User talk:Ealdgyth/Holocaust in occupied Poland arb com evidence

Thanks for your time

Ealdgyth I want to thank you for the time you've spent in compiling this. I plan in the next few days to go through it fully so you can rest assured at least one arb will read and think about it and I suspect I won't be the only one. I wanted to acknowledge that because there is likely to be some further motions made at the case request and I don't want you to think that this was in vain. I will be considering what you write here before making any "final" votes in this situation. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I echo Barkeep49's message in full. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I also want to thank you Ealdgyth. Do you mind if I comment on some of these points here? For example, it seems that the part about "majority" among Righteous Among Nations, was not sourced to Paulsson, it was simply unsourced. Looks like someone wrote it as a "lead in" sentence for that section. And yes, it was incorrect - people often confuse "majority" with "plurality". I've corrected it. Volunteer Marek 00:32, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome to comment. I'd like to point out that I reserve the right to not reply or to quit replying if things turn too personalized or battlegroundy. I'll also note that I will be on the road until early Feb, so I'm confined to sources I can access on the internet and the books I brought with me (which my husband restricted me to one small canvas bag ... he kept muttering about weight limits in the truck or some such nonsense...you'd think that the first time I went out I took seven canvas bags and we were afraid we'd be over weight limits a few times.... ) If you do, start a new section. I'll also point out that I'm not really interested in "who did what to whom" in the editing wars.... if the articles get fixed without further drama, that's a win in my book and that would obviate a need for any further cases or enforcement actions. (One further disclosure - I did get an email from Icewhiz today (He had my email from before he was banned when he wanted a journal article.). I deleted the email unread - I don't care to engage with someone with his toxic behavior, whether or not he's "correct" on the substance. So I'm holding the "other side" to the same standard of civility. Ealdgyth (talk) 00:39, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good and thank you! Volunteer Marek 00:59, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• I think this is valid criticism. But as framed, these are all exclusively content issues, not behavior issues by any specified users that could be addressed by administrators. Some of the cited statements from the WP pages are actually correct statements; they just need to be sourced better - yes, sure. Others must be rephrased or possibly removed. This is just a typical content work. I think this subject area is actually covered much better than many other subject areas in WP. Yes, in some cases there is simply not enough info on the page. Yes, sure, but no one ever objected to include more such info, for example about Nazi vans. Yes, a lot more info can be included to a lot of pages, and everyone is welcome to do just that. Every version of every page is wrong version. This is all. My very best wishes (talk) 01:22, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Indeed, thank you, Ealdgyth, for this extensive factfinding. Your summary is well stated, and this makes a good blueprint for fixing the articles. --BDD (talk) 16:24, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Chelmno camp

I think the findings in this list are quite concerning. I've read bits and pieces of German literature on Nazi Germany and never heard of Chelmno employing anything other than engine exhaust for its murders [and I believe shooting anyone who survived]. FWIW the German language source says nothing of the sort. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:49, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The sentence about murdered Poles at Soldau is kind of badly worded, but it isn’t saying that Poles were the first victims at Chelmno. It’s saying that the method of murder by gas van was first developed at Soldau on Poles (with disabilities). The USHMM page Ealdgyth links to alludes to this (Lange and some of his fellow officers had had experience in mass murder of institutionalized Poles with disabilities in 1940. This does need clean up and more robust sourcing though.

The “added poison to gas” thing should be removed. I think it’s someone misunderstanding the phrase “poison gas”, a phrase which is sometimes used to refer to the use of carbon monoxide. Volunteer Marek 20:09, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The Friedlander source is probably supposed to be this one (which discusses it on pps. 138-139 from what I can see, rather than the summary document, also by Friedlander, which is the current source). Volunteer Marek 20:23, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Dug a bit deeper. The issue of poison being added to the gas is from this source (Patrick Montague, Chelmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler's First Death Camp). It's a ref in the Chelmno Trials article but it wasn't copied over to this one. The discussion is on pages 206-209 and it's a bit speculative. Most of the knowledge on the operation of the camp comes from post-war trials and because the camp was so thoroughly destroyed to cover it up by the Germans, this knowledge is based on testimonies of witnesses. Basically, several of the witnesses reported some other substance and there's records of some shipments from a freight company delivering unknown "red powder" to the camp. Quote from the source While these reports do not prove chemicals were added to the gasoline used by the gas vans, they do open the possibility that chemicals may have been used, if only on an experimental basis. I'll change the text accordingly.

BTW, note how figuring out even a relatively very small piece of text/claim (was poison added to the gas?) involves a couple hours digging and searching. This will take awhile. Volunteer Marek 20:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Soldau was a camp for Polish political prisoners (Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, pg. 139), but in 1940 the Nazis began killing hospital patients. Because they could not kill them all on site they began sending them to Soldau for execution. Lange's commando killed 534 mental patients in January 1940, referred to as "local" by Browning (The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy) at Kosten, then another 1000 "Polish patients" (Browning) at same location. Lange and his gas vans were transferred to Soldau in May 1940. Previously Lange was experimenting with gassing Polish prisoners at Fort VII in Poznan, perhaps as early as November 1939 (Montague, pg. 21) though it seems these were stationary gas chambers, not vans (Rubenfeld and Sulmasy Physician-assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Before, During, and After the Holocaust pg. 62). Those murdered between May and June 1940 by Lange with the gas vans at Soldau are described in sources as either from the surrounding area or as "Polish and German" (disabled patients), for example in Melvyn Conroy Nazi Eugenics: Precursors, Policy, Aftermath [1]. Volunteer Marek 22:23, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

So, if I understand correctly this source, these "early" gas vans by Nazi utilized tanks with carbon monoxide. They started using the cheaper NKVD-invented version with exhaust gases only in 1941, according to the source. That needs to be included to page Gas van. But I will avoid this page for now because there is someone who will probably revert my edits on that page, no matter what I do, just as they did it on page Lysenkoism. My very best wishes (talk) 03:37, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Keeping track of my recent changes:

1. I removed the part on poison being added to the gas. Source says it's a possibility but is speculative. This detail might make more sense at the article on the camp itself.
2. I removed the incorrect dating and tagged it for better source (non primary) in the text regarding the Polish Government In Exile's alerts about concentration camps. This text is either referring to Raczyński's Note (December) or Leon Feiner's letter to the PGiE which then PGiE publicized and sent to the press (March). This still needs some clarification.
3. For now I removed the text about the earlier Nazi experiments with gas and gas vans [2], the part that mentioned Soldau (see my comment above for more detail). Aside from making sure that the text is 100% accurate, there is a question of WP:WEIGHT here - is this text/info, on how the Nazis came up with the idea to use gas vans, relevant to a high level article such as this one, or does it belong in a more dedicated article, like Gas van. Personally I do think it does belong here but I can see if others disagree.
4. Not about the Chelmno camp, but I also removed the sentence on "labour markets of many cities" per Ealdgyth's comments. I can't find it in the Heller source either. Volunteer Marek 20:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

   if you want, we could move specific fix commentary to the article talk page. Ealdgyth (talk) 20:32, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Either way is fine. I was going to use this talk as a "checklist" and it's convenient to have things in one place. If some disagreement or contentious issue arises then, yeah, that should be moved to article talk for wider participation. Volunteer Marek 00:47, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, let's move. It would be much better to have such discussions on talk pages of the corresponding articles. Then, other users (who are interested in specific subjects, rather than in the Arbitration) could also participate. My very best wishes (talk) 03:50, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

On #23 #20, which is related to the Chelmno camp, I changed the source from the primary JTA report [3] to a book by Colin Shindler (not this one, another one) [4]. Shindler is a specialist in modern history of Israel rather than WW2 so let me know if this is sufficient. Volunteer Marek 02:49, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

For #22 I changed the sources from Masters of Death to the Montague book. While there's no single sentence that says precisely what we have in the article, pps. 39-44 discuss the experiments with gas as well as the ruse of resettlement.

I think, this addresses all the points raised in regard to the Chelmno camp. Volunteer Marek 02:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Gas van

How is this User:Ealdgyth/Holocaust_in_occupied_Poland_arb_com_evidence#Gas_van even relevant given that by far the most dominant Authorship at 45.6% is User:Assayer who is not normally involved in Poland related articles, and the associated talk page is dominated in text added by User:My very best wishes, User:Paul Siebert and User:Assayer at 31.2%, 31.1% and 19.6% respectively with former two also not normally associated with Poland related articles either.[5],[6]. --Nug (talk) 23:26, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd imagine it's because gas vans were used frequently in Poland (at Kulmhof in particular, which is mentioned many times on the page) and are an integral part of the Holocaust. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:59, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is very much relevant for the reasons explained by Jo-Jo Eumerus. And it belongs to a number of pages. The story of creating and using these "vans" by Nazi and others must be described in all details as they apparently were prototypes of the stationary gas chambers used by Nazi. The disputes on the page Gas van did occur because some participants demanded to exclude a number of reliably sourced materials about Soviet gas vans invented by the Soviet NKVD in 1930s. These vans do not belong to the Holocaust in Poland, but still were very much the same/similar vans according to a number of RS, such as a book by Yevgenia Albats (who is a reputable researcher and received her PhD in Harvard), a books by Robert Gellately, Petro Grigorenko, Mikhail Schreder, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, articles by well known Russian historians Lydia Golovkova and Nikita Petrov, and so on. I could easily re-visit this page and fix it if no one objects.My very best wishes (talk) 05:06, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Khmm ... [7]. I thought we all wanted to improve content as opposed to waging wikibattles. Whatever. My very best wishes (talk) 02:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

#29

In regard to this "Additionally, 20,000 foreign Jews and 5,000 Roma were brought in from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia." is sourced to a a post on JewishGen by Shirley Rotbein Flaum. This is not a good quality source at all. - the JewishGen website lists The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-1944 by Dobroszycki as source. However, this is a primary source, Dobroszycki is the editor, not author. The information that the text referring to is on page 133 [8]. Furthermore, the numbers are for the number of Jews and Roma brought in from these countries to Lodz Ghetto, not Chelmno camp. It is not clear what share of these perished in the ghetto and what share were murdered in Chelmno. There appears to be some information on this in Montague's book on page 68 but I don't have that particular book and preview for that page is not available (only a snippet). Volunteer Marek 00:44, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I want Montague but...oh, hey, it’s in paperback now. I’ll order it to be there when I come home (early Feb.) the hardcover was $150...ouch. But $40 is more reasonable. So that’ll help. I have the new edition of Arad’s ‘’Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka’’ with me even. Ealdgyth (talk) 00:51, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Lol, I just ordered it yesterday. I'll have it in a couple days. Volunteer Marek 00:57, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Friendly tip for helping with your budgets: Chelmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler's First Death Camp is available from Z-library. As is Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

As an author, I am allergic to those sorts of sites. Ealdgyth (talk) 01:49, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Ealdgyth, the book arrived. I corrected the passage based on it (pgs. 65 and 68). Montague gives 10,914 and 4,996 as the number of those murdered from Western countries. The original 20,000 number probably refers to those who were taken to the Lodz ghetto. Volunteer Marek 01:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

The book is very harrowing reading. Volunteer Marek 01:54, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

The whole subject area is so depressing to research...I will never understand the mindsets of those who perpetrated the Holocaust and related killings nor the people who try to deny they happened. Ealdgyth (talk) 02:00, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

#12

I've removed [9] the text Initially, the Jews were legally banned from baking bread because it's been pointed out [10] that this is based on a primary source and that it's unclear if this refers to the Warsaw Ghetto or occupied Poland as a whole. The primary source, Marek Edelman, is here if anyone wants to look for more info on this and find secondary sources. Volunteer Marek 00:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Ealdgyth - do you mind if I strikeout the points which have been addressed? If anyone disagrees with whether the corrections have been sufficient they can undo the strikethrough. Volunteer Marek 18:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

That should be fine. Ealdgyth (talk) 19:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

#15

Re: "Most ghettos were set up in cities and towns where Jewish life was already well organized. For logistical reasons, the Jewish communities in settlements without railway connections in occupied Poland were dissolved." is sourced to The Holocaust Chronicle which does not support anything in the wiki article.

I've removed this part [11] as the source indeed does not say anything like that (maybe an older version did?). What I think the text was trying to get at though is Heydrich's order (21 September 1939) which ordered dissolution of Jewish communities of less than 500 people and relocation to "concentration centers" which were to be located on rail junctions or near railways. This memo is discussed in a wide variety of sources; Browning's The Origin of the Final Solution, Black's IBM and the Holocaust and Engel's The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews.

However, several sources also mention that while this was the Nazis' intended plan it wasn't implemented exactly as in Heydrich's instructions.

I think the process of ghettoization is an important topic for this article and something like the above should probably be re-added with proper sources. Volunteer Marek 18:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)