Talk:Extermination through labour

Untitled

"commonly digging ditches around the camp and then levelling them or excavating earth and transporting it by foot to the other side of the camp." I think you need a quotation for this... Unsigned comment by User:Andreasegde

If this article was something more than a stub, I would perhaps take my time to properly reference it. However, at the moment I'm working hard on Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Feel free to add your references though, I'm pretty sure every book on life in German concentration camps mentions such pointless activities, along with endless "mitzen ab" exercises, carrying wooden poles around the camp and so on. //Halibutt 03:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Just saw the word 'communist' 9238293892 times, don't you guys get tired?

200.206.226.181 (talk) 04:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

PRoof

I want references to this principle. I could find none online and the supposed "principle" seems an invention to me.Smith2006 23:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

so does everyone else, but Halibutt has been in the mood lately that he thinks he can state anything he likes, and everyone else must provide references to remove it, if you don't cite anything that says that it didn't happen, well he reverts you--Jadger 01:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: I wanted to remove the above piece of slander in accordance with WP:NPA, but Jadger's been inserting it here repeatedly. Be advised then that it's little more than a mere lie, intended to spoil my good name.//Halibutt 21:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: I have cited the source for my "slander" on hali's userpage (one of his posts on discussion of German 17th Infantry Division), if it was really in contravention of WP:NPA he would of reported it to admin by now. It is hard for me to spoil Hali's good name, he is so much better at it than me. --Jadger 21:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not published yet, but I recently attended a trial in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, in which a surviving jew from the Flossenburg camp testified to the existence of this policy. I could provide a citation once the decision is published; style of cause is Canada (The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Jura Skomatchuk and Canada (The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Josef Furman. A Dr. Terry, survivor of the camp, testified that the work policy was literally named "extermination through work." I would also suggest tracking down the text from a letter from Oswald Pohl to Heinrich Himmler, dated April 30, 1942, discussing work policies in the General Government camps (partial citation: Nuremberg Exhibit Doc. R-129, vol. 38, pp. 362-367). Regretably, I don't have a copy of this document.--Rumplefurskin 17:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

OMG, gentlemen, it's merely a stub. Check the German article if you want more specific examples. If you want sources I could add hundreds of books as almost every book on German WWII camps either uses the term or its explanation. I'll add some links for you anyway, but this would make this stub the best sourced stub we have in wiki. //Halibutt 05:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Here you go: six phrases, 14 references. I could add twice as many, but I believe there's no need to (come on, just imagine 30 references per six phrases :) ). Or am I wrong? //Halibutt 09:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Some Corrections

"Annihialation (not extermination) through work" was not only a de facto policy but an explicitly articulated one. Doubters are directed to Michael Thad Allen's superb book The Business of Genocide, where the subject is covered exhuastively. It needs noting, though, that it was not applied to all, industrially employed concentration camp inmates, but primarily to Jews, Gypsies and for a while to Soviet POWs. It was rarely applied to other categories of prisoners, although exceptions exist. The most infamous being the Dora camp, where the V2 rockets were produced. It was never applied to specialist prisoner-workers. It also needs noting that not all instances where work was used unproductively for strictly penal purposes were cases of Annihialation Through Work, just as not all punishments meted out in Concentration Camps was lethal. More over Halibut is mistaken in attributing economically useless work to subcamps. Subcamps were usually established in order to bring prison labour nearer to an economically valuble operation. Economically useless work was least likely to occur there. Soz

I've read of this practice regarding Norwegian prisoners in Sachsenhausen as well. Prezen 22:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

"unfree labour"

a user just added the category named "unfree labour" but I dispute that. this was free labour, the Nazis didn't pay them anything, unless you count the cost of food, then it would be "cheap labour" maybe.

--Jadger 07:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

"unfree" labor means labor by people who are not free, in the political sense. It's an umbrella category covering the various systems of slavery and serfdom. 128.148.38.26 15:22, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

A soviet invention

Modern extermination through labour was invented in Soviet Union, in 1917, not in nazi Germany.Lenin ordered the killing of about 35,000,000 people, in less than 7 years of government.Agre22 (talk) 13:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)agre22

Not sure how that's possible. That's far greater than the sum total of people who died in the Soviet Union for every reason during that period, and longer. For your figures to be correct, that means that every person that died in the USSR, be it disease, natural causes, or the war and famine started by the Whites, that Lenin ordered each and every one of them, as well as the extra ten million or so who DIDN'T die, but seems to be a number you just pulled out of nowhere. The concept of extermination through labour was exclusively a Nazi one. The Soviets needed places to house prisoners of war, and the conditions everywhere in the country were terrible, so why would a labour camp be any better? There was no official policy of exterminating these prisoners. - p1nkfl0yd, 14:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.81.59.250 (talk)

Victims

Under the header 'Victims' this article reads:

'Approximately six million Jews, 80,000 sick and handicapped people of German origin, 500,000 Sinti, Romanies, and members of other persecuted "gypsy" groups as well as seven million Soviet prisoners of war and civilians in concentration camps were killed altogether. It is impossible to ensure that these numbers are exact, as the Nazis often kept no records of their victims.'

However horrendous the truth is of this outcome of the war, I fail to see how this has anything to do with annihilation through labor? Is the writer / are the writers suggesting that people who got gassed or were shot, or beaten to death etc. etc. etc. were also victims of annihilation through labor? This needs to change or be removed. Mlodewijk (talk) 22:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Attempt to paint all Nazi forced labor with one brush?

I think that the article is trying to create the incorrect impression that all forced labor under the Nazis was "extermination through labor". Well, it's pretty well attested that Jewish workers were mistreated and had high death rates, and that was the explicit intent - gas chambers for some, death through labor for others. But the majority of forced laborers were not Jewish, they were Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and all sorts of others who were working under various levels of compulsion. It was not a good life, but it was not "extermination" in any sense. 76.24.104.52 (talk) 03:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Soviet "extermination through labor" controversial?!

Hello everyone, I've noticed a sentence in the lead that says, "Whether it formed the basis for the exploitation of forced labor in the Soviet Gulag is controversial." What ignoramus wrote that? It's very well documented that it was indeed the official policy in the Soviet Gulag to work the prisoners to death, as evidenced by them being forced to do impossibly hard labor on a starvation diet -- the only people who would argue that it was in any way "controversial" would be the same Marxist diehards who still believe that collectivization was a necessary policy for the Soviets to follow at the time. Get real, people! 146.74.230.99 (talk) 23:36, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello... anonymous IP!!! You have some interesting things to say; so register on WP (and I don't want to hear, "My server lists me as an IP, wah wah wah...") Register, please, and you'll have more of an audience... Doc9871 (talk) 12:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've done some editing on my own, check it out :-) As for your offer of registering on WP, I'll turn it down for ideological reasons, because I'm a true believer in American exceptionalism and I don't want to join a community that is so heavily in favor of globalism. So thanks, but no thanks. Clear skies to you! 24.23.197.43 (talk) 05:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Hee hee... so you're a "subversive" sort, eh? I was just recommending you register because you obviously are an intelligent editor, and random IP editors on WP are treated as the lowest caste for the most part. Registering wouldn't compromise your ideals as much as you might think - hell, maybe you can bend it 'round to a "Yank" point of view ;> Peace Doc9871 (talk) 07:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Gulag operated for several DECADES. Their policies differed at various times and in different locations (Russia is huge). Sometimes, especially back in the 30s, they were closer in spirit to "extermination". All the more so in places like Kolyma camps. Sometimes, like during the war, life was just very tough because there was little food for anybody, in the camps and outside alike. And sometimes, in the late 40s and early 50s, the Gulag authorities actually got the bright of idea of trying to keep the inmates healthier and, you know, able to do more useful work. A revolutionary idea, that... Anyway, the point is, the mileage varied. And if you ignore that, you can easily make credible arguments both ways, since you will find some locations and situations with documented horrendous death rates, and then your opponent will find likewise documented cases of low death rates in other locations and situations. 76.24.104.52 (talk) 04:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources exist (e.g. Getty of Wheatcroft) that directly contradict to what the article says, namely, that GULAG was designed and worked as a system of extermination through labour. The article deserves either WP:UNDUE, or WP:SYNTH tags.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Official idea behind Soviet forced labor camps was different. There was an idea of "correction through labor". You know, Marxist theory postulates that it was labor which converted monkey into a human. So they believed that labor can make a good man from a social parasite. For example when the White Sea channel was built there were many reports in the press on how those prisoners were becoming good people through work and even received government decorations such as orders and medals while still being prisoners.--MathFacts (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was officially "correction through labor", according to the official Soviet propaganda position, and especially with regard to White Sea channel. No, it was not intentionally designed to work as a system of extermination, according to most sources (but mostly as a system of cheap labor). But it actually worked as a system of extermination through labor according to most sources. Biophys (talk) 17:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:Coatrack

This article seems to be randomly throwing together two particular instances of forced labour, with little or no justification for choosing them and only them. "Extermination through labor" was the name of the Nazi policy alone. The Soviets also used forced labour, yes, and that sometimes resulted in the death of the inmates, but there was no official policy of extermination. Is this article meant to discuss cases of forced labour with a clear intent to exterminate the inmates? Then it should only cover the Nazi case. Or is this article meant to discuss every case of forced labour where the conditions were harsh enough that some inmates died? Then I would contend that the subject matter is hopelessly vague, and we should probably add the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, etc. Amerul (talk) 11:42, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the article should either reflect the Vernichtung durch Arbeit of the Nazi policy (possibly with a re-naming tweak) alone; or it would have to be expanded to include all instances of "extermination through labor" throughout human history. I think the former choice is far more manageable, and that a new article created for the broader sense could include the building of the Pyramids and all that other stuff; a "monumental' task (groan) ;> Doc9871 (talk) 11:54, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Support the former choice.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:16, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Support the former choice.--MathFacts (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Some sources against the latter choice

"The Gulag was neither as large nor as deadly as it is often presented, it was not a death camp, although in cases of general food shortage (1932-33 and 1942-43) it would suffer significantly more than the population at large."

(Stephen Wheatcroft. The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353)

"Yet it is important still to distinguish between states that commit genocide and genocidal regimes. The latter are, thankfully, relatively rare. They are the systems in which genocide moves to the core of state practices to such an extent that one can see the entire system revolving centrally around human destruction. The Third Reich constitutes the supreme example, and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge a second one. The regimes that commit genocidal actions are many and include western colonial states going back to the fifteenth century as well as particular cases in the Soviet Union under Stalin."

(Eric D. Weitz. "Racial Politics without the Concept of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges", Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 1-29.)

In other words, it is incorrect to equate Nazi death camps with Soviet GULAG, because only a part of scholars think so. I'll modify the article accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, THE GULAG WAS "NOT A DEATH CAMP", YOU COMMIE COCKSUCKERS -- THERE WERE AT LEAST TWENTY MILLION INMATES KILLED IN THE GULAG BETWEEN 1930-1953 (INCLUDING MANY MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD BY THE CAMP GUARDS AND KGB TORTURERS!!! I DEMAND THAT YOU RESTORE THE "IN COMMUNISM" SECTION AT ONCE, OR ELSE!!! 67.170.215.166 (talk) 00:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide reliable sources that support these your claims? --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I DID JUST THAT IN THE PREVIOUS VERSION (SOLZHENITSYN, ETC.), YOU COMMIE RASCAL, BUT YOU REMOVED THEM ALL WHEN YOU EDITED THIS PAGE! WELL I PUT'EM BACK AGAIN MYSELF, AND DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ANY SOURCED STATEMENT IN THIS ARTICLE OR YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE!!! 67.170.215.166 (talk) 01:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Solzhenithyn is a writer, not scholar. His writings are outdated. The figures provided by him are just earlier estimates. They have been re-examined recently and proved to be too high. And, more importantly, there is not enough evidences to speak about GULAG as a network of extermination camps. Although GULAG mortality was high, it was not specially designed to exterminate peoples. This article about extermination, not about GULAG itself.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

AND WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO SAY WHICH SOURCES ARE RELIABLE AND WHICH SOURCES ARE NOT?! SOLZHENITSYN HAS ACTUALLY SERVED EIGHT YEARS IN THE GULAG, HIS EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY IS RELIABLE -- AND THAT'S FINAL!!!

Eyewitness testimony is a primary source that, according to WP policy should be used with cautions.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:04, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

67.170.215.166 Can you please stop attacking other editors, personal attacks are not permitted here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barts1a (talk • contribs) 02:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

67.170.215.166, consensus is needed to restore materials not to remove it. If you made one more revert, you may be blocked from editing.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

67.170.215.166 has received a 24-hour block Barts1a (talk) 02:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

That will hardly resolve the issue. He is definitely not a vandal, he is just not tolerant to other's opinion and he doesn't know how WP works. That is not sufficient for not assuming his good faith. Maybe, we will be able to explain something to him after the end of the block term.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Anticipating future disputes

To avoid repetitions of the same arguments, let me explain the following. Although the crimes of Stalin's, Mao's or Pol Pot's regimes are obvious and indisputable, not all crimes can be attributed to them. For instance, although Stalin launched the Great Purge, he cannot be accused in mass killing of Jews. By contrast, it was the Stalin's Soviet Army that liberated most death camps.
Similarly, although GULAG was a huge system of labour camps, its primary purpose was not to exterminate people. Even Nazi camps were subdivided onto extermination (Majdanek, Belzec, Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birkenau (not Auschwitz), Sobibor, Treblinka) and concentration camps (all other camps). Only minor part of scholars call GULAG camps "extermination", and that is why the "Controversial section" is in the article. The extermination through labour system was invented by Nazi and should be presented as such.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that this is not such a clear distinction. Holocaust revisionists are not all wrong when they say, at least sometimes, Hitler didn't "want" to kill Jews - in the sense that he wanted to wring everything he possibly could out of them before they died. They're not lying when they say that many Jews died by tuberculosis rather than bullets or gas - tuberculosis induced by poor nutrition, overwork, exposure, and filthy living conditions, that is. If Wikipedia goes out on a limb and gives GULAG a pass for the deaths that occurred, year after year, under its tutelage, then we're effectively saying that the Holocaust revisionists are right also. I say if you don't want to be responsible for what happens to people, don't round them up at gunpoint and lock them in a camp of your own design. Deciding for ourselves whether the deaths were the "purpose" or a happy accident goes down a semantic happy trail we'd best stay out of.

Now you have a point that "extermination through labor", as literal translation of a German phrase, can be an article about that specific topic. :n IP went on about this at the Science Refdesk: I see his point that [1] goes from an article intended to be general, to a very specific article.

My feeling is that the prior discussion suggests we should have some more general article about overwork or forced labor. (The first redirects to the too-specific workaholism and the second to the perhaps too-general unfree labor) It's time to ask, how do we do it? Is there a way, a source, that can tie together the relevant cases into a single article, without being accused of creating the so-called "coatrack" (an analogy I never really quite understood, but in other words, an article that has no objective way for people to decide what belongs in it). There are all kinds of somewhat relevant topics to a general heading, like

• voluntary overwork, such as Workaholism.

• involuntary overwork, often in combination with deprivation of food, shelter, and other basic necessities. For example:

• Extermination through labor and other forced labour under German rule during World War II
• Re-education through labor in Maoist and contemporary China
• The GULAG system of Russian labor camps
• Slavery (in America and various other specific countries? Or just introduced 'generically'?)
• The Jim Crow system (the Wikipedia article badly whitewashes this, focusing on the picayune nature of the laws rather than the intended result of delivering so many black forced laborers to local companies in crooked deals).
• human trafficking, white slavery, prostitution (under pimps)

Now is there a way to round up all this stuff and make a good general article? As has been said it's not easy, but the IP wants it done, and I see why. Wnt (talk) 01:40, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

No. We are talking about a very specific phenomenon, namely, the Nazi program of extermination of unwanted people via forced labour, where their death is a primary and desired outcome. Everything else is either synthesis or fringe theories.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

In fact, the sources (e.g. A Travel to the Land Ze-Ka by Margolin) make a point that is exactly opposite. According to people who spent time in both German and Soviet camps (cited in the book), both systems were actually "death camps", but the death in Gulag was longer and more painful, because people were tortured by "labor" (beaten by "Urkas") in Gulag. Hence it was Gulag, rather than in German camps where people were exterminated by labor, according to survivors (I am just retelling what they said in the documentary book).Biophys (talk) 02:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

In fact, we have reliable sources that disagree with that. Although the conditions in GULAG were terrible, they were not designed to kill people, and there were no system of deliberate extermination of the inmates through labour.

"The Gulag was neither as large nor as deadly as it is often presented, it was not a death camp, although in cases of general food shortage (1932-33 and 1942-43) it would suffer significantly more than the population at large. There were not 12 million deaths in the camps as suggested by Maier; and it seems highly unlikely that there were as many as 7 million deaths between 1935 and 1941 as claimed by Conquest citing Mikoyan's son. With a maximum number of inmates of 1.5 million in 1941 the Gulag was nevertheless of demographic significance and more than twenty times as large as the prewar Nazi concentration camp system at its peak following Kristallnacht. But all the same, twenty times as large as pre-war Nazi concentration camps does not make anything like Auschwitz." (The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45 Author(s): Stephen Wheatcroft Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353)

"There are no equivalents to Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor or Treblinka in Soviet criminal history." (Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals Crimes against humanity under communist regimes Research review ISBN: 978-91-977487-2-8)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:50, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, according to all sources, German camps were "true" death camps meaning that people were gasses or quickly terminated by other means. That was not the case in Gulag. The outright executions (like on Sekirka) took place on a relatively small scale. People were terminated more slowly through inhuman "working" conditions, cold and hunger. And that was real "extermination through labor", also according to most sources (starting from the book by Margoling and "Gulag Archipelago"). Note that your sources also do not dispute the assertion that people were exterminated through labor in Gulag. How many people were exterminated through "labor" is an entirely different question. Biophys (talk) 16:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

@Wnt. We have already page Unfree labour. Biophys (talk) 17:22, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The sources presented by me state that peoples were not exterminated by any means (including "extermination by labour").--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I made some changes per talk just to move forward. Yes, your sources do not use this expression. But a lot of other sources do. And they are quoted right now. If there are any problems with current text, let's discuss.Biophys (talk) 01:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Being bold, you made the changes that I reverted, because I disagree with them. Now that is the time to discuss your proposal. Please, provide the arguments in support of your edits. Please, keep in mind, that Solzhenitsyn is not a scholar, and his writing are obsolete now.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Whipping

I've noticed that whipping is not discussed much in the article, yet I'm fairly certain that it was an incessant practice.Hoops gza (talk) 20:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

It certainly happened at Buchenwald - see this Time Magazine article from 1958. Doc talk 20:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

I came to this article because I wanted to know about the origin of the term, where it was first used and by whom, whether it status on official documents. That sort of info isn't readily available here. I'm wondering if it is a term that others have applied to Nazi practice or one the Nazis used themselves, or if it appears once or twice in Nazi literature and then has been more extensively applied by others. Hardicanute (talk) 09:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)Hardicanute

The Nazi term "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" is quoted at least in a PBS source: one of the better sources, IMHO. "They were victims of Vernichtung durch Arbeit -- the Nazi policy of physical destruction through labor, a concerted effort to kill the party's political and racial enemies through hard labor and deprivation."[2] All manner of civilizations have used the same policy into antiquity and beyond, and also today. So I'm unsure if the article shouldn't be split into two, with one concerning the Nazi use of the policy and that term itself, and another concerning its use: everywhere else. Doc talk 03:31, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Solzhenitsyn

So what was exactly the reason for removing text related to writings by Solzhenitsyn [3]? He widely used this expression ("istrebitel'no-trudovye lagerja", translation: "camps of extermination by labor") in his books. Of course this could be shortened and rephrased. Biophys (talk) 04:18, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Because the article is about a specific Nazi policy which translates as "extermination through labor". We would not for example add sections on the Armenian genocide or American massacre of Indians to the Holocaust article, even though there are obvious similarities. It would be SYN. Also, we should be careful about holocaust trivialization. TFD (talk) 05:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It depends on scope of the article. That could be Nazi policy of extermination through labor (then you would be right), or it could be simply Extermination through labor (as it is right now). Then it is simply about "Extermination through labor", whenever multiple RS claim something to be "extermination through labor". If multiple RS claim that Armenians were "extermination through labor", it belongs here with present title. Biophys (talk) 14:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

If you believe that there is a topic that can be found in the literature (and connects communism, fascism, etc.) , then you should explain to us what that literature is. We can then determine what the most common name is, so that we can ensure we are not confusing it with Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Otherwise what we have is a Nazi policy and then a coatrack to hang what in the opinion of certain editors should be added. Otherwise we have another in a series of articles that scream Communists were worse than fascists without providing any useful information to readers. TFD (talk) 14:59, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sure. We need sources that describe extermination through labor in labor camps (no matter Soviet or German) as a general subject. And we have such sources: the books by Margolin and Solzenitsyn, but probably also some other sources currently quoted in this article. Biophys (talk) 18:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Solzhenitsyn is not a scholar, and the term "istrebitel'no-trudovye lagerja" is not accepted by scientific community. In addition, in a situation when about 1-2 million of GULAG inmates died there (out of 18 millions of those who passed through GULAG), we simply cannot speak about any deliberate extermination. If GULAG was a killing machine, it was a very inefficient machine.

With regard to Margolin, it is useful to know the opinion of his colleague, Nicolas Werth, whose opinion on this subject has been summarised as follows:

"Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, whose contributions on the Soviet Union and East Asian Communist states constitute half of Le Livre noir, broke with Courtois over the contents of the introduction. And Karel Bartosek, author of the other major scholarly contribution to the book, left the editorial board of Communisme in October 1997, saying that debate had shifted from the scientific to the ideological.2 Werth criticized the characterization of Communism as 'mass crime' as 'simplistic',3 rejected labelling 'dekulakization' as a 'planned class extermination', as its initial goal of economic rationality differed radically from that of the Holocaust,4 and considered the assimilation of Communist with Nazi atrocities to be 'superficial':5 'extermination camps did not exist in the Soviet Union.'" (In Search of the Communist Syndrome: Opening the Black Book of the New Anti-Communism in FranceAuthor(s): Donald ReidSource: The International History Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 2005), pp. 295-318)

--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:05, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Julius Margolin is probably another person. Could you please self-revert [4] and fix whatever needs to be fixed in the last version? Please note that I did not make reverts to any previous version, but re-wrote a problematic section. Thanks, Biophys (talk) 19:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course, no. You made the change, I reverted it, so to complete the BRD process you have to provide arguments in a support of your change. Concretely, I provided a number of sources that describe the GULAG as not a death camp, so this case is obviously controversial, and should be presented as such. Moreover, even the existing discussion of the number of deaths in GULAG is misleading, because it implies that these deaths were a result of extermination. In actuality, most of those deaths occurred during the periods of food shortage in the USSR (and in the camps), mostly in 1942-43, which had no direct relation to labour at all.

Re Margolin, you again rely on the memoirs. That is not what we need here.

In summary, although the section needs in improvement, the title ("Controversial cases") should stay. The section should start with the statement that there were no death camps in the USSR (Werths, Wheatcroft, et al). Then we can list the opinions of contemporary scholars (not journalists, because we need no political articles when scholarly sources are available) who disagree with that conclusions. Everything else belongs to the main article (GULAG). --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Not so. Many scholarly sources claim them to be death camps [5], in particular Robert Conquest [6] Biophys (talk) 23:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I responded here. Thanks. Biophys (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Again, using works like that and developing your own theories is original research. TFD (talk) 00:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Using WP:RS like books by Solzhenitsyn and Margolin is not OR. I am not sure what my theories you are talking about. Biophys (talk) 23:22, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

The dispute is not about the sources, but about the way they are used. We can (i) describe GULAG as another example of the extermination-through-labour system (along with Nazi death camps), and add that some scholars disagree with that. Alternatively, we can (ii) describe GULAG as a controversial case, because, although there were no death camps in the USSR (according to many authors), other authors still believe that the death camps existed in the USSR, and that people were being exterminated through labour there. Obviously, the second concept is more neutral. In addition, the current section discusses the total GULAG deaths, implying that they were a result of the extermination-through-labour program, although in actuality that is not the case. Therefore, this is synthesis, and it should be removed per our policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:10, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Please explain what's the problem with my version restored by Miacek [7]. It tells: According to many authors, the deaths of Gulag prisoners were caused primarily by inhuman work conditions and starvation. Therefore, this could be described as "extermination through labor, and so on. It tells nothing about "death camps". It tells nothing about "extermination-through-labour program". It only tells that people died from inhuman work conditions and starvation. Hence the "extermination through labor" (according to these authors). What's the problem? Biophys (talk) 03:20, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, the change of the section's title from "Controversial cases" to "GULAG" implies that the opinion that GULAG was an extermination through labour system is mainstream, which is not true.

Secondly, the sources that clearly state that GULAG was not a death camp have been removed by you.

Thirdly, you totally ignore the fact that

"Mortality in the camps was normally four or five times higher than for the civilian population of the same age group, but rose to over ten times as high during the famine of 1933, the year of Ezhovshchina 1938, and during the desperate war years of 1942-43. By contrast, mortality in the places of exile was 3.5-4 times as high as among the civilian population during the famine years of 1932 and 1933 and then fell sharply to normal levels by 1937. Mortality in Kolyma on average may have been slightly higher than in other camps. In certain years it certainly was much higher, but overall, on the basis of Pilyasov's figures, it does not appear to have been very much larger"

This quote has been taken from the relatively new and quite reliable scholarly source (Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353), which, by contrast to the sources used by you relies not on witnesses' testimonies, and not on fragmentary and indirect estimates, but on numerous archival documents, which have been carefully analysed and compared with each other to reveal all inconsistencies and forgery. In connection to that, can you please explain me why the system designed to exterminate peoples caused just five fold increase of death rate as compared with that of the entire population?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:33, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

In addition, sharp increase of death rate during war and famine is a demonstration that the system was not designed to kill peoples. Of course, we can speak about criminal neglect, we can speak about a stupidity of Soviet authorities who preferred to allow people to die from starvation rather than to let them to join the Red Army, however, that has no relation to deliberate extermination.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:40, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Note - Even at Nazi concentration/forced labor camps like Dachau and Buchenwald (I've been to both and seen the museum exhibits) the policy of Vernichtung durch Arbeit was the standard. These were not the later "extermination camps" like Birkenau, Sobibor and Treblinka, who also followed the policy. The true "death camps" were in Poland, far from the prying eyes of most of the world at the time. I still think this article needs to be split from the Nazi policy and the rest of the cases of extermination through labor like Stalin conducted. Jus' sayin'. Doc talk 04:57, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand you. Do you imply that the idea of extermination through labour existed before Nazi and independent of them? If yes, then what is, in your opinion, a difference between punitive labour (practiced by most regimes starting from antiquity) and the "extermination through labour"?

In addition, the term seems to be used almost exclusively in a context of Nazi Germany ("extermination through labor" -Nazi -German gives 0 results, and "extermination through labor" 23 results; the same search in gbooks gives 38 and 138 results accordingly).--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:21, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course the idea existed before and independent of the Nazis - which is why I'd like to see Vernichtung durch Arbeit be its own article. This is like a Biblical thing and beyond: work your slaves to death and get all that you can out of them before they die. The Nazi use of it was notable on its own and almost separate from the Soviet or any other use of it. The German term is there for a reason, and I didn't make it up. Two articles could be had without really mucking each other up. Doc talk 05:55, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

@Doc. Can you provide sources that justify such position? It tells: "willful or accepted killing of forced laborers or prisoners through excessive heavy labor, malnutrition and inadequate care". Right. I read this only about German and Soviet Gulag systems. Of course, it was not an officially declared policy in the Soviet Union, but it was de facto practice (according to many sources, including the book by Solzhenitsyn). Biophys (talk) 13:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

As the database search demonstrated, the sources tell primarily about the German camps.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Many prison systems throughout the world have had poor conditions and consequently high mortality rates. At Devil's Island for example 1,000 out of 5,000 prisoners died every year.[8] But this article is about extermination camps. The consensus is that Nazi crimes occupy a special category. TFD (talk) 18:54, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Was there any connection between North korea and extermination through labor or it is original synthesis?

The sources cited do not mention extermination through labor.--5.228.254.68 (talk) 16:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The sources discuss the disappearance of 20,000 prison camp inmates who, among other things, are "worked to death." Acroterion (talk) 17:45, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

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OR problem fixed

The lead says:

"Extermination through labour is a term sometimes used to describe the operation of labour camps in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, North Korea..."

I checked that, and my google scholar search demonstrated that all sources mention the word "Soviet" only in connection to the fact that Soviet civilians or POWs were the victims of this Nazi program (see "Extermination through labour" and "Extermination through labour"). Clearly, all these books and articles describe "Extermination through labour" as some concrete Nazi program. In connection to that, I modified the lead accordingly.

Taking into account that many authors describe Gulag as extermination camps, although many other authors openly disagree with that, I reorganised the article accordingly and put this context to the "Controversy" section.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:56, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, upon reflection, I came to a conclusion that the article cannot combine all cases of deadly labour under the "Extermination through labour" term. I think all of that should be removed as synthesis, or the title should be changed. The second option if not acceptable per our policy that prohibits content forking. Therefore, all materials about deadly forced labour everywhere except in Nazi Germany should be moved to other articles, for example, in the Gulag article. I doubt, however, that we can just move it, because, for example, the statement about a senseless labour in Gulag contradicts to wast majority of sources that state that Gulag was an important part of Soviet economy. I am going to remove this material soon.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:14, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• Well, I am not an expert and mostly read things in Russian, but 3rd volume of Gulag Archipelago is entitled "Gulag Archipelago: Extermination through labor [camps]" (Архипелаг ГУЛаг: Истребительно-трудовые) [9]). And indeed, Solzhenitsyn and other authors who were former prisoners of Gulag (like Julius Margolin) debate and explain in length in their books why exactly that was indeed de facto' extermination through labor, even though Soviet propaganda was selling it as "re-education" by labor. My very best wishes (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

African slave trade and Congo

The subject of this page is the deliberate extermination of people through labor, rather than simply their forced/involuntary exploitation which led to death, as typical for the slave labor. We need sources claiming it was a deliberate extermination, rather than exploitation, or that it was literally "extermination through forced labor". I do not see it about the African slave trade and Congo. We are not going to include whole slavery here? My very best wishes (talk) 18:39, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Crimes against humanity category removal

Crimes against humanity is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)