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There is article "Holocaust in Nazi-occupated Lithuania", so this one should be Holocaust in Nazi-occupated Poland, due to fact, there was no such state as independend Poland during WW2. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 17:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
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== Need for expantion ==
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While most of this article is true, there are some things that need further explaining.
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It is a common misconception that occupied Poland was a country of horror where only public executions ever happened. In fact, most people were just trying to live their lives under German rule. Though the German policy towards the people was way harsher than in France or Netherlands, most Poles were by no way heroes. It should be enough to say that the ] was quite active in ] and it's suburbs but to make a military action in ] they needed to move people from the capital.
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While it is literally true that there were never a collaborative quasi-government in the occupied Poland, it was just because the Germans never needed or wanted such a thing. There are at least two known cases where signoficant people from pre-war Poland were tryng to establish such a quasi-government, but their attempts were just ignored by Germans. ] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]
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Another thing - there were of course several thousand heroes who risked their life to help Jews survive and a similar number of so-called Jew-hunters (Polish people who were searching for hiding Jews and reporting them to Germans for money, their Polish name "szmalcownik" is related to their motives - in Polish slang "szmal" or "szmalec" means "money"). ] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)] But both heroes and Jew-hunters were thousands among millions of Poles who were just unconcerned about their Jewish neighbours getting killed. Many Poles were even openly satisfied about it.
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[This whole description is situated within what I call the "rescuer-rescued" paradigm. Genuine rescuers were indeed rare. But a more realistic reading of Jewish experiences in occupied Poland is the "escaper-helper" paradigm, which I introduce in my book Secret City (although that language hadn't yet occurred to me while I wrote it). Jews neither expected to be rescued nor sat around waiting to be rescued: they took active steps to try to survive, including organizing escapes from ghettos, camps and trains (and trying a lot of other ideas that proved to be less successful). Having escaped, they then turned to people (not necessarily Poles - Germans, fellow Jews, Ukrainians, whoever was available) and asked for help if they needed it. By far the largest group of survivors - those who went east in 1939-40 - neither asked for nor needed help. They rescued themselves. When Jews did ask for help, sometimes they were helped,sometimes turned away, sometimes denounced. But the typical survivor story involves survival patched together out of many acts of help and self-help, not one or two grand and heroic acts of rescue.
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(Basic definition: rescue involves initiative on the part of the rescuer. Help involves initiative on the part of the Jew. Rescue should lead to survival, or contribute in a large way to survival; help might involve giving directions or lending a bit of money.]
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It has always been self-evident that survival involved many acts of help and therefore many helpers (few of them heroic enough to merit recognition as Righteous Gentiles), while a single szmalcownik or gang of szmalcowniks could find dozens of victims. Therefore we have always known (but rarely say) that the number of helpers was some multiple of the number of Jews in hiding, while the number of hunters was some fraction. Therefore there were many more helpers (please note - not rescuers) than hunters. This has often been pointed out, for example by Yithak Zuckerman, who exaggerated considerably when he said that "one swine could betray a hundred Jews, while it took a hundred Poles to save one Jew". And Ringelblum estimated that there were 40-60,000 helpers in Warsaw, while he spoke of szmalcowniks "in their hundreds, if not thousands".
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The most quoted and abused passage in my book tried to refine Ringelblum's numbers: I wrote that in Warsaw, 70-90,000 people (please note, people, not necessarily Poles) were involved in helping (please note, not rescuing) Jews in Warsaw, while there were 3,000-4,000 (in the Polish edition I wrote 2,700, which has to be taken as plus or minus) hunters. So I have both more helpers and more hunters than Ringelblum, the main reason for the difference being that he was not in a position to work out how many Jews were in hiding and seriously underestimated).
|author = Jan Grabowski & Shira Klein

|title = Misplaced Pages’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust
A much more significant, but rarely-quoted statistic is that 92% of the population was not involved with Jews one way or the other. The 8% or so of the population that helped Jews were not at all representative - they were part of a spontaneously arising underground (my "Secret City"), which like all undergrounds drew in people who were thought to be trustworthy. In the Polish edition, I cite Wieslaw Kielar, who survived Auschwitz because he was able to make contacts with some decent SS guards. He estimates that 8% of the SS guards at Auschwitz were decent. Therefore it is nothing for Poles to be especially proud of, or for Jews to be surprised at, that 8% of the population of Warsaw was also decent.
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|org = The Journal of Holocaust Research
Probably, of course, there were more decent people than that - but they were never asked to help and thus never drawn into the "Secret City". Conversely, there were undoubtedly many more than 3-4,000 rabid antisemites in Warsaw, but because the Secret City hid its secrets very well, they were unable to penetrate it and do more harm.
|url = https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939

|archiveurl = https://archive.is/Jgsyz
Reality is always more complex and nuanced than the polemicists on either side of debates like these are prepared to recognize. Alas, my book is therefore destined to remain misunderstood, particularly by idiots like Kalman Brattman, aka "isurvived.com", who seems to have developed a particular hatred for me. A pox on him, and on Chodakiewicz too, who gives me the kiss of death. You can find some intelligent and perceptive reviews on my website, www.secretcitybook.com.] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]
|archivedate = February 12, 2023

|accessdate = February 12, 2023
While there were valid military reasons not to help the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in their fight and, above all, not to let the fight spread to other parts of the city, there were virtually no attempt made to let the Ghetto open and enable Jews trapped there, to flee. The only attempt was made by communist Gwardia Ludowa, not recognized by the "official" Secret State.
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[The story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising INEVITABLY leaves out the Revisionist ZZW, which contributed 1/3 of the fighters and probably 3/4 of the weapons. The Revisionists already had plans before the war to go to the Yishuv and fight for independence, and so many of them joined the Polish army to get military training, started stockpiling weapons even before the war, and made friends and contacts - not with the GL, but with what ended up being the KB, Korpus Bezpieczenstwa, the internal police force of the AK, and also with members of the syndicalist PAL (Polish People's Army). Cezary Ketling has left a detailed description of ZZW weapons stockpiles in Praga (right-bank Warsaw) and of the tunnel under Muranowska St. that the ZZW built. Being professionally-trained soldiers, they conceived of the uprising as a standard military holding action, with prepared routes of retreat. A group of KB fighters entered the ghetto during the uprising and fought alongside their ZZW allies. Once they had held out as long as they could, the ZZW-KB force retreated through their prepared tunnel (there was also a second tunnel, under Karmelicka) to a safe-house also prepared in advance, ready to fight another day.
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That was unfortunately their mistake: they put all their eggs in one basket by hiding together. Their hiding-place was discovered or betrayed, there was a gunfight with the Germans, and all of them perished, leaving few credible witnesses to tell the tale.
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Mordechai Anielewicz was NOT "the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising": he was the leader of the ZOB. The leader of ZZW was Pawel Frankel.
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The ZZW has been written out of history because ZOB got to write the history. Also I suspect because ZZW was much more professional, realistic, better-armed and better organized than the romantic amateurs of ZOB. To tell the true story would show ZOB up.
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OK, that's unnecessarily harsh on ZOB. They just had a different conception of the fight. ZZW thought in military terms, ZOB saw it as a political statement. Undoubtedly, ZOB's uprising was the grander and more historically significant gesture. Still, they ought to give credit where it is due, and stop complaining that "the Poles did nothing to help" (I am extremely allergic to the word "the" in that sentence). The AK did provide ZOB with some weapons and made some symbolic gestures of support. It did quite a bit more for ZZW, which actively sought help and cultivated contacts much sooner. Of course it is also true that ZOB, being left-wing, was mistrusted by the AK leadership, whereas they had no such problems with the right-wing Revisionists.
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My biggest rap on ZZW was that they didn't spread around the locations of their tunnels before they left, otherwise more people could have fled. An attempt by the AK to blow a hole in the wall to let people escape was a nice symbolic gesture, but impracticable, as the walls were heavily guarded. In practice, no rescue effort from outside could have succeeded, short of perhaps a Soviet air raid (there were a few on Warsaw around that time).
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But in any case, Jews did flee: by my estimate, 13,000 out of the 60,000 left alive after the 1942 Aktion, or about 23%. Once again, they didn't wait around to be rescued, they rescued themselves, and it is silly to fault some average Pole in Mokotow (or some Italian villager who had never met a Jew in his life) because he didn't do anything to rescue Jews. He might help if he was asked, but otherwise what was he supposed to do?
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You see how the whole rescuer-rescued paradigm leads to unrealistic expectations and distorted assessments, whereas the escaper-helper paradigm is much truer to the realities both of the Jewish experience and of ordinary human behaviour? Rescuer/rescued ends up pointing the moral finger at people for not being what 99% of human beings have never been - self-sacrificing heroes whose horizon extends beyond their own problems and interests. It also paints a misleading and demeaning picture of Jews as passive victims or as the passive and grateful "rescued". They weren't either: they were active agents of their own (attempted) survival. ] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)].
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|url=https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/how-wikipedia-covers-the-history-of-the-holocaust-in-poland.html
One can't say that Poles participated, or even appreciated the Holocaust as a rule, but it is a fact, that most of them were trying hard not to think of it and ignore the trains of death.<small><span class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) </span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> ] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]
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:The page should be broken up into sections and is lacking references. Also, the above info is very much relevant and should find its place in the article. ] 12:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
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|title=How Misplaced Pages covers the history of the Holocaust in Poland.}}
::I agree with the need for sectioning. More refs would be nice, although it does have some even inline references, which is quite good. As for the above info, some of this info may be useful, but some comments of our anon are erroneus or irrelevant.
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::It is certainly true that most Poles just 'wanted to live through the war'. I see nothing special here, this was certainly true for all people all around the war.
::To say that Poles were not heroes is more controversial. Certainly most of them were not - but on the other hand "Polish citizens have the highest amount of ]" (and that's also the highest per capita, too).
] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]
::Weakness of Polish Secret State is again debatable. Sure, it was not strong enough to throw the Germans out, but it was probably the second largest resistance organization in Europe (after Yougoslavian ] I believe) and could carry out major actions like ] or the entire ].
::It is not true that Germans did not want a Polish collaborative government. Yes, I do believe around '39-40 (?), after Vichy was created, there was a minor Polish politician who approached Germans about the creation of a gov in Paris but was rebuked. I can't recall his name. How 'significant' he was (and who was the other) is a matter of debate, especially for when we can dig out their names. But see ] - Germans tried to create a Polish collaborative gov after Barbarossa, but failed. Not that either of this seems very relevant here.
::Anon later states that the number of Poles who helped the Jews was equal to those who prayed on them. I would like to have some reference for this, because I do have a reference to the contrary: has some specific mnumbers about the aftermath of the Ghetto Uprising: "The 27,000 Jews in hiding in Warsaw relied on about 50-60,000 people who provided hiding-places and another 20-30,000 who provided other forms of help; on the other hand, blackmailers, police agents, and other actively anti-Jewish elements numbered perhaps 2-3,000, each striking at two or three victims a month. The active helpers of Jews thus made up seven to nine per cent of the population of Warsaw; the Jews themselves, 2.7 per cent; the hunters, perhaps 0.3 per cent" That would indicate that for every "szmalcownik" we have 20 heroes.
] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]

::Last but not least, AK did help in the Ghetto Uprising. From our article on the Ghetto Uprising: '' Polish units from Armia Krajowa (AK) and Gwardia Ludowa sporadically attacked German sentry units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons and ammunition inside. One Polish unit from AK, namely KB under the command of Henryk Iwański, even fought inside the Ghetto together with ŻZW and then retreated together to the Aryan side. The AK tried twice to blow up the Ghetto Wall, but without much success.'' I have now referenced this information to .
::--] <sup><font color="green">]</font></sup> 16:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
] (]) 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]

*Dear Mr. Paulsson, I read your comments with great interest and tend to agree with virtually everything you said. After writing a dozen Misplaced Pages articles on the subject of Holocaust rescue by the Poles, I’d like to appeal to your remarkable sense of balance and encourage you to try to avoid getting caught up in semantics in this regard. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, rescuer is a person who takes someone out of harm or danger; helper - on the other hand - is a person who contributes to the fulfillment of a need. Rescue (be it your original thought) is a term a lot more appropriate in describing those harboring Jewish fugitives, since rescuing (verb) - means to bring someone out of trouble, even if only temporarily. Your "rescuer-rescued" paradigm therefore, which you refer to in your book ''Secret City'', is best suited for describing the roughly 100,000 Poles involved in such action, and a lot more convincing than escaper-helper paradigm which you introduced later. On a separate note, website "isurvived.com" which you mention is a hate ridden attack page promoting nothing but ethnic strife between our peoples. I think it should be banned from around here also, because it routinely breaks all copyright laws like any other hate site. --] ] 17:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I was curious to see how a 'hate' site looks like so I took a look at the site that is being mentioned here <isurvived.com>. I see nothing about the Holocaust there, nothing about the Poles, nothing about any hate. The site is about "Your Lifestyle Resource."

Keep continuing with this crap. It is very entertaining for many Poles in Chicago.

Marcin <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 07:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== September 1939 crimes ==

The Germans murdered hundreds of Jews.
] 10:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

]


==Anon's request==
I would appreciate some very solid evidence of this apparently rampant anti semitic attitude that has existed in Poland from prior to 1931. thank you. <small><span class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) </span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->

== prewar population? ==

Wasn't the prewar population 3.3 million, not 3 million like it says in the article? <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (]) 21:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC).</small><!-- HagermanBot Auto-Unsigned -->

== Short introduction is needed ==

I doubt that an average reader understands the context. Even the name doesn't explain, it should be rather ''Holocaust in Germany occupied Poland''.

In fact the current article is rather about ''Attitude of Poles toward Jews during Holocaust'' than about the holocaust itself.
] 17:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

== tortured and beaten to death ==

The majority was burned in a barn.] (]) 09:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

== A few things to keep in mind ==

The dichotomy between 'Poles' and 'Jews' that this discussion has been relying on is a false one. Some Polish people before the war were Jewish. Most were not. The same was the case in Austria, Germany, etc. As well, some European Jews (like Scholem) were Zionists and identified very strongly with their religious roots; some (including Tuwim and Tarski) were not. Many (like Popper) were internationalists and had no time for nationalisms of any sort. All this is important to bear in mind because the notion that there were somehow two societies in Poland -- a homogenous, Catholic Gentile one and a distinct Jewish one -- is misleading. I had both Jewish and Catholic Poles in my extended family, as well as Armenians, Austrians and so forth. This was very typical in Galicia.

As well, contrary to what is said above, the Nazi occupation *was* brutal. One could be shot where one stood for whistling Chopin or singing a Polish song, for example. Remember that Poles were all slated for extermination so as to make room for the 'better' races. Because the German elites respected Dutch and French culture, nothing that happened in the West compares to the brutality that Poles (whether Jewish, Catholic, or Freethinker) had to endure. Things were clearly the worst for Jewish people. But everyone lived day-to-day, trying to survive. Many didn't make it.

One more thing: please don't let your dislike of modern day Polish conservatism and Catholicism or of Polish antisemitism (which is all reasonable enough) distort your view of history. Read about the Odessa massacre, just to pick a random example. Poles never did anything of that sort. There were no Polish SS battalions. You don't have to like Poles, but don't smear them. It's just not fair. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 17:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==One million Polish collaborators in the Holocaust==
I have revert . It is highly controversial and per ] as a fringe and controversial theory requires more reliable sources.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 19:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

:It is reliably sourced, and it says "seven thousand to about one million". ] <sup>'']''</sup> 19:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
::Which I expect is a misinterpretation of the original source. Thousands is a number I have seen often in many reliable scholarly estimates; a million - never. The publication you cite (Klaus-Peter Friedrich. Collaboration in a "Land without a Quisling": Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II. ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 64, No. 4, (Winter, 2005), pp. 711-746) likely mentions various brackets, but I find it dubious it would assign the same weight to estimates of several thousand and one million as you seem to imply.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 19:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

:::The direct quote from the article is "Estimates of the number of Polish collaborators vary from seven thousand to about one million. The refs he uses are 197. Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 117, and 198. Madajczyk, "'Teufelswerk,"' p. 146. If you have sources that dispute this, please share them. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 19:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

::::Update: I've read the article in question. First of all, the lowest estimate (p. 712) is "no collaboration" at all (old Polish historiography, biased but notable enough to be mentioned). Second, p. 715 offers a very useful definition of collaboration (he also comes back to that on p. 743) - note that Friedrich includes the ] (who had Polish citizenship) among the "Polish collaborators" (people who claimed such ethnicity would become the ]). Are they Polish or German? Sure, we can claim now 3 millions of Polish collaborators - as long as we don't mention that those "Poles" were the ones who signed a piece of paper claiming they are ethnic Germans, and were supposed to sever any contact with the Polish subhumans... In 1939, before the German invasion, 800,000 people called themselves a German minority. During the war there were about 3 millions declared Volksdeutsche (p. 725). Of course, many of those were still Poles, with poor command of German language. 90% of Volks stayed in Poland after the WWII. Many - but not all - of them committed various crimes against Poles and Polish Jews; they were stigmatized after the war (p. 728), and in extreme cases deported to Germany... do we define them as Polish collaborators or not?
:::: Friedrich notes on p. 715 page: "it is difficult to apply to Poland the concept of collaboration used for Western Europe"..."There was no basis for state collaboration.". Very notably, there is a big difference between collaborating with Nazi Holocaust and collaborating with the Germans (a difference which you seem to skip over in your one sentence short summary). Are we going to include, for example, 200,000 Polish bureaucrats (p. 716) that worked on the lower levels of ], for the most part not having anything to do with the Holocaust and just doing various mundane jobs? What about tens of thousands of ] (Polish laborers, p. 720) who in 1939, under German command, restored the infrastructure destroyed in the war and who kept on working on similar tasks later (reaching 45,000 in 1944)? Yes, the Baudiensts built defense installations, dug up mass graves, some of them (although as an exception to the rule, p. 722) even helped round up Jews... but evading conscription and service was punishable by death. The ] numbered 16,000 at its height (p. 722). They participated in rounding up Jews and other crimes, but they were not in command, had no autonomy, were common victim of assassinations by resistance, and even so - contained a high percentage of resistance symphatizers and undercover operatives. On p. 743 he notes that many government officials, policemen and others collaborated both with the Germans (obviously) but also supported the resistance. How do we define such "double collaborators"? On p. 716 and 717 he notes that the number of collaborators diminished in time (after German setbacks, and after people realized their true cruelty and intent).
:::: On p. 744 he indeeds gives the brackets of Polish collaborators for 7,000 (Lukas, ''Forgotten Holocaust'', p. 117) to 1 million (Madajczyk, ''Teufelswerk'', p. 146). The question is, of course, what is their definition of collaborator. Friedrich himself several times stressed the importance of that definition, and the problem of blurry lines. In any case, I have no problem with restoring those estimates (With proper attribution - please look in the article and find out full bibliographical info for the Lukas and Madajczyk works), but in a proper place (stressing the million estimate in lead of various articles is not neutral!), and in proper big picture. For example. I have no problem with the numbers of people tried and executed by the underground courts. But to suggest as you did in your sentence that only 10,000 of the million of equally guilty Polish collaborators were tried is an obvious error.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 20:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

:::::Update. There is a good response to Friedrich here: John Connelly, Slavic Review, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 771-781. Crucially, on. p. 778 I would like to draw your attention to the following quote: "The leading expert ], Leszek Gondek] calls the phenomenon of collaboration ''marginal''." Next, Connelly writes: "I do not believe that KPF valuable piece gives us reasons to abandon the existing views of Polish collaboration. His case study shows that only relatively small percentage of Polish population engaged in activities that may be described as collaboration when seen against the backdrop of European and world history."--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 02:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

::::::Belated reply (didn't see this until now). Connelly has a different view than Friedrich (who he cites as having made an "invaluable contribution" to the literature). However, our article is not quoting Friedrich's views, it is citing a range that Friedrich cites in his article. Nowhere does Connelly comment on or dispute this citation. And our article does not, as you claim, suggest "that only 10,000 of the million of equally guilty Polish collaborators were tried" because we cite a range of estimates given by Friedrich (6,000-1 million). We clearly ''do not'' say there were one million collaborators. It's clearly stated as the upper value of a range and clearly cited. It would be preferable, though, to make the estimate of collaborators and the figures of tried and executed seperate sentences for further clarity. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 20:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
:::::::I have no problem with us citing the number of million as the upper bracket, as long as we keep the equally well referenced qualifications from Connelly ("the phenomenon of collaboration marginal", "only relatively small percentage of Polish population engaged in activities that may be described as collaboration") which puts the numbers in perspective. Further, I still insist that we should do a survey of other sources and determine what's the most popular 'average' estimate.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 17:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
::::::::I have no problem adding additional reliable sources that put forth other estimates, I was clearly objecting to outright removal of the figures given by Friedrich. I doubt if we will find a "most popular 'average' estimate", and probably will have to cite a few reliable sources and their estimates. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 18:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::That's fine. Are we ready to unprotect the article? --<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 18:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

::::::::::It's okay with me. My objection was the replacement of the range with the single estimate. — ]&nbsp;(]&nbsp;'''·''' ]) 02:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

==Flame war or what?==
Naturally, I have reverted the mind-boggling blanket revert as of 04:26, 31 July 2008 by Malik Shabazz with his puzzling explanation as follows: "Undid revision 228933025 by Poeticbent. Lukas was already being cited as a lowball figure; also, see WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE)

Please keep your cool Malik Shabazz. If you have a beef against Lukas than give me something to read. Otherwise the actual data comes from the best possible and widely respected source which is the Israeli War Crimes Commission? There's nothing "fringe" or "undue" about that. --] ] 17:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

:Please keep your own counsel, ], and stop referring to other editors' changes as "mind-boggling" and a "flame war". You're making an obvious attempt to pass off Lukas's research — which he acknowledges is outside the mainstream (''i.e.'', ]) — as if it were gospel truth.

:Lukas was already cited, together with other ] — which you deleted. I'm sorry, but you can't throw aside the sources whose numbers you don't like in order to advance your POV. — ]&nbsp;(]&nbsp;'''·''' ]) 18:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

::I agree. I have no objection to acknowledging those Poles who aided Jews during the Holocaust if this means '''adding''' ''notable'' views from ''reliable'' sources. But we should not delete material on Polish colaboration with Nazis when it occured. Also, when there is a range of estimates we should provide the range and not pick one particular estimate. Commissions, courts, and professional historians all use a variety of methods for reconstructing events from the mass of data and in this situation there are a number of notable estimates, not one authoritative view. ] | ] 19:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

:I'm sorry but these now twice repeated blanket reverts of data originating from the Israeli War Crimes Commission coupled with your fantastic claims and mysterious sources that cannot be confirmed online (refered to as "reliable") are all a clear indication of your joint unwillingness to foster the quality of information expected of Misplaced Pages. There's nothing more I can say. --] ] 20:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

::What is so "fantastic" or "mysterious" about this source:
:::Klaus-Peter Friedrich. Collaboration in a "Land without a Quisling": Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II. ''Slavic Review'', Vol. 64, No. 4, (Winter, 2005), pp. 711-746. Friedrich cites Richard C. Lukas, ''Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944'' for the lower figure and Czeslaw Madajczyk, "'Teufelswerk': Die nationalsozialistische Besatzungspolitik in Polen," in Eva Rommerskirchen, ed., Deutsche und Polen 1945-1995: Anndherungen-Zbliienia (Diisseldorf, 1996) for the one million figure.
::As I wrote, it cites Lukas as the low end of a range of estimates.
::Every reliable source doesn't have to be accessible by Google. Anybody with access to a good university library or a subscription to JSTOR can find the article. — ]&nbsp;(]&nbsp;'''·''' ]) 20:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
:::Does the author write about ethnic Poles or all Polish citizens regardles of ethnic background ? --] (]) 22:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

::::The author uses the same phrase used in the article, "Polish collaborators". — ]&nbsp;(]&nbsp;'''·''' ]) 22:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
:::::So he doesn't specify it means all Polish citizens regardless of ethnic background or just ethnic Poles ? --] (]) 22:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

* Shall we invite Mr Ernst Zundel to settle our differences or are you already overlooking our discussion sir? And, how many millions of collaborators would you like us to get through around here, sir? Just one? I think number three has a better ring to it. And, how about the so called biblical seven? I think seven million sounds best. What do you say? --] ] 16:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

::], please make an effort to follow the ] and use this page for discussing improvements to the article. Using the talk page to post hostile rants containing aggressive and offensive ethnic-based innuendo is a destructive, rather than constructive approach to fostering cooperative editing. Thank you. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 02:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

:::You want to discuss improvements to this article? Than tell me please, why weren’t you the first to notice that there’s something terribly wrong with these numbers restricted from public access and never again mentioned by any respectable formal authority on the subject. Instead, you engaged in your usual edit warring. But, regardless of the nature of your inquiry, these preposterous claims from JSTOR are deplorable even for a layman like myself. – If there were one million collaborators in a country of around twenty million, one collaborator for every twenty citizens of Poland: men, women and children, than who were they for goodness' sake? ], ], ], or maybe ]? There must have been at least one in every extended Polish or Jewish family (from Warsaw to Szczebrzeszyn), one in every dugout, one in every attic, one in every AK unit, ten of them in Dr Korczak’s orphanage (statistically speaking). What an amazing ] paradise. Did they all speak German on top of their mother tongue? Or, perhaps squeal silently by pointing fingers at each other under the cover of darkness? – Let's be serious. The only estimate fit to be used in this article is the one originating from the Israeli War Crimes Commission; or, let's not mention any numbers at all in the name of peace. --] ] 17:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

::::These "preposterous claims from JSTOR" from not from JSTOR, they are from a reliable source carried by JSTOR. I assume that when you read something you disagree with in a book, you do not hold your local bookdealer responsible. In any case, if you have reliable sources to add that dispute or add additional context, background or other useful information, please feel free to add it. But disputing a reliable source simply because you don't like it is not enough. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 17:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

== Information is lacking in the article ==

The article lacks info on Jewish patricipation and collaboration:
*]
*]
*]
*]

--] (]) 22:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

== Wrong timing to protect the article ==

Wrong timing, because the source shoudn't be included into the Misplaced Pages historical article in the first time and then protected yet. Such sources are most reliable when coming from the original records - in this case from German records which are known to be most detailed and precise going back centuries ago - especially, if someone wants to establish how many collaborators were active during WWII Poland. It's beside me why the so called German historian - Klaus-Peter Friedrich - who has obviously an easy access to the Berlin Hall of Records, has neglected this and estimated his number on communist press. We don't have access to the supplied reference but we have access to his other findings also concerning the Holocaust in Poland, just see to get an idea on which sources this guy depends. Besides, such a divergence in estimating the correct number of collaborators - three magnitudes higher than found by more scholarly sources sounds exactly as it is: an original research by someone looking for holes where there are none. It's like trying to prove the Holocaust never happened supplying the notable sources from say Iran, just in reverse. Or like someone tried to prove there were between 20 and 20 million acknowledged American spies in the USSR 1950's only, the research based on CIA files (lower number) and on Lyublyanka interrogation transcripts (higher number). ] (]) 15:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Do you want us to read the original article? It's included in a C.E.O.L. database, so a hint would be useful how to get there. The article is about the Communist propaganda rather than about the Holocaust, so I don't understand your comment. The author publishes in Jewish Quaterly in Poland, so he seems to be a historian. ] (]) 13:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

== Rewriting ==
This article needs a rewrite, it reads like "tit for tat" between "Poles helped Jews" and "Poles did not help the Jews", with way too little content on the Nazi organized Holocaust proper - or suffering of the Polish Jewry.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 20:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
:Partially done - the content is now structured logically - but we are missing much info on the fate of the Jews (how they lived, how they died...).--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 20:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

As of now, the article is still so poorly written as a result of edit wars and random copy-paste jobs that I can no longer use is as an internal link for my projects. I fact I’ve been carefully avoiding linking anything to it for fear of spoiling the rest. Are there any objections to improving it further? For example, I’d like to know if I could rewrite it per wp:mos for encyclopedic style and general cohesion, without being reverted and wasting my time? Naturally, I would not be deleting anything of importance, but rather simply making sense of it as a whole. --] ] 16:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Quoting or mentioning of unreliable sources like Gross are not helping you. You are also forgetting about so called Polish hostages - which were people for comunities for ex. willages taken hostage by SS or Gestapo to ensure certain reaction from people. Plus if you go to the list of the richeous among ... you will see the number of Polish richeous and you will be able to compare that to numbers from other countries if you are so willing to slender Poles lets' hear what you want to say about Germans French Czech or Slovacs--] (]) 00:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

== Name ==
Almost all articles in ] follow similar naming guidelines. This is one of the exceptions, and should be moved to ]. Comments? --<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 20:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

== Name POV ==

Current misleading name is simply way to asses these crimes as committed by Poles in Poland in ]. Since 1939 to 1945 there was no Polish state and proper name should be '''Holocaust in occupied Poland''' or better '''Holocaust in German Nazi-occupied Poland'''. ] (]) 07:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

:The name is typical of other Holocaust articles, including ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. — ]&nbsp;{{toolbar|separator=dot|] | ] }} 16:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

:: But 90% Jewish victims of Holocaust were exterminated in German Nazi camps in Poland. Question is very important because contemporary media frequently making a mistake naming these camps '''Polish death camps''' or '''Polish Nazi death camps'''. ] (]) 17:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
:::Agree with Malik Shabazz, keep it in line with the other names but be clear within the article who was occupying Poland and who executed the Holocaust in Poland.--] (]) 20:10, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

:I truly sympathize with Mathiasrex's concerns, quite aware of the fact that there was no independent Polish state between 1939 and 1945. However, we ought to follow the Misplaced Pages policy guidelines with regard the once established naming conventions. In search for example, there's a prevalence of choices:<br />
:* about
:*
:*
:Our naming conventions notwithstanding, the above results – indicating preference among scholars – are quite overwhelming by themselves. Basically there's no contest, so I took the liberty of removing the NPOV flag from the article. I hope you understand. --] ] 15:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

::Indeed. There is a question where do we draw the line between simplicity in titles and attempts to erase potential confusion of the readers, further influenced sometimes by some national biases and POVs. I don't think that there is a need to add "Nazi-occupied" or even "occupied" to most articles dealing with Polish history in 1939-1945, this is why we have ] and not "history of Poland occupied by Nazis and Soviet (1939-1945)". I think the clarification is needed only in exceptional cases, such as the issue of "]".--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 18:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

==Good Article==
Thanks to Poeticbent, the article has drastically improved over the past few weeks. I wonder if we should submit it to ]? --<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 19:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

== Article is POV ==

I'm not saying it's horrendous, but it's far from actually neutral. Right now it largely reads like a Polish apologist's account of what went on. Facts are cited or omitted in many cases based on what makes Poles look good. E.g. claiming that Poles form the majority of righteous gentiles. Poland started WW2 with more Jews than any other country by a large margin, and of course more Jews were deported there. Hence Poles would have far more likelihood to have a chance of being Righteous Gentiles than others. Then following up with the 1% to 10% figure, as though it is actually accepted fact: it is not, it is the opinion of one academic and one journal article. This in turn makes it look like Yad Vashem has something out for Poles.

The job of the encyclopedia is to report the consensus and disagreement of scholarship in a field in a neutral way. Given that such a huge chunk of scholarship (i.e. the chunk that believes that the Poles were fairly complicit in the Holocaust) is being underrepresented, I wouldn't call it neutral.

The article also gives Poland quite a bit of a whitewash in related events before and after the actual Holocaust. Anti-semitism in Poland had a long and venerable tradition long before the Holocaust and this is highly understated. What's more, Polish reactions in Holocaust historicity have been pretty atrocious since then as well. I could cite specific examples, but I'm sure you can find them on your own quite easily.

] (]) 22:27, 14 November 2010 (UTC) Nir

:Have to agree with these comments, unfortunately. It's two years later and problems persist. Just one example, concerning the reaction of Polish Catholic church to the Kielce pogrom:

:''The massacre in Kielce was condemned by a public announcement sent by the diocese in Kielce to all churches. The letter denounced the pogrom and "stressed that the most important Catholic values were the love of fellow human beings and respect for human life. It also alluded to the demoralizing effect of anti-Jewish violence, since the crime was committed in the presence of youth and children." Priests read it without comments during Mass, "inting that the pogrom might have in fact been a political provocation."''

:This is all our article says, presenting the Polish church's response in the best possible light. In reality the church response was much more mixed. In the very same reference (!) used to support the above statement, it is stated that (in a press conference after the pogrom, the head of Polish church): "Hlond did not condemn the pogrom or call on Poles to desist from killing Jews".

:In other words, whoever wrote the above sentences selectively read the reference to use only the part which puts the Polish church's reaction in a very favourable light, and ignored the rest. ] (]) 21:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

== Jewish Collaborators ==

One should also mention, in this article, large number of Jewish Collaborators
in Poland, Germany and other countries - at all levels. Hasidic Jews had the greatest
disadvantage - they were not able easily to change appearance and largest number of them lived in Poland.
Hasidic Jews are to this day discriminated against by Non-Hasidic Jews - (from personal experience.) <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 23:37, 22 January 2011 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== Copyrights ==

Some words of adice. Please do not ''lift'' paragraphs from ]. Use your own words, or put the copy-pasted text in quotation marks (if it's not too much, and still comprehensible). And do not play around with important parts of ] material stable for years, and free of infringment. Sideline commentary may vary from author to author, as it usually does, so let's draw attention to the facts. No need for excess verbosity. Thanks, ] ] 00:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

:Actually, I did put in some quotes to make absolutely sure I presented the author's research accurately, but I am perfectly fine with paraphrasing, if other editors involved here are.

:As for "article being stable for years", unlike you I see this as a major problem, not a plus. For some reason, maybe the tone of this talk page, editors seem to have been scared away from contributing to this important topic. Hence the article is stale and out of date, and does not present the latest research. Thus the most cited reference is Paulsson's paper from 1998. A lot of groundbreaking research has happened in the 15 years since then, and some of Paulsson's conclusions have been invalidated. Specifically, Paulsson did his research using statistics from Warsaw, but these cannot just be extrapolated and applied to the Polish countryside. Polish historians investigating provincial archives are thus presenting a rather different picture of chances of Jewish survival there (much lower than they were in Warsaw) and of Polish involvement in the killings of Jews (much more widespread than previously believed).

:I plan to continue updating the article with more up to date references during the next few months, as my time permits. ] (]) 16:11, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

== There was not Holokaust in Poland! There was Holokaust in Germany-occupied Poland ==
] (]) 14:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

== Article Still Lacks NPOV ==

Please discuss the fact that virtually the entire article helps present the viewpoint that the Poles did not collaborate at all in the Holocaust, and in fact helped Jews where possible. I brought up this issue three years ago, and even gave an example of selective presentation of facts to present one viewpoint. The only person who responded to my post agreed with me, and gave another (excellent) example. Therefore I can only conclude that nobody believes this article is NPOV. If nobody responds to my post within the next few weeks I'll add the link indicating problems with the neutrality of the article.

Thanks, ] (]) 20:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

::What do you want from us, {{U|Nirf}}? I'd rather you bring in some ] ] first, in support of your ]. Three years ago you said Poles were responsible for the Holocaust. Anything new out there? ] ] 21:01, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

::::Exaggerating my previous statements is not the way to start a civil debate on this article, {{U|Poeticbent}}. I'm sure you are aware of the difference between "complicit" and "responsible". In any case, as I already said, there are two examples just above in the talk page that have never been addressed. You can start by addressing those. Fundamentally though, as I said, entire large swathes of the article read like somebody trying to convince you that the Poles are the good guys. That is not the job of this article. Some scholars, like Jan T. Gross, would give you a very different general picture of what went on. The Holocaust survivor that I spoke to for 3 hours last week did as well. The article should stick to presenting the basic facts and outline of what happened. It should note that there were some Poles who helped, and some that harmed, and that various scholars disagree about the extent of those two populations. Opinions should be in quotes or paraphrased and attributed to scholars, and scholars who present different viewpoints should be presented. <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 21:13, 12 June 2013 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->


== Soviet or Polish Jews in the areas invaded in 1941 ==
::::I'd like to add (as nobody is responding to my comments, but doubtless there will be a howl when I put the NPOV tag on), that to give some specific sources, the general characterization of the situation given in the second paragraph is completely at odds with what you'll find at other major reputable sites. For instance the Yad Vashem exhibit at Auschwitz characterizes the number of people willing to help Jews as "very few". The Berlin Holocaust memorial notes the active cooperation of regular Polish police at some of the extermination sites. Research by Barbara Engelking, to give another example, documented thousands of cases where Jews fleeing in the countryside were betrayed by Poles. By itself, these numbers are the same order of magnitude as the Polish Righteous Among Nations. In summary, and to re-emphasize: Misplaced Pages is presenting something as a consensus view which is not in fact consensus. If this article was written about Denmark, it would be uncontroversial, but it's not, it's about Poland. Whatever the personal views of people responsible for this page, there is a legitimate, mainstream scholarly viewpoint that is being completely ignored. ] (]) 17:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


For what it's worth, it seems most books about the Holocaust list these victims as Soviet Jews, for example:
:::::You are welcome to improve this article - please go ahead. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 20:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
*"Almost 900,000 Soviet Jews were murdered during such operations under German control in 1941" (Gerlach, p.70)
*Longerich 2010: section "MASS EXECUTIONS OF JEWS IN THE OCCUPIED SOVIET ZONES, 1941". There is no mention of "Polish Jews" in this section; the next mention of "Polish Jews" is on page 264 in the next part, "Genesis of the Final Solution on a European Scale", section "Reflections on the Fate of the Polish Jews in the Summer of 1941" (referring to the areas occupied by Germany in 1939)
*Beorn 2018, chapter "War of Annihilation: The Invasion of the Soviet Union"—no mention of "Polish Jews" in this chapter. There are a few mentions of "Poland", most of them comparing the Nazi policies in Poland in 1939 to the Soviet Union in 1941, although it does mention the ] as happening in Poland.
*Dan Stone 2023 ''The Holocaust: An Unfinished History'', same comparison of "Soviet Union" and "Poland" (“Yet if what had happened since September 1939 in Poland was shocking, what would take place in the Soviet Union after June 1941 was of another order still”), no mention of "Polish Jews" in the chapter "War of Annihilation" dealing with the invasion of the Soviet Union
*Cesarani 2016, ''Final Solution'': does mention Polish Jews three times in the "Barbarossa" chapter, but all of them refer to Jews living west of the areas invaded in 1941
I think these sources substantiate my concern that Reichskommissariat Ostland and other areas east of Bialystok and the General Governorate are most often not considered part of the Holocaust in Poland. (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 23:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)


:Then we can mention this in the text. It is consistent with ] claim that "Contemporary Russian sources include Poland's losses in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union with Soviet war dead" - and I guess Soviet propaganda seeped through to many Western sources over the years. Just like many estimates conflate Soviet with Russia, ommitting Ukraine (see ] for context). <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 03:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::What research by Engelking are you specifically referring to? She's written a lot about the subject.<span style="color:Blue">]</span><span style="color:Orange">]</span> 22:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
::Great, so all five of these historians are all infected by Soviet propaganda? Any evidence to back up this claim?
::I realize the question of nationality is not straightforward when it comes to areas that were part of Russia prior to World War I, part of Poland for about 20 years (although most of these areas had a majority non-Polish-speaking population), then part of the Soviet Union for about 2 years. That's why I think we should follow how most reliable sources on the topic divide it up. (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 07:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:PS. I'll ping ] who knows much more than me about what Polish historiography may say about this. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 03:50, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:{{tq|I think these sources substantiate my concern that Reichskommissariat Ostland and other areas east of Bialystok and the General Governorate are most often not considered part of the Holocaust in Poland}}, and you are judging on what, because none of your sources actually confirm that. Obviously works that describe the entire history of the Holocaust may, for the sake of argument, use this and that choice of terms, which, for example, will speak of Jews killed in Polish lands occupied by the Soviets as "Soviet Jews". But this is irrelevant to us. Especially for this article. Following your logic, we can't talk about ] because your sources will say it is part of ]. Do you understand what your mistake is? You just cannot expect a clear distinction. The ] will cover the whole of pre-war Poland, and, for example, the ] will cover the area of Ukraine within modern borders; and the fact that they will overlap geographically is no problem.
:Also you are ignoring sources that are more precise. For example: Snyder, ''Bloodlands'', 2015, p. 275: ''Of the million or so Soviet Jews killed in the Holocaust, fewer than one percent died at Auschwitz. Of the three million or so Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust, only about seven percent perished at Auschwitz. Nearly 1.3 million Polish Jews were killed, usually shot, east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line. Another 1.3 million or so Polish Jews were gassed in Operation Reinhard in the General Government''. Or : ''In June 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans began to imprison the rest of Polish Jewry in ghettos and to deport them to concentration and slave labor camps.''
:Or look at the numbers given by : ''Poland. Jewish population of Poland in 1937: 3,350,000. Deaths: 2,770,000–3,000,000'' and ''Soviet Union. Jewish population of the Soviet Union in 1939: 3,028,538. Deaths: approximately 1,340,000''. There is a clear distinction here and the inclusion of Jews murdered in Soviet-occupied territories after 1939 among the victims of the Holocaust in Poland. As I said, without them, the number of Holocaust victims in Poland would have been smaller by one third. ] (]) 08:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
::Good point about Lithuania (also, ], Belarus, Estonia, Latvia...). Some sources simplify things, others go into detail. This article is one where we go into detail in the context of Polish citizens and Polish territories, even if one or the other or both was not universally recognized back then or later. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 12:49, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Exactly, besides, we should check the sources which have the same scope as the article, so "Holocaust in Poland", not Holocaust in general. ] (]) 14:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
::::"Polish citizens" and "Polish territories" according to what standard? They became (mostly) Soviet citizens and Soviet territories in 1939 and for the most part haven't been Polish since then. Besides, by your own proposed standard, it is not as if Bloodlands is about the Holocaust in Poland either. Maybe they are covered in sources whose stated topic is the Holocaust in Poland, but I'd like to see it. (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 17:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::{{tq|"Polish citizens" and "Polish territories" according to what standard?}}. What kind of argument is it? By the same standards by which the territories occupied and their inhabitants by Germany were "Polish." Or do you deny that too? Perhaps you have sources in which Poland did not exist at all?
:::::{{tq|Maybe they are covered in sources whose stated topic is the Holocaust in Poland, but I'd like to see it}}, for what? So you can remove them also? ] (]) 18:18, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
::::::Maybe try wp:agf? (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 19:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::::As I said, I was assuming your good faith until I explained you the history of the Holocaust in Poland, in other words your only excuse was an ignorance. ] (]) 19:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::What standard, hmmm. Would you like to rename ] to ] or ]? Also, does it mean that in Jedawbne, Soviet/German Jews were killed by Soviets or just Germans? Do elaborate on your logic, I find it... fascinating. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 06:31, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
: {{ping|Buidhe|Piotrus|Marcelus}} In ]'s ''Bloodlands'' (Polish edition, 2011, p. 442) I found such interesting assesment (my rough translation from Polish):
{{Blockquote
|text=In historical works on the Holocaust, individuals residing east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line are often labeled as Soviet Jews. However, this description is imprecise as in 1939, at the outbreak of war, the majority of Jews who were later murdered in that region, held Polish citizenship rather than Soviet citizenship. Referring to them as Soviet Jews also reinforces a narrative that marginalizes or overlooks the Soviet invasion and occupation of its western neighbors. If these individuals were considered Soviet Jews, it would imply that their homeland was the Soviet Union and that the war began with the German invasion of the USSR . In reality, however, the war commenced with the German-Soviet alliance resulted in the destruction of Poland, placing the Jews in question within the borders of the enlarged USSR.}}
Hope it helps to some extent.] (]) 19:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)


:I think that settles it. ] (]) 19:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
==B-class review==
This article is pretty close, but I am seeing some unreferenced sentences. Those would need to be ref'ed before this is B-class. There are also some NPOV concerns raised above, through not backed by specific sources so far, so not very serious of a concern for this review. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 16:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)


Raul Hilberg, ''The Destruction of European Jews'', 2003, p. 301: ''In Kraków the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (BdS) of the Generalgouvernement, SS-Oberführer Schöngarth, organized three small Kommandos. In the middle of July these Kommandos moved into the eastern Polish areas and, with headquarters in Lvov, Brest-Litovsk, and Białystok, respectively, killed tens of thousands of Jews.'' ] (]) 08:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
== Opinions presented as if fact ==


== Archives missing from box ==
There is a claim in the article that the number of people recognised as "Righteous among the nations" is a small fraction of the total who deserve to be. No matter how much anyone might agree with this, it's pure opinion. Presenting it as a fact contravenes NPOV.


The box listing Archives for this page is missing the links to ], ], ], and ]. I can't see how to fix it, so will ask around to see if anyone else does. ] (]) 20:46, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
At least two people seem to think that the mere fact of appearing in a book or magazine means that something must be included in the encyclopaedia (, ). I could find any number of outrageous statements from revisionist historians and put them in the article as if they were facts, and add a reference tag, and I guess you'd just think "oh well, it's sourced - we must include it". ] (]) 12:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
:It has now been fixed. ] (]) 21:15, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
::@], tip for the future: please avoid ]. After starting a discussion here, it would have been better to ''link'' to here (<code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code>) at ] or the other way around. —⁠] (]) 23:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC)


== Failed verification ==
== Removal of sourced content ==


While it's possible that we are looking at different versions of the book, the text is not on the cited pages of the 2003 edition. Oddly, the one I'm looking at does discuss Poland on these pages, but still does not support the text, which makes me wonder what is going on. Could you provide quotes from the source? I am not entirely sure Weimar Republic policies are relevant to discuss, but that is secondary to the verifiability issue. (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 17:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Re: . This edit involves removal of sourced content apparently on the basis of just ].


:Various laws of interwar Germany aimed at Polish Jews are discussed by Hilberg on pages 188-189. It's weird that you can't find them. ] (]) 20:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
The edit summary: ''Look, there are vast numbers of things you can find in "reliable sources" which nevertheless cannot be included in the encyclopaedia. "sourced" does not trump "verifiable", "neutral" or "encyclopaedic"'' suggests an unfamiliarity with Misplaced Pages's policies (], ]. On the other hand, a mention is made of "verifiability", "neutrality" and "encyclopaedic...citity"
::Again, can you provide a quote from the source that supports the content? (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 01:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:::''A second factor was the German perception of Polish Jewry. These Jews were at the bottom for some time. They had been singled out and targeted repeatedly before the war. In recent memory were the thousands who had been transported from Germany to the Polish frontier in 1938. Fifteen years earlier individual Jews holding Polish citizenship had been deported as undesirable by the Bavarian Government. Still earlier, on April 23, 1918, Polish Jews who were unskilled laborers and who had sought entry into Germany’s eastern provinces were banned by the Prussian Interior Ministry on the ground that they were not interested in work but immigration, and that they were morally unreliable as well as physically unclean, carrying typhus to Germany. Armed with such conceptualizations, the Nazi regime in Poland was less considerate and more drastic than in Germany itself. Typically, no concessions were made to Polish Jews who had been veterans of the German or Austro-Hungarian armies in the First World War. There was little hesitation to produce housing densities for Polish Jews that were far higher than those for German Jews, or to lower food rations for Jews in Poland below those allowed for Jews in Germany. Moreover, in Poland, unlike Germany, there was no need for precautions whenever anti-Jewish measures could have painful repercussions for the non-Jewish population. There was no imperative to be mindful of the welfare of Poles.'' Here you go. ] (]) 10:49, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
::::Thanks for posting this. Nevertheless, it does not fix all of my concern about verification. Neither Hilberg nor the other source cited say that Polish Jews generally had a lower status than other eastern Jews; according to the quote, it was only true "for some time" (when?), a qualification missing in your text. By 1941 it was clearly who were considered "worst". (] &#183; ]) ''']''' 01:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::''A second factor was the German perception of Polish Jewry. These Jews were at the bottom for some time. '' ] (]) 07:53, 20 June 2023 (UTC)


== Risk of denunciation ==
Look, the content is sourced, hence verifiable. There is nothing non-neutral about it. It is pertinent to the topic and of interest to readers, hence encyclopedic. Please don't remove sourced text unless you can obtain consensus, by convincing other editors that there are issues of neutrality or verifiability actually involved here. ] (]) 12:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)


The article says: "Many Jews tried to escape, but surviving in hiding was very difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation." Is that really how it's called - denunciation? I'm having trouble thinking of an alternate but it just doesn't seem right to be using this without qualification. ] (]) 20:33, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
:"...apparently on the basis of just ]." - clearly you did not bother to read the summaries, nor what I wrote immediately above. "sourced" is not the gold standard for inclusions. Presenting opinions as if they are fact is contrary to the core policies of the encyclopaedia. ] (]) 12:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)


==Attribution==
::Clearly I did since I quote your summary exactly above. "Sourced" is a basis for inclusion. If there's a specific, legitimate reason for why this info should not be included, given that it is sourced, it is up to YOU to present it. And all historical info is in some sense "opinion" rather than "fact". This is a false distinction (unless you got a time machine at home you can let us all use). If it's an "opinion" found in reliable sources then it's verifiable.] (]) 12:29, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Text copied from ] to ]. See former article's history for a list of contributors. <span style="text-shadow:#396 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; class=texhtml">] (])</span> 16:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
{{Holocaust Poland}}


There is a repetition in the text of "Resettlement plans". "At this point, efforts to concentrate Jews in a compact territory were abandoned". <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 01:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
::You might also want to take a look at ] since you've already violated it on this page. Discuss more, revert less. ] (]) 12:48, 13 February 2014 (UTC)


== Shouldn't Majdanek Be Included As Well? ==
:::"Sourced" is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for inclusion, and it does not trump NPOV. As I have said repeatedly, you are not allowed to present opinion as if it is fact. It's not hard to grasp so I don't know why you're having such trouble with the concept. Perhaps if I put in some "sourced" claims from published holocaust deniers you'd get the point. ] (]) 12:56, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
At least 78,000 Jews were killed there.
::::What is POV here? And it is not your, or Wikipedians in general, job to decide what constitutes an "opinion" and what constitutes "fact". If we tried doing that most of the content would be gone (since most stuff published in reliable sources is really someone's "opinion"). The comparison with holocaust deniers misses the point, which is simple enough: those aren't reliable sources.] (]) 13:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
:Source? ] (]) 09:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 16:21, 12 November 2024

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Soviet or Polish Jews in the areas invaded in 1941

For what it's worth, it seems most books about the Holocaust list these victims as Soviet Jews, for example:

  • "Almost 900,000 Soviet Jews were murdered during such operations under German control in 1941" (Gerlach, p.70)
  • Longerich 2010: section "MASS EXECUTIONS OF JEWS IN THE OCCUPIED SOVIET ZONES, 1941". There is no mention of "Polish Jews" in this section; the next mention of "Polish Jews" is on page 264 in the next part, "Genesis of the Final Solution on a European Scale", section "Reflections on the Fate of the Polish Jews in the Summer of 1941" (referring to the areas occupied by Germany in 1939)
  • Beorn 2018, chapter "War of Annihilation: The Invasion of the Soviet Union"—no mention of "Polish Jews" in this chapter. There are a few mentions of "Poland", most of them comparing the Nazi policies in Poland in 1939 to the Soviet Union in 1941, although it does mention the Lviv pogrom as happening in Poland.
  • Dan Stone 2023 The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, same comparison of "Soviet Union" and "Poland" (“Yet if what had happened since September 1939 in Poland was shocking, what would take place in the Soviet Union after June 1941 was of another order still”), no mention of "Polish Jews" in the chapter "War of Annihilation" dealing with the invasion of the Soviet Union
  • Cesarani 2016, Final Solution: does mention Polish Jews three times in the "Barbarossa" chapter, but all of them refer to Jews living west of the areas invaded in 1941

I think these sources substantiate my concern that Reichskommissariat Ostland and other areas east of Bialystok and the General Governorate are most often not considered part of the Holocaust in Poland. (t · c) buidhe 23:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Then we can mention this in the text. It is consistent with World War II casualties of Poland claim that "Contemporary Russian sources include Poland's losses in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union with Soviet war dead" - and I guess Soviet propaganda seeped through to many Western sources over the years. Just like many estimates conflate Soviet with Russia, ommitting Ukraine (see World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union#Estimates_of_losses_by_individual_Republics for context). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Great, so all five of these historians are all infected by Soviet propaganda? Any evidence to back up this claim?
I realize the question of nationality is not straightforward when it comes to areas that were part of Russia prior to World War I, part of Poland for about 20 years (although most of these areas had a majority non-Polish-speaking population), then part of the Soviet Union for about 2 years. That's why I think we should follow how most reliable sources on the topic divide it up. (t · c) buidhe 07:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
PS. I'll ping User:Dreamcatcher25 who knows much more than me about what Polish historiography may say about this. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:50, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
I think these sources substantiate my concern that Reichskommissariat Ostland and other areas east of Bialystok and the General Governorate are most often not considered part of the Holocaust in Poland, and you are judging on what, because none of your sources actually confirm that. Obviously works that describe the entire history of the Holocaust may, for the sake of argument, use this and that choice of terms, which, for example, will speak of Jews killed in Polish lands occupied by the Soviets as "Soviet Jews". But this is irrelevant to us. Especially for this article. Following your logic, we can't talk about Holocaust in Lithuania because your sources will say it is part of Holocaust in the Soviet Union. Do you understand what your mistake is? You just cannot expect a clear distinction. The Holocaust in Poland will cover the whole of pre-war Poland, and, for example, the Holocaust in Ukraine will cover the area of Ukraine within modern borders; and the fact that they will overlap geographically is no problem.
Also you are ignoring sources that are more precise. For example: Snyder, Bloodlands, 2015, p. 275: Of the million or so Soviet Jews killed in the Holocaust, fewer than one percent died at Auschwitz. Of the three million or so Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust, only about seven percent perished at Auschwitz. Nearly 1.3 million Polish Jews were killed, usually shot, east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line. Another 1.3 million or so Polish Jews were gassed in Operation Reinhard in the General Government. Or Yad Vashem: In June 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans began to imprison the rest of Polish Jewry in ghettos and to deport them to concentration and slave labor camps.
Or look at the numbers given by USHMM: Poland. Jewish population of Poland in 1937: 3,350,000. Deaths: 2,770,000–3,000,000 and Soviet Union. Jewish population of the Soviet Union in 1939: 3,028,538. Deaths: approximately 1,340,000. There is a clear distinction here and the inclusion of Jews murdered in Soviet-occupied territories after 1939 among the victims of the Holocaust in Poland. As I said, without them, the number of Holocaust victims in Poland would have been smaller by one third. Marcelus (talk) 08:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Good point about Lithuania (also, Holocaust in Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia...). Some sources simplify things, others go into detail. This article is one where we go into detail in the context of Polish citizens and Polish territories, even if one or the other or both was not universally recognized back then or later. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:49, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Exactly, besides, we should check the sources which have the same scope as the article, so "Holocaust in Poland", not Holocaust in general. Marcelus (talk) 14:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
"Polish citizens" and "Polish territories" according to what standard? They became (mostly) Soviet citizens and Soviet territories in 1939 and for the most part haven't been Polish since then. Besides, by your own proposed standard, it is not as if Bloodlands is about the Holocaust in Poland either. Maybe they are covered in sources whose stated topic is the Holocaust in Poland, but I'd like to see it. (t · c) buidhe 17:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
"Polish citizens" and "Polish territories" according to what standard?. What kind of argument is it? By the same standards by which the territories occupied and their inhabitants by Germany were "Polish." Or do you deny that too? Perhaps you have sources in which Poland did not exist at all?
Maybe they are covered in sources whose stated topic is the Holocaust in Poland, but I'd like to see it, for what? So you can remove them also? Marcelus (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Maybe try wp:agf? (t · c) buidhe 19:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
As I said, I was assuming your good faith until I explained you the history of the Holocaust in Poland, in other words your only excuse was an ignorance. Marcelus (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
What standard, hmmm. Would you like to rename 1941 pogroms in eastern Poland to 1941 pogroms in eastern Germany or 1941 pogroms in western USSR? Also, does it mean that in Jedawbne, Soviet/German Jews were killed by Soviets or just Germans? Do elaborate on your logic, I find it... fascinating. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:31, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
@Buidhe, Piotrus, and Marcelus: In Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands (Polish edition, 2011, p. 442) I found such interesting assesment (my rough translation from Polish):

In historical works on the Holocaust, individuals residing east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line are often labeled as Soviet Jews. However, this description is imprecise as in 1939, at the outbreak of war, the majority of Jews who were later murdered in that region, held Polish citizenship rather than Soviet citizenship. Referring to them as Soviet Jews also reinforces a narrative that marginalizes or overlooks the Soviet invasion and occupation of its western neighbors. If these individuals were considered Soviet Jews, it would imply that their homeland was the Soviet Union and that the war began with the German invasion of the USSR . In reality, however, the war commenced with the German-Soviet alliance resulted in the destruction of Poland, placing the Jews in question within the borders of the enlarged USSR.

Hope it helps to some extent.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 19:10, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that settles it. Marcelus (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews, 2003, p. 301: In Kraków the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (BdS) of the Generalgouvernement, SS-Oberführer Schöngarth, organized three small Kommandos. In the middle of July these Kommandos moved into the eastern Polish areas and, with headquarters in Lvov, Brest-Litovsk, and Białystok, respectively, killed tens of thousands of Jews. Marcelus (talk) 08:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Archives missing from box

The box listing Archives for this page is missing the links to Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/February, Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/March, Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/May, and Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2023/June. I can't see how to fix it, so will ask around to see if anyone else does. DuncanHill (talk) 20:46, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

It has now been fixed. DuncanHill (talk) 21:15, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
@DuncanHill, tip for the future: please avoid discussion forks. After starting a discussion here, it would have been better to link to here (]) at the village pump discussion or the other way around. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Failed verification

While it's possible that we are looking at different versions of the book, the text is not on the cited pages of the 2003 edition. Oddly, the one I'm looking at does discuss Poland on these pages, but still does not support the text, which makes me wonder what is going on. Could you provide quotes from the source? I am not entirely sure Weimar Republic policies are relevant to discuss, but that is secondary to the verifiability issue. (t · c) buidhe 17:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Various laws of interwar Germany aimed at Polish Jews are discussed by Hilberg on pages 188-189. It's weird that you can't find them. Marcelus (talk) 20:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Again, can you provide a quote from the source that supports the content? (t · c) buidhe 01:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
A second factor was the German perception of Polish Jewry. These Jews were at the bottom for some time. They had been singled out and targeted repeatedly before the war. In recent memory were the thousands who had been transported from Germany to the Polish frontier in 1938. Fifteen years earlier individual Jews holding Polish citizenship had been deported as undesirable by the Bavarian Government. Still earlier, on April 23, 1918, Polish Jews who were unskilled laborers and who had sought entry into Germany’s eastern provinces were banned by the Prussian Interior Ministry on the ground that they were not interested in work but immigration, and that they were morally unreliable as well as physically unclean, carrying typhus to Germany. Armed with such conceptualizations, the Nazi regime in Poland was less considerate and more drastic than in Germany itself. Typically, no concessions were made to Polish Jews who had been veterans of the German or Austro-Hungarian armies in the First World War. There was little hesitation to produce housing densities for Polish Jews that were far higher than those for German Jews, or to lower food rations for Jews in Poland below those allowed for Jews in Germany. Moreover, in Poland, unlike Germany, there was no need for precautions whenever anti-Jewish measures could have painful repercussions for the non-Jewish population. There was no imperative to be mindful of the welfare of Poles. Here you go. Marcelus (talk) 10:49, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for posting this. Nevertheless, it does not fix all of my concern about verification. Neither Hilberg nor the other source cited say that Polish Jews generally had a lower status than other eastern Jews; according to the quote, it was only true "for some time" (when?), a qualification missing in your text. By 1941 it was clearly Soviet Jews from east of the 1939 border who were considered "worst". (t · c) buidhe 01:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
A second factor was the German perception of Polish Jewry. These Jews were at the bottom for some time. Marcelus (talk) 07:53, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Risk of denunciation

The article says: "Many Jews tried to escape, but surviving in hiding was very difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation." Is that really how it's called - denunciation? I'm having trouble thinking of an alternate but it just doesn't seem right to be using this without qualification. Ben Azura (talk) 20:33, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Attribution

Text copied from Marceli Godlewski to the Holocaust in Poland. See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

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There is a repetition in the text of "Resettlement plans". "At this point, efforts to concentrate Jews in a compact territory were abandoned". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.242.10.158 (talk) 01:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't Majdanek Be Included As Well?

At least 78,000 Jews were killed there.

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 09:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
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