Talk:The Holocaust/Archive 19

This is an archive of past discussions about The Holocaust. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 15

←

Archive 17

→

The continued killing of Jews after the German surrender

I am not at all happy with the current aftermath section of the article, nor of the After_the_Holocaust article, both should be greatly expanded, or a new article should be created, for example "Flight and Expulsion of Jews from Poland after World War II".

Some source material:

The Killing After the Killing After the Holocaust ended in 1945, Poland's surviving Jews still faced hatred from their fellow citizens.
'Fear': preliminary investigation launched into book by Jan Gross
Chasing Away the Memory of Guilt: The End of Jewish Life in Poland
THE JEDWABNE AFFAIR
Poland's willing executioners

I would also urge editors to look at History of Jews in Poland, and in particular keep an eye on the article on Jan T. Gross, which seems to have received many edits lately.--Stor stark7 ^Talk 19:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me Stor stark7 that you are trying to push your POV on Wiki. If you have anything interesting to add please do so. Providing 5 links of the same author and his controversial work (Jan T. Gross) does not do much to support your theories.--Jacurek (talk) 04:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC) no no no no why is hitler do this what his deal man —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.52.106 (talk) 23:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

There were also a couple of postwar pogroms in Hungary - I forget the details. Maybe a Hungarian historian can supply them. Gspaulsson (talk) 04:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Layout and victims

I'm sure plenty of bigshot editors will disagree, but the layout of this article is terrible, esspecialy the section on victims. There needs to a more clear layout of the victims section. There is a table in the Jewish section, with victims per year, but no total, then a table in poles and slavs with a random collection of groups and total numbers, with no total offered, or any high/low limits. There ought to be a table at the top of the Victims section, with numbers for each group, and a total, with high/low estimates for groups where the total is unknown like the one at the bottom of poles and slavs section. 88.107.193.193 (talk) 16:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

A bit on collective guilt should be added

Efforts to instill a sense of "collective guilt"

"In 1945 there was an Allied consensus—which no longer exists—on the doctrine of collective guilt, that all Germans shared the blame not only for the war but for Nazi atrocities as well."[1]

The British and The Americans considered the Germans to be guilty, using the terms "collective guilt", and "collective responsibility"[2]

The British instructed their officers in control of German media to instill a sense of collective guilt in the population[3]

In the early months of the occupation the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) undertook a psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility.[4] Using the German press (which were all under Allied control) and posters and pamphlets a program acquainting ordinary Germans with what had take place in the concentration camps was conducted.

"During the summer of 1945 pictures of Bergen-Belsen were hung as posters all over Germany with 'You Are Guilty' on them."[5]

Later the U.S. army came to draw a distinction between those legally guilty and the rest of the population which was then merely considered morally guilty.[6]

A number of films showing the concentration camps were made and screened to the German public. For example "Die Todesmuhlen", released in the U.S. zone in January 1946, "Welt im Film" No. 5 (June, 1945). A film that was never finished due partly to delays and the existence of the other films was "Memory of the Camps". "...the object [of the film] was to shake and humiliate the Germans and prove to them beyond any possible challenge that these German crimes against humanity were committed and that the German people -- and not just the Nazis and SS -- bore responsibility."[7]

Immediately upon the liberation of the concentration-camps many German civilians were forced to see the conditions in the camps, bury rotting corpses and exhume mass-graves.[8] On threat of death or withdrawal of food civilians were forced to provide their belongings to former concentration camp inmates[9]

--Stor stark7 ^Talk 00:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Dates

It may be helpful to add the dates (years) during which the Holocaust happened (e.g. 1939-1945).Bless sins (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The lead currently says "during WWII", which is the generally accepted time window. Many scholars consider Kristallnacht, in November 1938, to be the beginning, and the article notes that also. Crum375 (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Armenian Genocide

'"What the Armenians went through is a tragedy, but not genocide"'... Perhaps you, and Shimon Peres, for that matter, should aquaint yourselves with the current International Criminal Court definition of "genocide". This standard began at Nuremburg and is not specific to any one people. It should be "never again" - for everyone!

Nemo Senki66.213.22.193 (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

We don't use politicians as academic sources for this article, but in any case this is off-topic. Perhaps you want to discuss it here. Crum375 (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

That would be the wrong place to discuss it - it should be discussed at Denial of the Armenian Genocide. Meowy 00:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

However, Nemo Senki has not explained what he wants from making a subsection titled Armenian Genocide on this talk page. It seems to be off topic, and this sub-section should probably be erased for that reason. Meowy 00:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The first line in the above/second comment is a cut & paste from this discussion page (the answer to my first comment)...perhaps you should read the whole article and discussion before you comment here...with all due respect...as I say above, this article (should) cross-reference to 'genocide', the term that is being mooted by my comments...I made no change or revision to the article, I only made the above comments in the interest of solidarity... Nemo Senki 66.213.22.193 (talk) 21:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, the Armenian Genocide is not The Holocaust, although they may have commonalities. If you have issues with the AG, they should be discussed on its talk page, not here. Crum375 (talk) 22:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

We understand now. "The Holocaust-tm", is a trademark with a capital "H". Thanks for making that clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.22.193 (talk) 00:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

"The Holocaust" refers to events in WW2, just as "The Terror" refers to events in the French Revolution and The Enlightenment refers to cultural ideals formulated in the 18th century. That's quite separate from the legitimate use of 'holocaust', 'enlightenment' and 'terror' as words to refer to other events. No one claims that the use of "The Terror" somehow detracts from the events of 9/11; or that the concept of The Englightement must include other cultural ideals that might be called enlightened. Paul B (talk) 16:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Beginning of the Holocaust

I have written an article on Holocaust in Lithuania. I was surprised we were missing such an important topic, but actually we have almost no articles on 'Holocaust by country', this should be rectified. Anyway, I would appreciate any comments and edits to that article - as the place where Holocaust started, Lithuania certainly forms an important chapter in the Holocaust history.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Nazis Killing Jews through Starvation

Is there any info on why Nazis didn't simply kill all the Jews through starvation? Why bother with all the gas chamber stuff? I would imagine that dragging millions of bodies from gas chambers is pretty hard work. And Nazis had to feed the Jews to keep them alive long enough. (How long does it take for people to die if they don't get water, or anything else to drink or eat? A week?) Why didn't the already starving Germany just let the Jews starve to death in a couple of weeks? Javas7 (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Starvation takes too long. Not sure why they didn't just deny the prisoners water; perhaps that was too nasty even for the Nazis. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Starvation would take too long and be in inefficient method. Also the Holocaust was rushed, that is why it is soo horrific. It is horrific not because 6 millikon died over 100 years, but because 6 million died in the less that 2 years. Proving the Nazis to be a barbaric and nasty force.

Perhaps they were scared of rebellion, certainly a group of thirsty people are dangerous because they are so desperate whereas the reality is a lot of the Jews were tricked into going into the Gas chambers. And lets face it, cowards are scared people and these particular nazis were cowards of the worst kind, so I imagine the explanation is something along those lines. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Impractical, not any more or less nasty. Imagine the physical facilities, the numbers per (what time period? and with some uncertainty?)... Jd2718 (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the evidence indicates that the gassing was a well thought out plan by intelligent individuals, and presumably they looked at all the possibilities (bullets being too expensive and too direct for the people following the orders and doing the killing etc). Thanks, SqueakBox 16:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Why did Nazis shave the Jews' heads and spray Zyklon B on them to kill lice? And why did they tattoo the Jews if they wanted to kill them?

They kept many Jews alive for a period of time to use as a slave labor force. That is why they were cleaned, shaved, and tattood. Borg Sphere (talk) 16:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

That was not the reason. The reason they used Zyklon B was not to just 'kill lice'- and they would do this so that the soldiers wouldn't get contaminated...it was used for gassing. Carbon monoxide was initially used, but the bodies were too contaminated so zyklon B was used instead!!!

So why didn't they just use bullets at the edge of the mass graves? There were certainly plenty of bullets around even by the end of the war. There are even movies depicting the process. Machine guns are effective mass killing machines.

There were plenty of places where they did do this. It was not considered cost effective and the bullets were being saved for actual armed conflict.

The word SHOAH

Hey all, I really have no idea what the proper protocol is for editing wikipedia entries that are locked or semi-protected like the holocaust entry, but I don't know how else to alert attention to the fact that the Hebrew in the article is messed up besides posting here. Where it should say "hashoah"(the holocaust), it says "haosh". The definite article "ha" got placed at the beginning of the word as it should be, but the rest of the characters are backwards. It should read he,shin, vav, aleph, he. Check out the corresponding hebrew wikipedia entry for comparison: http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%90%D7%94 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amsclark (talk • contribs) 23:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Per the article, 'Definition' section: >> "Shoah," ... appeared for the first time in 1940 in Jerusalem in a booklet called Sho'at Yehudei Polin (The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland).<<

Per Jon Petrie's http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/ footnote 71 >>The Epstein and Rivlin Hebrew-English Dictionary of 1924 translates shoah as devastation and destruction<< and Petrie also gives two 1933 uses of shoah in the Hebrew press >>[Hitler's] regime will not lead to a shoah" & "In the hour of the shoah of German Jewry".<< (Petrie cites Yad Vashem Studies 27 (1999) pp. 373, 374 for the above newspaper uses.)

So it appears that "Shoah" did not "appear for the first time in 1940" (a date that predates the actual mass killing of Jews) but was used in the sense of "destruction" before the Nazis seized power and was used in the same sense referencing German Jewry within months of the Nazi seizure of power.

The Holocaust Museum cites Jon Petrie http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?topic=01

Yad Vashem acknoledges the work of Jon Petrie on the word 'holocaust' http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/search/index_search.html

The Wixipedia "Names of the Holocaust" article cites Jon Petrie

How come the reference to Jon Petrie's article on the word holocaust (and shoah) has disappeared from the Wikipedia article "The Holocaust" ? Kits2 (talk) 05:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

When was it last there? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 06:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It certainly used to be there. How long ago, I can't say. The problem, however, is that 'shoah', like 'holocaust' is just an ordinary word, until it gets specifically used as a proper noun. If someone writes in Hebrew back in 1933 that the election of Hitler is disastrous for the Jews, they will use the word 'shoah' (the standard translation of which is 'disaster'). That is not a prediction of mass murder, nor is it a use of the word in the same sense as a specific label for mass murder. Even the 1940 usage is problematic in that regard. It's very difficult to define when the word is first used specifically to refer to the events we now call The Holocaust. Paul B (talk) 08:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

>>> RE the above: >It's very difficult to define when the word [Shoah] is first used specifically to refer to the events we now call The Holocaust.< Agreed, but certainly the use quoted from 1940 was NOT referring to the events we now call the Holocaust so what's the 1940 quote doing there ? To me it suggests that the FIRST use of shoah outside of the Bible was in 1940. The quote is preceded by the words: >> "Shoah," ... appeared for the first time in 1940 ..." and no earlier uses are given.

The Holocaust article does not make clear that shoah was an ordinary word in secular Hebrew pre 1940 ... rather the contrary. It introduces the word in this fashion >>The biblical word Shoa ...<< (Etymology section)

In what sense is shoah biblical ? Sure its first know use was in the Hebrew Bible but probably half the Hebrew words in the secular Hebrew of 1940 had their first know use in the Hebrew Bible. And for Hebrew speaker of 1940 it wasn't a biblical word in the sense of being more closely associated with the Bible than say the Hebrew "ha" meaning "the" which is also to be found in the Hebrew Bible.

Claiming the word is biblical while not making clear that shoah in 1940 was an ordinary secular word gives a false impression --- that there is something special about the word itself and that the word in the Hebrew of 1940/2008 had/has a vaguely religious aura. 154.20.57.116 (talk) 22:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Abaolutely. I can't disagree with anything you say. Paul B (talk) 23:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Our article says that the word was first used in 1940 to describe the events that became known as "the Holocaust" in the 1950s. I'm not sure I see what the problem with that is. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 15:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

It currently says "The biblical word Shoa (שואה) (also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s." The value of the adjective 'Biblical' is being disputed, but the rest seems OK, since the phrase 1940s is sufficiently unspecific that no distinct originating text is necessarily mplied. Paul B (talk) 15:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

There are also a number of misleading statements in the 'definition' section. Why, for example, is the title of Sho'at Yehudei Polin translated as 'The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland' rather than the 'Catastrophy of the Jews in Poland'? And it is not entirely accurate to say that Shoah was 'routinely' translated as Holocaust in the 1950s. Paul B (talk) 15:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

It's translated that way because that is now the translation of Shoah and that's how the source (Yad Vashem) translates it. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 15:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

>>>>

Re above:

>>Our article says that the word was first used in 1940 to describe the events that became known as "the Holocaust" in the 1950s. I'm not sure I see what the problem with that is.<<

The central activity of the set of events we now know as "the Holocaust" was the mass killing of Jews in death camps by gas. (Per the Petrie article referenced in the first comment above: "Random House Webster's College Dictionary (1997) gives a narrow, but not uncommon meaning: "the Holocaust, the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.") This mass killing in camps did not begin until the end of 1941/ early 1942. So any use the word "shoah" in 1940 could not be referencing the central activity of the events we now know as "the Holocaust" unless the author was referring to future events and had an extraordinary imagination. The Hebrew booklet of 1940 with the title containing "shoah" made no claims of prophecy but described the scene in Poland of 1939 and early 1940. If one accepts a first use without pre-knowledge of gas chambers, the false prophecy of the 3 February 1933 Do'ar Ha-yom "[Hitler's] regime will not lead to a shoah" is a considerably more convincing first use of "shoah" in our sense of "the Holocaust" than the 1940 one given in Wikipedia. And the 1933 quote has the additional advantage of suggesting to readers that the word "shoah" was in common circulation in the Hebrew of the pre-Holocaust years. 24.16.249.99 (talk) 05:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Consecution of the Holocaust death-toll in this article

I think it's racially and logically unfair to state the number of Jewish-only deaths foremost in this article and then to state the total number of deaths and "other groups" deaths (Which alone surmount aggregate Jewish casualties). Even though they were the most afflicted race; terminologically, "the Holocaust" does not and never did pertained exclusively to the Jewish people.

The hypothetical figures for Holocaust casualties SHOULD be delivered in the following consecution:

1. Total Casualties (12~17 million) 2. Jewish Casualties (5.29 ~ 6m) 3. "Other" Casualties: (7 ~ 11.5 million)

or

1. Total Casualties (12~17 million) 2. "Other" Casualties: (7 ~ 11.5 million) 3. Jewish Casualties (5.29 ~ 6m)

--Hepro Dillhat (talk) 18:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The word holocaust

Per the article >Since the 1950s its [holocaust's] use has been increasingly restricted, and it is now mainly used to describe the Nazi Holocaust, spelled with a capital H<

I question "since the 1950's" in the above sentence.

Per Petrie the principal meaning of "holocaust" circa 1963 was nuclear war ...the word did not need the modifier 'atomic' or 'nuclear' to convey that meaning circa 1963. And per Petrie, only after 1978, after the screening of the NBC series "The Holocaust" did the meaning of "holocaust" become closely associated with the Jewish experience of the Hitler years. Only in the 1970's did 'holocaust' become "increasingly restricted" to describing the Nazi Holocaust.

Below from Petrie http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/#Post1965

>>A word search of JSTORE's 1977 journal texts yields sixty-four "H/holocausts." Thirty-one refer to the Jewish catastrophe [less than half]; of the thirty-one, twenty-two are an unmodified - except by context - "Holocaust," five an unmodified - except by context -"holocaust," and the remainder a Nazi, German, or Jewish "H/holocaust." Of the thirty-three non-Nazi holocausts, nine are references to nuclear destruction.

In the spring of 1978 over one hundred million Americans viewed some part of NBC's mini-series titled The Holocaust - the screening was a major cultural event. As an immediate consequence, the capitalized and unmodified "Holocaust" became the recognized referent to Hitler's Judeocide in an American society newly sensitized to that tragedy. In JSTORE journals, January - June 1979, "H/holocaust" is employed thirty-seven times. Twenty-eight of the references are to the Jewish catastrophe, and twenty-seven of the twenty-eight are an unmodified "the Holocaust."<< Kits2 (talk) 06:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Prior to 1980 the term "Holocaust" was not used to describe the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis. I was in Germany in 1978 and missed that TV series, when I returned to the US it was a topic of conversation along with Saturday Night Fever--Woogie10w (talk) 14:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

... theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust." (sic)

Wikipedia current statement: >Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."<

1) Spelling should be consistent ... "Shoah" not "Shoa" is used at the top of the article, eg >"Holocaust" and "Shoah" redirect here<

2) The idea that "holocaust" is "theologically offensive" [that it carries biblical references to burnt offerings to the Jewish God] is largely a result of misleading and plain false statements by Holocaust scholars. Per Petrie, most discussions of the word by Holocaust scholars >ignore totally the word's pagan religious ... employments, and for the most part leave the impression that "holocaust" had absolutely no secular history before it became the principal American-English referent to the Nazi mass murder of Jews.<

Petrie documents this summary statement and then quotes from a frequently reprinted Holocaust Studies article on the word "holocaust" which asserts a) that the word is in the King James Bible (it is not) and b) "the adoption by the King James editors of [holocaust] ... played the decisive role in fixing 'religious sacrifice' as the primary sense of the term in English up until the mid-Twentieth Century." (The primary sense of the term was destruction, often by fire, with no religious undertones or overtones throughout the twentieth century.)

I have not seen anywhere a suggestion that Petrie's presentation of the facts re the word 'holocaust' are incorrect. And while some texts and websites reflect Petrie's work some new texts still contain false or misleading histories and the old texts still circulate. (For an example in a new text see 2007 Naomi Seidman p213. For the statement see http://books.google.ca/books?q=olah+%22the+term+is+translated+as+holocaust%22&btnG=Search+Books )

So instead of Wikipedia's current >Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."< Wikpedia should state: >Shoah is preferred by many Jews partly because within Holocaust Studies false histories of the word 'holocaust' circulate and support questionable claims that the word has theologically offensive connotations.< Reference then should be made to the Petrie article http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/

Below is William Safire on the word in the mid 1960's. Per the New York Times Safire is the most widely read writer on the English language. (Reference http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/SAFIRE-BIO.html )

>>The use of the word 'holocaust' in connection with atomic war has become a cliche. The word comes from a Greek adjective meaning 'burnt whole' and was used originally with reference to sacrificial animals, later with respect to the fiery destruction of large numbers of people ... Kennedy had a special affinity for the word ... 'thermo-nuclear holocaust' ... 'holocaust and humiliation.' With the word firmly established in its atomic-explosive connection it was used in a different context in the 1964 Republican convention ... 'racial holocaust.'

'The New Language of Politics' (1968) p 21 William Safire. Note that Safire (Jewish) makes no mention of 'holocaust' in its Judeocide sense (in the 1960's still rare outside of Jewish circles), sees the word as "firmly established in its atomic-explosive connection", and gives no indication that the word carries any religious meaning or religious overtones. (Safire mentions the original Greek employment of the word only in passing.) Kits2 (talk) 22:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I looked back in the archives:

per Deipnosophista >>[holocaust] the original meaning: the offering to a god of a consecrated victim totally consumed by fire ... half a minute's thought shows that the use of ... [holocaust] for the Armenian massacres carries at some level the implication that they were a good thing (which is no doubt the reason for the correct but rather underplayed mention in this article of Jewish theological objections to the term).<<

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Holocaust/Archive_15#.22extension_of_the_word.22

I don't get the above. How is a human sacrifice to a false god/ to a pagan god 'a good thing' ?

What possible Jewish theological objections could there be to the sentence below in which holocaust does have a religious sacrificial meaning ? "For him [Wiesel] ... God is dead ... the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob ... has vanished forevermore ... in the smoke of a human holocaust exacted by Race, the most voracious of all idols." (Mauriac in the introduction to Wiesel's night)

The only sacrifice of humans in the Catholic Bible described as a holocaust are sacrifices to Baal. God is horrified. >... they haue forsaken me ... they haue filled this place with the bloud of innocents. And they haue built the excelses [high places] of Baalim, to burne their children with fire for holocaust to Baalim: which I commanded not, nor haue spoken of, neither haue they ascended into my hart. (Rheims Douai Bible, 1582-1610, Ieremie [Jeremiah] 19:4,5 <

And also I noted in the archives:

>>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/ ...

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.<< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Holocaust/Archive_16#Holocaust_definitions Kits2 (talk) 01:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

?? >>Some three million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war ...

Per the article >>Some three million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war, over two million of them ethnic Poles, with the remaining million mainly ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the vast majority of them civilians.[45]<<

The figures above are at variance with the web site referenced as a source -- footnote 45 -- http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/poland_WWII_casualties.htm

From bottom of that website:

>>Poland's WWII population losses ... Ethnic Poles: 2.0 (ie NOT over two million) and Other minorities: 0.5 (ie NOT one million)<<

So total of Polish citizens non-Jewish deaths World War II per website is 2.5 million NOT 3 million.

But since the subject of the Wikipedia article is the Holocaust not World War II, Polish civilian death at the hands of the Germans should be the focus of the introductory sentence, not TOTAL Polish 1938 citizen World War II death.

(A broad definition of 'Holocaust' would include civilians and POWs who died as a result of German actions but would not include soldiers who died fighting/as a consequence of the fighting nor victims of the Soviets or Ukrainians.)

Per the same website cited by Wikipedia: of the 2.5 million Polish non-Jewish citizens who died, 450,000 died at Soviet or Ukrainian nationalist hands, and 263,000 were non-Jewish military losses, so the Polish 1938 citizens civilian non-Jewish death toll at the hands of the Germans was circa 1.8 million.

And conveniently the US Holocaust Museum has a circa 1.8 million figure: "Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war not including deaths caused by the Soviets." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#endnote_Poland (Also see http://www.holocaust-trc.org/poles.htm )

ANY statement re Polish civilian death tolls should contain words similar to the above "Documentation remains fragmentary." Knowing what is not known is as essential as knowing what is known for any serious evaluation of historical events.

My guess is there is some double counting of deaths in the Soviet/Polish totals. The website cited at the top of this commentary gives the death toll for Polish "other minorities" as half a million and most of the "other minorities" were in what was Eastern Poland in 1938 and became Soviet citizens before they died. The Soviets did annex Eastern Poland (containing circa 14 million Polish citizens) in 1939 ? 1940. Per Wikipedia >... all residents of the annexed area, dubbed by the Soviets as citizens of former Poland, automatically acquired the Soviet citizenship. However, since actual conferral of citizenship still required the individual consent and the residents were strongly pressured for such consent.< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939-1946)

(Generally ethnic Poles in annexed former Poland moved west after World War II to the formerly German lands and resumed Polish citizenship while the ethnic Ukrainians remained/ were forced to remain/ or were transferred from non-annexed Poland to the USSR. Per one academic article: >> USSR after WWII ... 2.3 million people transferred to Poland, 0.6 million Ukrainian and Belorussian immigrants from Poland<< Footnote 9 in http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3955/is_n4_v46/ai_15654726/pg_7 )

Most readers of the Wikipedia Holocaust article when they see the words 'dead non-Jewish Poles' think of ethnic Poles, Poles who would have been citizens of the Poland of 1947 if they had been alive, not realizing that amongst the Polish citizens of the casualty figures were circa 500,000 non-ethnic Poles who if they had lived thru World War II would have been Soviet citizens in 1946.

So for most readers a statement of a 1.8 million 1938 Polish citizen non-Jewish civilian death toll at the hands of the Germans is less accurate in conveying information than the following statement:

"Ethnic Polish (non-Jewish, non-Ukrainian/Belorussian) civilian death at the hands of the Germans was roughly 1.5 million and the civilian death toll amongst Polish non-Jewish 1938 citizens was circa 1.8 million. Polish borders changed dramatically in the course of World War II and any figures of civilian death tolls are necessarily guesstimates."

(To get the 1.5 million figure above I have subtracted from 1.8 million earlier figure the 500,000 other minorities death toll of the website at the top of the page LESS a guesstimate of the portion of the 500,000 who died in uniform, at the hands of the Soviets etc. My initial guesstimate was 28% -- see below -- I subtracted 28% of the 500,000, got 360,000, subtracted this last number from 1.8 million and then rounded up the resulting 1.44 million to a number that will be read as an approximation rather than staying with a number that looks like a definitive figure.)

(Re the 28% above: of the total of 2.5 million non-Jewish Polish losses per the website 263,000 were non-Jewish military deaths, 350,000 were lost to the Soviets and 100,000 were killed by Ukrainian nationalists -- or circa 28%. Incidentally the website whose figures are cited does not mention Polish killing of ethnic Ukrainians during the war years, perhaps 20,000 were killed. See: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/05/4c935b0f-8009-48dc-93d8-95344832adc7.html ) Kits2 (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The above post is quite correct. To tie out to your sources the article should read "sources remain fragmentary, however scholars in post communist Poland now believe that 1.8-2.1 million non Jewish Polish citizens died at the hands of the Germans in WW2." --Woogie10w (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

In 1994 there was an historical conference in Warsaw Poland on the subject of Poland’s losses in WW2. A series of papers from this conference were published in the academic journal Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI- 1994.
Two articles in Dzieje Najnowsze by well known and respected Polish historians are essential in understanding the problem of Poland’s losses in the war. Czeslaw Luczak Szanse i trudnosci bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939-1945 and Krystyna Kersten, Szacunek strat osobowych w Polsce Wschodniej They point out that the 1947 Polish government report claiming losses of 6 million was not correct. Actual losses of Poles and Jews only, not including ethnic Ukrainians and Belarussians, were about 5 million, including 2 million in the territories ceded to the USSR in 1945. The reason for the downward revision of losses is that fact that losses in the territories ceded to the USSR in 1945 were overstated in the official figure of 6 million war dead. The Soviets did not take a post war census until 1959. In the Soviet census of 1959 the number of Poles increased by 800,000 compared to 1939, not including 250,000 Poles who left the USSR in 1955-59. This was not known in 1947, those Poles remaining in the USSR were considered missing and presumed dead by the authors of the 1947 Polish government report. The 1947 official report from communist dominated Poland did not consider losses of Poles in the Soviet deportations of 1939-41. The official report claiming 6 million Polish war dead, did not include ethnic Ukrainian and Belarussian losses, only Poles(3.2million) and Jews (2.8 million).
An English language source by the scholar Tadeusz Piotrowski Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire has provided a reassessment of Poland’s losses in World War Two. Polish war dead include 5,150,000 victims of Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles and the Holocaust, 350,000 deaths during the Soviet occupation in 1940-41 and about 100,000 Poles killed in 1943-44 during the massacres of Poles in Volhynia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Losses by ethnic group were 3,100,000 Jews; 2,000,000 ethnic Poles; 500,000 Ukrainians and Belarusians. Note well the revised estimate at the bottom of the page when you go to the website. Project In Posterum [10](click on note Polish Casualties by Tadeusz Piotrowski at the bottom of the page). Those sources that list 3.0 million non Jewish losses in Poland are dated and incorrect. For those who still have doubts, please read these reports by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Poles as Victims of the Nazi Era .[11] and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust EncyclopediaPolish Victims-[12]--Woogie10w (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Note well the estimated losses of Polish Jews remains the same 3 million, the losses of non-Jewish Polish citizens in German hands, including Ukrainians and Belarussians, went down from 3 million to 2 million. The sources are saying 1.8 to 2.1 million non Jewish Polish citizens dying in German hands. No ifs, ands or buts. --Woogie10w (talk) 21:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I just had a friend who reads Polish review the article by Czeslaw Luczak Szanse i trudnosci bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939-1945. The article is quite clear in saying that the loss of ethnic Poles due to the German occupation was 1.5 million. An additional 500,000 Poles died due to the Soviet occupation and strife with the Ukrainians. Luczak did not consider ethnic Ukrainian or Belarussian losses. --Woogie10w (talk) 00:45, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I also had a Polish friend read the Luczak article ... per my friend's reading Luczak makes very clear that his evidence is fragmentary and that any final figure is to some degree a guess ...

The new statement in Wikipedia: >Some two million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished, in German hands, during the course of the war, 1.5 million of them ethnic Poles, with the remaining 500,000 mainly ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the vast majority of them civilians.[45]< It is a good summary statement. But someone wanting more information and background who does not speak Polish will not be well served by the references currently in footnote (45) -- why not reference this discussion ? Kits2 (talk) 05:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, second thoughts re >>Some two million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished, in German hands, during the course of the war, 1.5 million of them ethnic Poles, with the remaining 500,000 mainly ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the vast majority of them civilians<<

First some significant proportion of the 500,000 Christian non-ethnic Poles lost their lives to the Soviets ... Second, the calculation at the top of this section using the figures in the web source referenced in footnote 45 result in a figure for "Polish 1938 citizens civilian non-Jewish death toll at the hands of the Germans" of circa 1.8 million.

And the US Holocaust Museum has a circa 1.8 million figure: "Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war not including deaths caused by the Soviets."

So where does the the two million figure come from ? Kits2 (talk) 07:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I will never post my original research here on Wikipedia. I use only verifiable sources that are reliable and have a high degree of credibility. The sources in English available to most readers of Wikipedia are the USHMM website and the estimates of the scholar Tadeusz Piotrowski, both sources indicate Poland's losses due to the German occupation were about 5 million, less 3 million Jewish Holocaust victims, gives us an estimated 2 million non-Jewish losses in German hands. The key point to grasp is that scholars in post communist Poland have proven the 6 million figure for Poland's war dead, in German hands, to be incorrect. The actual total is about 5 million, including the territory which was ceded to the USSR in 1945. The USHMM and Tadeusz Piotrowski are reporting this revised estimate to the English speaking world--Woogie10w (talk) 10:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Nazi Germany

I have twice added to the Introduction a reference to the fact that Germany was known as Nazi Germany during the time covered by the article. Both time said addition was reverted by Jayjg. The addition was factually correct and so should be included in the article. Additionally, the addition provided a link to the Nazi Germany article and the term "Nazi Germany" is used multiple times in this article. Jayjg believes this addition is an attempt by me to add my personal opinion. That is an absurdity. I don't want to get into an edit war, but I would like to hear what other editors have to say on this issue. --SMP0328. (talk) 01:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't get into an edit war; Jayjg is correct. The country's name is and was "Germany"; there's o particular need to say "the country was known as Nazi Germany"; and the likelihood that people will confuse 1933-1945 Germany with some other entity is quite low. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 01:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I checked what Time Magazine had to say, by checking for articles Jan 1, 1939 to Jan 1, 1945. Nazi Germany is mentioned in 167 articles, while Germany is mentioned in 3,415 articles. That would give for that time period 167 articles using "Nazi Germany" against 3,248 articles that only use "Germany".--Stor stark7 ^Speak 02:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Minor changes

Naming General Gouvernment Polish might be misleading, since it could suggest it was run by Poles, it was rather a German occupation zone administrated by Germans, full explanation is in article, so its best to leave just as wikilink. In regards to Madagascar Plan-it should be clear that it never enjoyed support and Jews were already murdered on massive scale during discussion about it. Also we should make it clear that we present an official explanation as reality, for we know that Jews were not being "shipped east" but exterminated through executions, famine and gas chambers. --Molobo (talk) 07:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Please read the sources in the article before making categorical statements. If the issue is caused by difficulty understanding nuances in the English language then please ask for help before making edits. 1. Hitler supported the plan, and support extended to the top levels of the SS, who were conducting the planning. 2. This whole article is about the killing of Jews, no need to repeat that ad-absurdum in every section. Don't distort what is said in the given sources, the explanation given by Hitler to the Foreign office for abandoning the plan is interesting, it has bearing on what high levels of the government were told/not told of Hitlers true intentions alternatively on the use of euphemisms already quite early in the holocaust --Stor stark7 ^Speak 16:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The photo that claims to show the remnants of gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau is titled incorrectly. The photo does indeed show ruins at Auschwitz-Birkenau, but they are of a sewage and water treatment plant at the camp. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikotfpb44 (talk • contribs) 04:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Question

Does anyone know how many people were killed altogether because I'm getting a lot of conflicting opinions and numbers on this. I'd like to know how many different ethnic groups were involved as well as how many people were killed altogether.

sorry for my ignorance Mythralt (talk) 20:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

If you're getting a lot of conflicting opinions, why would you accept a number given by a random person without any context, proof, or explanation? -Superm401 - Talk 08:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

RE estimates generally place the total number of victims at nine to 11 million...

1. You can't simultaneously define the Holocaust as the killing of Jews 'and others' and equate it to the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe", as the Encyclopedia Britannica does. We rehashed this many times at the Imperial War Museum when I was Senior Historian there, and concluded that the solution was to state that the Nazis had carried out numerous "linked killing programmes", one of which - the extermination of the Jews - is called the Holocaust. "Killing programme" (rather than genocide) is deliberate, since the "Euthanasia programme", the killing of political prisoners, Soviet POWs, gays, and other groups not definable by religion or ethnicity does not fit the UN definition of genocide. which is the definition we're stuck with. "Linked", because for example Jews were also killed, not as Jews, but as disabled, as Polish intellectuals, as political opponents, etc., and "linked" also because the equipment and personnel of the T-4 programme (part of the Euthanasia programme) were tranferred to Project Reinhard, the programme to kill the Polish Jews. Also Auschwitz and Majdanek were mixed camps, containing both execution facilities (mainly) for Jews and concentration/labour camps for prisoners in general, including Jews. Although the various programmes were entangled, it makes historical sense to separate them, since each had its own quite different purposes, ideological rationale and historical background, and was handled by different branches of the Nazi apparatus. So I think we need to name the individual programmes individually, instead of lumping them together as "the Holocaust". The Euthanasia programme we have already. For the 'Gypsies', we can use the Roma term Porrajmos; or else where the term genocide fits we can use the word "Nazi genocide of the [Poles] [Gypsies] etc. Also I don't seem to be able to edit the page, but could someone please correct the spelling of my name in footnote 6 - Paulsson, not Paulson. 2. The figure of 9 million has been the accepted number of non-Jewish victims, except that the number of Polish victims was overstated by the Communist regime. This article gives 1.8-2 million Polish victims, which is an improvement over the former claim of 3 million, but nobody has really done a thorough study. Bogdan Musial estimates 1.55 million. In any case, when the Polish total is corrected, the number of non-Jewish victims drops to 7.5-8 million. Berenbaum is cited here as giving 2-3 million Soviet POWs; the traditional number is 3.5 million. Correct that, and the total comes down another million to 6.5 - 7 million. The traditional figure of 6 million Jews is a nice round number; the article gives 5.7 million whereas Hilberg gives 5.1 million, and that is the range generally accepted by historians. That would give a total number of victims of 11.6-12.7 million, or 12 million in round numbers. 3. The figure of 11 million total victims was pulled out of a hat by Simon Wiesenthal and while widely circulated has no basis whatsoever. 4. The whole concept is fuzzy around the edges because the Croats and the Romanians conducted their own killing programs, the Croats against the Serbs and Romania against Jews and Roma. And if we wanted to get really inclusive we could include Japanese atrocities and even civilians targeted by Allied bombing. 5. The table of victim groups near the bottom of the article is seriously incomplete.leaving out e.g. Soviet civilians and Serbs. - Steve (Gunnar S.) Paulsson —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gspaulsson (talk • contribs) 03:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Gunnar S. Paulsson wrote “This article gives 1.8-2 million Polish victims, which is an improvement over the former claim of 3 million, but nobody has really done a thorough study. Bogdan Musial estimates 1.55 million’’ Bingo, Musial’s figure is correct. If there is anybody who is doing a thorough study of Polish losses, I will be able to guide them through the sources and unravel the puzzle of Poland’s war casualties.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Gunnar S. Paulsson has brought into the discussion important points that need to be addressed by the editors of this article. He is quite correct in wanting to separate the genocide of the Jews from the other victims Nazism. He hits the nail on the head when he points out that the figure of 9-11 million for total victims lacks solid documentation and needs to be corrected. Gunnar S. Paulsson is correct, we should give his points serious consideration. --Woogie10w (talk) 10:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

First, I will assume good faith and that this is indeed Gunnar Paulsson. In that case I have a rather simple question. Is it then a cultural thing as I suggested at an earlier point? Meaning, is the term Holocaust used differently in different cultures? As far as I can tell, the French culture area from which I essentially stem uses the term all inclusively and uses the for us relatively new term Shoah to deal with the Jewish Genocide in particular (not sure the capital G is conventional, but somehow it seems appropriate). So I might have projected a point of view from my cultural setting to this question, which in turn could be entirely wrong for the English speaking world. In that case we should never less still treat other crimes, similar to the Shoah, in this article, but possibly greatly reduced in space. We would also require a parent article (might already exist) to regroup all WWII crimes by Germany and it's immediate allies (I would at least instinctively exclude Japan as the two theatres were so far removed from one another, also exclude the Allied Crimes (there we do have the problem that for lack of reliable sources bombardments of population centres are usually disputed, one reason being that no convictions ever took place) as they are already covered separately (but a link and brief explanation here might be appropriate)).

Lastly, I'm really a bit out of debt in this topic as I usually concentrate on military issues (including the notion of war of aggression as a war crime, strategic bombing, terror bombing etc.). Though I had some formal education concerning the Holocaust (the all inclusive variant) and through that contact with a number of survivors. In addition to that I have little time as every day I'm adding more to my list of things to do on wikipedia, so it's even likely that I will remove this article from my watchlist in the near future.--Caranorn (talk) 13:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The footnote (#6) following the above statement gives no indication of where the 9 to 11 million comes from but instead suggests that the 9-11 million figure is way low ... >Donald Niewyk suggests that the broadest definition ... would produce a death toll of 17 million. A figure of 26 million is given in Service d'Information des Crimes de Guerre ...<

At a minimum the article needs to give a reference for the 9 to 11 million figure.

To my mind the 9 million is ridiculously low and giving that 9 million figure prominence in the text without sourcing it suggests a bias and/or a problem with addition --- 5.5 million Jews plus 2.5 million Sovciet Pow's plus 1.8 million Polish citizens is already over 9 million ...

The 11 million figure, which has received a good deal of play, was invented by Wisenthal (see Novick, Holocaust in American life 215,216 or footnote 22 at http://books.google.ca/books?id=TdhwE27xaG4C&pg=PA203&dq=Wisenthal+11+million+Novick&sig=_NnnKkF1kJPVwfXwbpBf1shCVFM ) Kits2 (talk) 06:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

From the BBC website >Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust ... Other holocaust victims included Slavs ... Catholic priests, Jehovah's Witnesses, ... trade unionists ... It is believed that a total of 15 million people died.<< http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/holocaust/hmd_1.shtml

I am going to change the 9 to 11 million sentence and the reference.

If someone wants to change the sentence back to 9-11 million they should explain why and provide some decent references. Kits2 (talk) 06:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

We need to point out that non-Jewish losses were about 6-7% in German occupied Poland and the USSR compared to 90% of the Jews. We cannot compare the genocide of the Jews to the persecution of the Slavs. Jews were rounded up and killed in death camps, Poles manned the railways that brought them to the camps.--Woogie10w (talk) 09:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Another important point is that the statistics of losses in the USSR are based on Soviet era data. The demographic estimates of total losses include deaths due to the war and Soviet repression, as well as Nazi war crimes. In Soviet and contemporary Russian texts the Germans are held responsible for all civilian deaths.--Woogie10w (talk) 09:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The statistical data is very clear; 6 million(66%) of the 9 milion Jews perished in the war compared to 11 million(3%) of the 350 million non-Jews in Nazi occupied Europe. We need to address this disparity in the article.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The fate of Poles in Germany cannot be compared to the Jews who were subject to the Nurnberg laws. 400,000 Polish citizens served in thw Wehrmacht and 108,000 were killed in battle. In Germany the 1.5 million ethnic Poles, who were bi-lingual, were treated as other Germans. Slavs and Jews were unequal victims.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The post I just made Overall, about 5.7 million (78%) of the 7.3 million Jews, in occupied Europe, perished in the war, the non Jewish victims of the Nazis are estimated at between 5 to 11 million ( 1.4% to 3.0%) of the 360 million persons in German dominated Europe should put this issue in a proper perspective.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with "about 5.7 million ... Jews, ... perished in the war" above. The Jews were targeted, victims not of war but of a largely succesful campaign of extermination. A suggested rephrasing of the sentence above: "Overall, about 5.7 million (78%) of the 7.3 million Jews, in occupied Europe, were murdered directly or indirectly by the Nazis and their allies; the non Jewish victims of Nazi persecution are estimated to be between 5 to 11 million ( 1.4% to 3.0%) of the 360 million persons in German dominated Europe." Kits2 (talk) 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Soviet POWs

The issue of Soviet POW collaboration is an aspect of the Holocaust that this article may want to consider. Russian sources have published data since the fall of communism on Soviet POW collaboration. 2 million Soviet POW were freeded from German captivity; 284,000 were sentenced by the NKVD for collaboration, 180,000 refused to return to the USSR and remained in the west fearing punishment in the USSR. In addition Russian sources estimate 215,000 Soviet citizens dead in the German Armed forces. These folks were the Ukrainian guards we read about in the histories of the death camps.--Woogie10w (talk) 11:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Experimentation

I'm not sure this was ever really adressed..how scientifically credible were the human experimentation carried out?.It seems to me ppl and sources tend to cloud the morality of the issue with the completely seperate question of how scientifically credible they were.Are the results really unrealiable just because of the manner in which they were carried out?, despite the trained physicians involved and seemingly professional manner they were conducted?.And to what extent, wether admitedly or not have they played a role in modern medical science... and reliable sources?. Rodrigue (talk) 14:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments by Baruch C. Cohen [13] has a discussion of the moral issues involved. --Woogie10w (talk) 16:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow dude, that has nothing to do with what I just said and you just proved my point about the trivial morality question. Rodrigue (talk) 18:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I hardly think the morality issue is "trivial", but as it happens that article also discusses the the question of the scientific usefulness of the experiments. Did you actually read it "dude"? The ones that provided genuinely useful data were cited in later publications. The ones that didn't obviously raised no moral issues about citation, so the two issues are intertwined. Paul B (talk) 18:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Well the source seemed to cloud itself in the issue somewhat, granted parts were relevant.But however much you concieve it relevant, ethics and morality only inhibit the potential for human experimentation.Rodrigue (talk) 21:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah. So? It's part of the cost of being decent human beings. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The Nazis experiments met with mixed scientific results. For instance, their experiments on freezing and rewarming subjects has formed the basis for the modern understanding of how to treat hypothermia. Conversely, little to none of the data obtained from their genetic experimentations has been deemed scientifically valid. All in all, the majority of the test carried out by the Nazis were not deemed scientifically credible because of the conditions they were conducted under (lack of sterile equipments, no scientific controls). As for the limitation imposed by morality, technically you are correct. However, seeing the harm forced on their victims by the Nazis resulted in the establishment of the Nuremberg code. While never formally adopted into medical law, it is the basis for most modern medical ethics codes. That means human medical experimentation does in fact occur, but it occurs ethically with informed consent, lack of coercion, regulated trials, and with a reasonable expectation that the experiments will be beneficial.

Finally, ethics and morality are never limitations. If you think so, I feel sorry for you. Ani Mate 22:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

my own personal conclusion is that crazy people do bad research. Gzuckier (talk) 16:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

RE >(holocaustum) ... a reference to a massacre of Jews by ... Roger of Howden [8]

The reference given at the end of the statement (footnote 8) -- a BBC DVD, is rather difficult to check.

Per Jon Petrie's article referenced in various Shoah and Holocaust word history discussions above it was Richard of Devizes who used the word and NOT Roger of Howden.

The Wikipedia article re Richard of Devizes concurs: "he was the first to use the word holocaust for the mass murder of the Jews of London ..."

The Jon Petrie article gives an English translation and the original Latin and a bit of context.

I am now going to attempt to edit the sentence and give a reference to Jon Petrie. If someone removes the reference to the Petrie article please explain why they are doing so.

The reference will be >See Jon Petrie a sentence after his footnote 15 http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust/ <

For the record, from the Jon Petrie article after his footnote 15:

>> "Londonie immolare Iudeos ... potuerit holocaustum." (c. 1200 - The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes (ed. J. T. Appelby, 1963), p. 3 -- See below for translation.)

"On the very day of the coronation [3 September 1189] ... a sacrifice of the Jews to their father the devil was commenced in the city of London ... the holocaust could scarcely be accomplished the ensuring day." (Chronicles of the Crusades (1848), p. 3 -- a translation of the Latin partially quoted above. Per the Jewish Encyclopedia (1964): "September 1189 ... a mob ... after vainly attacking throughout the day the strong stone houses of the Jews, set them on fire at night, killing those that attempted to escape. The king was enraged ...")<<

Kits2 (talk) 03:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not at all difficult to check - no more so than a book. Also wikipedia is not an acceptable point of cross-reference. Cripipper (talk) 15:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This example all is really very misleading anyway. The word "holocaust" was used generically for any form of severe fire. If people were killed in a fire, they were victims of a "holocaust". The fact that in this case the victims were Jewish has no relevance to the historical meaning of the word, and creates the misleading impression that it was specifically used to refer to attacks on Jews before the events of WW2. It wasn't. Paul B (talk) 15:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The quotations listed in the Jon Petrie article listed above appear to suggest that this is not the case. Either way, surely it demonstrates your point that it was used to mean a great (fatal) fire, and contextualises somewhat the persecution of the Jews of Europe? Cripipper (talk) 15:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What is not the case? Paul B (talk)

If you mean that the several Petrie quotations using the word holocaust with reference to attacks on Jews imply that the word was linked to Jewish victimhood, that's simply because he has accummulated every single example that he can find that contains the two. As he makes clear earlier in the article, it was a generic word for burnings, and, more loosely for destructiveness. It's possible to find references to "holocausts" of lots of groups. Paul B (talk) 16:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Crippipper changed my change so now the sentence reads >Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews by the chroniclers Roger of Howden[9] and Richard of Devizes[10] < Is Crippipper saying that BOTH chroniclers reported the same event using the Latin for holocaust ... highly unlikely in my view. Footnote 9 references a BBC DVD -- once again a reference to a DVD is not very useful, is much less checkable than a book reference. If I could find the DVD would I have to look thru the whole thing to find the supposed statement re Roger of Howden? Kits2 (talk) 20:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

That is precisely what I am saying; both chroniclers were referring to the 'holocaust' of Jews that occurred after the coronation of Richard I. It wouldn't take very long to find in a 55-minute episode of a chronological and historical DVD. If you really insist I could go and dig out an 1853 edition of the annals of Roger of Howden/Hoveden and give you a precise page reference, but you wouldn't be able to check that either I suspect. Cripipper (talk) 11:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

If Simon Schama did say on TV that Roger of Howden used the word then Schama should also say the same thing in his A History of Britain -- I'll have a look. Kits2 (talk) 17:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Schama in his BBC publication 'A History of Britain 3000BC-1603AD' has no index entry Roger of Howden -- but on p 153 (near bottom) writes: "... A general massacre ensured, described by the chronicler Richard of Devizes as a holocaustum." It is highly unlikely that the BBC book and DVD differ in assigning the authorship of 'holocaustum'. Kits2 (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

RE: Etymology .../ Definition section

Current reading: >>>Etymology ... Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."

I am going to change the above, adding the word 'supposed' and add a footnote unless I see compelling objections. New proposed reading:

>>Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the supposed theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust.<<

And the footnote: >>Jon Petrie demonstrates that much of the scholarship on the history of the word pre 2000 was wrong or misleading and questions on a number of grounds the idea that 'holocaust' in secular use carries any theologically offensive baggage. http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust <<

[For more on the subject and the treatment of the Petrie article in this section of Wikipedia see the section in Talk above titled >> ... theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust." (sic)<<]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Current reading of the next sentences:

>Definition The word "holocaust" has been used since the 18th century to refer to the violent deaths of a large number of people.[12] For example, Winston Churchill and other contemporaneous writers used it before World War II to describe the Armenian Genocide of World War I. [13] Since the 1950s its use has been increasingly restricted, and it is now mainly used to describe the Nazi Holocaust, spelled with a capital H... <<

I am proposing to add one sentence after footnote 13 above and also change the words "Since the 1950s" and again reference Petrie.

New suggested reading: "The word "holocaust" has been used since the 18th century to refer to the violent deaths of a large number of people.[12] For example, Winston Churchill and other contemporaneous writers used it before World War II to describe the Armenian Genocide of World War I. [13] In the 1960s the word was commonly used as a reference to nuclear war. Since the late 1970s its use has been increasingly restricted, and it is now mainly used to describe the Nazi Holocaust, spelled with a capital H..." And then a simple footnote referencing Petrie.

[And again perhaps before reacting read the section in Talk above titled >The word holocaust<]

Before making the change I would like a consensus. I did make a change recently and it was immediatley reverted.

There are other problems with the Etymology & Definition sections but I don't have the energy to deal with them now Kits2 (talk) 19:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Estimates of the death toll of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution ...

What I inserted in the article 28 April has been radically changed and for the worse. Mine:

>>>Estimates of the death toll of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution vary by many millions, partly because the boundary between death by persecution and death by starvation, brutal repression etc in a context of total war is unclear. The BBC estimates that something like 9 million non-Jews died as a result of Nazi persecution while texts in British schools give a figure of 5 million.[6]<<

The above conveys 1) that estimates of non-Jewish death tolls depend on where you draw the lines and 2) gives a range of estimates with authoritive sources.

The current reading:

>>>Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll rises considerably: estimates generally place the total number of victims, including Jews, at nine to 11 million.[6] The BBC estimates that something like 9 million non-Jews died as a result of Nazi persecution while texts in British schools give a figure of 5 million.[7]<<<

1) The figures of the first sentence don't agree with the figures of the second sentence. (And there are NO sources for the figures of the first sentence). The figures given in the first sentence are way too low (subtract 6 million Jewish victims from the 9 to 11 million figure and one gets 3 to 5 million non-Jewish victims)

2) No explanation is given for why one authoritive figure for non-Jewish victims should be close to 100% larger than an other authoritive figure -- something that an intelligent reader should want an explanation for.

3) I think its a bad idea and confusing to lump Jewish victims of the Holocaust in with non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in giving death tolls as is done in the first sentence above.

Would someone change the sentences back to something like my version, or explain why my version is bad and today's version good? (I am not attatched to my language but I am attatched to consistency of numbers from one sentence to the next, citing sources, and giving some explanation of why different authorities give radically different numbers.) Kits2 (talk) 02:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Estimates of the death toll of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution vary by many millions, partly because the boundary between death by persecution and death by starvation, brutal repression etc in a context of total war is unclear. Can you provide a source for this analysis?--Woogie10w (talk) 11:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

There is an excellent discussion of non-Jewish death tolls as a result of Nazi criminal actions at http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-million-non-jewish-victims-part-2.html It should be cited in the article.

Very interesting, the guy has some good points, but we must use reliable sources on Wikipedia, not blog.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The second or largest group of non-Jewish victims were Soviet civilians (after or before Soviet POWs depending on assumptions).

Per the cited web site >>...3 million non-Jewish civilians in Nazi-occupied [Soviet] territory ... died [per a guesstimate cited] as collateral casualties of the fighting, were massacred in anti-partisan operations or died due to the deterioration in living conditions. If equal probability is assigned to each of these 3 possibilities (collateral casualties, victims of anti-partisan operations, deaths from deterioration in living conditions), we get one million collateral civilian deaths (not included in this tabulation), one million victims of anti-partisan operations and one million deaths from deterioration in living conditions. Deaths in the latter two categories can be mostly attributed to the policies and actions of the Nazi occupiers and their allies, including the implementation of the murderous “Hunger Plan” addressed in this article. However, I shall conservatively assume that only half of the ca. 3 million non-Jewish Soviet civilian deaths in Nazi-occupied territory were directly attributable to the implementation of the Nazis’ criminal occupation and exploitation policies, the balance being collateral victims of the fighting at the front, starvation deaths due to the Soviet scorched-earth policy during the retreats in 1941/42 ... and civilians killed by irregular forces fighting the occupier.<<

Obviously if a researcher/writer is less conservative or more conservative in her assumptions about proportions of deaths due to Nazi criminal policies the numbers of victims change dramatically, hence my statement: "Estimates of the death toll of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution vary by many millions, partly because the boundary between death by persecution and death by starvation, brutal repression etc in a context of total war is unclear." 154.20.0.96 (talk) 16:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

There are some important points that need to be considered when analyzing human losses in Poland and the USSR during WW2.

1- Poland and the USSR both include the eastern portion of pre-war Poland in their casualty statistics. The Polish historian Krystyna Kersten estimates these losses at 2 million. In order to avoid a duplication these losses should be included with the USSR or Poland, but not in both nations.
2- The Russian Academy of Science in 1993 estimated total Soviet losses at 26.6 million, including an increase in infant mortality of 1.3 million. This is the estimated demographic loss for the entire USSR in the borders of 1946-91, of the population in mid 1941 net of population transfers
3- In 1995 the Russian Academy of Science held a conference on war losses. These were their estimates of civilian losses due to the war.
A. Civilians executed by Nazis- 7.4 million. These estimates are based on Soviet era sources.This figure presumably includes an unknown persons killed for collaboration with Germany.
B. Civilian dead in Germany due to forced labor or in camps -1.8 million. Note well the Russians count only an additional 1.3 million military POW deaths. This figure presumably includes the 215,000 deaths of Soviet citizens in German military service
C. Civilian deaths due to famine in the occupied regions 4.1 million.
D. Civilian deaths due to famine in the interior(unoccupied)regions 2.5- 3.0 million
E. Deaths in the GULAG were officially given at about 700,000.
F. Total civilian deaths 16.5 to 17.0 million.

4- Military war dead are as follows according to the official Russian 1992 report which has been translated in English
A. Deaths in battle and died of wounds. 6.335 million.
B. Deaths due to non-battle causes 555,000
C. Estimated combat deaths not reported 500,000.
D. Military POW dead in Germany due to forced labor or in camps -1.283 million. Note well the Russians count an additional 1.8 million civilian deaths in Germany.
E. Total military deaths 8.7 million.
F. These figures do not include partisan or militia war dead.
--Woogie10w (talk) 17:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That figure of an estimated 9 million non Jewish Holocaust deaths includes, 6 million in the USSR(including 3 million POW); 2 million in Poland and 1 million in the rest of Europe. I wonder what source the BBC used when they posted the statistic 15 million Holocaust dead. I backed into the USSR figure by subtracting Poland and an estimate for the rest of Europe.--Woogie10w (talk) 20:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Re yours above: If you are saying that one reason for very different death tolls for non-Jews as a result of Nazi criminal actions is a hugely different estimated total death tolls for various countries by different authorities, I agree with you. And even if we have a generally agreed death toll for the Soviet Union there is a huge degree of uncertainty about how many of the circa 25 million died in German occupied territory, how many died as a result of Stalinist repression etc. (I am real suspicious of any Soviet figure given to within a million -- a key article expresses some doubt as to whether Soviet 'losses' are not dead PLUS emigration after the war -- a few million recent Soviet citizens (Latvians, Poles etc.) fled West after the war.

I would be happy if you wrote some summary of above together with my remark that you removed and placed both the summary and my remark back in the article.

To justify further my remark: "Estimates of the death toll of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution vary by many millions, partly because the boundary between death by persecution and death by starvation, brutal repression etc in a context of total war is unclear."

Berembaum wrote: >>... Wiesenthal, in contrast, argued that the Holocaust was the death of 11 million people, 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews. The figure was invented: If we consider all civilian non-Jewish deaths, then it is too small; if we consider only those who died at the hands of the Nazi killing apparatus, then it is too large.<< http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-million-non-jewish-victims.html Kits2 (talk) 18:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

And re your I think dubious Russian figure "Military POW dead in Germany due to forced labor or in camps -1.283 million" Apparently this does not include deaths among circa half a million conscripts who were called up but captured before reaching their units see p. 675 http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-War_Deaths.pdf -- this key article should perhaps be cited Kits2 (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Do the math, 6.9 million confirmed dead, 500,000 estimated MIA(by Krivosheev) and 1.3 million POW deaths. That adds down to the official Russian figure of 8.7 million. Krivosheev added the additional 500,000 conscripts to the official total of 8.7 million, it is NOT in the 8.7 million figure. So you see the figure of 3 million POW deaths does not tie out to official Russian sources. Add the 3 million POW dead to the 6.9 million confirmed dead, 500,000 estimated MIA and you come to a figure of 10.4 million. Independent researchers in Russia today do not accept the official figure of 8.7 million as being correct.--Woogie10w (talk) 20:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Check Table 3 in that article, you see the total losses were 8.7 million, including 1.8 million missing and POW. The official Russian figure does not tie out to the western estimates of 3 million POW dead, case closed. The balance of 1.8 million civilians in the official figures are considered military losses in the west. Why the confusion? These men were conscripted but not officialy in the ranks, so they were not counted as military losses. In the chaos of 1941 there was no way to properly count losses. In any case get the Krivosheev book and we can continue the discussion. The math gets real fuzzy when you look at the total number conscripted less the number in the ranks in 1945. 34.5 million conscripted less 12.9 million in the ranks in 1945 less 9.7 discharged for various reasons less 2.0 million liberated POW leaves 9.9 million dead & missing, not counting partisans, the NKVD and militia.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I have lost the point here. Relevent in this "Talk" section is the Holocaust article in Wikipdeia and specifically the section that today reads: >>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.[7]<< I believe 1) these figures need a source and 2)somewhere the statement should be made that 11 million figure was made up but is often accepted as authoritive 3) we need some explanation of the difficulties of arriving at a figure and 4) there is NO credible source for the 9 million figure that is given by Wikipedia and further the implied circa 3 million non-Jewish victims is an insult to non-Jewish suffering. [Minimzing the Jewish Holocaust with false statements is a crime in some countries but minimizing non-Jewish death tolls seems to be curiously acceptable.] (We seem to agree re the Soviet figures using your words a) sometimes the "math gets real fuzzy" and b) "The official Russian figure [of POW dead] does not tie out to the western estimates of 3 million" [the Wiki Holocaust article quotes Berenbaum "between two and three million ... POWs"]) Kits2 (talk) 17:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The historians who include non-Jewish losses in Poland of 2 million with the Holocaust and ignore non Jewish Soviet civilian losses of 9 million are not being consistant. In the case of Poland and the USSR the Germans had a view that Slavs were an inferior people, they were enslaved ,subject to brutal reprisals and suffered food shortages. For all practical purposes the policy was the same in both nations. In Poland 6% perished compared to 13% in the occupied USSR. By including Poland's non-Jewish losses with the Holocaust, the door was opened and an 800 pound gorilla walked in and sat down.--Woogie10w (talk) 22:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It is a bit ironic that the arguments against including Soviet civilian deaths with the Holocaust are similar to those of the Holocaust deniers who allege the victims died as a result of the war or the Soviets killed them and then blamed the Germans. --Woogie10w (talk) 00:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not funny

we should also say this is one of the most cruel ways of racism it no one should be treated like this! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.241.247.30 (talk) 16:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I totaly agree with you!-207.241.247.30 (talk) 17:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Though I agree with you in principle (as, I'm sure, most people here do) this is not suitable for an encyclopedia. This article is simply meant to present historical facts.Sstr (talk) 16:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with Sstr. --69.222.238.2 (talk) 17:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not totally agree with Sstr I think it sould be it the enclopedia but it was horrible.Miagirljmw14 (talk) 17:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I just hate racism im a strong christan and equal rights person and im only 14 and useing a school comp! I guess we dont need to tell the public as long as they read about this article or learn it in school they probaly will get the idea.-207.241.247.30 (talk) 16:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes the best way to describe something truly awful is as neutrally and quietly as you can. Sometimes it's the only way.

This is a difficult area. Wikipedia is quite clear on this: our neutrality policy says that we must not tell the reader what to think. All we can do is tell them what happened, and hope that our common humanity will lead them to the same conclusions that we hold. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 17:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

on the other hand, there are facts about things which pertain to their "metadata". for one thing, assuming somebody naive to the Holocaust were to come upon this article then go out into "normal" society, they would not be well served or properly educated were they not to understand that in general, the holocaust is seen to be a horrible event, that praise of it is generally considered highly unacceptable, that expressing doubts that it happened is also considered unacceptable to a lesser degree; but also that there exists a small "fringe" element who disagree with all those opinions. That's not opinion, per se, those are very solidly founded facts about opinions, and knowledge of them is arguably as important to the average person as knowledge of the details of the holocaust itself. the average guy may not know the difference between auschwitz and maidanek, but he knows that people generally express regret that a lot of jews died during the holocaust.Gzuckier (talk) 19:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with reporting how the Holocaust is perceived or described, what legislation exists regarding denial, etc.—but for Wikipedia to describe the subject as horrible, for example, would be a violation of our core principles; hence my post SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 17:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok I understand we cant tell them what to think or not to think where not the boss of them we just gota tell the facts no matter how angry we are gainst Hitlers actions.-67.87.96.255 (talk) 20:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: Rvt, May 13 ... Petrie is not a Holocaust scholar Crum375 (Shoah vs Holocaust)

Jon Petrie is a (perhaps THE) recognized authority on the word 'holocaust'.

The Holocaust Museum cites Jon Petrie http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?topic=01 As does Yad Vashem http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/search/index_search.html

Is there something in Jon Petrie's Holocaust article that is radically incorrect, that leads you to believe his article, despite the two museum acknowledgements, is unreliable ?

The sentence and footnote that were reverted are below -- (both the 'SUPPOSED' below and the accompanying footnote were eliminated by the Crum375 reversion -- SUPPOSED is capitalized above & below only for purposes of clarity -- 'supposed' was not capitalized in the text that was reverted,):

The reverted sentence: >>... Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the SUPPOSED theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."<<

And the eliminated footnote:

>>Jon Petrie demonstrates that much of the scholarship on the history of the word pre 2000 was wrong or misleading and argues 1) that 'holocaust' in secular use carries no theological baggage, and 2) its original theological meaning was sacrifice to a pagan god, and 3) the most circulated "holocaust" with a theological meaning within Holocaust studies employs this theological sense successfully: "a human holocaust exacted by Race, the most voracious of all idols". http://www.berkeleyinternet.com/holocaust -- the quote "a human holocaust ..." is from Mauriac's introduction to Wiesel's Night and is discussed a paragraph before footnote 28 in the cited Petrie web article.<<

What's the problem ? Do you deny that Jon Petrie is cited by Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum ? Do you deny that much of the pre Petrie Holocaust scholarship re the word was plain wrong / highly misleading ? Doesn't Petrie argue that 'holocaust' in secular discourse has no theological overtones ? Wasn't the first known use of the original version of 'holocaust' a reference to a sacrifice to a Greek pagan god ? Did Mauriac write what Petrie says he wrote ? Isn't the Mauriac quote a fairly early, very well circulated theological employment of the word within Holocaust Studies?

["theology ... the rational study of the teachings of a religion or of several religions" Wikipedia- Theology] Kits2 (talk) 16:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to use Jon Petrie as a source, could someone say who he is, please, and then only use material of his that's been published by reliable sources. I've removed his personal webpage and the following:

"Jon Petrie demonstrates that much of the scholarship on the history of the word pre 2000 was wrong or misleading and argues 1) that 'holocaust' in secular use carries no theological baggage, and 2) its original theological meaning was sacrifice to a pagan god, and 3) the most circulated "holocaust" with a theological meaning within Holocaust studies employs this theological sense successfully: "a human holocaust exacted by Race, the most voracious of all idols". [14] -- the quote "a human holocaust ..." is from Mauriac's introduction to Wiesel's Night and is discussed a paragraph before footnote 28 in the cited Petrie web article."

SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin demands 1) that we only use material of Jon Petrie's that's been published by reliable sources.

I will regretfully substitute for the web address present in the removed footnote >Jon Petrie, 'The secular word HOLOCAUST...', JOURNAL OF GENOCIDE RESEARCH Volume 2 Number 1 March (2000) 31-63.< [The web address gives a later, richer version of the article published in the less accessible academic journal.]

Thank you. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin also asks 2) "... could someone say who [Jon Petrie] is, please."

Jon Petrie has written a longish well documented article on the word 'holocaust' that was published in an academic journal. At some point in Petrie's life he was a researcher who gathered a great deal of information on the word 'holocaust' and then wrote up his findings. He was for awhile a contributor to H-Holocaust http://www.h-net.org/~holoweb/ "primarily, though not exclusively an academic list" -- postings are retrievable. If SlimVirgin is interested in the personal details of Petrie's life, for example, the age of his children or his current employment he could email Petrie -- his email is given in footnote 1 of his web article.

I was asking whether he's an historian or Holocaust scholar, and if so, where. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

For Wikipedia's Holocaust article and this Talk section what's relevant re Petrie is only whether Petrie's article has been published by a respectable source and whether Jon Petrie's work on the word 'holocaust' has been dismissed by Holocaust scholars or is recognized by at least a few scholars as authoritative.

The major Holocaust museums cite Jon Petrie -- see http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?topic=01 and http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/search/index_search.html

And if you go to Google Books and plug in "Jon Petrie" + Holocaust there are 12 hits. http://books.google.ca/books?lr=&q=%22Jon+Petrie%22+%2B+holocaust&btnG=Search+Books

One telling hit:

"[We incorrectly stated in our earlier essay] holocaust was employed as a reflex of Hebrew olah in the King James Version. In fact, the terminology 'burnt offering' is employed. We are grateful to Jon Petrie for drawing this error to our attention."

(Double Takes: Thinking and Rethinking Issues of Modern Judaism in Ancient (2004) p. 28 Zev Garber, Bruce Zuckerman -- the earlier Garber/Zuckerman essay, the frequently cited reprinted, and supposedly authorative "Why Do We Call the Holocaust 'The Holocaust?" claimed that 'holocaust' was employed in the King James Bible.)

And in footnote 8 p. 27 in the above book (again from Google books) Garber/Zuckerman cite the Petrie article (both the Journal of Genocide Research and the website) and more or less admit that their reading of the Oxford English Dictionary's ordering of definitions in the 'holocaust' entry was incorrect and Petrie's is correct:

"We should, however, take note of a point made by Jon Petrie in his article ... the precedence given to "sacrifice" in the OED and elsewhere is best understood as reflecting the most traditional rather than the most common usage."

What more is required for Jon Petrie's article to be seen as a legitimate source on the word 'holocaust' for Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kits2 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've retained the footnote that mentions his Genocide journal article, but I don't think we should change the text based on his views until we know something about his academic background. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I am a little concerned about this too, primarily because of this. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, less worrying than I thought, perhaps. That might just be a problematic website archiving an H-net posting.

Petrie appears to be a California-based "independent researcher". I would be doubtful in most cases about adding him to the article, except that he appears to be widely cited. According to an article in the Forward on the subject of the origins of the word cited in several other locations, he has looked into the history of the word more thoroughly than anyone has." FWIW. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

German Occupied Poland or General Government

The term German Occupied Poland is more clear and to the point, rather than General Government that is not recognizable to many readers. There should be a link to the General Government from a more general description such as German Occupied Poland. Lets try and reach a broad reading audience, not just persons with a detailed knowledge of the topic.--Woogie10w (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Dachau cold water immersion.jpg

The image Image:Dachau cold water immersion.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --19:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Nazi vs National Socialist

The term "Nazi" is univerally understood in English to refer to the regime of Adolf Hitler while the term National Socialist is not as well understood and is certainly not as widely used. For the same reason that there's an article called "Nazi Germany" and "Nazi Party" it makes sense to refer in this article to the Nazis. Saying "National Socialist (Nazi)" is clumsy - if you have to explain what you mean in parentheses then you're not being clear. Also, I don't know why the footnote using the US Holocaust Museum website as a source was removed. Is there a problem with that website's credibility? Winshevsky (talk) 21:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

To the latter point, it's just too much detail for the lead. As for the former, the standard thing is to refer to a group by their full name on first reference, and thereafter use any short form. I can't see why anyone would object to that. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 00:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I find the reverting on this point — as well as asking people to help out who've never edited this page before — somewhat disturbing. Some editors seem not to want the word "socialist" to feature. But it was part of their name, and the point of this page is to inform people, not hide things from them. It's also absolutely standard to use a fuller name on first reference, and abbreviations thereafter. Why should this article be the exception? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits

Oops, I didn't see this before reverting...

Why should this be the exception? Because a "fuller name" is used on first reference primarily because to avoid any confusion from the use of an abbreviation. In this case, the overwhelmingly familiar term is "Nazi", and using anything else dilutes the clarity of the first sentence and negatively impacts both readability and and the quality of information. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The point of our articles is to educate people, and we should definitely use the fuller name on first reference in order to educate, as we do with every other group in every other article. There is no reason at all that this name should be an exception just because some editors don't want to associate the word "socialist" with Hitler. That definitely smacks of censorship and I'm surprised to see anyone here upholding it. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 21:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

IF the purpose is to educate readers about an otherwise relatively minor point, then we don't need the fuller name to be on the first reference, particularly not in the lead. The lead should be succinct and readable, and not introduce such details.

I certainly hope you're not implying that I'm out to censor the material, or that you know why I or "some editors" possibly including me disagree with you. As I'm sure you realise, the use of the term and what is more common and informative has been extensively discussed elsewhere on WP. Incidentally, other people who object to the NSDAP being called Nazi are - er - Nazis. (Apparently its pejorative, who knew?) I'm not calling you a Nazi because you too object, now, am I? Its never nice to claim you know why people are doing things, especially if you could very easily be quite wrong. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The correct name of the party is "National Socialist German Workers Party". so it is highly disingenous to claim that "Nazi" is an abbreviation and "National Socialist" is not. Typically the editors who insist on using the full name are either neo-Nazis or right-wing Americans who want to equate Nazism with Socialism. It is also notable that SL has repeatedly deleted Communists from the lead reference to Nazi victims, even though they killed far more of them than of Jehovah's Witnesses. The use of Nazi is standard in academic literature, and National Socialist is wholly contrary to policy concerning common names. It is also misleading, since, as has been pointed out on the Nazi Party talk page in the past, there are several other parties that have used the phrase "National Socialist" in their name, and a number of them had ideologies that were wholly unrelated to Nazism (see National Socialist Party). Paul B (talk) 22:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes but the term "Nazi" is also slang, an offshoot of how Socialists (Sozialisten) were called "Sozis" (you have to know the German pronunciations of "National" and "Sozialist"). While I agree "National Socialist German Workers Party" is too cumbersome, I don't think "National Socialism" is illegitimate as a compromise (although maybe it needs to be referred to as "German National Socialism"). FWIW I've also read (sorry I don't remember where, so no citations) that the Nazis never referred to themselves as Nazis, but always as National Socialists.Historian932 (talk) 13:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, they never referred to themselves as such, but it is now the standard term in scholarly literature, not just popular discourse. Many standard political terms began as unofficial labels or abbreviations (e.g. Whig, Tory, Bolshevik). Paul B (talk) 13:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Lead

Could people please stop adding to the list of types of victim? One of the inspirations for the re-write last year or the year before was that the lead had developed into an absurd list of every conceivable form of human being, and it's heading in that direction again. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 00:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. The other groups persecuted by the Nazis cannot be compared to the Jews who were rounded up and killed, only a tiny percentage survived as forced laborers. The communists in Germany had the option of switching sides and joining the Nazi party. Poles survived as long as they worked for Germany. They were well known for turning in Jews for a bottle of Vodka. Poles that lived in Germany were treated as other German citizens as long as they spoke German in public. Don’t forget that 800,000 Soviet citizens served in the German Armed forces. The very idea of comparing these other groups to the Jewish Holocaust victims is absurd.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Rather than edit these groups off the page, it would be better to present the facts. When readers see 90% of Polish Jews as Holocaust victims compared to 6% of the Polish Catholics they will realize that the whole issue of a Polish Catholic Holocaust basically puffed up propaganda. The numbers speak for themselves. --Woogie10w (talk) 02:05, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

"Propaganda?" How dare you call exposing murder propaganda. Just as many members of "other groups" were killed as Jews. Maybe see Saint Maximillian's story. I guess because his ethnicity was "well known for turning in Jews for a bottle of Vodka", his sacrifice doesn't count. Maybe the deaths of over 2 million Catholics, including a dear family friend of mine, don't "count" because Hitler treated them "as other German citizens as long as they spoke German in public." Not only is that last statement completely false and unsourced, it casts the image that if it were true, the Polish deaths "don't count" because they had the choice of becoming fluent in a foreign language and using it in public. And what about others such as Roma and homosexuals? Is their blood any less valuable then Jewish blood? To say that only Jews were affected by the Holocaust is denying over five million deaths of innocent people. There is no good cause for doing so. It is only inflammatory and bigoted. Wikipedia is not the place to argue whether some deaths at the hands of the Nazis are as good as others. Thank you, Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that there were about 2 million German citizens of Polish ancestry living in pre war Germany. After the war 1.3 million became Polish citizens. This is a little known fact in the English speaking world.--Woogie10w (talk) 02:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if there were Polish Germans before the war. That is not related to any of my main points. There were Turkish citizens of Armenian descent in the first World War. BAM! According to your logic, there should be no article on the Armenian Genocide, or merely, all the deaths "don't count". You have yet to have provided any decent reason on why "other groups" should not be counted. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Time out, my point is that Poles and Jews were unequal victims. There were no Nurnberg laws against Poles that were used to classsify Jews. 90% of the Polish Jews were rounded up and killed by the Nazis, 94% of the Polish Catholics survived the war working for Germany. There should be no comparison of Polish and Jewish Holocaust victims. We need to put the issue in a proper perspective on this page.--Woogie10w (talk) 02:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

German citizens of Polish ancestry living in pre war Germany cannot be compared to Ottoman Armenians. They were not rounded up and killed. They were however punished if they used the Polish language in public. --Woogie10w (talk) 02:49, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

You have no sources for that. Besides, a death is a death either way. Whether 10 or 10 million also died with you doesn't matter, only that you died. Polish Jews and Catholics both faced persecution and slaughter at the hands of the Nazis, and so both must be noted and discussed in this article. Far more Soviets died in WWII than any other nationality; is the article about WW2 casualties all about the Soviets? No. All the other victims of foreign conflict are given their proper acknowledgment, why not the victims of domestic conflict? Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

There were 350 million non Jews in occupied Europe ,11 million died at the hands of the Nazis 3%. About 80% of the 7 million Jews perished. Like I said they were unequal victims. We need to point this out in the article--Woogie10w (talk) 03:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, the Poles in Germany were treated like other Germans

Gerda Christian was in the Bunker with Hitler in 1945, Christian, Gerda, née Daranowski, born on December 13, 1913 in Berlin, since 1937 Hitler´s Secretary, until May 1, 1945 in the bunker, successful escape to West Germany.

Walter Krupinski was a top fighter ace of the Third Reich.

Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was a notorious SS war crimminal.

We need to have a reality check, time to brew up some nice hot coffee.--Woogie10w (talk) 03:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Polish citizens who were Christians were subjected to a harsh German occupation that led to the deaths of 2 million(6%). Polish Jews were singled out for annihilation by the Germans 3 million(90%)perished in the Holocaust. Ethinc Poles who were German citizens before the war were treated as other Germans as long as they used the German language. Poles and Jews were unequal victims.--Woogie10w (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Let the numbers speak for themselves--Woogie10w (talk) 03:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It's as much a question of the writing as anything else. We can't list every type of human being that was killed by the Nazis — people with two legs, people with one leg, people with none. The lead should list only those who were actually targeted, and saying "political dissidents" is enough without listing all the different political ideologies. I also see that someone has added a Christian section, which I think we should remove, because Christians were not targeted qua Christians. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 06:20, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The Christians section should have been deleted by now, it drags down the rest of the page and makes it look real bad. The Nazis did not target Christians--Woogie10w (talk) 10:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

From The New York Times Dec 7, 1941-

The German Catholic clergy, while strongly objecting to certain aspects of NAZI racial policy, has always taken care to emphasize the duty of every Catholic to his country as loyal Germans in the present war. [15]--Woogie10w (talk) 13:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

See the Shoah (film), Poles manned the trains to the death camps.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I have added a section on Catholics. By doing this I do not mean to pretend Jewish deaths did not happen, minimize the importance of Jewish deaths, or spread "buffed up propaganda." I simply mean to acknowledge the facts of history. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 01:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the account of an actual survivor an "anecdote" or a perfectly legitimate biography page that happens to have the word "Jewish" in the URL a "religious website." Unless someone tells me exactly what is wrong with those sources, I'll revert it again. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 01:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The story of a survivor is anecdotal — it is effectively a primary source. What we need here are high quality mainstream scholarly sources who provide context and establish the overall picture. This is what we have tried to do throughout this article. Crum375 (talk) 01:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

"The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." This should be the main point that we should focus on when editing this article. Unfortunately the article it has become a soapbox for any and every group persecuted by the Hitler regime. The reversal of the edit by Crumb375 was justified. Catholics were not targeted as a group in Nazi Germany. I am from the old school, I support the scholars that believe the Nazi genocide of the Jews was unique and should be treated separately from other groups persecuted by the Hitler regime. --Woogie10w (talk) 03:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The only problem with your argument is the fact the Catholics were targeted by the Nazis. There are several Catholics slaughtered that have since then become beautified or canonized. Catholics were killed at the same time and place as Jews, except in a shorter number. It is better to talk about other groups here than at maybe another article like Other Groups Killed in the Holocaust. Oh, wait, the Holocaust is only Jews. So it would have to be Hitler's Genocide of Religious, Ethnic, Political, and Sexual Groups Excluding Jews During the Second World War. Sounds a little silly, doesn't it? Times have changed since "old school." What Wikipedia should be expressing is the views of today's scholarly community, not those of the scholarly community when you were in school.Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 13:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The only problem with your argument is the fact the Catholics were not targeted by the Nazis. A great proportion of the German population were Catholics. No-one was harmed for being Catholic. Some catholics were anti-Nazi. Some were pro-Nazi. So were atheists, protestants and any other religion or non-religion, with the obvious exception of Judaism. Paul B (talk) 23:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I recommend this book for those who want to better understand Polish Jewish relations during the war. The author is Prof. Yisrael Gutman, previously Yad Vashem’s Chief Historian and Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, is Yad Vashem’s Academic Advisor. Gutman mentions in his book that in 1940 while the Jews of Warsaw were being sent into the Ghetto, the Polish Catholic Archbishop of Warsaw was delivering virulent anti-semetic sermons to his congregation. Yisrael Gutman, Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews During World War Two Holocaust Library, 1986.;ISBN 0896040550--Woogie10w (talk) 01:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

So the five to six million killed who belonged to "any other religion or non-religion, with the obvious exception of Judaism" had a choice between going to the death camps or not? Do you think the Gestapo asked captured "others" whether or not they supported the Nazi party? Of course not. I'm sure there were tons of Soviet POWs who were pro-Nazi, as well as all of those pro-Nazi Roma, gays, Freemasons, etc. The "other groups" killed by the Nazis were not killed because they were political dissidents only. Some German Catholics were killed, but most of the non-Jewish Poles as well as most Roma were Catholic. Something should be said about this in the article. I think you also might want to read the Roman Catholic Pope's Mit brennender Sorge, which expresses concern and contempt for the Nazis and anti-Semitism. The Church is not one of its bishops alone. The "archbishop" in question was actually merely an apostolic administrator and served for less than two years after the death of the previous archbishop. Death camps did not start functioning until the year administrator stepped down. What he says cannot be taken as the policy of the church. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Your argument makes no sense. You are confusing the fact that Catholics were killed with the claim that they were killed because they were Catholics. As you say yourself, prisoners were prisoners. In other words it is because they were prisoners that they suffered, not because of their religion. Many war prisomers died. Many people were murdered in reprisals for partsan attacks etc. It's difficult to be clear about who we include in the 'holocaust' as such, but the scholarly norm is not to simply include all war dead, or even all victms ofd war crimes. Paul B (talk) 08:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What the article lacks is a clear explanation that the other groups persecuted by the Nazis cannot be equated to the genocide of the Jews, who suffered disproportionate losses compared to other groups. The fact that these groups receive such prominence in the article is a sop to Political correctness. Like I said before, I am from the old school. --Woogie10w (talk) 10:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not just 'political correctness', though I thinmk you are right about that when it comes to some states and local goverments that feel pressure from interest groups to be 'included' in memorial events and literature. There's a useful discussion this in the book Representing the Holocaust. But this is also most importantly about scholarly norms. Sometimes scholars refer only to Jews, sometimes to Jews and Gypsies, ansd sometimes to a wider range of groups. Paul B (talk) 11:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It is because they were prisoners that they suffered, but they were prisoners because of their religion or ethnicity or sexuality or political leanings. Catholics were both killed because they were Poles/Roma/etc., and because they were Roman Catholics. If "other groups" were killed in a way different from the Jews, it would be different. But, as I have said before, they were killed at the same time, the same place, through the same methods and alongside the Jews. The significance today of the genocide of the Jews is much greater and weightier than that of the other groups, but merely the bulk of those killed or the significance of those deaths do not diminish the deaths of those who died alongside them, as other groups did next to the Jews. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 13:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I know of no evidence that Catholics were killed bacuse they were Catholics. Provide a reliable source that says they were. If that were true, Hitler would have wiped out the population of Austria. Paul B (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention about a third of the population of Germany (including Hitler himself).[16] Crum375 (talk) 14:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have never argued that Hitler attempted to exterminate all Catholics as he did Jews, merely all Catholics who got in his way. Hitler was not a practicing Catholic and all of the so-called "Vatican treaties" were shattered by the Nazis followed by stern Vatican resistance. [17][18]

There are sources for Vatican resistance and the deaths of Catholics who got in Hitler's way. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 22:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

How"s this: there is no separate section for Catholics, but mention is made that most Poles and Roma killed were Catholics, and Maximilian Kolbe is mentioned under the Poles, and it is acknowledged that the Catholic Church was not the anti-Semitic arm of Hitler it sometimes is made out to be. I'm open to any other compromises. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 02:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right — in addition to the Jews and other groups he selected for extermination, Hitler attempted to eliminate any other persons who "got in his way". This included all kinds of people, of all nationalities and religions. If you can find a high quality scholarly source stating that some other identifiable group, not yet mentioned, was collectively selected for systematic extermination, and that this is considered a significant and notable part of the term "The Holocaust", then that should be added with an appropriate reference. Crum375 (talk) 02:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to chime in here as partial support for Erik the Red. Catholics and Christians in general were of course persecuted by the Nazis. There indeed are a number of such documented cases. The reason for these persecutions indeed lay in their religion and not in their supposed opposition to the Nazis (I know of a number of such victims who were actually supporters of the Nazis to the day they were arrested). So mention of these definitely belongs in the article, but obviously to a lesser degree than the much larger genocide against the Jews, note even if many Roma were Catholics that was not the reason for their persecution, though it might have acted as an amplifier. By the way, the title Holocaust needs much stronger sourcing if it's supposed to document the title as equivalent to Shoah, right now there is only one source to that effect and it's weak at best). Lastly, in a section about persecution of Christians (I'd not limit the section to Catholics) it should also be mentioned that prior to said persecution many such Christians supported or at least admired the Nazi regime, in essence two sides to a coin.--Caranorn (talk) 11:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an important aspect of the Holocaust that needs be understood when we edit this page. During the Nazi period all Jews were singled out for destruction, with no exceptions. Other groups were spared, with the exception of Roma and the handicapped, as long as they worked for the Germans and followed their orders. The Holocaust survivors that I knew mentioned that the Poles and Germans were hostile toward the Jews before, during and after the war. They would not think of ever setting foot in Germany or buying a German product. These folks remember the Poles cheering while they were being transported, in Polish manned trains, to the death camps. The Jews suffered and died alone and received little or no help from their Christian neighbors. The very few that did risk their lives to save Jews are remembered in Israel. That is why it is surreal when we put the Christians and Jews on the same page entitled the “Holocaust”. --Woogie10w (talk) 21:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, per this source, essentially all Germans (excluding Jews) were Christians, and a third of them were Catholics (including Hitler himself). To say that Hitler persecuted "Christians" would mean he targeted his own people along with himself, leaving no one to fight the war and carry out the Holocaust. Crum375 (talk) 21:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Well Crum, that's no source, that's just a privately run site of limited quality. If one were to take it seriously one would believe that indeed 100% of the German population was Christian, including Jews. Obviously this is just as incorrect as stating that 100% of the German population, excluding Jews, was Christian. For the rest I recommend you read up on some of the neo-germanic religious nonsense pursued by many ranking Nazis. By the way, according to that site's logic I'd be a Christian to be exact Catholic. Why? Because I was born in a predominantly Catholic country, to a Catholic family and brought up as a member of the church. Yet in reality I am an atheist and among other things known for favouring separation of church and state. In general I'd recommend not trusting sites claiming 100% belief in any faith as it's obviously wrong at any given time and probably place in history.

Now back to the topic. I had not realised this discussion was about the lead in particular (yep, call me blind). Under those conditions I agree, singling out Christians in the lead would be inappropriate. But a section under Victims and death toll would seem appropriate (I just looked at the article history and also agree that such an entry would require good sourcing). Still, I think the lead's claim that Holocaust ... is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II... followed by Many scholars do not include these groups in the definition of the Holocaust, defining it as the genocide of the Jews... needs either stronger sourcing or revision. Possibly this is a cultural thing as I certainly learned to use the term generally for the persecutions of the Nazi Regime. In later years, I learned about the term Shoah which is indeed dealing with the Jewish Genocide (Shoah and Holocaust are not synonyms and it is unfortunate that we have a single article for these two topics). But again, this could be a cultural issue, though even from my studies (History and Political Sciences, including radicalism) in the US I don't recall Holocaust having such an exclusive meaning. So again, either this should be correctly sourced (and not be left to a single author claiming many other scholars...) or changed to be all inclusive.

Note, I've heard very different reports from Auschwitz and other camp survivors concerning Polish citizens. I don't think we should generalise in that fashion. Yes, many Poles, probably the majority, were anti-semites before and during WWII (and probably for a long time after). But many also helped Jews. But you are right about Germany, most Holocaust (my definition, in many cases I didn't even ask why the people were deported to the camps, probably only a minority of those I talked to were Jews for the simple reason that very few local Jews survived and of those hardly any returned) survivors I met live in great fear of Germany and Germans. But even those do not judge all Germans (collectively Germany and Germans were guilty of numerous crimes during WWII, the two foremost being war of aggression and the Jewish genocide) for these crimes.--Caranorn (talk) 22:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I cannot find any scholarly source that claims that the Holocaust was only the genocide of the Jews. What, in your opinion, should I search to find the genocide of the "others?" Here is a source that acknowledges the superior number of Polish Jewish deaths, but explains Hitlers hatred of Ethnic Poles. It puts the number of Polish Christian deaths at around 3 million. It is sourced by this book. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 23:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

German Communists-Source

Here is a link to a review of a book in German that claims 150,000 of the 320,000 German Communists were imprisoned by the Nazis, where 2,000 died. The book has biographical material on 1,400 German Communist leaders, 222 of whom were killed by the Nazis and 178 perished in the purges in the USSR, where they were refugees. The reviewer considers the book informative and useful. [19]--Woogie10w (talk) 21:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Should we not have a link to this article or a mention , as it was as a direct result of the Holocaust the declaration was made Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Be bold SGGH ^speak! 10:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Motivations for the Holocaust

The article lacks a clear explanation of anti-Semitism in Europe and the historical precedents of the Holocaust. Readers of the article are given the misleading impression that the Holocaust just happened because of Hitler and the Nazis. The Destruction of the European Jews by Hilberg covers the roots of anti-Semitism in Germany, this could be a guide for us to put a section in the article on the motivations for the Holocaust. German Wikipedia has an excellent discussion of the motivations for the Holocaust. [20]. French Wikipedia has an accurate treatment of the topic [21], its main focus is on the losses of the Jews rather than equating the other groups persecuted by the Nazis with the genocide of the Jews.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Woogie you are misinterpreting the french article. The reason why fr:Shoah deals with the Jewish genocide exclusively is that the article is about the Shoah which is a clearly defined term. The article fr:Holocauste deals with the Nazi genocides and otehr crimes in a more general sense. It also explains what I tried to say earlier, that the interpretation of Holocaust as either just (that word seems inapropriate in this context) the Jewish Genocide is a cultural thing or the inverse of Holocaust as general designation for Nazi crimes...--Caranorn (talk) 21:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The French article fr:Holocauste cannot be compared to English version, lets be honest. The English article equates the Jewish genocide with other groups persecuted by the Nazis, this is misleading. A sop to political correctness in the English speaking world.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually I see it exactly the other way round. The term Holocaust has been in common use in french culture for a while now and always designated all types of persecution by the Nazis. The term Shoah on the other hand is relatively recent in European usage I'd say. Now I cannot speak for the US on this matter, and certainly not for Israel. In the end the question is in what way the term Holocaust is used in the english culture area. Note, I agree the french article cannot be compared to this one, but it's more of a size and quality issue (even if I see problems in this article, they are not as big as in the french one which is essentially an expanded disambiguation). But I thought to bring it up as you brought up the french Shoah article which indeed is stricter, but the reason for that is that uses a less ambiguous title.--Caranorn (talk) 22:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The French article fr:Shoah is the equivalent of the English Holocaust article. The French article fr:Holocauste is a stub that cannot be compared to the English version. Pas vrai?--Woogie10w (talk) 22:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Holocaust

What sets my claims apart from any others in the article. Why should I have to have higher quality sources than anyone else (because I can tell you, my sources were better than others.)? Please tell me what I am missing. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 03:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

We would like to have high quality scholarly sources for every item in this article, and more so for more contentious items. Crum375 (talk) 04:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing is that if you accept low-quality sources for other items in the article, it is unfair to mandate that mine be any higher. You may ask for a higher quality source, but don't delete the material based on WP:OR. I have said before that there is no debate to whether other groups should be counted in the Holocaust. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 14:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Erik, please read WP:REDFLAG. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

We shouldn't accept a low quality source for any contentious or important claim. If you spot such a case, please let us know and we can address it. You say that "there is no debate to whether other groups should be counted in the Holocaust" — if you have a high quality scholarly source showing that there are groups missing from the article, please provide the reference. Crum375 (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Origins section

I would prefer that section to be called "antecendents", which is more proper. Any objections? --Relata refero (disp.) 15:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

What do you see as the difference? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 17:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

"Antecedents" refers specifically to events occurring prior to and causally affecting the subject. "Origins" refers to causes more generally. The section clearly deals with the former rather than the latter. In historical writing, the use of the former rather than the latter word signals a reduction in scope. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough; I have no objection. Regarding your latest edit summary, if you still care about these things, you have nothing to worry about. When senility has truly set in, you stop caring because you don't notice anymore. It is a form of freedom. I speak with some personal knowledge. :-) SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate category reinsertion

The category [[category:History of the Germanic peoples]] keeps getting reinserted into this article by Relata refero (talk · contribs). Doing maintenance on this category, I've removed it a few times. I've also noticed that caranorn (talk · contribs) has also removed it: [22] for the same reasons. For those unfamiliar, this category is about the historic Germanic peoples and not about modern Germany, just one of many countries in Germanic Europe - most of which I think it's pretty dubious to imply (such as Iceland and England) had a hand in the holocaust - they are also "Germanic countries" - I am sure there are far more appropriate categories to put this in - i.e. history of the respective, specific modern nations that were involved, for example. Further, the holocaust also occurred in areas that would be parts of Slavic Europe. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Not just by me, but by several people, and each time, I suspect, in error. Sorry. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem. By the way, it wasn't my intention to single you out or anything, I'm sure your intentions were good - you were just the only case of it I had noticed and I thought I should clarify it all here. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

I'm sorry, but this article minimizes beyond what is rational the deaths of non-Jews. There are very few in the scholarly community who consider the Holocaust just to be the genocide of the Jews. In the lead, too, it is ridiculous to continue to delete examples of "political and religious dissidents". Ethnic Poles, Soviets, and Roma to a certain extent are all examples of Slavs, why aren't they all under Slavs in the lead? Others were killed for their religion besides Jews, and there is no use in denying that. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR)

There are actually fewer within the scholarly community who regard the Holocaust as anything other than the genocide of the Jews, as the sources show, though of course they do study the Nazi killing of other people too. I agree that there's no need to list the different Slav targets.

The problem is that everyone wants to get whichever group they feel they represent into the lead. That led us before to a situation where we had every conceivable type of human being listed, including the claim that Hitler targeted Africans. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for restating this again. Defining The Holocaust as the genocide of the Jews or The Final Solution in no way diminishes those who were murdered in other Nazi genocides or massacres, nor does it imply that more people were killed than in other genocides or massacres. Rather it serves to highlight a unique event in history whose distinctive features are indicated in the article.Joel Mc (talk) 21:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

What is needed is a presentation of scholarship on the topic of the inclusion of non Jews in the Holocaust. Let the sources present the case, we should maintain a neutral point of view. The article as it stands now is a hodgepodge of edits that lack cohesion. Every group wants to compare their losses and suffering to the Jews. 80% of the Jews perished in Nazi dominated Europe, compared to 30% of Gypsies, 12% of Soviet civilians, 6% of Poles and 1% of German Homosexuals. Overall 3% of the 360 million non Jews in German dominated Europe died at the hands of the Nazis.--Woogie10w (talk) 23:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Holocaust Denial

Shouldn't this article include a section on Holocaust denial, or at least a link to it's page? Whatever your opinions are on it, isnt it closely related to this topic? I think a quick argument-counterargument section would do it. Pwnagepanda121 (talk) 06:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Such a section would have to be sourced, and some users, such as Jpgordon, believe that "Holocaust denial sites as a class are unusable as sources". This despite the fact that WP:RS clearly authorizes limited use of "extremist and fringe" sources with phrases like "Use of these sources must not obfuscate the description of the mainstream view...". See here for a discussion of sources if interested.Bdell555 (talk) 07:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Polish section

A couple of recent edits have brought it to my attention. Two problems: it overstates the claims of potential future genocide, when most sources indicate that there was significant objection within the Nazi party to carrying it out "because such a solution to the Polish question would represent a burden on the German people into the distant future and everywhere rob us of all understanding"^[1]. The contrast is obvious. This should be made as explicit as possible. A distinction also has to be drawn between earlier aims and those outlined by Hitler following the invasion of Russia^[2]. The difference in attitude is summed up by Bergen in noting that Heydrich clearly stated that all Jews were to die, but only the Polish intelligentsia^[3]. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

^ Gellately, Robert (2001). Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press. p. 154.
^ Bullivant, Keith (1999). Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences. Rodopi. p. 32. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ Bergen, Doris L. (2002). War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 105.

For completeness, I am displaying below some of your references.
Gellately, Robert (2001). Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press. pp. 153–154.

Anti-Polish sentiments were reflected in the German citizenship law of 1913, which was drawn up in such a way as to keep German citizenship from Poles and the Jews from from the east. The law was based on lineage or blood, so that no matter how long someone lived in Germany, their citizenship claims could be denied. That law was still on the books in the Nazi era, and remained unchanged until recently.

German planners in November 1939 called for nothing less than ‘the complete destruction’ of the Polish people. The ‘General Plan East’ formulated on Himmler’s inspiration in 1940 and later revised, advocated a ‘solution to the Polish question’ that would see 80 to 85 per cent of the Poles removed from German settlement area, and 20 million or so ‘racial undesirables’ pushed farther east over a 30-year period. The Plan followed Hitler who made clear on many occasions that he wanted Polish workers kept in a permanent condition of inferiority. As he put it on 2 October 1940, the Poles would work at ‘lowly tasks, so that they can earn a living; their residence remains Poland, because we certainly do not want them in Germany, nor de we want any blood mixing with our German racial comrades’.

Several factors complicated the issues, however. Polish workers had been used for generations in some parts of the country, as seasonal labourers in agriculture, or in certain sectors of industry, most notably in mining. They were long used to make up for labour shortfalls, as happened during World War I. The Poles were Catholic, and when they arrived, the Nazis blamed priests for asking parishioners to behave decently towards them. Finally, most Poles went to the countryside, where as Nazi authorities noted with chagrin in late December 1939, the ‘simple people had still to find the stance that was necessary for the future attitude of the German people to the Poles.

For Nazi planners, the genocide of the Poles, though some of them may have desired it almost as much as the annihilation of the Jews, could not proceed in the short run, because ‘such a solution to the Polish question would represent a burden to the German people into the distant future, and everywhere rob us of all understanding, not least in that neighbouring peoples would have to reckon at some appropriate time, with a similar fate’. Later versions of the ‘General Plan East’ grew more expansive, and envisioned serial genocide and the death or deportation of the 30 to 40 million ‘racially undesirable’ peoples like the Poles and Jews from the area to be colonized in the east. A second group of about 14 million, mainly Slavs, would stay to be used as slaves. Germans and others from ‘Germanic nations’, like the Norwegians and the Dutch, would settle the new territory.

Bergen, Doris L. (2002). War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 104–105.

Hitler and his inner circle had grandiose plans for Polish territories. Initially they intended to force the ethnic Poles farther east, to confine Jews to some desolate reservation, and to establish an area of pure “Aryan”/German settlement. Although details remained vague, implementation began immediately.

On 7 September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the German Reich Security Main Office, issued an order to the special units of police and SS under his jurisdiction. It would be necessary, he instructed, to destroy the leadership class in Poland and expel all Jews from areas in German hands. In short, as he told a subordinate, the “nobility, clergy, and Jews must be killed.”

Heydrich’s position was in line with the views of his bosses Hitler and Himmler. They wanted to reduce the Poles to a people of slaves, to destroy their intellectuals and their sense of tradition-anything that might give them a way to organize against Germany. Accordingly they encouraged German forces to target Polish Catholic priests. In the opening months of the war, Germany shot fifteen hundred priests and imprisoned countless others. They also humiliated, arrested, and murdered many other prominent Poles-for example, journalists, professors, and artists.

selfworm^Talk) 21:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that there were about 2 million German citizens of Polish ancestry living in pre war Germany. After the war 1.3 million became Polish citizens. This is a little known fact in the English speaking world.--Woogie10w (talk) 22:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)--Woogie10w (talk) 22:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC).--[[

The point of my post is that Poles & Jews were unequal victims. The section on Poles attempts to equate the fate of the Poles & Jews. This is misleading and needs to be addressed.--Woogie10w (talk) 23:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The Sources-What do they tell us ?

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum webpage Poles As Victims of the Nazi Era[23] mentions that: “Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war.” The revised 2005 figures of Taduez Piotrowski - 5.150 million less 3.0 million Jews yields 2.1 million non Jews "Project InPosterum: Poland WWII Casualties" ethnic Poles as well as other minorities that were victims of the Nazis. The key point that must be pointed here is that the victims of Soviet deportations and purges are not included with the Holocaust, nor are Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists. --Woogie10w (talk) 00:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting the numbers.selfworm^Talk) 01:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

GA/FA status

I think it's about time that we try once again to bring this article up to Good/Featured article status, because the significance of it is quite huge, in terms of the impact, and the aftermath of The Holocaust. --EclipseSSD (talk) 19:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

[1] Gellately, Robert (2001). Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press. p. 154.

[2] Bullivant, Keith (1999). Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences. Rodopi. p. 32. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[3] Bergen, Doris L. (2002). War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 105.

[1]

[2]

[3]