my religion or ethnicity has to do with my reasoning. Anyways, if you are interested, information about one is easily available, and information about the other should be deducable from other comments I have made. --Stephan Schulz 18:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

More irrelevant and falsely abusive garbage ! Most of my friends are Jewish so forget trying to distract attention from the facts with the anti-semitic crap. Most jews do not include anyone but Jews in the definition of Holocaust, despite the millions that were murdered. They know about them, sure, but they don't include them in any definition of the Holocaust. The United Nations does : "There can be no reversing the unique tragedy of the Holocaust. It must be remembered, with shame and horror, for as long as human memory continues. Only by remembering can we pay fitting tribute to the victims. Millions of innocent Jews and members of other minorities were murdered in the most barbarous ways imaginable. We must never forget those men, women and children, or their agony." —— United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, January 27, 2006." Wikipedia's definition and those that support it are racists. --Salom Khalitun 18:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Your "fiends" are Jewish? Good freudian slip there. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself includes the United Nations definition as including all victims - not just Jewish. As representitives of all governments that is far higher authority than some of the petty references provided. That reference has already been inserted. You can not have inconistency by one article defining it as Jewish only and another including all victims. Nobody with any sense, reason or compassion would want to exclude all the other groups that were massacred anyway. --Salom Khalitun 18:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Why not ? --Salom Khalitun 19:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Because Wikipedia is an unreliable source! Seriously! Same thing my brother the professor tells his students -- if you want to use Wikipedia reliably, you have to go to the reliable sources that Wikipedia cites, since anyone whosoever can edit Wikipedia. So, for example, instead of quoting Wikipedia there, you'd need to cite Annan directly. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The original source from the United Nations News Centre has been inserted. The United Nations consistently describe the Holocaust as including non-Jews : “The Holocaust was a unique and undeniable tragedy,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a video message played to a special memorial ceremony in the General Assembly Hall on the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews, 500,000 Roma and Sinti and other minorities, disabled and homosexuals were killed." --Salom Khalitun 20:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Of course, this is not a scholary publication, but rather a excerpt from a remembrance speech. It does not deal with the problem of definition. It may, however, be used as one piece of evidence for Salom's POV. Assuming for the sake of the argument that we accept this speech as a WP:RS, it would still not justify Salom's edit. In that case, we have conflicting reliable sources, and WP:NPOV would require us to "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and [to] do so in proportion to the prominence of each". In my opinion, the first step towards this would be a review of a representative sample of reliable sources to enable us to gauge the current state of the discussuion.--Stephan Schulz 20:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
You can get hundreds of references for this in favour and hundreds of references against. It doesn't prove anything. The fact that mainly Jewish authors consider the Holocaust as Jewish only is already in the article. This already accounts for the the two definitions. Why anyone would want to exclude non-Jews anyway is pure and callous bigotry. --Salom Khalitun 20:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Let me try again. We do not decide which version we want or which we think would be more fair, or improve the world. We only report how the term is actually used. I'm still missing any evidence that "mainly Jewish authors consider the Holocaust as Jewish only". And to be clear: No-one (except for some fringe assholes) denies that the Nazis killed millions of Jews and millions of members of various minorities, including Roma, homosexuals, Jehovas witnesses, and others. The question is wether the term "Holocaust" applies all of the killing, or only to part of it. --Stephan Schulz 20:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
The United Nations any many others include all victims. Most Jews and some others do not. There are different opinions. Including all victims and then pointing out that the Jewish definition does not include non-Jews accounts for both viewpoints. The problem here is that there are some Jews who are trying to impose only the largely Jewish viewpoint. --Salom Khalitun 20:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
The complete lack of supporting sources is noted. --Stephan Schulz 20:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Salom. While the article does state other groups besides the Jews were killed, it breezes over the other half of the victims, and deals almost exclusively with the Jewish death toll. Indeed, one of the first people to respond to the original post said "it mentions them". The article shouldn't merely "mention" the deaths of one half of the victims and spend the rest of the time talking about the other half. R.westermeyer 20:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC) First of all, more Germans died in World War II, then Jews. In Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and all other eastern slavic nations, 28 million people did- source- Kanigin, Y, "The Beginning and End of the Worlds" It is also true that 10 of those 28 million were Ukrainians, murdered by the Germans. So how can you spend the whole article talking about 5 million Jews, if you have numbers twice the size of that, which simply can't be ignored in this article. The truth is, in world war II, the nation with most deaths were Ukraine, followed by Germans, then, Jews. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adolf23653 (talk • contribs) 14:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Murder | Executed

I see the word "murdered" all over this article. when a state kills someone, it is typically called an execution, not a murder. When a supposedly neutral article calls an execution a murder, it is condemning the killing. Condemnation has no place in wiki, so I think that all references to the word murder (unless it was one individual killing another) should be removed and replaced with a more neutral word. R.westermeyer 20:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

When a state executes someone, it's usually being done after a trial and by law. Obviously, that is not the case. You are welcome to open up a dictionary. Anyway, the word 'murder' defines quite well the even of the Holocaust. Radical-Dreamer 14:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
You seriously underestimate the Germans obsession with efficient bureaucracy and legality, even when they are murdering people. Although many Jewish Germans were "murdered" in events like the night of broken glass, an imprisonment in the concentration camps often involved "court hearings". The crime? being Jewish, or Roma, or .... The Nazis were efficient in both killing and the bureaucracy of killing. They made sure that much of what they did was "legal". Making things legal is easy in a dictatorship. Now, it is important to see that murder is a term of condemnation whereas execution is a term of legitimacy or at least legal legitimacy. Of course the genocide should not be given any legitimacy because the Nazis made it "legal", however, just because capitol punishment is "legal" in the US, is it not also murder if you are against it? I am for the use of the word murder in this article, as well as in any article discussing states taking the lives of their citizens. Dkriegls 06:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
You're for it because it advances your point of view, which is contrary to what we're trying to do here. Please, don't insist on calling it "murder" because you're against the death penalty. It so happens I also feel that what the Nazis did was murder, but objectively they were executions because the state decided to perform the killings and it followed their policy at the time. It's hard to keep emotions out of an article like this but you have to do it if it's to be a good encylopedic entry. I prefer "execution" because it's a more neutral term, not because I want to legitimize what those murderers did. -- Atamasama 23:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Nope, it was murder plain and simple. First, most of the Holocaust killing, while performed using instruments of the state, was not actually legal even under Nazi laws. But secondly, and more importantly, no state even can legalize something like that. --Stephan Schulz 23:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose you can argue that the killings were in violation of the Nuremberg Laws which stated that hard labour and fines would be imposed on Jews, and at worse imprisonment. So I can accept your argument that it wasn't legal. But any state can legalize anything it want within its own borders, that's part of what sovereignty means. It doesn't mean the rest of the world needs to accept it, and it certainly doesn't make it right. -- Atamasama 15:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dkriegls the s no reason to do anything to legitimize what happened. None whatsoever. : Danny Weintraub : Albion moonlight 07:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I think a more precise word is genocide, a term that came into use in the 1940's. Wanderer57 23:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
But genocide is not a verb. They were murdered, killed, executed, almost all of which work well as synonyms. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The distinction between "execution" and "murder" depends on context - journalists, lawyers, historians probably have different usages, it is not a simple matter of a universaly agreed-upon definition. In this case, if anyone has a general sense of the language that was used at the Nuremberg trials, or by Yad Vashem, or by historians of the Holocaust, I would go with whatever is the most common usage by those parties. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I was just watching a history channel show on the Nazi's and one thing grabbed my attention which was pertinent to this topic. Hitler revoked German citizenship for all Jews. So the government wasn't even killing its own citizens, technically speaking. Of course this is why the word Holocaust was coined for state sponsored genocide of this magnitude. Genocide its self is the Greek root of massacre. To me, a massacre is not execution. If there is a line to be drawn (and I have stated my opinion befor), it should be at the individual level for states. A state killing one convicted man by lethal injection could and is semantically called an execution, I can agree with at least the semantics. A state killing 100 people in a gas chamber all at one time can not be called an execution. I like to think of my self a true wikipedian in that do understand and support the arguments for unbiased word choice, that is why I state my beliefs. I can not see how secret mass-killings can be classified as executions just because the were carried out by a state. They were hidden from the masses (not public knowledge), they were carried out against non-citizens during a time of war, and in large numbers. I looked at some actual definitions, and they seemed too vague to help. I think this will have to come down to consensus based on who makes the best arguments. Dkriegls 05:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes and I believe that such a consensus is in place. It was in fact murder and murder most foul. : Danny Weintraub : Albion moonlight 05:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Sources defining the Holocaust

Below are some reliable sources on the topic. Please feel free to add more. --Stephan Schulz 20:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Encyclopedia Britannica: "Holocaust: the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II."
  • Merriam Webster: "the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II "
  • Compact OED: "the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime in World War II."
  • Dictionary.com, based on Random House: "the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II" (they have a number of references to other sources, some including the phrase "Jews and other ...", some referring to Jews exclusively).
  • Cambridge Dictionary of American English (added after Salom pointed the existence of this out): "The Holocaust was the systematic murder of many people, esp. Jews, by the Nazis during World War II."
  • Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: "Holocaust: the killing of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis before and during the Second World War"

I can provide hundreds or even thousands of articles that include all victims. Are we in a competition of who can provide the most references ? When do we start ? Who's going to keep score !!! Are you Jewish ? Is that why you want to ignore all the millions of other victims. --Salom Khalitun 21:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Even one of your own examples (the Merriam Webster dictionary) includes non-Jews. Judging from the knowledge of the author of the Britannica article, he was obviously Jewish. The Dictionary.com article you referred to also has definitions that include non-Jews. --Salom Khalitun 21:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Salom, there is valid question of definition here, and sources do vary in their definitions, but asking questions like "are you Jewish?" does not help. You do your cause no favours by making remarks to the effect that Jewish writers don't care about anyone else or claiming that an author of Britanicca is "obviously Jewish". Paul B 21:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I suggest you read my contributions, Salom. I have not, so far, taken a position on the issue. I've pointed out that various of your versions were unsourced or even in conflict with existing sources (or even common sense). As you can see from my collection of sources, I have not looked for sources for one side, but tried to get a feeling how reliable souces see the issue. And I strongly suggest that you stop speculating about the religion and/or ethnicity of people, either Wikipedians or others. There is no world Jewish conspiracy at work here. --Stephan Schulz 21:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

You selectively included the Jews only Oxford definition, and avoided using the Cambridge definition that includes non-Jewish victims. Your flawed reasoning is supporting the primarily Jewish position. I will assume that you are Jewish but that you don't want to be shown to biased. I have yet to see any opposing reasoning or evidence at all. Totting up how many references support one view or the other is pointless. The Jewish only definition defies humanity, common sense, and the facts. --Salom Khalitun 21:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Who's to say that the term holocaust has a "Jewish" definition. The Jewish peoples of the world don't even use that word, they use the word HaShoah. I was of the impression that etymologically the holocaust had a western meaning. And yes, Salom I am Jewish, and as far as I'm aware the only Jewish conspiracy that exists is one to be free from persecution and live a quiet life; I'm part of that one. Idiots like you making racist slurs don't help --Hadseys 01:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Who is "you"? Paul B 21:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
In this case, "you" is probably me. I included the OED because it is one of the best-known and authorative dictionaries around. The Cambridge one is not associated with the University of Cambridge, but rather with Cambridge near Boston, and I was not aware of its existence up to now. Got the wrong impresson there.Stephan Schulz 14:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC) Anyways, I've added it. I'm also putting a note on Salom's page that I will initiate an WP:RFC if he does not refrain from pointlessly labelling everybody who disagrees with him as Jewish. An RFC needs to show previosu attempts by two editors to resolve the issue, so endorsements are welcome.--Stephan Schulz 21:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with most of those sources is that they spend most of the time discussing only the Jewish victims. I feel that for a truly unbiased and neutral article, the other half of the victims, even though they are not all from one ethnic group/race/etc. still need to be discussed in an equal amount, because if they are breezed over then that is not neutral. R.westermeyer 21:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The article should reflect what reliable sources say. If most let the word stand for the attempted extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany, but a few extend the definition to mass executions of other civilians, let the article reflect that difference, in roughly the same proportion. Does that make sense? That way our sources, rather than our individual opinions, create the balance in the article. Jd2718 21:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I feel that, while most people probably equate the Holocaust with the killing of the six million Jews, wikipedia still has a responsibility to tell people of those who were killed besides the Jews. I understand your reasoning, but should Wikipedia delete the article on quantum field theory because most people don't even know that such a thing exists? My point is that the reason most people wrongly believe that the Nazis only killed Jews is because of the lack of information on the other 5 million people killed. Nobody really makes too much mention of those other 5 million, and there for most people simply think that the Holocaust was "Jew-specific". Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, has a responsibility to tell people of those other five million. In short, the reason most people equate the Holocaust with Jews is because nobody has told them otherwise. R.westermeyer 22:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read the article, or at least the contents box. It tells about everyone who was killed. There are entire paragraphs devoted to Roma, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses. There is more about Jews than anyone else. And this balance, with shorter references to other groups, fairly accurately reflects the balance in our sources. Jd2718 00:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Huge numbers of people were killed by the Nazis, of course, but the question here is which of those killings should be included under the label 'holocaust'. No-one denies that other killings occurred - appalling massacres in Poland and Russia for example - but the term holocaust is usually restricted to the systematic killing of civilians whose only offense was their racial/ethnic identity, not their opposition to German war aims. The people who died in the Warsaw uprising, or at Lidice, for example, were killed to intimidate and terrify any potential opposition to German war aims, not simply because they were who they were. The difficulty is in usefully delimiting the term 'holocaust'. The word itself had simply come to mean 'oblitrative massacre' at the time that it was adopted. Many historians use it to refer to Jewish deaths specifically, sometimes self-consciously, sometimes just because Jews were undoubtedly the main targets for obliteration. Others are more inclusive, but there are big problems with inclusiveness, since you get to create a "slippery slope" in which any group who were targeted in any way by Nazis can claim to be holocaust victims. In many cases the Nazis never had any plan to kill all members of these groups simply for being who they were. They merely legislated against certain actions and practices (e.g. homosexuality or pacifism) and then imprisoned people who refused to abide by their laws - just as any nation does. The difference was that the Nazis were much more brutal than most other nations. In the war, imprisonment usually meant being sent sent to a concentration camp, and that often meant that people imprisoned died. But that's very different from the attitude to Jews. They didn't imprison and then murder Jews to intimidate opposition, or to discourage practices that they had made illegal. They killed them for being Jewish. That is the distinctive feature. Pacifists and homosexuals could have changed their behaviour. Of course you can say that it was unfair to expect them to do so. True enough. Those who refused to do so were sticking to their principles. But at least they had the choice. Jews were not even allowed that. Even the Spanish Inquisition allowed them to convert. The Nazis allowed no option at all. If you were of Jewish descent, you were, by definition a "criminal" Paul B 00:23, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
To be valid for this article, the claim that "the term holocaust is usually restricted to the systematic killing of civilians whose only offense was their racial/ethnic identity" needs to be backed up by sources which state this. Otherwise, it's original research. But if some sources restrict the term holocaust this way, but others have a wider view of the term & include victims who were Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, mentally ill, etc. under the term, then WP:NPOV demands that the view represented by those sources also be represented in this article. From the dictionary definitions posted above, it appears that a significant number of sources include other civilian victims besides those targeted for their ethnicity under the definition of holocaust. --Yksin 17:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
There is in fact no rule against making such general points on talk pages. However the problem in this case is that there is no consistency in usage among historians, and many books do not explain or justify their usage. Often the word is simply used as a synonym for Final Solution, or for ethnically based murders without explicitly saying so. Some of the very earliest usages are very generalised comments, following from the earlier unspecific meaning of "overwhelming disaster", or from the earlier use of the word to refer to the Armenian genocide. This is very well documented, but it's often about historians' de facto usage rather than any explicit assertion that "The Holocaust = YXYZ, but not ABC". Hence the repeated vague statements about "Jews and others" in so many definitions. None of the dictionary definitions state which 'others' should be included. If they did, we would have a clearer sense of a specific debate locatable in specific sources. The expansion of 'lists' of victim groups partly arises from lobbying by various groups wishing to get their victimhood recognised and is therefore mostly associated with policy statements from beaurocratic sources rather than historians. The problem for this article is the tendency for some editors to add a particular group to the list, and for others to remove it. Paul B 09:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
This is why wikipedia is not a dictionary and dictionaries are of very limited use for Wikipedia. it is not a question of a dictionary definition, it is a question of usage. The article should explain who uses the word and in what way. It should document changing uses of the word. My bet is you will find that in the late 1940s/early 1950s virtually everyon used "the Holocaust" to refer to the genocidal campaign against the Jews. My guess is that by the 1970s different groups were using "The Holocuast" in other ways. We should distinguish between scholars, states, and victim's agents or advocates. I think our best sources are various Holocaust Museums, and the scholarly literature on the Holocaust. There is a huge field of Holocaust studies. It doesn't matter what we think the word means or should mean, we should be looking at how scholars and others use the word. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Well said. —Parhamr 16:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not a few. There is the widespread and justified assumption that the Holocaust includes all victims, and not selectively those that are Jewish. Why shouldn't it ! If the definition is going to be in proportion to the number of references provided, I will provide more references that properly include all victims. We can then forget altogether the baised and bigoted Jewish definition that callously disregards the deaths of millions of non-Jews. --Salom Khalitun 22:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

In Israal, Jews have an entire country as a mouthpiece for them, as well as rich lobby groups in countries such as the U.S.A.. Gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses don't. The Israeli government and Jewish groups very evidently give prominence to "their own" rather than groups such as homosexuals (who are considered as an abomination in Judaism), and Jehovah's witnesses, which is considered an alien religion by them. They know of others that were affected, but they certainly don't fuss over them, and consequently even define it as only a Jewish event. --Salom Khalitun 22:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Gypsies are a valid comparison, but Jehovah's Witnesses were not imprisoned or killed because of their identity, but because they refused to join the armed forces. It was for an act, nor for an identity. For the same reason, they also suffered from attacks in Allied countries (notably the US, Canada and Australia). Paul B 00:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I was referring above to the Cambridge English Dictionary, which properly includes all the victims. What has been done some paragraphs previously is to selectively use the "American English" Dictionary instead. Another case of the Jewish supporters going around looking for the evidence that supports them and ignoring the evidence that doesn't. There's obvious bias and motivation in people that do that. They have no interest in the facts. --Salom Khalitun 23:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can find out, there is no such thing as the "Cambridge English Dictionary". At the very least, it is not available online at the Cambridge University Press dictionary site. If you have another source in mind, by all means add it. --Stephan Schulz 23:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
That dictionary is English, as in the language, instead of the American English dictionary you provided. Adding up how many references or which people claim one or the other is ludicrous. Holocaust is simply defined differently. Some people - very wrongly or ignorantly - only include Jews. The millions of others simply don't matter to them ! Why should they care about a bunch of Gypos, faggots and cripples anyway. --Salom Khalitun 23:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Failure to provide a concrete source noted once more. --Stephan Schulz 00:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
More crap from Schulz once more. United Nations policy is more than concrete. So is Cambridge Dictionaries http://dictionary.cambridge.org/that I have already referred to. --Salom Khalitun 12:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Ummm...now you are getting incoherent. That is the very site I used above. There are two normal dictionaries there: The Advanced Learners and the American English. What is not there (or maybe I just cannot find it) is a "Cambridge English Dictionary". I've added the second definition, although I don't see how it advances your point. --Stephan Schulz 14:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
It's obvious that the Jewish contingent here have no regard for historical facts. They solely want to perpetuate their callous and bigoted disregard for anyone that isn't Jewish. That's why their reasoning is such utter crap. --Salom Khalitun 12:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Gypsies were sent to concentration camps solely for being Gypsies. Auschwitz had a Gypsy camp solely for them. But Gypsies don't matter to a lot of Jews. They only care about their own. That's why you get Jewish and Jewish influenced authors stating obviously false historical facts by including only Jews. They simply don't care about the rest. --Salom Khalitun 12:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the current score on references. Is it 6-2, 4-1, 8-0 ? Does it matter ? No ! The blunt fact is that the Jewish contingent don't care about the other victims. It's only a Jewish Holocaust to them. Anyone that supports them is devoid of humanity and morality. --Salom Khalitun 14:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think these are better references than the one's Stephan Schultz provided, with all due respect:

  • Bartov, Omer. "Antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Reinterpretations of National Socialism." In The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined, edited by Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, 79-80. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
  • Garber, Zev, and Bruce Zukerman. "Why Do We Call the Holocaust 'The Holocaust.'" Modern Judaism 9, no. 2 (1989): 197-211.
  • Tal, Uriel. "Excursus on Hermeneutical Aspects of the Term Sho'ah." Appendix to his article, "On the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide." Yad Vashem Studies 13 (1979): 7-52.
  • Tal, Uriel. "Holocaust." In Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 681. New York: Macmillan, 1990, p.1799.
  • Young, James. "Names of the Holocaust: Meaning and Consequences." Chap. 5 in Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Slrubenstein | Talk 15:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Jewish or Jewish influenced authors of books we've never heard of ! Of course Jewish authors will exclude all non-Jews. They don't care about anyone else. Their racial bigotry is as bad as that of the Nazi perpetrators. --Salom Khalitun 15:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment

I just filed on against User:Salom Khalitun here. Would other people comment? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'll comment. You have no rational arguements with which to continue with a bigoted definition of Holocaust, so you initiate personal attacks. You've already initiated personal abuse against me, which will be pointed out in response. Obviously one rule for you and another rule for others ! --Salom Khalitun 15:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Rubenstein has already been personally very abusive and offensive. He has no shame. :*you....are a racist anti-Semite. But as you are a racist you are probably incapable of logical thought. At this point I see no reason to continue responding to a blatant anti-semite. The discussion is over. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Most of my friends are Jewish !!! --Salom Khalitun 15:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it is all over now. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Appears to be part of this. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


Holocaust definitions

There is an extremely thorough and referenced assessment of the definition of the word Holocaust that takes takes account of hundreds of references in different countries and different eras : http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/

Its findings do not concur with the definition of "Holocaust" in the Wikipedia article. It confirms that there are a vast range of definitions of Holocaust depending on when and where they were given and by whom.

It points out, as does the Wikipedia article, that Jewish sources usually define the Holocaust as being only Jewish. However, it is very apparent from the assessment that the Jewish only definitions are not even in the majority.

It is very well established historical fact that the Holocaust involved groups of people that were not Jewish. The rest of the Wikipedia article, apart from the definition concurs with this. So there is an inconsistency between the opening definition and the rest of the article.

If the Holocaust only concerned "six million European Jews" as the opening definition claims, then the rest of the text should be consistent with this and should exclude other minorities. More properly, as there were undoubtedly millions of non-Jewish victims, the definition should be altered to account for them.

This inconsistency could be corrected by inserting "and other minorities" after "...six million European Jews..." in the first paragraph. The second paragraph already details who these other minorities were.

The fact detailed in paragraph 2 that most Jewish authors, and some non-Jewish authors do not include non-Jews in their definition is still relevant, as it will help the reader to understand the very differing definitions. --Prof Fiferman 14:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I know this article very well. It was extensively discussed (see Talk:The Holocaust/Archive 15 sections 15 and 16) along with other sources. But despite the overwhelming evidence it contains, all attempts to refer to it were reverted. I must admit, the experience shocked me. However, the evidence is covered in Names of the Holocaust. Nevertheless, it is important not to get two separate issues confused. The fact that the word 'holocaust' was widely used for disasters, conflagrations and mass killings before WW2 and after is quite distinct from two other questions: viz:
  • 1. which groups should be referred to when we speak of The Holocaust in the specific context of WW2?
  • 2. when is the word 'holocaust' is being used to make a specific comparision between Nazi mass murder and any other real or alleged mass murder?
However the fact that the term "Holocaust" was most notably applied repeatedly to the Armenian genocide in the 1920s is indisputable. Paul B 14:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Fiferman has been blocked - please learn to recognize Khalitun's sock-puppets ... and ignore them. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of "Khaliton", who I have never come across before. By what magical means is one supposed to learn to recognise his sockpuppets on the basis of a single posting? Paul B 10:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I see. You mean User:Salom Khalitun. Still, same applies. Paul B 10:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If someone writes in the same style to make exactly the same point, and you discover that the user only registered when Salom Khalitun was blocked, then you may not have enough evidence to accuse him/her of being a sock-puppet but I do think you have enough reasonable cause to ignore him. Of course it is entirely up to you. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it is. He may be a jerk (well, to be frank, he is), but AGF still applies Paul B 23:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
You're the jerk Barlow. All you are doing is stating odd facts and not following them up. The Jewish definition of Holocaust remains and you - just like the wimp you are - go along with it. This is despoite most non-Jewish definitions including all of the victims and not just those that were Jewish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by XXX7645 (talk • contribs) 12:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

See, Paul, I am sure the above unsigned statemente is Khalitun. You and I have disaagreed, but only he would call you a jerk like that! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is called The Holocaust, not a holocaust. Dictionary term of holocaust does not apply, although when you look in most dictionaries, they do enclude "The Holocaust" as this article represents. It's like ...umm, you know, a proper noun. A specific event during WWII. Pfft! - Jeeny Talk 05:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Prof F's writing style wasn't like Khalitun's and there are thousands of people who will come and read and comment on this page. I watched a program on National Geographic channel about The Holocaust and for the first time in my 44 years on this planet did I find out that Jehovah Witnesses, gays and Soviet prisoners were killed in those camps. Up to this point I thought it only Jewish peoples. There is plenty of evidence available showing The Holocaust is defined as multiple groups of people and to not fully describe the other groups which amount to 5 million souls is a violation of the WP:NPOV Calling people anti-semite because they disagree with your viewpoint is also a violation of WP:CIV and can get you banned. Assuming everyone who come here to comment is a sockpuppet also is a violation of WP:FAITH. Please don't make the remark I am just another sock puppet of Khalitun... 2nd definition from Google after the Wikipedia entry clearly states "the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews" while the first sentence in this article does not reference those other victims. This is clearly a violation of WP:NPOV and must be remedied. Honor those victims in the first sentence please. Alatari 12:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

"The use of the word in this wider sense is objected to by many Jewish organizations"...'Jewish organizations say that the word in its current sense was originally coined to describe the extermination of the Jews, and that the Jewish Holocaust was a crime on such a scale, and of such specificity, as the culmination of the long history of European antisemitism, that it should not be subsumed into a general category with the other crimes of the Nazis."

What Jewish organizations? There are no references. dsgoen 12:25, 21 September 2007. Also,
"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, and "African Holocaust" is used to describe the slave trade and the colonization of Africa, also known as the Maafa."
Disputed by whom? What is the point of this dispute? This is all over who can claim the definition of a word? I'm sorry, but I'm finding this who discussion disagreeable on all sides. The name calling is juvenile, ranging from the "racist" attacks by Khalutin to the "sock puppet" comments of Slrubenstein. I look to encyclopedia entries for fact, not opinion. There is certainly room for opinion, just not in encyclopedia articles. Word meaning is subject to change, as the article properly notes, so why the fight about the evolution of the term to include others? This wider usage is a tacit acknowledgment of the success of the term in naming an unspeakable atrocity. If the Albanians want to use it to describe that horror, how does that negate anything for the Jewish contingent? Let me give a supporting example: Up until the late 1930s, the term "world war" was adequate. "World War II" is a reflection of the need to expand the definition of the term "world war."
Perhaps it is time to refer to "The Holocaust" as "The Jewish Holocaust." This is specificity, not racism. The article already refers to the "Rwandan" and "Cambodian" holocausts, so this would not be out of character to what is already contained in the article.
I agree that "The Holocaust" has, in the past, specifically referred to the Jewish part of the Nazi practice of genocide. I do believe, however, that it is time to explicitly reference the other half of the people killed in the same camps by the same people. To do otherwise gives the false impression that the killings were only about the Jews. Remember, it is not experts of the Holocaust who end up here on this article, it is mostly people researching the subject for the first time. Putting it all in contact in the first paragraph helps students understand that the total death toll was considerably higher, and also to give notice as to why the Jewish part of the Nazi's actions was, perhaps, different from the other people's involved. Referring to that aspect as "The Jewish Holocaust," or even reverting to Shoah (which is how I got here in the first place, as I was checking the spelling of that word)as the proper term gives definition to the specific acts of "the Final Solution." dsgoen 12:25, 21 September 2007.
In general I find your suggestions aboiut sources constructive. I did not write the passages you refer to, and agree that if they are accurate there should be sources. I also agree it is important that the article document changing usage, again with sources. As with many Wikipedia articles, i suspect that most of the problems you point out have to do with several people making small edits at different times, independently. As to calling this "the Jewish holocause," however, I would ask youw own question: what is the source? If we can find sources that show (as I think the article already does) that different people use the phrase "the Holocaust" differently, then it is reasonable for the article to say so. Are there notable sources that refer specifically to a "Jewish Holocaust?" I do not know of any but it wouldn't shock me if they do and if you know they exist, well, just provide the sources. About your claim, "I do believe, however, that it is time to explicitly reference the other half of the people killed in the same camps by the same people" however, I disagree. first, the article most edfinitely acknowledges the deaths of other people in the camps already; it has a section devoted exclusively to non-Jewish victims, and links to I think thirteen other articles on the murder of non-Jews in the camps and by Nazis. Second, I do not think any scholar uses Holocaust to refer to any death caused by the Nazis. The Nazis killed different people for different reasons and using different methods and often times these distinctions are important for historians and scholars of the Holocaust and we need to acknowledge that. And I have to ask, why do you say "it is time?" Are you suggesting that up until now it was not time, or that there are people who do not believe it is time to acknowledge the murder of others? Who exactly are you referring to? Because I know major Jewish organization and Holocaust museums have acknowledged the deaths of others. Are you claiming they have not? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not claiming anything, I was suggesting that the term "Holocaust" be more clearly defined. However, you are entirely right to point out that this would be something of a neologism on my part, and, as so, I retract the idea.
As a parent, and the spouse of an ex-teacher, I'm just too well aware that students make too many assumptions, hence the need to explicitly state what is meant or is not meant by the term. By "it is time," I am simply suggesting that the meaning of the term has become somewhat clouded over time by the naming of other "Holocausts" and that "it is time" to take that into account and make it explicit to students that there was the murder of some 11 million people during this period. Some include this as part of the definition of the Holocaust, and other's clearly do not. I just think that that distinction should be made clearly right up front. WE know that others were killed. The Jewish organizations and Holocaust museums have, to my knowledge, all clearly acknowledged that others were killed. But you would probably be surprised what young students take away from texts.
If the term "six million" deaths is used to delineate the Jewish deaths, then all too many students will come away with the idea that this was a total of the entire Nazi murders, not the much larger number who perished, even if the article does only attribute this number to the Jewish victims. Just ask of any group of non-Jewish people (I believe that the Jews are more informed on this topic as it so directly affected them, and symbolizes a history of persecution) about how many people perished in the Nazi death camps, and you'll probably get the "six million" number more than any other. The non-Jews are left out, not for a purposeful reason, but simply by inadequate knowledge of the period. You want an example of inadequate knowledge (or wholesale ignorance of the most appalling sort)? Ask how many Americans can tell you about the Armenian Genocide in the twentieth century? Most Americans don't seem to know that it even happened. If I may coin my own aphorism here: History is too important to leave it the average person.
The Holocaust, for better or for worse, has become equated with the Nazi death camps in general, not just the Jewish part of the affected population. If is, partly, because there is no specific term (for which I am aware) for the other victims. By default, then, Holocaust has come to mean the totality of the victims, not just the Jews. Thus the beginning of the article should differentiate between the totality of the event and the specific question of what the Jews faced.
You read carefully and critically. Unfortunately, all too many psychological studies have shown that many students are not even developed enough to read critically and carefully. Hence the need to make explicit what is implicit. I know that sucks, but that's the state of many students, and I think that this topic is much too important to allow anyone to come to erroneous conclusions when it is a simple matter to make such matter explicit, albeit redundant.dsgoen 2:59, 21 September 2007.

Non-neutral article

This article doesn't give proper weight to alternative views. Many scholars are skeptical of the "6 million" figure, some question whether the "Holocaust" actually occurred at all. This article is regurgitating what the liberal media have been shoving down our throats for decades now: that what is written now is the "mainstream" scientific point of view. Anyone who questions it is immediately labeled an "anti-semite" and cast aside, and that's what seems to be happening in this article. There is nothing more than a link to "Holocaust denial" at the end of the page. There is complete disregard for the countless scholarly studies that challenge the mainstream orthodoxy. As it is, this is the most biased article on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.191.59.201 (talk) 05:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. It is not POV to give undue weight to holocaust deniers, all of whom are antisemites. The only reason for holocaust denial is to justify antisemitism in some way, shape or form. There is nothing scholarly about the practice.--SefringleTalk 05:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
DNFTT. --Stephan Schulz 05:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Folks, don't you know that these statements by anonymous users are just Khaliton trying to get around his being blocked? My advice is this: if an anonymous user posts a comment that amounts to Salom Khalitun's point, just ignore it. He has been blocked and if you respond to him you are in effect undoing the block. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The anonymous edit was not me or anything to do with me. The anonymous editor is entirely inconsistent with what I had written. It is obvious from what I had written that I fully believe that the Holocaust took place. It is sheer stupidity and delusion to believe otherwise. Prof Fiferman was not me either. I asked him to respond as he knows more about the subject than I do. You are using personal abuse and bogus claims of sockpuppetry to try to shut up anything that opposes what you want to believe. The prevalent view of the definition of Holocaust is clearly that it is not Jewish only. The detailed review added by Prof Fiferman (who is Jewish !) conclusively prooves that. If you had any self respect you'd respond to the evidence provided. You obviously can't, and so instead want to impose your Jewish only view of the Holocaust, when millions that were not Jewish were affected. It is obvious that your concerns are only with the Jewish victims. You have a callous disregard for the other victims. You are as bad as the Holocaust deniers but at the opposite extreme. Paul B is approaching this very objectively. However, I'm not surprised at all that Paul B has seen his previous attempts at providing cogent evidence constantly reverted. There are unfortunately many people like you on Wikipedia that have little regard for the facts and that instead use any means possible to try to impose false versions of events to suit their own prejudices. --Salom Khalitun 2 14:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by XXX7645 (talk • contribs)


Hello. I'm not Salom, nor any of his friends. I'm a Pole living in the US and have stumbled upon this discussion while researching the Polish defense campaign in 1939. I do agree with Salom, however, that whenever the subject of Holocaust is brought up, the discussion is almost always limited to the extermination of Jews. This is very surprising to me and I have encountered this phenomenon only after I moved to the US. Prior to this, when I lived in Europe, I recall remembrances of the Nazi WWII extermination of non-Aryans (including Jews, of course) as having a somewhat different meaning -- they were inclusive and not contentious. Perhaps because we lived through this tragedy, we have felt no need to engage in such debates? I don't know. But please follow this link and the sources it lists for another view of the Holocaust victims: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_of_the_Polish_citizens_by_the_occupiers#Casualties—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.238.94.153 (talk • contribs)

Anonymous user, I do not understand your point. You provide a link that does one thing - demonstrates that Wikipedia does provide converage of Nazi murder of Poles - and fails to do another thing - demonstrate that Poles, at least in the aftermath of WWII, refered to the murder of non-Jewish Poles as "the Holocuast." When Jews refer to "the" Holocaust, they are referring to the Nazi genocidal campaign against the Jews. There are verifiable sources of this practice dating to at least the early 1950s. The question is, who else uses this word, and how. Are you saying that in the 1950s Poles were using the greek word, Holocaust, to refer to Nazi murder of Poles? Well, I am not dismissing you, but what is your source, and we can include that. Of course, the fact that Jews use the words "The Holocaust" does not mean they are dismissive of horrible crimes against others. Moreover, this article has a section on the murder of non-jews, and links to at least a dozen other articles on nazi murder of different groups. So I do not see the relevance of your link to the article. What in the article would you change? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think the article is pretty neutral. It's a good article, kudos to all you guysTicklemygrits 10:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Strange Map

The map in the article showing numbers of ghettos (by administrative unit? by, not sure what) seems awfully strange. [[23]] The borders don't correspond to either modern or contemporary borders. The use of solid colors (chloropeth) is misleading (poor mapmaking) to show numeric data. There is no sense of the scale of each ghetto. Each arrow is the same width; the reader will interpret their lengths to be in proportion to their human scale (which is not true). It is not clear which ghettos have and which have not been counted, etc, etc. Would there be objection to looking for a replacement? Jd2718 00:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Change Request

{{editprotected}} The request is about the last sentence in the second paragraph of the article "The Holocaust". Here is the sentence:

"Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll rises considerably: estimates generally place the total number of victims at nine to 11 million.[6]"

I request this sentence be changed to: "Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll is estimated at between 9 and 11 million people.[6]"

Reasons for request: The main reason to get rid of the word "considerably". Why? The death toll rose. There is no need to supply an adverb to describe how it rose. The numbers speak for themselves.

If one had to include an adverb to describe the rise, "considerably" is a very bad choice. It trivializes the statement that 3 to 5 million more people died.

Secondary reason - to simplify the sentence, which is unnecessarily wordy. Thank you. Wanderer57 02:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. I left out the "people" as redundant, as the context makes it clear.--Stephan Schulz 03:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you.Wanderer57 17:00, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Non-Jewish Resistance

The section about Jewish Resistance is well written. Will someone please research and add information about other resisters who were not Jewish? There were certainly plenty of them, and if this article is truly encyclopedic their information would be included as well. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.182.51.67 (talk) 18:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

No need for total censorship, but...

For god's sake, was that "corpses" picture necessary? I feel sick, in the stomach and the head...I say we get rid of it. 172.189.124.183 20:17, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

However, Wikipedia is not censored. It is something to be expected at an article like this. Reginmund 20:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Regimund as unpleasant as it is.Joel Mc 10:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes it is necessary. Because seeing is believing. Just imagine if you were there, and saw that. Or you were one of "them". My father helped liberate Dachau, and he was never the same since. It was/is horrible. In these types of articles it is very necessary to provide photos to show the true horror that words cannot describe. I know it's sickening, but that's what it was, and words alone cannot portray the pure horror of the Holocaust. Have you ever been to the Holocaust Museum? If not, this is the best you'll get to understand. I have been, and the words my father told me while I was growing up did not register as much as seeing the images had when we went together and told me the stories again. He witnessed it, he experienced it. The images help convey this horrible time in history than any words could not describe. "A picture is worth a thousand words". So true, isn't it? Yes it is sickening. That's the point. Sorry about how you it made you feel, as I understand. There are some things I don't want to know, or especially to see. But, reality is real. Ugh. :( Jeeny 10:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I felt sick when I saw the corpses picture, but I understand your reasoning for keeping it here. As vile as it is, pictures are worth 1,000 words, as you said. James17Australia 00:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You should feel sick from seeing that picture, for this is one of the sickest events in human history we are talking about. I can understand your point, however not only is Wikipedia NOT censored, The Holocaust should not be censored either. -anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.116.238 (talk) 05:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Jasenovic figures

There is such a discrepency between the two figures, both reported by reputable organizations, perhaps it would be good to indicate that. The Holocaust Encyclopedia has a good little discussion of the problem of getting accurate figures. Joel Mc 16:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Let speak about numbers which are on english wikipedia. Data of 600,000 victims in Jasenovac from Yad Vashem is false because you will find in article Genocide denial that this centar claim 600,000 victims in Jasenovac camp and 500,000 victims in all Independent state of Croatia which is simple not possible. In support of this claim is census of Bosnia and Herzegovina where between 1931 and 1948 number of Serbs has gone up from 1,028,139 to 1,136,116 which is simple not possible if 600,000 Serbs are killed in Jasenovac (On wiki we are not having census of Croatia in 1931 and 1948). Maybe Holocaust Encyclopedia is having to low number of people killed in Jasenovac (between 53,000 and 96,000) because 53,000 is really to low but number of 330,000-390,000 victims for all teritory of Independent state of Croatia is OK. Rjecina 02:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
The number of dead wasn't just from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there is a large gap between 1931 and 1941. The census wasn't fully conducted due to the war. For example, an estimate is that there were almost 1.3 million Serbs on the territory of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1941. Which means that the number decreased, rather. And the first figure includes only Orthodox Serbs, the latter some Muslims too, which means that the Orthodox figure is lower (next to the gap between 1945 and 1948). --PaxEquilibrium 12:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Höfle Telegram sent to Adolf Eichmann

The picture description states:

The Nazis methodically tracked the progress of the Holocaust in thousands of reports and documents. Pictured is the Höfle Telegram sent to Adolf Eichmann in January, 1943, that reported that 1,274,166 Jews had been killed in the four Aktion Reinhard camps during 1942.

But translation doesn't specifically says Jews but shows number of executions in camps. Is there another part of the telegram that specifically states 1,274,166 Jews had been executed? If not, how is the ethnicity of the victims established?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.236.46.118 (talk) 08:52, 1 October 2007

You're kidding right? OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 16:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick-failed "good article" nomination

I have quick-failed this article per the GA criteria as it is obviously unstable, major changes and disputes between good-faith contributors take place on a near-weekly basis. If a detailed list of items to improve upon per the criteria and the Manual of Style is still desired, contact me and I would be happy to provide one. If stability can demonstrated, then feel free to renominate this article. If you feel this review is in error, you are welcome to intiate a reassessment. Thank you for your work so far. VanTucky Talk 21:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see any of the QF criteria as applying. Can you be more specific? The one your comments seem to hint at is the "recent ongoing edit wars" - but the article has about 3-5 edits per day, and some of this petty vandalism and reverting of same. This is not an edit war. If one compares the first version from September with the current version, nearly all of the differences are maintenance (link fixed, improved references, spelling, interwiki), and only the (minor) D-Day issue is substantial. For me, this looks very stable. --Stephan Schulz 21:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
An out-and-out revert war is not the only possibly definition of instability. Looking at the edit history of this article, I do not see one that changes little in substantial content from day to day and is not the subject to serious objections by users. Again, there are many other areas of the GA criteria where the article needs major improvement, if you like I can provide a complete review. VanTucky Talk 21:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, maybe we read different reviewing pages. QF4 reads "The article has been the subject of recent ongoing edit wars". And I really don't even see any particular instability. The article was recently protected due to POV-pushing by a single editor, however, this has stopped and the editor has been permablocked for disruption and WP:NPA violations. Yes, I would like to see a full review. I would also take it to reassessment, but I want to understand your opinion first. --Stephan Schulz 23:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
VanTucky, I watch this article regularly, and I would say that there is rarely any edit-warring except when a Denialist (Denier?) enters the fray. I reverted an edit this morning, saying it was good faith, but when I went to look at the name of the editor, I realized it was Adolf. Not sure I should have given good faith. Otherwise, this article is much more stable than say Intelligent design, and that article is FA. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I have placed a more detailed review below. As you can see, stability is not my only objection. VanTucky Talk 23:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of October 3, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: The article is reasonably well-written, but is not entirely compliant with the Manual of Style and good encyclopedic writing. A few examples of issues to be fixed are:
  • The "Lucy S. Dawidowicz" sentence in Jewish victims is an example of two problems present. First, self-referential material is unencyclopedic and should not be included. Second, single-sentence paragraphs are undesirable. The layout of Jewish victims is pretty incomprehensible, and makes it extremely hard to discern what the most verifiable stats are.
  • Many sections do not have decent intros or transitions, making the change and interconnectivity of the topics jolting.
  • A quotation of less than four lines should never be in blockquote format.
2. Factually accurate?: While the sheer amount of references present is impressive, the article still suffers from a common problem: a lack of comprehensive inline citations. The bare minimum is one at the end of each paragraph and for quotations. Ideally, and especially for controversial topics such as this one, a direct citation for any fact likely to be challenged is desirable per WP:V. Sections lacking sufficient basic sourcing as I just defined include:
  • Etymology
  • Jewish victims
  • Increasing persecution and pogroms (1938–1942)
  • Early measures in Poland, Concentration and labor camps (1933–1945)
  • Ghettos (1940–1945)
  • Death squads (1941–1943)
  • Wannsee Conference and the final solution (1942–1945)
  • Extermination camps
  • Jewish resistance
  • and Climax
3. Broad in coverage?: This one is prima facie evident.
4. Neutral point of view?: Though in general, the article is an exemplar of neutrality, I do see some obviously troubling spots. The first paragraph of Jewish resistance sounds like it's trying to defend Jews from accusations of apathy. This may just be a product of bad writing in an attempt to define what really constituted resistance, but it doesn't read neutrally. But in general, the article is really great at giving fair treatment to subjects covered. However, the other half of neutrality is giving space for the representation of all significant views. Sadly, the denial of the Holocaust is a significant view in terms of the amount of published news and source material devoted to it. Obviously, there is not enough space in this article to deal with all the quackery associated with this subject, but a small mention of the existence of deniers, and a simple {{mainarticle}} link is necessary in order to represent all views and achieve good neutrality.
5. Article stability? My feelings are made clear by the above.
6. Images?: While plenty of good images are present and accounted for with licenses, there are major issues with their use per the guidelines of WP:MOS#Images.
  • Images are often stacked in a line on top of one another. This is discouraged by WP:MoS#Images as being crowded and unattractive. The most egregious violation is from the Wannsee Conference to Gas chambers. If there isn't room for an image without violating this guideline, then an additional image doesn't belong.
  • Images often "sandwich" the text, meaning that two images on either side of a passage constrict the text making it hard to read. Left-right orientation does not mean an image on the left and the right for every section.
  • Captions are for describing the content of an image, not edification of encyclopedic content. There are several instances of excessively long captions.

Final comments: As you can see, stability is not the only issue with this article. I haven't even done a complete MoS review for minor grammar and punctuation. In my estimation, these changes would have taken longer than the maximum hold period of a week, so there was no point in placing the article on hold.

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a Good article reassessment. Thank you for your work so far. — VanTucky Talk 23:42, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks VanTucky. That helps in cleaning up this article. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
VanTucky's point 4, above, is something I raised quite a while ago. I think that over-reliance on a single source (Berenbaum) gave that source's voice (including what VanTucky mentions) too much weight in the article.

While he doesn't raise it, the overall organization (neither geographic nor chronological, but almost a plot analysis from opening to climax) deserves some discussion. SV and Crum rewrote the article wholesale last spring, with little input (it would seem) from other editors. I think serious, sober discussion is in order. Jd2718 00:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I am relatively new to this particular article. I try to stay out of articles where I have a deeply personal interest (for example, I'm an ex-US Navy Officer, and I rarely edit US Navy articles, and I have relatives who died in the Holocaust, so I have stayed away from this one), but I think some serious editors need to get behind it. I was actually shocked that it was not FA, as it should be. I'm willing to help--one of my better skills is to review and clean up citations. I'm a stickler for primary sources (or good secondary review sources), cleanly formatted citations, and that type of issues. I think with many editors (not casting aspersions to SV and Crum, because they may have cleaned up a POV mess) can help get this going. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 00:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I did not mean to cast aspersions on the roles of SV and Crum; they greatly improved the article. But I do think that wider involvement would be a positive thing. Ironically, despite my role in removing Normandy, I do think that the article suffers from almost no sense of timeline and almost no sense of geography. I mentioned above what I feel is overreliance on one source, but others may disagree. Finally, I note that anecdotes are used as illustrations, almost as references; this 'feels' wrong. That being said, this article is not so terribly far away. VanTucky has an incomplete list; it provides a starting point. Jd2718 01:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm new to Wikipedia. Tell me please, what sort of at least semi-orderly approach to revision of an article such as this is possible within the framework of Wikipedia. (is this the right place for discussion of the question I'm asking?) Wanderer57 03:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
If we want to take this thing to Good Article and Featured Article status, we would need to follow Wikipedia's manual of style along with following some basic precepts like neutral point of view, using reliable sources, avoid giving undue weight to fringe theories or Holocaust deniers. Otherwise, be bold and make some edits. I think some of the comments above are also helpful. We need to stick to a general timeline to make the article flow. I'd start with the lead which should be 3-4 paragraphs that outline what we're attempting. I'd say, but I'm not an expert, that the lead have four general paragraphs--what is the Holocaust, general timeline, the numbers (I don't know how to say it right), and the consequences. Once we figure out the lead, I think the article will fall together quite nicely. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
You're right about the length and content that should be included Orange. But also remember that the fundamental definition of a good lead is a concise overview of the article. VanTucky Talk 18:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-Jewish Victims Table

I've just tagged the section "Non-Jewish victims" and some entries in the table with "need of attention" tags. For more information, see below. --Dna-Dennis 22:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Ukrainian discrepancy

The table beside the section "Non-Jewish victims" states that

The footnote on the page World War II Casualties (footnote: World War II casualties#endnote USSR) states that

  • Ukrainas total military & civilian toll were 6,850,000 million, and
  • Soviet Union's total toll of Nazi genocide and reprisals was 7.1 million, and
  • Soviet Union's total Jewish toll was 1 million

So, we have a rather large confusion here, and a serious discrepancy. What we need to establish is:

  • How many Ukrainians were killed during the Holocaust?
  • How many of these were Jews?

We can't have a table here which exaggerates the Ukraine figures (unless it's correct), and the table figures can't include Jews, if it's put at the section "Non-Jewish victims". I'll be thankful for an answer here and/or on my talk page, since I am working on new graphic items for Wikipedia regarding the Holocaust. My regards, --Dna-Dennis 16:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

All these references to Ukraine have been added in the last 2 days by user:Mona23653, whose edits elsewhere have also evidently been disputed. I see she has also recently added the unsourced claim that 5 million Ukrainians died in the Holocaust. Hyping Ukrainisn victimhood seems to be part of a nationalistic movement [24] Paul B 17:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I am unable to find the references given by user:Mona23653 aka Adolf23653, i.e. Kanigin, Yuri. The Beginning and End of the Worlds". Googled both author and title, and looked at Library of Congress class, as well as IBSN. No sign. In any case I do think that we need to be careful to include in this section only those who were targeted because they were members of national, ethnical, racial or religious groups (or Gays). Tragically, millions of Ukranians died, but I know of no evidence that they were individually targeted. Civilian casualities terrible as they are don't belong in the Holocaust statistics (after all we don't include the tens of thousands that died in the Blitz). As far as we know, the Germans did not recruit any Jews, Sinti, Roma, or Gays to be "assistants" to the Einsatzgruppen.Joel Mc 18:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Couldn't agree more. All casualties are tragic, but Holocaust figures IMO should only include targeted victims. Regards, --Dna-Dennis 19:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
In 1939 the Ukrainian population increased by 10 million due mostly to territory annexed from Poland and Rumania. The Poles consider the losses in the western Ukraine as "Polish" and include about 2 million deaths in the Ukraine, Belarus & Lithunia in the Polish total of 5 million war dead. The Soviets also include these 2 million in their total of 26.6 million war dead. To avoid duplication you need to make the call, are these folks Polish, Soviet or Ukrainian? No matter what you do some people will disagree with you. In any case you must make that call in order to avoid duplication. The Soviet era statistic for the entire Ukraine was 6.8 million dead including 1.6 million military. 4/5 were from the 1939 Ukraine and 1/5 from the annexed territories if you pro rate the population--Woogie10w 00:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
The key points to remember are that the Soviet/Russian statistic of 6.8 million Ukrainian war dead includes about 1.6 million soldiers, 1/5 of the 6.8 million are from annexed territories(already included with Polish-Rumanian war dead) and about 10% of the total were Jews. To arrive at the the figure of ethnic Ukrainian Holocaust dead is a bit tricky.--Woogie10w 11:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
We have whittled the number down to 3.7 million non Jewish civilian dead in the 1939 borders of the Ukraine. Within that number are Ukrainians in the ranks of the German Army and victims of Soviet repression. This is tricky indeed.--Woogie10w 11:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I did some research, and for the record the ISBN of Yuri M. Kanigin, "The beginning and End of Times", is ISBN 966-319-098-1. This book is originally published in Russian, translated to Ukrainian among other languages. Other citaions, such as that of the newspaper articles of The Globe and Mail, given by Mona23653 actually do state, that millions of Ukrainians have perrished from nazi genocidal policies. Ex. Kyiv, and other cities were purposely blockaded, to starve out the population. You should consider those sources too, before actually removing cited information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.59.248 (talk) 23:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, i obviously agree with the previous comment. the book exists in the first place. Saying the numbers of dead Ukrainians are made up by nationalists, is just like saying that the Holocaust was made up by Jews, and it wasn't. Neither was the genocide against Ukrainians. Soviet regime, which is known to be anti- Ukrainian, admits that over 20 million people living on the Soviet territory, died, and more than half of these being Ukrainians. Estimates from some sources, which i gave before, of dead Ukrainians were from 6-11 million, some even make it as high as 14 million. Hitler did intend to destroy both them, and their religion. This has been prooved a million times. If you doubt anything of what I just wrote, paste it in this discussion, please, and the proper information will be posted afterwards in the article, after all the issues become clarified. Mona23653 22:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)mona23653

Blockading cities "to starve out the population" is a military tactic that has been used since ancient times. It's not an aspect of genocidal policies. And saying that numbers of dead Ukainians has been "made up by nationalists" is not the same as saying that "the Holocaust waas made up by Jews". No one is denying that large numbers Ukrainians died. What is being denied is that their deaths were organised mass murders. The debate in this section makes it clear that Ukrainians were not singled out by the Nazis for eliminaton just because they were Ukrainian. I'm not sure what the relevance of your point about religion is. Paul B 15:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The Germans bragged in their 1943 newsreel propaganda that the home front had plenty of food compared to 1914-18. The newsreel footage had statistics of the food looted from the Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians were deported to Germany as forced laborers and Hitler's scorched earth policy caused hardship after the war. About 4 million non-Jewish Ukrainian civilians(out of 40 million,10%) died as a result. This cannot be compared to the Jewish Holocaust where 90% died --Woogie10w 16:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

(Mona's entry copied from below from Definition of Holocaust):
OKay, Is there any reason you remove specifically Ukrainians, yet you leave Sinti Roma, Poles, and other non=- Jewish victims? If you're going to remove non-- Jewish victims, then remove all of them. Otherwise, the Ukrainian victim paragraph, and the note on the table should be restored. Mona23653 14:15, 24 October 2007 (UTC)mona23653

First of all, I see no problem with having an "Ukrainian" entry, if that entry is reasonably well documented and includes Ukrainian non-Jewish, non-Soviet, non-Polish, deliberately ideologically targeted victims of Nazi persecution. To me, it's as easy as that. But as it stands now, your previously claimed figures of e.g. 6-11 million is obviously disputed by me and others above. As others have pointed out, it obviously seems to be quite complicated; (1) Who is what, and who was targeted by Nazis for pure ideological reasons? - as Woogie10w pointed out: "To avoid duplication you need to make the call, are these folks Polish, Soviet or Ukrainian?" (2) Who was deliberately targeted? - as Joel Mc pointed out: we can't include all civilian casualties, we don't include victims of The Blitz. And the issue is certainly not about total war dead. And Paul B pointed out: where they targeted just because they were Ukrainian? I would be very happy to get further enlightened concerning the Ukraine matters, but until we have something which is reasonably accountable, avoiding "duplicated" victims, we can't simply bluntly put in a giant Ukraine figure in this article. My regards, --Dna-Dennis 18:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, what are Soviet victims? I never knew there was such anationality as Soviet. At that time, practically all the Ukrainians were either citizens of Poland or the Sobiet Union. Soviet meant Ukrainian, Russian, or Belorussian. And most of the controlled Soviet terriotory by Germans was in fact Ukraine, Belorussia, and a little of Russia. You can see the Kiev Museum of the Great Patriotic War. YOu can also see that the deportation of a couple of million people to work as slaves was in fact racially based. Notice how these deportations weren't people deported from Austria, but Ukraine, Poland, and other slavic countries. Let's face it. There was a genocide against UKrainians, as there was against all slavs. The Germans were against everything Ukrainian, from the Greek Catholic Church, to the arrest of Bandera, and the education too. They intended to reduce population by 66%. This was supposed to be part of the Lebensraum plan. If acting on an intent to wipe out 66% of population isn't genocide, I don't know what is. Mona23653 14:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)mona23653

But Mona your post of 6.8 million war dead for the Ukraine includes 1.6 million military and 1 million Jews counted with Jewish Holocaust losses. Then there is the problem that Poland also counts 1.4 million war dead in the western Ukraine in their losses. This is a tricky reconciliation, we need to check our numbers before making a post --Woogie10w 16:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

See,closer to around 10 million, 6.8 million being the least estimate. Okay, so let's take something in between- 8.5 million. Out of those, 2 million are military, and Jews. What about the remaining 6 million?Mona23653 14:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)mona23653

Polish discrepancy

Aargh... the Non-Jewish table is in such a mess. Now it states 200,000+ Polish victims, and this number seemed low to me, even though the ref states only camp deaths are counted. Therefore I checked with Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles which states

Some three million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war, over two million of whom were ethnic Poles (the remainder being mainly ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians). The vast majority of those killed were civilians, mostly massacred during special-action operations of Nazi Germany.

using e.g. this source: Poland WWII casualties.

Aargh, how should we encounter this? Should we state:

  • 200,000+ (with proper ref notes), or
  • 200,000 - 2 million (with proper ref notes)

or something else? And again, the figure should naturally exclude Jewish Poles.

My regards, --Dna-Dennis 19:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The demographic loss of 2 million non jewish Poles in the war has never been explained in detail. We do know that 100,000 died in the military and that about 200,000 in the Warsaw uprising. The Soviets deported at least 800,000 ethnic Poles and up 300,000 may have perished. During the war the Ukrainian UPA masacred about 100,000 Poles. Those figures add up to 700,000. The remaining 1.3 million died directly or indirectly as the result of the German occupation. Hungar and disease took its toll due to German confiscations of food. Millions were rounded up and sent to work in Germany and the shooting of hostages was commonplace. We do not have an accurate statistical breakout of these 2.0 million victims of the German and Soviet occupation.

The 1947 Polish government report claimed 3.2 million non jewish dead but never provided the details of how the number was derived. The respected Polish historians K. Kersten and C. Luzak have recently(1994)shown that the original Polish figure of 6 million war dead overstated war losses by about 1 million because the ethnic Poles that remained in the USSR were counted as dead. In 1947 they had to rely on the word of the Soviets that all Poles were repatriated.--Woogie10w 01:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

A possible solution? : One reasonable solution could be to use the qualifier Ethnic Poles, Ukrainians & Belarusians. In this way we may avoid parts of the discrepancy problems described above. But if so, what estimate should be used? 2.5 - 3 million? Any opinions on this suggestion? My regards, --Dna-Dennis 08:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Serbian discrepancy

The Serbs figure in the table now bluntly states 600,000.

This problem seems to be understandable, since the article Jasenovac concentration camp illuminates that there are obvious problems with the numbers. That article states (partly) in conjunction with United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM link (Part V) :

"Due to differing views and lack of documentation, estimates for the number of Serbian victims in Croatia range widely, from 25,000 to more than one million. The estimated number of Serbs killed in Jasenovac ranges from 25,000 to 700,000. The most reliable figures place the number of Serbs killed by the Ustaša between 330,000 and 390,000, with 45,000 to 52,000 Serbs murdered in Jasenovac."

So, how should we address the matter in the table? We could either state

  • Serbs: 25,000 - 1 million, or
  • Serbs: 25,000 - 700,000 (ref to Jasenovac only), or
  • Serbs: 330,000 - 390,000 (?)

or another suitable wording of the estimate. Anyway, just bluntly stating 600,000 is quite misleading.

We should also keep in mind that a high figure (100,000+) sensibly justifies an own section regarding this matter, along with the Soviet POWs, Roma, Disabled etc.

Any ideas on how to address this matter? And just a note: any figure will apparently include Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croats, and this must be noted in the reference. --Dna-Dennis 19:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This link should help you-A recent study by Vladimir ŽerjavićYugoslavia manipulations with the number Second World War victims, - Zagreb: Croatian Information center,1993 ISBN 0-919817-32-7 [25] and [26] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woogie10w (talk • contribs) 01:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

A possible solution? : One reasonable solution could be to use the qualifier Yugoslavia instead of Serbs, thus referring to both former Yugoslavia and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and use the estimate 330,000 - 700,000, referenced with the note "Yugoslavia" includes ethnic Serbs, Croats, Jews, Roma and others in former Yugoslavia, killed by Germans & German collaborators (Croatian Ustaše). Any opinions on this? I am feeling bold, but at the moment not quite bold to change these figures, but maybe soon. Please state your opinions on my suggestion, or come with another one. My regards, --Dna-Dennis 07:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

this is ridiculous, you can put them all in one box and make them look equal in number when 95% of them are serbs --Vladar86 —Preceding comment was added at 21:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
To make them look equal was never my intention; the intention was to make the table entry comprehensible, and use proper ref notes to further describe the issue. Vladar86, do you have any scholarly source for your 95% figure? Or even better, scholarly estimates on the number/distribution of victims (Serbs, Croats, Jews, Roma) in all FY? If so, I'd be most happy to hear about them. Regards, --Dna-Dennis 22:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"Disabled" fact check

Furthermore, the "Disabled" table figure needs to checked. It's currently unreferenced. --Dna-Dennis 22:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

No Reasons Given for implementation of Nazi Race Policy...

In the article there is much reference to the origins of the Holocaust and how they implemented it, but it never explains why exactly these events took place. eg. Why the Jews were sent to Ghetto's? why they were persecuted? I think you must include things like, "It is alleged that the Nazi's introduced the extermination camps due to war time emergency because there was too many Jews to keep in Ghetto's" blah blah blah ect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Him hippo (talk • contribs) 11:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure an article on the Holocaust requires extensive discussion about the Nazi's pathological mindset. Six million dead. Not sure it matters why. Not sure it really can be answered. And by the way, saying "blah blah blah" is somewhat disgusting. Don't do that. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 23:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I see the point and think it's quite reasonable to ask these questions. But have you taken a look at the section The_Holocaust#Distinctive_features and the quite enlightening subarticle Functionalism_versus_intentionalism? If not, check it out, they are available. Regards, --Dna-Dennis 21:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Books

I think you should add a part with a list of books about the holocaust, and books by some of the survivors. Two books I have read are All But My Life by Gerda Weissman and Night by Elie Weisel. (please note that the spelling might be off) It is always good to have a list of the books that you could read, some people perfer to read than to look at a screen that causes damage to your eyes.

Nicolett Gonzalez
Kanata Sohma 05:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
It's already in the separate article Holocaust (resources), which is linked at the botom of this one. --Stephan Schulz 06:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

New map replacing the old map, OK?

I've just replaced the old map

with this new one:

I've worked quite hard on it, using info from USHMM & Wikipedia.

Quick description of changes:

  1. Some geographical errors have been corrected.
  2. All camps on the map are labeled.
  3. More camps & ghettos are depicted.
  4. Different symbols are used for extermination camps, conc.camps, ghettos and cities.
  5. Major massacre sites have been added.
  6. Colors are less obtrusive, and show Axis dependency.

IMO this is better than the old one, but there might be some bugs, who knows?. If anyone has any opinions and/or suggestions I am happy to hear them, preferrably on my talk page. Since I'm recently "done" with it, I am very willing to make reasonable updates of it. My regards, --Dna-Dennis 12:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response. I appreciate your efforts. The new map is a vast improvement. Jd2718 17:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
On closer inspection, aren't Slovakia and Croatia mis-colored? Jd2718 18:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The entire page was wrongly done !!!

Damn, how can you say that there's only one specific "holocaust". There were much greater and more cruel holocausts than that one with the death of 6.000.000 jews. If someone types "holocaust", he needs to be diverted at first to a disambiguation page were there can be found many holocausts. But if you want to dedicate the word "holocaust" only to a single genocide, then why don't you start with the holocaust of 200.000.000 indians that were killed since 1492 with the arrival of the spanish and portuguese people to the americas. They were treaten like toys and were given sometimes to the dogs as dog food. That's much worse than any other genocide. A whole race was almost destroyed. But nowadays of course it all depends on who has more money.....Yussef90 00:09, 20 October 2007 (ECT)

I believe it is historically incorrect to apply the word "Holocaust" to what happened to the peoples of America after 1492.
This does not mean it was any less cruel or less evil. But it is the subject of other articles.
One of these articles is "Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire". Wanderer57 05:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Wanderer. First of all, it is not Wikipedia's role to define history and word use - this is the role of historians. Our role as wikipedians is to follow the common interpretation, otherwise we would break the rule of Wikipedia:No original research. Furthermore, the question of what is "holocaust" and not is much a matter of the first letter, "H", and the word "The". In history, there are more "holocausts" and genocides, but only one genocide called "The Holocaust". No need for us here to redefine history. For more info, see e.g. Bartleby Dictionary on "holocaust". And also, this article, "The Holocaust", starts with a disambiguation note: Holocaust (disambiguation). Regards, --Dna-Dennis 07:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm in agreement with the well crafted reply of Dna-Dennis. I think non-Jewish exterminations by the Nazis, however reprehensible (and they were), should be moved to their own articles, post haste. THE Holocaust is, by academic definition, the execution of Jews by the Nazis. There were many other mass genocides (many of them perpetrated against Jews in other times), which do not belong here. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not in complete agreement with OrangeMarlin on this. I prefer the inclusion of other groups, but naturally limit the definition to the events between 1933-45. For more reasons why, see my post below under "Definition of Holocaust" below. Regards, --Dna-Dennis 13:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Volksdeutsche, used in article

I think we need an English translation of "volksdeutsche" to use in this article. I have a general idea of the meaning from my dictionary, but my knowledge of German is so close to zero that I cannot trust it. Wanderer57 04:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need a translation, since it's literal meaning is quite irrelevant. Do you know anything about this topic? OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
A quick search reveals that we have an entire article devoted to the term. Linked first instance, problem solved. – ornis⚙ 05:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Definition of Holocaust

This article keeps wandering around, gets reverted, wanders again, then ends up not being as good as it supposed to be. Nearly every scholarly article about the history of World War II clear defines the Holocaust as the mass genocide of Jews. Though the Nazis were horrible to other groups, the clear goal of the Final Solution was the Jewish people. Why do we spend paragraphs on other ethnic groups? Am I missing the definition of the Holocaust? To me, undermining the meaning of the Shoah or Holocaust from the Nazi goal of the extermination of Jews is troublesome, especially when nearly every scholarly article agrees with my POV. I suggest other mass exterminations by Nazis against non-Jewish ethnic groups be moved to other articles, where they may be treated in the detail and care that they deserve. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

At a glance, it seems there are already a handful of articles dealing with other victims of systematic nazi genocide, though they could probably stand to be improved. It may simply be that editors who wish to add material on those groups need to be directed to the specific articles. – ornis⚙ 05:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that nearly every scholarly article does not agree with your point of view. There is no clearly defined usage. I was looking through a variety of books in a shop only the other day. There were many books that took the word to be synonymous with "Final Solution"; there were many that did not. The inclusive usage is increasingly part of educational systems in the Western world. See for example this "Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust" [27] or the US Holocaust Memorial Museum [28]. There are also many academic publications that refer to the Roma/Gypsies in the Holocaust; Bandy, Alex. The Forgotten Holocaust 1997, Bernath, Gabor, ed. Porrajmos: Recollections of Roma Holocaust Survivors 2000; Michael Stewart, "Remembering Without Commemoration: The Mnemonics and Politics of Holocaust Memories Among European Roma", The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 10, Number 3, September 2004. The use of the term in academic contexts in relation to other groups is also common, for example Kai Hammermeister's article "Inventing History: Toward a Gay Holocaust Literature", The German Quarterly (Winter, 1997) in which the word is used to refer to a deliberate attempt to construct a literature related to homosexual victimhood. Of course, it's true that these uses of the word to refer in general to Nazi murders are disputed by some Jewish organisations, for example Yad Vashem. In turn, their claims for the exclusivity of the term are disputed - as for example by Jon Petrie in his essay "The secular word Holocaust: scholarly myths, history, and 20th century meanings", Journal of Genocide Research, Volume 2, Number 1, 1 March 2000. The reality is that usage is disputed. Some scholars just use it unselfconsciously as a synonym for the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Problem'. Others equally unselfconsciously use it to refer to all systematic targetting by the Nazis of specific groups for murder, as opposed to war dead. Specific debate about the reach of the term is actually quite rare in the literature. Paul B 07:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Paul's explanation above is right on the mark. Whereas I agree that that the article is a bit cluttered, it is the result of long negotiations to find more or less a common acceptable take on the issue. Making massive deletions such as those made today by Orangemarlin will certainly upset the apple cart and we will be back under the protection regime once again. What we do need to avoid are additions that really go beyond the idea of The Holocaust such as added total war dead figures. The case re: the Ukrainians has been explained (see above)but seems to not have been understood as the total casualty figures keep reappearing.--Joel Mc 08:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
(Note: I have not previously been involved in this article, so I'm not aware of past discussions/disputes). I am no expert on the strict scholarly definition, and I don't think there exists any which is undisputed. I am not surprised after reading Paul B's extensive post on various word usages - the definition seems somewhat an "open" question, and so it is with me personally as well.
My personal view is that the Holocaust is "The Nazi genocide of Jews and others during World War II".
Why? Well, simply because otherwise it's harder to get a complete understanding of this part of history. It was not the Nazis against the Jews - it was the Nazis against perceived Untermensch. To include Jews only would remove this very important aspect, and in my opinion this would even be unfavorable to the Jews, since I believe it would make it harder to understand the Holocaust. Put simply, concerning the definition, I believe we should focus on the perpetrators (Nazis), not one of the victim groups (Jews); the Nazis did not come to power because there were Jews, but the Jews, along with others, were exterminated because the Nazis came to power.
Therefore, my suggestion is that this article should include all groups targeted by the Nazis, but with an extra weight on the Jews, since they were the main targets, as the article does at the moment.
Just as an external example, this Bartleby Dictionary entry on "holocaust" states one definition as "The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II".
My regards, --Dna-Dennis 12:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Personal POV is irrelevant. The Holocaust (note the definite article at the start of the sentence and the capitalization of the noun) is defined in article after article as the extermination of the Jews. What the Nazis did to other racial groups is horrifying too, and deserves articles that treat those atrocities in the same manner. But genocide against non-Jews is not The Holocaust, it is a holocaust (possibly), discussed under other articles. However, to gain consensus, we should determine what this article covers. If we cannot come to a consensus, I would suggest some sort of mediation or arbitration from non-involved admins. I do not think an article like this deserves any type of POV-warring from anyone. And please don't be accusing me of anything Joel Mc, that's not appropriate. Coming to an academic consensus (meaning our POV's are irrelevant, what is relevant is meeting the standards of WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, and whatever WP rules we think apply. I honestly believe we should get consensus OR get an arbitration or mediation. Unless this has been done before (and did not rely upon screaming and yelling of the loudest), it is the best route. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 16:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The consensus I was referring to was the longstanding consensus regarding the the inclusions of this material on this page and the inapproprateness of massive eliminations of longstanding text without securing a new consensus. Paul B 21:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I reverted, but I really don't want to edit-war. The lead, the definition of Holocaust, etc. support the fact that The Holocaust is genocide of Jews. PaulB, you use the word consensus, but a consensus of two is not a consensus. I contend that Ornis and I form the other consensus. I will self revert to prevent a war, but we need to come to a reasonable conclusion based on reliable sourcing of the definition. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 16:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I find Paul's sources rather convincing in showing that the term "The Holocaust" (capital H, definitive article) is used - in the scholary literature as well as in the popular press - with two different meanings, one concentrating on the Jewish genocide, and the other including the whole organized Nazi mass-murder. I would like to see some more arguments for and against this - navel gazing ("defined in this article") and personal opinions ("my personal view") are indeed irrelevant. If Paul's argument stands up, I think we should mention both usages, but the article should describe the more inclusive case. --Stephan Schulz 17:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I am sorry if I offended anyone by stating my personal thoughts - I was just trying to help out and illuminate some of the problems you'll face if you limit the scope to Jews. My POV is not intrinsic - it is formed by reading various books on the matter, but I'll try to be less personal; I see no problem with the actual historical etymology or strict definition, I do not seek to redefine anything - the problem I see is if a strict definition results in a limited scope for this article, that's my concern. Now, the USHMM states the following in their "FAQ: What is the Holocaust?":
"The Holocaust is the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims -- six million were murdered; Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), people with mental and physical disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi Germany." Link: USHMM Faq on the Holocaust.
My point is: Should this article handle it any differently than e.g. USHMM? If so, why? The USHMM does not exclude other groups in their scope. Isn't it just fine the way it's handled in the article at the moment, taking care of the etymology but including information on the background as well as other targeted groups? Regards, --Dna-Dennis 18:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
No offense taken (if you were referring to me). I agree with much of your sentiment, but your source is, at best ambiguous. The Holocaust is the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945 seems to be the definition, and the rest is somewhat tagged on - part of the event, but not necessarily covered by the term. Also, we should not rely on just one source - if reliable sources differ, we need to present all notable interpretations. --Stephan Schulz 18:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

<RI>But the Shoah Resource center says: The Holocaust, as presented in this resource center, is defined as the sum total of all anti-Jewish actions carried out by the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945: from stripping the German Jews of their legal and economic status in the 1930s`; segregating and starvation in the various occupied countries; the murder of close to six million Jews in Europe. We can all throw sources around. I still don't get why we have to follow a POV that smacks of political correctedness (invented word, sorry). OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yad Vashem are clear that they define the Holocaust exlusively with reference to Jewish victimhood, but Yad Vashem is a Jewish organisation. The definition is theirs. They are no more 'objective' than activists for the Roma or other groups, and their argumentd have been challenged by other scholars. The reality is that usage is varied, as I have indicated. Many more examples could be given. Paul B 21:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Again, this is ambiguous: "The Holocaust, as presented in this resource center, ...", allowing other definitions. If the POV you are referring to is the WP:NPOV, well, that's a basic Wikipedia policy, and we have no choice about it. NPOV requires us to present all notable viewpoints. If the extended definition is notable, we have to mention it. And in that case, again, I think it makes no sense to differentiate the Jewish from the more general Holocaust - the Nazis used the same camps, the same tools, and the same assholes to carry either mass-murder out. I don't think there is anything particularly PC about it. --Stephan Schulz 18:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Not really. What is Notable can be up for discussion. And if we avoid undue weight, then my interpretation would be that other ethnic groups should be discussed in brief terms with a link to a broader article called Nazi atrocities or something similar. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, I fight battles on Wikipedia against anti-intellectuallism and faith over science. But this seems to be a matter of interpretation, and EVERYTHING I read seems to indicate that The Holocaust represents the genocide against the Jews, and everything else is add on. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Dna-Dennis is missing the point when he writes, "I am sorry if I offended anyone by stating my personal thoughts - I was just trying to help out and illuminate some of the problems you'll face if you limit the scope to Jews." "We" don't face problems because "we" are not limiting the scope to Jews. "We" are limiting the scope to what notable sources say. It is the sources that limit or do not limit the scope to Jews. No source is authoritative, and NPOV insists we rperesent all notable views. I think it is a grave mistake (and I think OM and Stephan will agree with me) for us to try to come up with "a" or "the" definition of the Holocaust. I think the US Holocaust Museum is one notable POV, so is Yad Vashem, and so would museums at Auschwitz and other concentration or death camps, as well as the Jewish Museum in Berlin. So would historians and scholars of Holocaust studies, like historians Yehuda Bauer and Dominick LaCapra. I am afraid I do not have the time to work on this article actively but if I were, here is what I would do: I would search top universities to see who - it would largely be in Jewish Studies or History departments, although it could also be in Literature departments - teaches courses on the Holocaust and ask for copies of their syllabi. We would probably discover that professors at very different universities rely on some of the same books and articles, and I bet some of these would provide literature reviews that would spell out the major views and indicate how wide-spread they are. Now, it I were writing the article, I would be less interested in "the" definition of the Holocaust and more interested in how the definition has changed over the years, or why, when people have different definitions, they justify their different definitions. I think an article that explains why some people limit it to the Jews, others to Jews and Roma, others to all victims of the Nazis, and others extend it to the genocides against Natives of the Americas and Australia and Tasmania, and Armenians, would be far more illuminating and educational than just saying "this is the most common definition" or even "There are three most notable definitions." Dna Dennis doesn't seem to understand our NOR policy but he is right that the reasons are at least as important as the definitions and in addition to providing the most notable definitions we ought to provide accounts of the reasoning and I bet that for the most recent and more sophisticated scholars their reasoning is not as obvious as we might think. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, you're mistaken, I am very well aware of Wikipedia:No original research, don't worry. My points are not based on original research, I am very well aware that the views are differing - particularly over time. But as you implied yourself - the views are differing, and we will have to make a call here for this article. The strict definition does not concern me very much, as there does not seem to be any undisputed, but the scope does. I am pointing out that considering the article scope, I think an "exclusive" scope will become more problematic than an "inclusive", i.e. (1) more people will object to an exclusive scope, and (2) fewer average readers will be able to understand this part of history, if we "simplify" it to Jews only. I have no personal need whatsoever here, and I will probably not be involved in this article very much. I just try to gaze into the crystal ball to see what could happen if the scope is "exclusive". Regards, --Dna-Dennis 19:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, right on the spot, Stephan Schulz; yes, the USHMM text is ambiguous - but I think that's the intention. I suggest we do the same here, account for the definition(s) and "somewhat tagging the rest on". I did a multi-search on OneLook, and the result was what I expected. Some definitions include other groups, and some Jews only:
Other groups included:
  • Merriam-Webster:often capitalized : the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II —usually used with "the"
  • Cambridge dictionaries:the killing of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis before and during the Second World War
  • MSN Encarta:genocide of European Jews and others: the systematic extermination of millions of European Jews, as well as Roma, Slavs, intellectuals, gay people, and political dissidents, by the Nazis and their allies during World War II. In popular usage, Holocaust refers particularly to the extermination of European Jews.
  • Bartleby American Heritage Dictionary:The genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II
  • Wiktionary :):The mass murder of Jews and other groups by the Nazi regime during World War II.
It's pretty obvious if the nations' colleges teaching guides are expanding the definition to include non-Jews we would be in violation of WP:NPOV to not include that trend. Alatari 14:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
In between:
  • Religious tolerance: When capitalized, the term usually refers to the Shoah, (a.k.a. Shoa and Sho'ah) the killing of five to seven million of European Jews by the Nazi government during World War II. Sometimes used to refer to the total Nazi extermination program, which included Jews, Roma (a.k.a Gypsies), Russians, Poles, other Slavs, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. totaling ten to fourteen million humans. The Roma refer to the event as the Porajmos (devouring).
Jews only:
  • Oxford Dictionaries:'the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime in World War II.
  • Wordsmyth:(cap.) the systematic slaughter of Jews by Nazis during World War II.
  • Bartleby Columbia encyclopedia: name given to the period of persecution and extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany
Note: I've excluded entries which only mention the general meaning, i.e. "burnt sacrifice". I've also excluded entries where I am not sure if the info is directly derived from other sources (i.e. duplicated), e.g. Infoplease, AllWords, WordNet etc. It should be noted that many of these included Jews only. Regards, --Dna-Dennis 19:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


OKay, Is there any reason you remove specifically Ukrainians, yet you leave Sinti Roma, Poles, and other non=- Jewish victims? If you're going to remove non-- Jewish victims, then remove all of them. Otherwise, the Ukrainian victim paragraph, and the note on the table should be restored. Mona23653 14:15, 24 October 2007 (UTC)mona23653

Yes, Mona23653, there is a reason, and no, it isn't about allowing some groups while disallowing others. I am taking the liberty of copying your post, and answering to it above under Ukrainian discrepancy. Since I believe the dicussion here is currently on a more general level (i.e. "Jews only" vs. "All targets of Nazi persecution"), I think it might be wise to keep the particular Ukraine discussion out of it at the moment. Is that ok? Regards, --Dna-Dennis 18:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.hdot.org/evidence/pl118.asp
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