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Talk:Stawiski

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  • Morris S. Whitcup (10 November 2015). "Misplaced Pages Continues the Crime and the Silence of Polish Participation in the Murder of Jews". The Jewish Press. Retrieved 10 November 2015. It is an egregious example of denial and minimization of the Polish involvement in the killings and blaming the Jews for causing their own deaths through collaboration with the Soviets. ... I personally had tried on at least three occasions to correct the seriously flawed Stawiski article by referencing Jan T. Gross and the accounts in the Stawiski Memorial Book (Bikont's translated book had yet to be published). On each occasion, the author of the Misplaced Pages Stawiski article immediately wiped out my edits.
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17 February 2014

I added some citation tags to the article. Reference number 4 is a blog. Can it be considered a credible source? Furthermore, the conclusions drawn from this blog entry are only loosely based on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.177.105.203 (talk) 10:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've reverted this edit, which restored the 27 August 2017 version, restoring the stable version from March 2018. This version is very poorly sourced, and misrepresents the sources it uses - many of which do not cover Stawiski and/or do not contain the stmts attributed to them. Please discuss here.Icewhiz (talk) 09:18, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

What was poorly sourced? Could you elaborate?GizzyCatBella (talk) 09:21, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@GizzyCatBella: I strongly suggest you self revert - you've restored several sources that do not refer to the town (e.g. Rossino - who simply doesn't say what you are restoring), and have introduced highly defamatory and counter-factual information in Misplaced Pages's voice. The stable version is from 19 March. I will be taking this to AE if you don’t self revert.Icewhiz (talk) 09:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
I’m checking it right now (tagged for ref. already) and will work on the article in the next hours/day. Your version was weak in my opinion with information omitted. I’ll try to improve the article best to my knowledge and abilities. GizzyCatBella (talk) 09:37, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
{{ping|GizzyCatBella} - I am taking this to AE - unless you self-revert now - this is a serious misrepresentation of sources - there is a problem with each and every sentence here. You've also removed bona-fida academic sources that actually cover this incident. Again - yes/no - are will you self-revert this?Icewhiz (talk) 10:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Why this hostile attitude and threats??? Please stop. Will you please let me work on it? I started already and I would really welcome your input and help. Can you work with me to improve the article please? GizzyCatBella (talk) 10:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@Icewhiz: Please check the article now and improve if necessary. GizzyCatBella (talk) 10:54, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Polish participation in pogrom of Jews in 1941

I share User:Icewhiz concerns over the quality of this article (if not his approach to resolving this at AE). The article currently states "One the 15th of August the German Einsatzkommando murdered most of Jewish inhabitants". First, this is unreferenced. Second, a cursory overview of sources suggests there's more to this, and that at least some reliable sources support the version that Polish inhabitants participated in this. Quick review of sources:

  • Shmuel Spector; Geoffrey Wigoder; Research Associate Institute of Contemporary Jewry Geoffrey Wigoder (2001). The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: Seredina-Buda-Z. NYU Press. pp. 1240–. ISBN 978-0-8147-9378-7. The tone of this work strikes me as rather one sided and partisan, but it is nonetheless reliable. This source should not be removed (at the same time it is a WP:TETRIARY, and secondary sources would be better)
  • David Cymet (10 July 2012). History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church. Lexington Books. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-7391-3295-1. again, issues with neutrality in the source ('blood orgy'), but it is reliable. I am not sure if David Cymet is a professional historian (can't find a good bio of him), the publisher is reliable Rowman & Littlefield and anyway, he mentions an IPN study. We should find and cite that study as a proper source, not his reference to it. According to a bit of Googling the relevant IPN work is , but it does not seem to have an online version.
  • partisan newspaper piece, but suggests more reliable sources (in particular, Anna Bikont, The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne. This, however, raises a red flag: while Stawiski is mentioned several times in David Cymet (10 July 2012). History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-3295-1., I couldn't find any direct reference to a pogrom or such that occurred there.
  • Reprint of a press article about IPN study, suggests that there was a pogrom in Stawiski, carried out by people imprisoned by the Soviets and released by Germans from the prison.
  • Brief mention of a pogrom in Stawiski on an IPN page
  • and on Polin museum page
  • and even in the Catholic Tygodnik Powszechny

I couldn't find a detailed study of this, and we have to keep in mind the usual tendency to exaggeration in some sources. But I think the sentence cited above needs to be rewritten to indicate that at least some of the perpetrators where Poles. In fact, I have trouble finding any source that attributes this massacre to Einsatzkommando. There may be something on that in Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (2005). The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After. East European Monographs. ISBN 978-0-88033-554-6. or Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego. Instytut. 1966. Nie ulega Wątpliwości, że były one Wszystkie inspirowane przez jedną i tę samą ,,Einsatzkommando", jeżdżącą z osiedla do osiedla i podjudzającą do zbrodni. ... Dnia 7 lipca 1941 r. spalono żywcem zamkniętych W stodole niemal wszystkich Żydów miasteczka Radziłów (pow. ... Andrzejewo, Lubotyń (139 Żydów wystrzelanych w lesie Adamowizna), Szumowo (14 VIII _ 228 ofiar), Stawiski (15 VIII _ o but I cannot be sure without seeing more then fragments of sentences. PS. I totally missed the fact that the latest revision by GCB does contain the crucial sentence: " Germans returned to the town during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, and in early July 1941 instigated a pogrom in which Polish locals murdered some 300 Jews", referenced to the Encyclopedia cited above. This should address most of the concerns (like not mentioning the Polish participation at all). PPS. Einsatzkommando referred to Gestapo, fixed this with existing references. Sigh. Please don't use weird synonyms. If the source says Gestapo, say Gestapo. We need a proper source for the presence of Einsatzkommando there. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

The reference is at the end of the paragraph. Also, please keep in mind that there were TWO mass murders. There was a pogrom in Stawiski in July in which Poles participated. And there was the mass murder in nearby Mątwica in August which was carried out by Gestapo. It sounds like you're confusing the two.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I think the current version makes it more clear; I was a bit confused at first. Btw, still need help for date of the first murder (4-5 July only implied by one source). Also, the Jewish encyclopedia clearly misspells the name of the forest, one of the locations of the second atrocity (Kyszlinecki forest, no google hits outside the book), so I suggest not using it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:03, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
I disagree on bias qualification above - perfectly neutral to refer to an event in which 300 people are bludgeoned to death with iron bars as a "blood orgy". Note that Jewish sources (as well as many English sources) tend to use Yiddish/German rendered into English - both for the forests around the town, and for the town (Stavisk - with various spellings) - this is generally true for all of the Pale of settlement (in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.) - the Jews spoke Yiddish, and the names differ. Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (a strong recent academic source) lists a couple of sources on Stawiski but seems only to list it in a list.Icewhiz (talk) 09:47, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Testimony

Not eligible due to being primary, of course, but: : "W Stawiskach (pod Łomżą), też pędzono żydów w celu spalenia. (o tym fakcie, opowiadali mi ludzie z tamtych stron) Uratował ich ksiądz wikary, który wziął krzyż do ręki i szedł naprzeciw pochodowi żydów pędzonych na spalenie. Podniósł rękę z krzyżem do góry i wołał donośnym głosem, do oszalałych ludzi. "Zastanówcie się ludzie, co czynicie, nie możecie pełnić dwóch ról. Chcecie być sędziami i katami w jednej osobie. Pamiętajcie na swoją śmierć. Jak pomrzecie i staniecie na sąd Boży, Matka Najświętsza, powie do swego syna Jezusa Chrystusa. Synu, nie daruj im tej zbrodni, którą popełnili! Oni mieli na piersiach Twój wizerunek, krzyż, a zabijali ludzi". Po tych przemówieniach księdza, ludzie zaczęli się rozchodzić. Została mała garstka i ci wrócili do swych domów. Żydzi ocaleli!" --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:41, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Date of the first massacre

Jewish encyclopedia refers to early July. gives the date of late June, however: 22–27.06.1941 r. Late June period is also mentioned in . gives the date of 3 July. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:46, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think I trust sztetl here. I do have another source, which is a RS, - Yad Vashem - which says that (loose translation) - the Germans occupied Stawiski on 27 June and started to murder Jews and kidnap them for forced labor, and local Poles joined them. Jews were murdered by Poles on a day of riots and looting that occurred according to some versions in the first week of July 1941. Polish Farmers armed with melee weapons murdered on the night of that day some 300 Jews and buried them in ditches outside the town. So Yad Vashem is cagey about the date of the "main event" (placing it in the first week of July - and even that with a maybe). Yad Vashem also mentions violence prior to the "main event" - this is typical - e.g. in Jedwabne pogrom there were atrocities on a smaller scale on 25 June - I saw with my own eyes how they killed Chajca Wasersztein, 53 years old; Jakub Kac; and Eliasz Krawiecki. Kac was stoned with bricks, Krawiecki was knifed – they ripped out his eyes and cut his tongue – and he suffered inhuman agony for 12 hours until he died. The same day I saw a terrible sight. When Chaja Kubrzanska, 28 years old, and Basia Binsztein, 26 years old, both with babies on their arms, saw what was happening, they went to the pond in order to drown themselves and their children, rather than fall into the murderers hands. They threw the children into the water and drowned them with their own hands. Binsztein jumped in and immediately sunk to the bottom, while Kubrzanska still struggled for several hours. The thugs that gathered around the pond behaved as if it were a spectacle. They told her to lie with her face in the water to make her drown faster. When she saw that the children were dead, she threw herself into the water and died. - before the "main event" on 10 July in Jedwabne. This was also the case in Szczuczyn pogrom (small scale on 25 June - large scale on 28 June).Icewhiz (talk) 10:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
This Hebrew source (Jewish-Polish heritage center) is more detailed than Yad Vashem (describing the pogrom is greater detail) - but is not specific in terms of dates - saying first week of July.Icewhiz (talk) 12:00, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
The yizkor book Chaim Wilamowski, yizkor Yehuda Chiwicho - calls it "the bloody Wednesday" - and one of them says the first Wednesday in the month July 1941 (which would be 2 July). However this is probably PRIMARY (depends on the editing process of the yizkor book - it does vary).Icewhiz (talk) 12:05, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
Shared History, Divided Memory: Jews and Others in Soviet-occupied Poland - first days of July, after the Germans set the synagogue aflame - but citing an account for this.Icewhiz (talk) 12:11, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
Per Bender, Sara. "Not Only in Jedwabne: Accounts of the Annihilation of the Jewish Shtetlach in North-eastern Poland in the Summer of 1941." Holocaust Studies 19.1 (2013): 1-38. - On 4 July, armed Poles from nearby villages arrived in town, broke into Jewish houses and ordered their inhabitants to go to work .... That night, a mob of Poles from nearby villages again flocked into town, and started another pogrom near midnight. All night long, dead and severely injured Jews were loaded on carts that had been prepared in advance, while the Germans stood by and photographed. That night Poles murdered 360 of the town’s Jews. In the history of the Stawiski Jewish community, 4 July 1941 is remembered as ‘the Day of Blood’. This is actually a pretty good source.Icewhiz (talk) 12:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
However in terms of dates - my conclusion looking at all of this is to place the "day of blood" in the beginning of July and not even try to set a specific date.Icewhiz (talk) 12:18, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your conclusion, but there exists the official book "Wokól Jedwabnego".Xx236 (talk) 12:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Source...

I strongly suggest that everyone download the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos volumes that are available free from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here. Volume 2 covers the General Government and much of Eastern Europe. It handily gathers together what is known about most camps/ghettos/etc including a section of sources for each location. Stawiski is detailed in Volume 2 Part A pages 961-963. It is a much better source than jewishgen or primary sources, because it uses the primary sources but evaluates them. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

As an aside, it's a very useful resource in English that deals with much of the non-English literature ... and it's free and easily accessible. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:34, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
I've downloaded it a couple of months ago - but forgot to look at it. It is over all detailed (e.g. the 1939 account) - except that it only has a general description for June-July - it says With the return of the Germans, violence against the Jews again reached a peak. The Germans, along with Polish collaborators, plundered and destroyed Jewish property, set the Jews to forced labor, and beat and often murdered them. - but doesn't seen who/when/how much - it becomes specific again on August.Icewhiz (talk) 11:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Wokół Jedwabnego

Stawiski pogrom was desc4ribed in the book, probably in the paper by Żbikowski from the Jewish Historical Institute. I don't have the book to verify. According to a Kaczkowski article thre pogrom was organized by Polish survivors of the NKVD prisoner massacres.Xx236 (talk) 12:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

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