Talk:Transport of Białystok children

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Transport of Białystok children/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Auntieruth55 (talk · contribs) 15:17, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I'll start this in a few days. auntieruth (talk) 15:17, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

@Auntieruth55: Could I take this? —Vami♜_IV♠ 11:29, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

@Auntieruth55: Don't want to rush you (I'm just an uninvolved editor btw), but are you still planning to review this? It's been over a month since the last ping and almost two months since your original comment which said that you'd start in a few days. Thanks!--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 20:04, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Maaaaaan, you posted just as I was writing my review! You threw off my groove! –♠Vami_IV†♠ 21:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Ha ha, what are the chances. But Vami IV, why does your signature for the GA review show that you posted it on 5 November 2018, when the page history shows otherwise... ?--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 22:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Ahhhhhh! I didn't notice I did that, I swear to you. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 23:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Catrìona: I have taken over the review of this article. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 21:13, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Opening statement

Being bold and taking this review. I am reviewing this article as the Coordinator of WikiProject Germany. Disclosure: I have previously reviewed and passed several of Catrìona's articles and am on good terms with her.

In reviews I conduct, I may make small copyedits. These will only be limited to spelling and punctuation (removal of double spaces and such). I will only make substantive edits that change the flow and structure of the prose if I previously suggested and it is necessary. For replying to Reviewer comment, please use  Done,  Fixed,  Added,  Not done,  Doing..., or  Removed, followed by any comment you'd like to make. I will be crossing out my comments as they are redressed, and only mine. A detailed, section-by-section review will follow. —Vami♜_IV♠ 19:26, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Footnotes

For such a small article, six is a lot of footnotes to have. Furthermore, Footnote "a" is huge and highly relevant to the prose text. I recommend giving it a subsection entitled under "The transport", entitled "Size", or something to that effect. Distribute Footnotes "c" here, too. —Vami♜_IV♠ 20:42, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I considered this, but I'm not sure it would be an improvement. The benefit of the current organization is that the footnote appears wherever the number does. Also, if the debate over the size was integrated into the text, it would break up the chronology. Catrìona (talk) 23:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Vami IV: Thanks again for your comments; I've at least answered all of them. Catrìona (talk) 00:42, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

The transport

• Rumors circulated that the children would be exchanged for German prisoners of war and sent to safety in Switzerland. With whom were the Nazis to exchange the children for PoWs?

The victims were not privy to this information, which is discussed in the background section.

Ah, I misread. –Vami

• Held in a former gymnasium, Gymnasium meaning a school? I'm American, so first instinct for me when reading this is to think "Planet Fitness."

Yes, a European gymnasium; linked.

• However, German troops accidentally shelled the building on 18 August, killing a few dozen children. What were the Germans (supposed to be) shooting at?

Presumably the Jewish resisters who were participating in the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising.

• Probably on 21 August,[d] Give this stronger wording and dissolve Footnote "d" into the text. I picture: Between 21 and 25 August,^[22]. Keep, but relocate elsewhere in the paragraph, that the transport took three days.

Actually, Bender says that the transport took three days, and probably departed on 21 August but possibly departed a day later (22 August). I've edited this to be more clear. Adler (p. 126) says that they arrived on 24 August. I think the current wording best reflects what the sources say.

• (as was typically the case during the Holocaust) Replace the parentheses with commas.

 Done

• However, the Not sure what this is contradicting, I recommend removing "However,".

 Removed

• Delete footnote "e".

 Not done I think this is relevant.

At Theresienstadt

• The incident, although not well understood by the other residents of Theresienstadt, was one of the few clues to the ultimate fate of those deported from the camp.[29] Not neutral, delete.

How is this not neutral? Multiple sources discuss what information Theresienstadt prisoners had about what fate awaited those sent "to the East".

Apologies. I withdraw this bulletpoint. –Vami

• Attempting to find out more about the rumors of gas chambers, Fredy Hirsch We, of course, know who Hirsch is, but he should have an introduction here, like Fredy Hirsch, a community leader at the camp,

 Done

GA progress

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Concerning the Mufti

Reading the bit about the Mufti's involvement, I began wondering as to what - if any - influence he actually had on affairs inside the Third Reich, especially by 1943 when the German aspirations in his area of the world began to look more and more grandiose considering the general turn of the war against the Germans and their allies. Why would the Nazis care about what he thinks regarding resettlement - they could just say that they didn't know the children were headed to Palestine if they really wanted plausible deniability. By this point in the war - when even officials in the German High Command began to see things were hovering around inevitable defeat - why would they want to still cultivate influence with this person? I bring this up because I think just a little explanation would benefit this article and would better explain him being oft included in the historiography of the event.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hadn't earlier in the Third Reich's rule they lied to Muslim officials in Palestine - saying they weren't exploring the possibility of expelling Jews there when they were in fact exploring that very possibility? Why would they care so much now as to scrap a negotiation they seemed to have deemed rather important? I hope someone can shed light on this for me. 2601:87:4400:AF2:EDE9:BA4E:F2D9:268 (talk) 20:57, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

2601:87:4400:AF2:EDE9:BA4E:F2D9:268 All Wikipedia articles should be based on coverage in reliable sources , rather than personal speculation, which constitutes original research . Catrìona (talk) 21:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Is liquidation an appropriate phrase?

Hello @Catrìona:, is "liquidation" the proper term for what happened to the Białystok Ghetto, or is it a WP:EUPHEMISM? I was thinking that something like "annihilation" might be closer to what happened (the slaughter of thousands of people), although I am not an expert on the Shoah and if that is the term used in the literature than it should stay. Thanks! --Chumash11 (talk) 21:21, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

@Chumash11: Thanks for your comment. I use "liquidation" for the dismantling of ghettos, concentration camps, etc. because that is the common term in the scholarly literature and even memorial websites,[1] with awareness that it is a Nazi term and potentially a euphemism. "Annihilation" isn't always accurate, because frequently the Nazis took the most fit people and sent them to a labor camp temporarily, and other people managed to escape and hide. I do avoid using "liquidation" for people (preferring "killing", "murder", "massacre" etc.) even though you will find that occasionally in scholarly works. Catrìona (talk) 21:49, 31 October 2018 (UTC)