Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/The Holocaust in Slovakia/archive1

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

No consensus to promote at this time - Kges1901 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 17:20, 2 April 2019 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

The Holocaust in Slovakia

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Buidhe (talk)

The Holocaust in Slovakia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/The Holocaust in Slovakia/archive1
• Featured article candidates/The Holocaust in Slovakia/archive2

This article recently passed a GA review from Ed! (thank you!), and I think it meets the A-class criteria as well. The Holocaust is a contentious issue in Slovakia because the Axis-aligned Slovak State was also the first time that Slovakia had been an independent country. The Slovak State not only implemented anti-Jewish measures of its own accord but paid Germany a large sum of money in order to permanently remove 57,000 Jews. The government tried to enrich itself by stealing from Jews, but "Aryanization" turned out to be a disaster for the economy. I've tried to use high-quality sources that examine the issue from a wide variety of perspectives, with an emphasis on recent publications. My aim is to get this up to FA quality. buidhe 16:57, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Comments by Indy beetle

A very in depth article. My comments:

• The HSĽS took advantage of the chaos in order to declare the autonomy of Slovakia... Perhaps specify "ensuing political chaos".
• Under Tiso's leadership, the Slovak government took up the negotiations... These negotiations have not been previously mentioned. Perhaps "took up territorial negotiations".
• The HSĽS consolidated its power by banning opposing political parties. This presumes that the party controlled the government or at least had Tiso was among their ranks, but this is not specified.
• In what way was the radical wing of the HSL'S radical? Particularly, how was it different from the conservative wing? Was it left-leaning or ultranationalist?
• Hungary refused to accept them, and a sharp increase in capital flight led Tiso to cancel the operation. So the Jews managed, despite the arrests, to send their money abroad, or were poorer Jews starting to evacuate their funds out of fear?
• The deportations, which were one of the first in central Europe, frightened many Jews, causing them to attempt to emigrate or to transfer their property abroad. Slovak Jews, or European Jews in general?
  • Changed to Slovak Jews
• Liquidation benefited Slovak small businesses in competition with Jewish companies, while liquidation was applied to larger Jewish-owned companies. Having liquidation twice here, one after the "while", makes it a bit confusing, as while in this context normally implies something else but concurrent. Perhaps "Liquidation benefited Slovak small businesses in competition with Jewish companies, and was applied to larger Jewish-owned companies".
  • This is an error; the second "liquidation" should read "Aryanization".
• The Aryanization of businesses did not bring the anticipated finances into Slovak coffers; only 288 of the businesses liquidated gained income for the state by July 1942. I suppose it is implied, but does this mean that Aryanization created inefficiency and turned profitable businesses unprofitable?
• appointing an ambitious, unprincipled Viennese Jew named Karol Hochberg as its director. I mean, we are talking about an eager Nazi/Slovak collaborator here, but "unprincipled" is a little subjective and leans POV. Is there a better word to describe Hochberg? Maybe transform into two sentences: "... appointing a Viennese Jew named Karol Hochberg as its director. Hochberg was ambitious and had no reservations about implementing anti-Jewish measures to further his own standing."
  • Done
• Jews serving in the army were segregated to a labor unit in April 1939, and lost their rank at the end of the year. Does "lost their rank" mean they were forcibly discharged from the army?
• Jews and Roma were obliged to work for the national defense for two months annually in 1940. What does "national defense" entail?
• denunciations of non-Jews as "white Jews". Who exactly was subject to characterization as a "white Jew". Converts? sympathizers?
• Initially, most Jews believed that it was better to report... for deportation?
  • Done
• The Slovak government paid Germany 26.1 million marks. For the detention of Jews at German camps?
  • Yes. I've removed it since the payment was discussed earlier in the article.
• Thousands of Jews were living illegally, often under false papers identifying them as "Aryans". Interesting information here. Is it known if this was the result of a coordinated resistance effort to forge documents, or were papers produced on an ad hoc, independent basis?
• The Slovak Jews who had fled to Hungary tried to return, but many were arrested at the border and deported. Deported back into Hungary?
• Was there any notable Jewish involvement in the Slovak uprising? According to the relevant article, "In the first days of the uprising, several concentration camps were liberated, including Sereď. Jews held at the camps fled and many joined the partisans." This statement is supported by a source, but it does contradict the status of Sered.
  • I've reorganized this section to be clearer. Actually, I was the one who added this info to the uprising article, and it's difficult to verify because I can only see snippets in Google Books. I've revised the uprising article to follow the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos source, which I would consider authoritative.
• Tiso, who had fled to Austria, was extradited to Czechoslovakia, sentenced to death on 15 April 1947. Was this in part due to his antisemetic stances, or just treason to Czechoslovakia? Same question for the other two convicted perpetrators.
• members of the party have been criminally charged with Holocaust denial. Is it known when anti-Holocaust denial laws were passed in Slovakia?
  • Yes, it stated in the previous paragraph that "Holocaust denial has been a criminal offense since 2001." I've consolidated this so that it should be clearer.

Images

• The photo captioned "Temporary passport issued in 1940 to a Jew who fled to Italy." is licensed as an "own work", and this is obviously not the case. Since it appears to be an official Slovak-issued document, maybe PD-SlovakGov is applicable?
  • Added PD-SlovakGov.
• The photo captioned "Adolf Hitler, Otto Meissner, and Vojtech Tuka in October 1941" is licensed under Anonymous-EU, which stipulates that anonymously authored photos enter the public domain "70 years after the work was made available to the public". The source listed is the Polish archive, so as of now there's no proof that the photo was "made available to the public" at least 70 years ago.
  • I've replaced this with a Bundesarchiv-released photograph at Rastenburg. Unfortunately, other photographs depicting meetings between Hitler and Slovak leaders are on commons under equally dubious licenses.
• The photo captioned "Mass grave of Jews murdered in Operation Harvest Festival, 3–4 November 1943. About 600 Slovak Jews were shot at Majdanek." is licensed as PD-Polish. This requires that the photo be "published without a clear copyright notice before the law was changed on May 23, 1994 are assumed to be in the public domain in Poland". For it to qualify under PD-US there are further requirements. Being sourced to a museum, it is not clear when it was first published.
  • Added PD-US. Apparently, it was first published in 1944 during the first Majdanek Trial. That means that it was PD in Poland on the URAA date and therefore PD-US-1996.
• The photo captioned "Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia arrive at Auschwitz, May 1944" appears to be very much in the public domain according to Yad Vashem, but it is licensed under Anonymous-EU, and this does not seem to be the correct permission.
  • Fixed. It is PD-US because it was first published in the US in 1980 without a copyright license; see here. A DR for another of the Auschwitz Album photographs, which were taken together and published at the same time, was dismissed as a "Non sense request" by Yann.
• The photo of Tiso's grave is interesting, but one would wonder why it appears in the article, especially next to the Holocaust memorial, covered in flowers. Is there any discussion on his legacy in light of his antisemtic views and actions? Do neo-Nazi parties lionize him?
  • I intended this to contrast differing views of the Slovak State. As it states in the article, "Jozef Tiso and the Slovak State have been the focus of Catholic and ultra-nationalist commemorations"; I expanded on this a bit.

Overall an excellent and well-researched article, and it honestly led me to question how on earth Holocaust denial continues to exist. -Indy beetle (talk) 05:52, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for your very detailed comments! I am still working on addressing them. buidhe 04:00, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @Buidhe: Any further progress? -Indy beetle (talk) 03:42, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Lingzhi

• @Buidhe: ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
• Have you read Bútorová, Zora & Bútora, Martin. (1992). Wariness Towards Jews as an Expression of Post-Communist Panic: The Case of Slovakia. Czechoslovak Sociological Review. 28. 92-106. 10.2307/41133197? Just based on the title and a quick glance, it seems that perhaps one or at most two sentences from this might perhaps be fruitful additions to a later section of this article.... And even if it can't be used(Wikipedia has a stunningly stupid definition of WP:NOR) it seems informative. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:31, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
• Just because I question something doesn't mean you need to quickly delete it, but:
  • I've never seen an article with any similar "External image". Are we sure this is OK?
  • The Entenfest photo is from Poland. Relevance to Slovakia not established...? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
• Section 5.6, "Summary", doesn't seem to be a summary. Do you mean something like "final months, concluding months, closing months"? Maybe the first of those sounds best to me. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:52, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

@WP:MILHIST coordinators: Hello everyone, just let you all know that the nomination is almost two months dead and buidhe aka the nominator isn't been online since 9 February which is also almost two months ago. I start to be worried about the nomination if the nominator is gone for so long. I hope I wasn't rude to ping you guys right now. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 14:26, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Nope, not a problem at all - I've posted it at the coordinator page to be archived, so someone will in the next day or so (assuming Buidhe doesn't return in that time). Parsecboy (talk) 19:07, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.