Talk:The Holocaust

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Article protected

I've had the article protected to stop the edit warring over the disputed content being added by User:HanzoHattori. Hanzo, I suggest that you stop trying to revert to the massive changes involved in that single diff, and to present any changes you would like to see made in the article. That diff is not acceptable. I advise going slowly and adding material in a manner that other editors can easily see and view your changes. Your edit summaries continue to be uninformative. This style of editing has been objected to several times and it must cease. There is no consensus for your changes, SlimVirgin and I have both objected to your changes. – Dreadstar † 19:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You? I discussed with you, you stopped objecting and asked for "next step" (no one else joined). You revert to the version which claims Jasenovac was an extermination camp (it wasn't), and Chełmno extermination camp is linked as Chelmno (click them!). And so on. It's just a badly made article. The only thing I thought was above average was the quotes (well done, unlike awkard ones in the Arkan and Iwo Jima articles I removed), and I was impressed by the section about the overall responsibility of Germany, not just the folks in SS and police (een if there's mentioned "government transport offices arranged the trains for deportation to the camps", but not the Deutsche Reichsbahn itself - needs a cleanup and interlinking, too). --HanzoHattori 19:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You need to re-read what I wrote, I did not 'stop objecting' and give consensus. Since no consensus was reached, I asked you what you thought the next step should be. I was hoping you would opt for my suggestion to make small edits, slowly implemented, with clear edit summaries; instead you chose to continue your edit war. I don't think reverting back to the version containing your massive and disputed changes is appropriate and I oppose it completely. I suggest you find another way, perhaps taking it up the chain. – Dreadstar † 19:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

What is disputed? Okay, you guy may have all the homosexuals you want in the intro. Yay. I'd go and insert this NOW, but no, protected. So no yay. Anything else? --HanzoHattori 20:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You will need to propose any changes you want to make to the article. Merely re-citing the disputed diff or any other diffs is not appropriate. The article is too long and the diffs are too massive to easily review. I also think comments such as the above stretch WP:CIV, and make it more difficult to gain the cooperation of other editors. – Dreadstar † 20:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Dreadstar, for slowing this thing down. This is the second time I had to wade my way through a huge number of small edits, done seconds apart. It is not conducive to a reflective response. --Joel Mc 20:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Estimates of Holocaust deaths

This starts out as a question for User:Stephan Schulz about a comment that he made on Talk:Holocaust denial but I am placing it here as being more appropriate to this Talk Page than to that one.

On Talk:Holocaust denial, User:Stephan Schulz commented that estimates of Holocaust deaths range from 5.1 million to "somewhat beyond 6 million". In my very cursory review of Google results, I've only seen estimates ranging from 5.1 million to 5.9 million. I'm curious what estimates there that are beyond 6 million.

And, yes, I realize that this a hugely inexact science. Nonetheless, I think it is worthwhile to understand what the differences are between estimates. So far, I have only seen two kinds of estimates: one that goes country by country based on a "estimated percentage killed" and another which provides total deaths in concentration camps.

I'm sure the people who have conducted these estimates have been very thorough and have methodologies which have been both defended and criticized. Any links to online resources in this regard would be much appreciated.

I would like to see a more in-depth treatment of these studies and their methodologies. (The underlying agenda being to lay out the numerical case against Holocaust deniers such as Igor the Otter.)

--Richard 17:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No one will ever know the correct number of victims. Eichmann himself, who supervised the Final Solution, and presumably received the best available reports, claimed the number was 6 million, and this appears to be the most commonly used 'ballpark' number.[1] Our job is to state the views of the most reputable scholarly sources on this topic, which we already do in the article. There is no point in having prolonged discussions about this issue – if someone has a better source, that can add additional insight into this topic, then go ahead and supply it. Otherwise, idle speculations and original research don't belong here. Crum375 18:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

...in particular, since there are many different definitions of "Jew", and for many victims it will be hard to retroactively decide if they fulfilled each or any of those. But for Richard: The Holocaust article has estimates up to 6.2 million. But, if I may: Don't lay out "the numerical case against Holocaust deniers". At best they will ignore you, at worst they will try to pick minor discrepancies and generate a lot of hot air from them. The evidence for the Holocaust is overwhelming. There is no need to elevate the deniers position by arguing on their turf. --Stephan Schulz 22:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources

The "Climax" section (perhaps an unfortunate choice of words as well--please think these things through) contains no citations sourcing its content even though it purports to provide a quotation (that is, in an actual "quotation box") of Himmler's which comes "closer than ever before to stating explicitly that he was intent on exterminating the Jews of Europe". It seems to me that the assertions made in the section are significant and need to be cited or else this constitutes OR. Further anything in quotation marks, especially anything that has been translated from a foreign language and so is not a strict quotation, warrants special attribution. The footnote numeration jumps from 138 to 141 on either end of this section, so I'm not sure if there was some kind of editing error here. I'd like to throw in a "citation needed" flag but, alas, the administrators in their wisdom have locked the article. Perhaps one of them, SlimVirgin for example, could flag the section on my behalf.

The article is locked, but in the meanwhile, here are some sources for Himmler's Posen speech:

• holocaust-history.org
• historyplace.com
• nizkor.org
• nationalsozialismus.de (German)
• Yad Vashem
• ess.uwe.ac.uk

Crum375 23:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Archived

I archived a big chunk to Talk:The_Holocaust/Archive 16, feel free to move any still 'live' conversations back or add more of the above to it. I basically left the 'protection' conversation on down, and archived the most recent soapy, troll-y stuff..;0 Dreadstar † 07:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You removed some good material dealing with the core problems on this article. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 11:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

There's tons of good material in the sixteen archives. That's one of the downsides to this flat-text discussion format. --15:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpgordon (talk • contribs)

Article's problems

• biggest problem is that almost the only experts cited are jewish and often related to people who were in camps, deported, etc.
• many deaths lumped together were from natural causes like food shortage, disease (allies to blame for not giving medicine), transportation interruption (allies to blame), bombings, overwork in the same sort of factories everyone has to work in during a war, etc.
• many deaths were of communists, sympathizers and insurgents (everyone shoots rebels and archenemies)
• does not well address which deaths were authorized by which authorities
• does not discuss defenses offered by Eichmann, guards or other people who have been accused, convicted or never charged with crimes related to these various activities lumped together under "holocaust" in this article
• does not offer balance between attitude that executing enemies of the nation is a commonplace event in human history and the attitude that somehow this particular killing of civilians is worse than all others

This article, while similar to the truth, is not fair and avoids some very interesting questions about what really happened in favor of parroting a few tired invectives against the Nazis. In fact it contains some severe distortions and near-slander, as well as turning a complete blind eye to the opinions of supporters of the Nazis, and focusing excessively on one group that happened to be victimized by them. This article is also part of a campaign to both exaggerate the failures of the NSDAP and downplay its successes, as well as paint it in a bad light which is a status apparently especially reserved only for the NSDAP - that is the status of "absolute evil" which is the opinion of many of the "experts" cited on this article about the NSDAP - "absolute evil". That's not NPOV that's rubbish. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 02:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ignore the troll, please check contribution history. - Jeeny ^Talk 02:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that he hasn't been blocked indefinitely. What is stopping that action from being executed? Reginmund 03:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a highly-watched article (and talk page); we're perfectly capable of dealing with people of various opinions, and do not need your disputes with him to be dragged here. Thank you for understanding. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 04:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not reasonable for this article to get a more-than-fair treatment when there are many other similar articles about incidents in european history that people wouldn't want any hint of bias in. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There's also little or no discussion of any defenses of exigency or following lawful orders that were given at the trials (kangaroo courts) in this article. Many Nazis were convicted and hanged just because a few people said they were cruel at the camps. It's a silly thing to focus on and make disproportionate to people like Stalin, Lenin, etc. I view the hangings of Nazis as almost entirely warcrimes against people whose actions had been greatly exaggerated in a smear campaign and revenge plot. It's disgusting the extent to which people were executed merely for having been Nazis or allegedly cruel which even if it were true is a crime sure but how many witnesses did it really take to prove it. Especially when it was clear the communists were the real threat. Most of the blame for the holocaust really lies on the allies and it's an absurd kind of newspeak where this magic tally of many of the casualties caused by the allies are applied to whatever tally the nazis had rung up fighting everyone's enemy - the communists and nihilists. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Reginmund writes, "I'm surprised that he hasn't been blocked indefinitely. What is stopping that action from being executed?" Fourdee probably will not be banned until (unless) he starts getting into revert wars over the article contents. As long as he just makes his comments on the talk page, Jeeny is 100% right: ignore him (and periodically archive talk). Spend your energy improving the article contents/style. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I find racist rants hurtful, however probably not grounds for blocking. Besides, the anti-semitic statements resemble so closely the whispered rumors spreading around Germany (and elsewhere)in the 1920s--later to hatch into full blown Nazi Propaganda lies--that they can provide lessons to us all: then few countered the statements and even fewer expressed any solidarity with the targets of such racism. However the continual breaking of WP rules is grounds for blocking. ButI suppose the guy just slips by with his rather phony claim to be trying to improve the article by questioning the identities of the references but since when does blood trump facts? Besides, how does one come so confidently to the conclusion about the ethnic/religious/ identity of a writer. Is it his/her name? Thousands of Kleins, Kaufmanns, and Blums would beg to differ. Traditionally a Jew is defined as having a Jewish mother, but that clearly undermines the use of family names. Or perhaps our editor would use the time-dishonored definition of at least three Jewish grandparents...--Joel Mc 15:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no secret conspiracy between jews to lie about the holocaust, defame german nationalism, attack concepts of european race or ethnicity, and depending on coincidence of political philosophy, promote communism and nihilism, or right-nihilism as in libertarianism. These conspiracies are not secret. Neither side in this matter "whispers". As to what's a jew: these authors cited are jews. If any with ashkenazi or hewbrew sounding names are not in fact descended primarily from jews feel free to indicate that. I'm sure most of them are, by whatever measure, jews with a such a serious bias that they don't even know when they are lying anymore. Certainly there are a great many non-Jews involved in this broader agenda of left-nihilism but they don't really seem to be showing up on this article. This is a special interest of people who feel personally offended by the killing of a group they sympathize or identify with - people who should've just recused themselves from speaking as an authority on the topic at all, if they had any kind of integrity or even sense of self. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 15:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Please refrain from making racist remarks unless you can provide a list of verifiable sources for your claims. If you do not intend to edit this article, please stop lurking on this talk page, no matter how much pleasure it gives you. --Mathsci 18:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This article certainly is not a pleasurable place to "lurk" considering it is part of a very successful smear campaign against one of the most beautiful and philosophically sound governments in human history. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 22:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Since you are being so frank, I would like to ask you 3 questions. Firstly, what are your views on the revisionist British historian David Irving? Was he wrongly bankrupted and imprisoned for his views? Secondly, do you sympathize with the British National Party and Front National? Thirdly, do you not think that some of your statements here might seem extremely offensive to WP editors whose relatives perished in german concentration camps? --Mathsci 04:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• I am not intimately familiar with David Irving's work. Of course I do not agree with laws against being a Nazi sympathizer and against questioning interpretations of the holocaust. These are heinous laws which in my view justify a use of force to counteract them. It's not even a level playing field in the game of politics.
• Yes I personally support both the BNP and the FN and would support them if they adopted much stronger platforms but of course as a descendant of both ethnic groups I would hope that they could maintain platforms which are not at odds with each other. Rather than infighting between ethnic groups hopefully all these movements can identify the common and intertwined cause of defending the European ethnicities against destruction through loss of habitat and interbreeding with non-europeans.
• Why aren't the statements already on this article extremely offensive to people who may identify or sympathize with the Nazis or german nationalism? I'm extremely offended (and upset and hurt) by the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre - guess what, that's why I don't edit it. If one is so wrapped up in a topic that you cannot stand to hear that there is another point of view, perhaps it's best just to avoid it altogether.

-- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 04:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Y'know, it is quite a relief to hear from an outright, unashamed admirer of the Nazis and their predations, rather than these folks who insist on covering their hatred of Jews with pseudo-historical appeals. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't hate Jews at all. I think Ashkenazi Jews are fine people and should probably be considered as Europeans. When I talk about a jewish media- or academia- oligarchy I am is just observing the ethnic group and apparent agenda of the people involved.

I do think that ethnic group ("tribe" or "family") is the core functional unit of humanity and is one's most important obligation, bar none. I see a ethnic nationalism as a beautiful thing on an emotional level, on the level of physical aesthetics, and most importantly to me as a profoundly meaningful philosophy that spans many elements of religion, natural science, politics and social philosophy.

On the other hand I see primary targets of the Nazis, the communists, as the ones who promote various destructive, nihilistic, anti-human, anti-nature, anti-god, anti-ethics, anti-nation, anti-individual beliefs which I can only classify as "purely evil and wrong".

However my admiration of ethnic nationalism is not what we are here to discuss. What is at question here is if this article is reporting an impartial history, or if it, and the academic field promoting this study, have been set up primarily to portray these mundane and largely justified or unavoidable acts as "murder" and to paint ethnic nationalism as "evil". -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 01:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"Mundane and largely justified or unavoidable". Ah. I see. WP:CIV and WP:NPA forbid me from saying what would be appropriate here, so I'll just ignore you from here on out. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 01:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't care whether I offend policies, since fourdee doesn't care whether he offends intelligence. Recently his name keeps popping up on the talk pages of two articles I watchlist. This is one of them, the other one is Talk:Race and intelligence. I sometimes check fourdee's diffs, but never see any substantiated information, no references, nothing of relevance. I do see a lot of confused rambling, pseudo-factoids and labels being thrown around - I have to assume that this is what he means by "I challenge assumptions. Sometimes it may appear to be devil's advocacy". But no devil would hire this lousy advocate who shows a very poor understanding of history, genetics, social sciences, or any other established form of knowledge, including logic. I hope he reconsiders his contributions here. Otherwise, by and by, he will be ignored by a lot of editors. It's far more healthy to ignore the likes of fourdee than to respond to their insults. Fourdee needn't reply at all, for I intend to do as jpgordon does. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

As is typical, the details are woefully lacking, but the assertions are bold - in fact I've never seen this editor contribute anything to these talk pages he mentions and I gather he has nothing to contribute or a limited ability to engage in debate. He is so frustrated by his inability to formulate a direct answer that he resorts to this fist-slamming temper tantrum and personal attack. It's very likely that this person has no idea what specifically is wrong with my conceptions of history or genetics (or "social science"), and is simply angry or dumbfounded. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 04:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

As typical of you, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. - Jeeny ^Talk 04:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

About Estimates

This article is highly in need of the next remark:

Demographic estimates of the Holocaust suffer from the same problems as estimates of the German exodus from Eastern Europe and thus will always remain a controversial topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.45.96.167 (talk) 16:04, August 26, 2007 (UTC)