Talk:Theresienstadt family camp

Title

I think the title needs disambiguation, as it isn't clear from the current title that this was not in fact at Theresienstadt like the other concentration camp. Perhaps Theresienstadt family camp (Auschwitz II-Birkenau)? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: I agree, so I went ahead and moved it. Catrìona (talk) 14:31, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

The title might be made better, but it isn't ambiguous so doesn't need disambiguation (unless there is another topic known as "Theresienstadt family camp") per WP:PRECISION. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:17, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

If it can be misleading that's worse than ambiguous, imho. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:31, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that "Theresienstadt family camp" is misleading as a name, since that the first sentence in the article clearly explains that it wasn't at Theresienstadt. buidhe (formerly Catrìona) 15:05, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

• Should this not be called Czech family camp? That's what the scholarly sources that I've read call it, e.g. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Indiana University Press, p. 549. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:13, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Nope, it's true that Keren calls it that but most sources use "Theresienstadt family camp", or the German/Czech language equivalent. See the bibliography of this article. As Karny explains here (Zatímco s příjezdem zářijových transportů se vytvořil „Český rodinný tábor“ , začal se ve svém složení měnit již prosincovými transporty a v květnu už reflektoval celou tehdejší terezínskou strukturu - s výjimkou početně nepatrné skupiny dánské.) the name Czech family camp is misleading because later transports brought many non-Czech victims to the camp. The commonality was that they all had come from Theresienstadt. buidhe (formerly Catrìona) 21:06, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Note that if the article is moved again, the GA review page also needs to be moved at the same time. I've just moved the review page so it matches today's article move. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:18, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

We should use the common name in English if we can determine what it is. "Theresienstadt family camp" alone is misleading. "Theresienstadt family camp (Auschwitz II-Birkenau)" is unnecessarily long. "Auschwitz" alone would be enough to disambiguate, but using Auschwitz and Theresienstadt in the same title is confusing.

• Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum uses both: "The 60th anniversary of the 'liquidation' of the Czech family camp in Auschwitz"; [1] and "'Theresienstadt family camp'" — temporary exhibition". [2]
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum uses both: “'Czech Family Camp' at Auschwitz Liquidated"; [3] "prisoners on these transports were incarcerated in a 'Theresienstadt family camp' in Birkenau". [4]
• Claude Lanzmann's interviewees for Shoah seem to use only "Czech family camp"; see Shoah: The Complete Text Of The Acclaimed Holocaust Film, pp. 117 and 146 (no references to "Theresienstadt family camp").
• Haaretz (5 April 2018): "Why were the prisoners of the Czech family camp kept alive for six months in better conditions?" [5]

Historians and survivors using "Czech family camp" (these are just examples):

• Martin Gilbert (1985, p. 571); Erich Kulka (1986, p. 29); Nili Keren (1998, p. 440); Miroslav Kárný (1998, p. 549); Alan J. Levine (2000, p. 215, uses both); Rudolf Vrba (2002, p.  80); Saul S. Friedman (2004, p. 203); Hermann Langbein (2005, p. 158); Sarah A. Cramsey (2008); Nicholas Chare and Dominic Williams (2015, p.  75). SarahSV ^(talk) 00:25, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Actually, if you combine the Google Books search results for "Terezin family camp" and "Theresienstadt family camp", there are more hits than for "Czech family camp", indicating that the latter is not the common name. The former terms seem to predominate in recent English works. Just in the last decade, we have (Schaumann, 2008), (Karas, 2008), (Heberer, 2011), (Akhtar 2011), (Frankl, 2013), (Brenner, 2014 (quoting Czech's Auschwitz Chronicle)), (Hribkova, 2014), (Gardella, 2015), etc.

Some of the examples you gave are misleading, for instance the English version of Langbein's book uses both terms (see here), and Karny, elsewhere, puts "Czech family camp" in quotation marks and emphasizes that the ethnic character of the camp changed over time (see above). The USHMM has used both names (see here).

If you add this to the Terezin Memorial, the closest thing to an official website for Terezin/Theresienstadt, calling its page on the subject "The Terezín Family Camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the overwhelming use of "Terezínský rodinný tábor"/"Theresienstädter Familienlager" in Czech/German (which is the language most of the in-depth sources are in—use google), it seems clear to me that Theresienstadt or Terezin family camp is the common name, and a recent RM on Theresienstadt decided to use the German name, so I would go with that. buidhe (formerly Catrìona) 07:41, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

In that case, perhaps Theresienstadt family camp (Auschwitz)? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:11, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

If there is a need for disambiguation, I would suggest Theresienstadt family camp, Auschwitz II–Birkenau which is similar to other geographic names in the use of a comma. I do prefer "Auschwitz II–Birkenau" to "Auschwitz", which I feel is somewhat confusing because the camp wasn't at Auschwitz I. buidhe 23:13, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Auschwitz refers to the camp complex, not necessarily Auschwitz I. Adding "Auschwitz II–Birkenau" seems a little long and over precise, almost as if there's another Theresienstadt family camp in one of the other Auschwitz camps. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:38, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Czech

Hi Buidhe, regarding this sentence:

According to Polish historian Danuta Czech, these reports probably delayed the liquidation of the camp until July.

• Milland, Gabriel (1998). Some faint hope and courage: the BBC and the final solution, 1942-45 (PhD thesis). University of Leicester. hdl:2381/29108. {{cite thesis}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

I would like to cite Czech directly regarding "these reports" (as opposed to the single BBC report that's known about), but I can't see Milland. Can you post here his citation from Czech, and what Milland reports her as saying? SarahSV ^(talk) 04:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

It's an open access thesis, you should be able to download it to check. buidhe 05:20, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I found it elsewhere. For some reason when I tried to access it at that link, it wouldn't let me. I see now that Milland is citing the Chronicle, which I'll look up tomorrow. Given that you cite that elsewhere in the article, can you say why for this sentence you cited it via Milland? SarahSV ^(talk) 05:43, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, I'd appreciate a response, please. I'm concerned about your source use in Holocaust articles, particularly the heavy reliance on non-English sources. This article (permalink) cites sources in German, Polish, Hebrew, French and Czech. It uses the German and English editions of Auschwitz 1940–1945 (citations 32 and 69). I'm wondering why you would use the German when you have access to the English. Elsewhere, I noticed that you used the Polish edition. (A couple of that book's citations are missing author and title, by the way; each volume has different authors and articles.) Do you understand all these languages well enough to read scholarly sources?

The problem with using non-English sources is that it dramatically reduces the number of people on enwiki who can check them, and this causes real problems in the Holocaust where everything needs to be very accurate. No matter how careful we are, we make mistakes, so we need other people to be able to check our work. Even the best sources make mistakes. I know that most editors won't go to libraries to check things, but some will, or they can ask us to take snapshots of pages for them, but that's no use if they don't speak the language. The sourcing policy, WP:V, allows non-English sources but only when "of equal quality and relevance" (WP:NOENG). There's rarely a need in Holocaust articles to go further than English, even if it means we have to wait for translations to appear, and sometimes German. We need to base these articles on mainstream sources, preferably up-to-date, nothing too obscure. And it's usually better to avoid PhD theses, especially older ones when the topic has been updated by recent scholarship.

I'm asking about this because I want to try to understand, rather than wonder about it, and I want to AGF and work with you, so I hope you'll meet me halfway. The problem with Holocaust articles is that few people are willing to dig deep and start reading seriously, so realistically none of our articles are likely to be fixed unless we do it ourselves. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, The article does not cite any Hebrew sources. It clearly cites an English translation of a source originally written in Hebrew which is posted on Yad Vashem website for anyone to check. I am not sure why you think that the article cites multiple versions of Auschwitz Chronicle; as far as I remember, I only used the English version. My understanding of WP:NOENG is that non-English sources are perfectly OK to use in almost all cases. I can read German just fine, Czech/Slovak and Polish less well but I stand by everything that I've written unless someone can show that there are serious errors.

As to the necessity of using non-English sources I simply disagree with you, there are many topics relating to the Holocaust that are covered in more detail in non-English sources that may never be translated into English. Der Ort des Terrors, for instance, goes into more detail than the USHMM's English language encyclopedia, and Theresienstadter Studien und Dokumente (German & Czech) covers many other topics in more detail than any English source that I am aware of. There are a lot of high quality academic journals that are publishing on this topic in Czech, Slovak and Polish, but without reading those languages you would not be aware of them. Furthermore, each nation tends to have a different perspective and I think representing a wide variety of sources is important for NPOV and comprehensiveness. buidhe 01:28, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. It's not the Chronicle that's in English and German but Auschwitz 1940–1945. I'm curious as to why you'd cite the German (and elsewhere the Polish) when you have access to the English. The Bondy citation is in Hebrew; here is the link you provided. The citation says "(in Hebrew)".

WP:V doesn't state or imply that "non-English sources are perfectly OK to use in almost all cases". It says "because this project is in English, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when available and of equal quality and relevance". Clearly, the English edition of that book is of equal quality to the German and Polish, unless you're saying there is material in those not available in the English. Generally, there is almost never a need to use non-English Holocaust sources, unless what you're offering is not mainstream enough to warrant an English edition. That's one of my concerns. I'm also concerned about the age of some of them, and things like citing Danuta Czech via a PhD thesis from 1998 about a contentious issue.

When you use non-English sources, other editors and readers can't check them, so the material fails verifiability in every practical sense. Any errors you've made won't be found, and updating of the article is less likely because people feel nervous around sources they can't read. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, It was a while ago that I wrote this article. I don't remember exactly but perhaps I used both books because I could find a preview of one on Google and a copy of the other at the library. I don't think your opinion about non English sources is widely held. You may be interested by the discussion that I started on WT:V about the meaning of "preferred". Feel free to locate the information in the English edition (if it exists, maybe it is a shorter translated version?) and switch the citations over if you feel strongly about it. buidhe 04:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that sources could be more up to date. When I was writing the article I found this Czech-language book (2013/ 2019) by a author with a PhD in history, published by a respected, mainstream Czech nonfiction press. I think it is probably the best source available for updating and improving the article. The reason I did not use it is because most of the library holdings are in Europe, so I could not get a copy. As far as I know there are no plans to translate the book into English, so I guess you would argue it must be fringe and/or unreliable. It's interesting that you would be so convinced that there is no value in sources that you can't read yourself. buidhe 15:11, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for quotations

Buidhe, following on from the discussion you started at WT:V, the suggestion there was to request quotations, per WP:NOENG: "if a dispute arises involving a citation to a non-English source, editors may request a quotation of relevant portions of the original source be provided".

Therefore, please check that the non-English sources support points for which there are no English sources "of equal quality and relevance". If they really are no English sources for those points, please add a brief quote to the footnote showing the non-English text you've relied on. If it's too long, you can add it to the talk page instead.

The non-English short citations (out of 113) are (permalink): 1 (German); 3 (German); 4 (German); 6 (German); 8 (Hebrew); 10 (Czech); 12 (German); 19 (Hebrew); 21 (German); 25 (Czech); 29 (German); 32 (German); 33 (German); 36 (German); 40 (German); 42 (Hebrew); 47 (Hebrew); 48 (German); 50 (German); 54 (Hebrew); 55 (German); 57 (Hebrew); 59 (Hebrew); 65 (Hebrew); 66 (German); 67 (German); 68 (German); 71 (German); 74 (Czech); 76 (Hebrew); 77 (German); 78 (German); 80 (German); 81 (Hebrew); 92 (French); 98 (German); 101 (Hebrew); 103 ((Hebrew); 108 (Czech); 109 (Czech); 111 (Czech).

If I can help you track down English equivalents, let me know for which issues and I'll have a look around. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:14, 16 February 2020 (UTC)