Talk:The Black Book of Polish Jewry

DYK?

Might be ready. User:Poeticbent - will you nominate it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:50, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Piotrus: – Why don't you do it. Poeticbent talk 14:40, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Poeticbent: If I find time and will. A bit busy/demotivated right now. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:21, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Poeticbent: I felt more motivated today: Template:Did you know nominations/The Black Book of Polish Jewry. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:22, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.48624/2015.48624.Black-Book-Of-Polish-Jewry.pdf (link to Collection). Copied or closely paraphrased material has been removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

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@Moonriddengirl: Entire pages from The Black Book of Polish Jewry stored in PDF at Wayback were copy-pasted into this article by Pisucki (talk · contribs · count) (36 edits since 2018-02-25) without a single word of commentary. Please remove from history (link to revision): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Black_Book_of_Polish_Jewry&type=revision&diff=835185783&oldid=835149073

@Poeticbent and Moonriddengirl: This content might be in public domain (being hosted by archive.org) is a good sign. That said, I support its removal because it was badly formatted, non-encyclopedic stuff - perhaps fine for Wikisource, but not here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:14, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Piotrus: In such case, the removal from edit history of all material lifted from the original publication is not necessary. I will bring back a selection of notable facts mentioned in The Black Book (as quotations), but in a different, more encyclopedic manner. Poeticbent talk 16:15, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Illogical (?)

"Sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, US Senator Robert Wagner, and other high-ranking community leaders, the book downplayed the true scale and manner of the Holocaust in an effort to elicit empathy from American Jews." I know this is based on sources, but I still thing this is illogical. You'd expect that to elicit sympathy they would exaggerate, not downplay, the atrocities. The source [1] argues this is because American public was anti-semitic, but again this doesn't make sense. If X is antisemite, telling him that Jews are suffering a bit is not going to do anything. Telling him they are suffering a lot might change his attitude a bit. What am I missing? Ping User:Poeticbent, User:Icewhiz. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:57, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@Piotrus: - (OR warning) The perception of the Holocaust is much different today (accepted as universal evil) than in 1953 (quite a bit of shame) or 1943 (widely unknown in the public). American Jewry (for the most part - ignoring early German immigrants, Sephardic immigrants, etc.) immigrated from Eastern Europe (1880-1925) to escape shtetl life. in 1943 - these were first and second generation immigrants - who remembered life back home (often not fondly) or told first hand (often even less fondly), and who had acclimatized to life (mostly) in urban America - making inroads into American society (though still discriminated against in higher education and other settings - the major breakthrough of American Jewry into academia would be in the 50s and 60s - but there was much progress in the 30s and 40s). Add to this anti-semitism among non-Jews. The authors probably wanted to stick as much as possible to what was fully confirmed - omitting what was known at the 95% or 99% level - to avoid possible backlash over exaggerations (this turned out to be a non-issue - as the Nazies only "became worse" and the intel was mostly accurate - but being called out on one (or more false claims) can discredit a work that is otherwise mostly accurate). As for downplaying - a key point in such a propaganda effort (and this is positive propaganda) - is to elicit empathy (see for instance [2], [3], [4]) - the opposite of "out-group propaganda" which attempts to de-humanize. Consider the American Jews (at the time) were not empathetic with the Jewish shetetls they left behind and that anti-semitic elements in American society were not empathetic with Jews in general. Presenting them with a picture of how Jews were treated like animals - does not create empathy - in fact - it may reinforce preconceived notions of the out-group. Part of what a propoganda effort would try to do in such a case is to present victims - "like you" - e.g. focus on victims that are similar to you (e.g. living in an Urban setting), focusing on their normal aspirations and lives, and then - at the end add the cruel twist of their fate - first you build empathy, and then you present the "bad guy". Survivors also help (as it is easier to empathize). For a modern example - look at how victims in Syria are presented (or possibly staged) to the west - you don't see that many men in a keffiyeh or women in a hijab - you do see many children dressed in Western - dead, dying, and injured. This is not presented this way because children are the only victims - but because it is easiest to empathize with them. In the context of the Holocaust - Anne Frank (a westernized Jew, integrated into "normal" Dutch society) is an easier figure for empathy than a kid who lived in a shetetl, went to a Cheder, spoke Yiddish, etc.). In Syria (well, outside in this case, but connected) -- Death of Alan Kurdi made a much greater impact than saying that hundreds of thousands of Syrians (mainly civilians) died. Icewhiz (talk) 05:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@Icewhiz: This makes a lot of sense. Since this article will be DYKed in few hours on Main Page, any thoughts on how we can improve the wording/clarify things without running into OR? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:44, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

You'd need someone who discussed this in the context of this book. In writing the above I did quite a bit of SYNTH and speculation (into the motivations of the writers of the book ) - which is OK counter your OR that this is illogical - but not OK for article content. It might be possible to footnote the changing perception of the Holocaust (I know perceptions have changed over the years, and I'm fairly certain there are sources covering this - however it is a "touchy" subject)). What is somewhat jarring to the modern reader is that currently the Holocaust is an "accepted fact" (to the point that Holocaust denial is an outright crime in several countries and socially unacceptable in most countries) - but that wasn't case in 1943. The social acceptability of antisemitism has also changed markedly.Icewhiz (talk) 12:59, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Places to start research would be Holocaust Representations in History by Daniel Magilow and LIsa Silverman and The Holocaust in American Life by Peter Novick. Neither book lists this work in their indices, but they give some of the background at least. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:08, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The Black Book of Polish Jewry was being assembled for publication based on partially outdated information from 1942. Fleming writes (p. 166): "The ascendancy of the Allies in the European theatre of war – marked most dramatically by the Soviet victory at Stalingrad in February 1943 – did not encourage the Western Allies to adopt a more liberal approach to the distribution of news about the Nazi persecution and extermination of Jews. [...] The way this information was handled, highlights the strength of the British censorship regime, the inaction of the British and American governments, and the weakness of the Polish Government in Exile." Similar attitudes were expressed by the Soviet authorities at the same time as well. The usual substance of dozens of announcements – wrote Robert Moses Shapiro – made by the Extraordinary Committee stressed that Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, or the generic 'Soviet people', were the principal target of German brutalities and annihilations. Jews were not mentioned at all, or in only a few brief sentences, which rarely disclosed the fact that they were totally exterminated." (Why Didn't the Press Shout?, p. 212.) Poeticbent talk 16:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)