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Anna Poray

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Anna Poray (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Activist in Polish-Canadian organizations, and author of a (single?) book. The book seems to be self-published (the publisher is A. Poray), and does not seem to be notable in terms of coverage of the book. Sourcing in the article are the subject's own writings, some obits, and an interview with her on the release of the book. The subject does not meet WP:AUTHOR or WP:GNG. Icewhiz (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: per this obit she worked in the libraries of several Montreal universities which would not satisfy WP:NACADEMIC.Icewhiz (talk) 15:58, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Addendum2: It seems that the scant coverage of Poray focus on the WP:FRINGE aspects of her activism - per Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe first, to underscore the large number of rescuers; second, to downplay or ignore the low societal approval of rescue activities; and third, not to differentiate among the various among the various categories of rescuers, protectors, and helpers and their motivations. The same tendencies are currently being advocated and fostered by historians and journalists practicing polityka historyczna.(94) As a tool to normalize the dark past, to claim that Polish anti-Semitism and nationalism did not have much of a damaging influence on Polish-Jewish relations, and to restore the image of Poles as.... Footnote 94 mentioning an interview of her in a Polish newspaper as an example. Also in “I will never forget what you did for me during the war”: Rescuer — Rescuee Relationships in the Light of Postwar Correspondence in Poland, 1945–1949 - For recent mild and strong expressions of this myth see, for example, Mark Paul .... interview with Anna Poray-Wybranowska, “Nation of Heroes,” Nasz Dziennik in footnote 85 - whose context is Writers, journalists, and historians continued to disseminate the myth of “the ungrateful Jew” in publications in the 1970s and 1980s,(84) and the myth has persisted in popular historical consciousness in the post-communist era.(85). So her work/views are clearly referred to as a myth in an actual RS (all be it - relegated to a passing mention in a footnote). Per WP:NFRINGE - A fringe subject (a fringe theory, organization or aspect of a fringe theory) is considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers - which is not the case here. Critical coverage of Poray is limited to a few footnotes in which an interview with her (in a conservative Polish newspaper) is noted as an example. We generally lack INDEPTH pieces on Poray - and the sole one that approaches it (the wpolityce obit) is from an outlet that is sympathetic to her views.Icewhiz (talk) 06:24, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• OPPOSE deletion. KEEP the article on Anna Poray. She is the author of a 2007 book, Those Who Risked Their Lives, that is cited as a source in over a dozen articles on the English-language Misplaced Pages. Nihil novi (talk) 13:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• OPPOSE. This is a bad faith nomination by problem User:Icewhiz in a series of his disruptive edits in the area of Polish-Jewish relations since the exchange between Poland and Israel over the Holocaust Bill (announced in February 2018). Actually, this is an issue for WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents more than anything, because most of what Icewhiz does in this area is no longer rational. Historian Anna Poray (1919–2013) was a major expert in the field of Holocaust rescue. Poeticbent talk 15:21, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections Search - Polish Righteous, those who risked their lives by Anna Poray.

In one hour, Icewhiz deleted Anna Poray from over 60 articles. What a joke! Poeticbent talk 15:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Any sources to back up this claim, besides use on Misplaced Pages (much of it inserted by editors above)? The sole book by Anna Poray was published by A. Poray. Per google-scholar it is not cited by others (there is a citation entry, but zero uses of it) - which indicates very low use of this sole work.Icewhiz (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

  USHMM attempts to hold every single document relating to the Holocaust in its library - USHMM possessing a copy of this self published book does not indicate notability of the author (or reliability of the book). Per worldcat it would seems this is the only library that holds a copy.Icewhiz (talk) 16:03, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 15:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• OPPOSE and KEEP - as per oposing above GizzyCatBella (talk) 17:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
•  Comment: Why is Oppose being used? It's either Keep or Delete. This isn't a vote. – TheGridExe (talk) 18:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Pretty clear indication of WP:CANVAS.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 17:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Do you have clear evidence of CANVASING? I didn't get any "messages' to alert me of this discussion, but the related WP:AE disscussion about mass deletion of refrence sources did. --E-960 (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• OPPOSE and KEEP-this author has written extensively on the subject of rescue of Jews in Poland.It seems to be target of Icewhiz recent intense edit spree aiming at deletion of information about Polish rescuers of Jews during Holocaust.These edits are becoming more and more obsessive.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• OPPOSE (Keep) - as per oposing above. --E-960 (talk) 04:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Keep In less than 15 minutes of searching, I found this article (not cited as a source in the Misplaced Pages article, as far as I can tell), which quotes historian pl:Jan_Żaryn concerning her. An interview with her is cited as a source in Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939–1947 by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. An article by her is cited in "Memories of Jews and the Holocaust in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: The Case of Poland " by Joanna Michlic. She is cited (three times) as a source in Irena's Children by Tilar J. Mazzeo. And so on. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 04:35, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

  The wpolityce obit is in the article. Mentions of her writings, by other authors, are few and far between - not rising up to NPROF or AUTHOR.Icewhiz (talk) 04:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

  As for the works by Joanna Michlic (which is replicated in a number of different book) - she mentioned in footnote 33 (one of around 7 examples, no discussion of her beyond date, title ad name) that mentions an Nasz Dziennik article by Poray in a footnote in as an illustrative example of Historians and journalists practicing polityka historyczna often cite the number of Christian Polish rescuers of Jews honored to date by the Yad Vashem Memorial Institue in Jerusalem, numbering approximately 6,350, as a tool to "normalize" the dark past. By employing this data, they claim that Polish anti-Semitism and nationalism did not have much of a damaging influence on Polish-Jewish relations, in order to restore the image of Poles as solely heroes and martyrs (note 33).

  A passing mention in a footnote (replicated in a number of variants by Michlic), being mentioned as one of several people interviewed by Chodakiewicz, a single citation repeated thrice in a mass market book, or being mentioned in various directories is not an indication of notability.Icewhiz (talk) 05:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Question: What did she write, who published it, and in what RS is she quoted? François Robere (talk) 09:35, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

  @François Robere: Those Who Risked Their Lives, by Anna Poray. Published by A. Poray - and also online at savingjews.org. Per google scholar it is not cited much. It does seem that she was interviewed or wrote (Michlic attributes it to her, but it look like an interview) a newspaper article in 2004 that Joanna Michlic cites (in several related articles) as one of several examples of "polityka historyczna" in a footnote (this seems to be a copy of it - describing what she's been doing www.savingjews, criticizing Maus which she says was compulsory reading in schools and misrepresented Poles leading to a false perception in the US and Canada (as well as other notable works)).Icewhiz (talk) 10:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Poeticbent @E-960 @Malik Shabazz: So she has one self-published book, and a few short publication (interviews, articles), at least one of which mentioned as "polityka historyczna". Is this correct? How is it any different than your average Ph.D student? François Robere (talk) 11:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Keep. I understand she also appears under the name of "Anna Poray-Wybranowska". Her book was quoted a number of times based on Google searches . Can her book be used as a source in WP? I do not see why not because it was used as a reference in reliably published sources. I would expect her citation index to be low (did not check), but this is area of humanities. My very best wishes (talk) 12:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

  Most of the google book hits do not mention her book. Many are directory style entries such as this one or this one where she has a line (as a librarian). In terms of citations - "Anna Poray-Wybranowska, “Naród bohaterów,” Nasz Dziennik, October 9, 2004" (which is actually an interview with her) - is mentioned in a few hits (mainly due to repetitions of Michlic's footnote). Those Who Risked Their Lives is not cited (save for Irena's Children - a mass market book) as far as I can tell. Note that the raw google hits are probably "contaminated" from google suggesting plausible results based on use in Misplaced Pages - many of the hits do not actually contain the string "Poray" inside them (which is evident from there being no preview text, and verified by searching inside the book).Icewhiz (talk) 12:47, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

The question here is notability, not reliability, as this isn't an RSN discussion. Any random Google Scholar search will come up with hundreds, if not thousands of more notable scholars that aren't mentioned on Wiki. Not to detract from Ms. Poray's contribution, but we might as well scour universities' websites and just add everyone there. François Robere (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, she is definitely on a borderline of our notability guidelines. Too low citation. Given the well written info and refs currently on the page, I would still be inclined to keep as an "inclusionist". My very best wishes (talk) 20:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Quick and dirty exercise: Input the query "fire ant" into Google Scholar; the first five results were authored by a total of 17 authors and cited a total of 1790 times, or 105 citations per author; only two of these have Misplaced Pages articles of their own, and several are not even cited as sources. Now, this isn't exactly a perfect methodology, and I wouldn't use it for much else (although you can substitute the subject as you please), but it does give some perspective. François Robere (talk) 21:30, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Fortunately, we have a page about Fire ant. He is a lot ore important. My very best wishes (talk) 03:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

What we have (besides one obit in an outlet sympathetic to her) is passing mentions - not indepth coverage - which is actually not borderline. However even if this were borderline, per WP:NFRINGE (which is relevant since passing mentions of her in a few footnotes of a RS are as an example of fringe) - for notability we would require her to be referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers - leaning towards deletionists for fringe subjects.Icewhiz (talk) 06:57, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Does the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland confer any notability? Thsmi002 (talk) 13:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

as mentioned in WP:ANYBIO#1? Thsmi002 (talk) 13:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

That's not a "well-known and significant award or honor". In WP:SOLDIER we only recognize the nation's highest award for valour. This particular order of merit is 4th class in Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland which itself ranks below other awards such as Order of Polonia Restituta or Order of the White Eagle (Poland).Icewhiz (talk) 13:55, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (Template:Lang-pl) is a Polish order of merit created in 1974 and awarded to foreigners or Poles resident abroad who have rendered great service to Poland. One recipient of it was Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. It is not a negligible decoration.

The Order of Polonia Restituta (Template:Lang-pl; Template:Lang-en), is a Polish state order established on 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilian persons as well as on foreigners for outstanding achievements in the fields of education, science, sport, culture, art, economics, national defense, social work, civil service, or for furthering good relations between countries.

The Order of the White Eagle (Template:Lang-pl) is Poland's highest order awarded to both civilian and military persons for merit. It was officially instituted on 1 November 1705 by King Augustus II the Strong and is awarded to the most distinguished Poles and the highest-ranking representatives of foreign countries.

Even some prominent foreign-based historians such as Jan Grabowski do not appear, from their Misplaced Pages articles, to have received any of these decorations.

Nihil novi (talk) 21:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

It would seems this order of merit is awarded not on the basis of the international recognition or quality of the research, but perhaps based on the Polish government recognizing the activism (minor as it is) of the recipient. Thus, for instance, the Polish government has stripped the order of merit from a highly notable historian that the current governemtn seems to not like."Princeton University professor Jan Tomasz Gross faces losing Order of Merit over comments Polish villagers were complicit in massacre of Jews. In any event, this is an award that is handed out in great numbers and says very little.Icewhiz (talk) 03:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Seems on the notable side of borderline. Just obis are not enough, and her book citations may not be enough for WP:PROF, but there are some mentions on her outside obits, and all of this combined seems to be just enough to warrant a bio entry. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:42, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Delete. I'm sorry, but there are countless academics (and artists, and socialites, and what not) far more renowned that we haven't created pages for. If all we have is a handful of passing mentions by other scholars, then it's simply not enough. Mr. Konieczny has far more citations and isn't yet the subject of an article . François Robere (talk) 09:31, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 06:35, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Delete for lack of reliable , secondary sources. Note that the "obituary" in the Montreal Gazette is an announcement of her death by her family, not a source usable to establish notability. No secondary coverage of her life and work in English or French at all, despite the fact that she was educated in New York, lived in Canada for the rest of her life, and wrote about a topic that excites intense media interest. This dearth of sources is probably explained by the fact that while there were heroic Polish Christians who saved the lives of Jews, Porat's claim to notability is her assertion that "thousands... of heroic individuals who, under the threat of death, helped Jews during World War II. Some 30,000 of them were murdered by the Nazis for trying to save Jews," is blatant WP:FRINGE. WP:FRINGE theorists can be notable, but we lack sources to show that this one is.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:07, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

  For the sake of precision, her claim was over 1 million rescuers.Icewhiz (talk) 11:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC) For the sake of precision, it was a cool 1 million, not over.Icewhiz (talk) 15:14, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• I suppose she gets extra WP:FRINGE points for making up a big lie.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• E.M.Gregory, in your statement I do pick up a bit of a BIAS. How many times are you going to write "WP:FRINGE" in your comments, and highlight phrases such as "big lie" (with a hyperlink no less). Btw, there are historians who also cite that over 20,000 Poles were murdered because they in some way assisted Jews. Finally, please note the SECONDARY COVERAGE of Poray that was provide by user Malik Shabazz above. Also, pls do read about Żegota, a Polish organization that was dedicated to saving Jews during the war, which made up of THOUSANDS of Poles. I'll venture to say you were probably not aware of this, since you said that this "is blatant WP:FRINGE". Also, Emanuel Ringelblum stated that in his 1944 diary that thousands of Poles were helping Jews in Warsaw. --E-960 (talk) 15:03, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

You malign me. Kindly WP:AGF and do me the courtesy of assuming that I know this subject area well and recognize FRINGE revisionist POV-pushing masquerading as scholarship when I see it.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

E.M.Gregory, I do assume good faith, but it appears that you are simply ignoring certain facts, are you going to say that Emanuel Ringelblum, was just wrong? That Żegota did not save all those Jews? I'm also aware that out of all the academic pursuits 'history' is the most subjective, so to just say one historical view is 100% correct and the other 100% wrong, already exposes a bias. Btw, famous sayings such as this 'history is written by the victors' expose and highlight just how flimsy and unreliable the this area of academia can be, just one example out of many. --E-960 (talk) 15:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Icewhiz, can you provide a source where that claim is made. --E-960 (talk) 14:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Per this PHD dissertation (and no - a single paragraph (and much of it on Nasz Dziennik) in a PHD dissertation on the right-wing Polish press portrayal of Jews does not advance notability much (for any bio - all the more for a NFRINGE one).... But a PHD dissertation is per WP:SCHOLARSHIP a usable RS, and University College London is a word class university) - Kwiatkowska, Hanna Maria. Conflict of images. Conflict of memories. Jewish themes in the Polish right-wing nationalistic press in the light of articles from Nasz Dziennik 1998–2007. University of London, University College London (United Kingdom), 2008. - Nasz Dziennik constantly reminds its readers about the lack of Jewish gratitude for Polish heroism. The most dramatic in tone of those reminders was the interview with Anna Poray-Wybranowska from Canada who documents Polish heroism in saving the Jews during World War II. She claimed to have convincing evidence to estimate that `1 million of Poles were saving Jews'. She criticized the `restrictive conditions of Yad Vashem in acknowledging the Righteous Among the Nations' - it almost sounded like a deliberately unjust system that belittles the Polish efforts. Wybranowska made a plea `to erect a memorial wall with the names of all those who saved the Jews because `those Poles are the greatest heroes in the world 17l The article asserted what the title implied, not only a great number of Poles were heroes during the war, Poles in general are a `nation of heroes'. The original Polish interview might be this (it is scroll-able - you need to move the double-red bar down the yellow bar with numbers) - and I'm saying might since this is hosted on what seems to be a dubious website and not on Nasz Dziennik. I'll note that after going through all the crud on google-books and google-scholar it seems much of the coverage of Poray in these sources is a passing mention of this notorious 2004 interview (The PHD giving it a paragraph - usually it is just an example (one of a few) in a footnote with little beyond title, name, and date), other than that there are random directory / reports from her work as a university librarian, and not much else - the self-published book is mentioned much less than this interview (there is one mass market book that cites it - however I wouldn't be surprised if they mined the citation from Misplaced Pages, as we cite (or rather cited) the same page in relevant articles - and the book was published well after this was added to Misplaced Pages).Icewhiz (talk) 15:07, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. I am regularly daunted and discouraged by the frequency with which I see books, and even journal articles, by reputable publishers in which authors use bad facts that I can trace to Wikiepdia articles.15:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Icewhiz, it really comes across as if you want to remove Poray because you simply don't agree with her. Don't forget that Jan Gross was also soundly discredited on several points he made in his "research". Does that mean he is not a scholar because he was wrong on something. --E-960 (talk) 15:16, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPA please - I have no opinion on Poray. Frankly - I was astounded by the push back to the AfD with the initial votes here - when I nominated her, it seemed to me she was a retired librarian who did a little bit of activism and wrote a single little mentioned self-published book - which would not be grounds for notability. Following the unusual voting pattern here I did dig deeper (particularly since we had WP:GHITS !votes - or GBOOKSHITS to be precise) - going through all the google-book crud - and seeing that in the footnotes of WP:RS she is mentioned as a WP:FRINGE figure and further ascertaining that there was no WP:INDEPTH coverage of her. As for the comparison between Jan T. Gross (a chaired Princeton professor, award winning, significant coverage (in scholarship and news), extremely widely cited - clearly passing GNG and several NPROF criteria)) - forgive me, but this WP:OSE argument in relation to a retired librarian with scant coverage and one self-published book - is absurd.Icewhiz (talk) 15:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Delete Being author of the book is not reason enough to be notable.Anyone can go to WP:SPS publishing house and have a book.No one in this discussion showed WP:RS sources that discuss her.So she clearly fails WP:GNG--Shrike (talk) 12:13, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• @E.M.Gregory and Shrike: (willingly or not), you are being manipulated by a POV pusher with a deep bias against Polish people in general. Diminishing the role of Polish rescuers of the Jews during the Holocaust, has become an Israeli state policy of Benjamin Netanyahu in recent past, no less. Dozens of Misplaced Pages articles about Poland are under attack by the same WP:TAG TEAM on the basis of a smear campaign by Israeli media. Instead of buying into this WP:GAME of casting aspersions (NOT just about Anna Poray), please ask for citations next time, to confirm claims made by the AFD nominator. In our Misplaced Pages entry on the Holocaust in Poland many notable historians give estimates of the one million Polish helpers including Lukas, Mirriam-Goldberg, Kwiatkowski, Marshall Smith, and Zajdler. Anna Poray is an expert in the field. The reason why her groundbreaking work wasn't picked up by a leading publisher is because of how highly specialized it is. Those who Risked Their Lives (ISBN 0979221307) by Anna Poray is a book of pure statistics, not profitable commercially. Poray died in 2013 of old age, which should make it clear to anyone here that other concerned individuals published her findings of her behalf, and in all likelihood withheld their names out of respect for her. She hasn't "self-published" the study. It is a false claim made by notorious POV pushers. Research by Poray was conducted over a period of 30 years, and hasn't been matched by anything even remotely similar in its magnitude. Poeticbent talk 15:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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