Talk:Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust/Archive 4

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Shmuel Krakowski

He was a oficer polityczny in Polish Communist army, which included brainwashing, eg. regarding the Katyn massacre. From oficer polityczny to historian, wow!06:08, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

RFC: Inclusion of list of towns and villages sourced to self-published Mark Paul, and placing Mark Paul's documents in the Bibliography

Consensus not to include. The combination of the list being quite long and viewed as unnecessary, and concerns being raised about Paul's reliability combine to a clear consensus not to include.


As a side note, Tatzref's comment "there is no Wikipedia policy that bans non-mainstream views" is technically correct but not really an accurate picture - the guideline is WP:FRINGE, which states that while non-mainstream views aren't outright banned, they are to be given due weight in relationship to the mainstream views, which always means less, often much less, and sometimes even none, depending on how fringe the views are, and how reliable the sources supporting or discussing them are. A long list and a long bibliography seem way too much for a view that even its proponents say is non-mainstream. --GRuban (talk) 16:13, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

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.

Should the following material be present in the article? Please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 241#The Holocaust in Poland: Ewa Kurek & Mark Paul for discussion of the source, and Talk:Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust/Archive 3#Dubious sourcing reinstated.Icewhiz (talk) 14:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Survey

  • No. As in terms of content - the list itself is WP:LISTCRUFT and serves little purpose, and the placing (x4!) of the obscure Paul in the Bibliography is quite a WP:PROMO. In terms of sourcing policy:
  1. Paul is making wildly WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims (note there are some other aspects in this article needing balance in this regard) regarding the scope and extent of Polish rescue attempts (with most mainline sources seeing Polish rescuers as a marginal repressed (by the Germans and other Poles) part of Polish society - that should be appreciated all the more for their actions in the face of what was socially acceptable and the risks entailed) - this is a rather extreme example of the wider phenomena of "polityka historyczna" (political history) in regards to inflation of Polish rescue.[1]
  2. Paul's publications are WP:SPS (they are hosted on various websites (including the KPK), and older versions were printed by the KPK associated PEFINA with whom Paul is associated as well), which are strictly forbidden by policy, as Paul is not an expert (he has a few minor articles published in a fringe far-right open-access journal - that are not cited by others) - in fact we have no idea what his credentials are (e.g. education and occupation beyond writing these documents).
  3. The KPK itself makes clear they are "defending Poland's good name" raising WP:ADVOCACY and WP:BIASED concerns.
  4. Paul himself is a WP:QS source - as is evident from reading these documents (e.g. the widespread labelling of "Jewish historians", or treating the Jews, Germany, and the Soviet Union as sharing "common, criminal purpose and agenda in 1939-1945", or his decision to cite actual published research and then parody it by switching Pole and Jew around (evident only from a footnote accompanying the parody and not from the text prior or after the parody)) and in the very scant mentions Paul gets in WP:RSes when he is covered as a subject (usually on the footnote level - brief mentions) - which have stated that Paul promotes the myth of the “ignoble ungrateful Jew.”[2], demonstrably false claims (Zeleznikow, John. "Life at the end of the world: a Jewish Partisan in Melbourne." Holocaust Studies 16.3 (2010): 11-32.), and even an anti-Jewish tract.[3]
To summarize - one could hardly think of a less appropriate source than this.Icewhiz (talk) 14:21, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No. after quickly reviewing the previous discussion I largely agree with assessment that Kur[e]k and Paul are unsduited as sources and that material solely based on them should be removed as soon as possible.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Who is Kurk? GizzyCatBella (talk) 07:07, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • YES, ABSOLUTELY THEY SHOULD STAY. The charges leveled against them were amply debunked. At least 13 academics and professional historians have cited Mark Paul's work. His publications are found in scholarly peer-reviewed journals and books. If reputable academics an professional historians cite them, Wikipedia should not succumb to ideological censorship because some users don't like Mark Paul's views. His scholarship is solid.Tatzref (talk) 15:16, 29 May 2018 (UTC) Mark Paul’s publications are also referred to in the Virtual Shtetl website of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, a premier educational centre. The following post by Smmurphy contains inaccurate information. Mark Paul’s studies in The Story of Two Shtetls and his online publications -- A Tangled Web: Polish-Jewish Relations in Wartime Northeastern Poland and the Aftermath and Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy: The Testimony of Survivors and Rescuers -- have been cited by a number of academics and professional historians. The following is a partial list: Tillar J. Mazzeo (Irena’s Children), Marek Wierzbicki (Polacy i Zydzi w zaborze sowieckim), Bogdan Musial (Sowjetische Partisanen: Mythos und Wirklichkeit; Sowjetische Partisanen in Weissrusland), Eike Lossin (Katholische Geistliche in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern), Peter Stachura (Poland, 1918-1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic), Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947; After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War II; Ejszyszki: Pogrom, ktorego nie bylo; Intermarium: The Land between the Baltic and Black Seas), Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski (Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future), Myrna Goldenberg (Before All Memory Is Lost: Women’s Voices from the Holocaust), Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and a Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Each Other), Tadeusz Piotrowski (The Polish Deportees of World War II: Recollections of Removal to the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World), Jan M. Piskorski (Die Verjagten: Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts), Mariusz Bechta (Pogrom czy odwet?), Frank Salter (On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration).Tatzref (talk) 15:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)— Tatzref (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. But Tatzref certainly knows his/her stuff!Tatzref (talk) 18:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
In addition to the Canadian Polish Congress website, which is the equivalent of B’nai Brith, Mark Paul’s publications can be found on the Glaukopis website (http://www.glaukopis.pl/index.php/biblioteka-cyfrowa/artykuly-obcojezyczne), which is a scholarly website maintained by academics and professional historians, accredited by the Ministry of Education and Higher Learning (http://www.glaukopis.pl/index.php/o-wydawnictwie/o-wydawnictwie), and associated with the Washington-based Institute of World Politics. In addition to these publications, Mark Paul’s studies, based on that same research, were published in the scholarly journal Glaukopis in Polish translation. That research was also the basis for five studies Mark Paul published in Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold, a scholarly peer-reviewed book, and in the book Bransk and Ejszyszki: The Story of Two Shtetls. The specific allegations made in talk discussions that Mark Paul propagates myths and misrepresentations have been effectively debunked by reference to leading historians in the field (Norman Davies, Ben-Cion Pinchuk, Marek Wierzbicki, etc.). The fact that at least 13 academics and professional historians have referred to Mark Paul’s work dispels the notion that they are fringe. Even if SOME of Mark Paul’s views may not be mainstream, overall Mark Paul meets the test of reliability. Moreover, there is no Wikipedia policy that bans non-mainstream views, nor is there any policy forbidding the citing of self-published works and sourced information found in self-published works.Tatzref (talk) 18:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No - The 2 (or 4 depending on how you count) sources listed are not WP:RS. Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy is cited once according to google scholar,[4] and that not in depth and by a juvenile history. That book is, I think, a collection of testimonies which, while possibly interesting, is a primary source at best. Given the number of testimonies which have in depth academic commentaries and are parts of scholarly work, it doesn't seem useful to use a source that has such a low impact to in a controversial subject. The other source, Paul's three part, A Tangled Web. Polish-Jewish Relations in Wartime Northeastern Poland and the Aftermath, has, I think, no citations according to google scholar.[5] Neither are published in peer reviewed journals or by reputable publishers of history. Given the amount of more high-quality work on the subject, including Paul seems unnecessary and, as Icewhiz points out, has the potential of introducing inaccuracies. I want to point out that my point is not that Paul is not a good historian, but that these works in particular are not WP:RS (particularly, see WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:QUESTIONABLE). On the other hand, I have not seen any works by Paul which I would consider RS. Smmurphy(Talk) 15:35, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
    I'll note that the cite in Jewish Resistance Against the Holocaust by Robert Z. Cohen appears to have been copied off of Wikipedia (complete with the use of savingjews.org - which serves as a backup/dispersal site of these documents - and is not the main distributing outlet..... And copying the retrieval date (in this case - Cohen is citing a 2009 document and saying it was retrieved in 2013 - which is a very Wiki thing to do) - the citation style is very much Wikipedia like. In short - inserting bad sources into Wikipedia causes WP:REFLOOP.(not that this matters - as the sporadic level of citations here establishes nothing - but many of the cites we have - are Wikipedia generated - and in this case we may have a long-term PROMO problem on-wiki) Icewhiz (talk) 15:56, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • YES, per evidence adduced above, especially by Tatzref.
Nihil novi (talk) 15:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No. A list of that length in the article is completely unnecessary, and these seems to pretty clearly be the equivalent of self-published sources.--tronvillain (talk) 17:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • YES absolutely yes, Mark-Paul is one of the greatest Polish-Canadian historian dedicated to this particular topic, accepted by virtually every relevant gate of interest. Here is the link to Mark Paul’s, Bibliography on Glaukopis [6].
  • Mark Paul (2001). Neighbours on the Eve of the Holocaust: The Polish Minority and Jewish Collaboration in Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, 1939-1941. Pefina Press. 402 pages – via Google Books. GizzyCatBella (talk) 07:05, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No. Of course not. The claim that a village collectively aided Jews (as opposed to an individual in a village aiding Jews) is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary sourcing; Paul's books don't even meet ordinary sourcing standards. Major kudos to Icewhiz for the detective work. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:11, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Wrong :) research about Markowa and Ulmas family and then explain this [7] and what do you mean by “don’t even meet ordinary sourcing standards"GizzyCatBella (talk) 20:20, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • PRIOR ENDORSEMENTS: Both GizzyCatBella and Poeticbent have recently endorsed the use of Mark Paul’s work. I see that tronvillain has come out of the blue to support the ban. Curiously, I have found no indication in his/her talk page or “view history” of any participation in discussions on Polish-Jewish relations. Tronvillain claims “these seems to pretty clearly be the equivalent of self-published sources”. So now even articles published in scholarly peer-reviewed journals and books have become “the equivalent of self-published sources”?Tatzref (talk) 18:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Sometimes you just stumble across an RfC. And yes, all of the books published by the "Polish Educational Foundation in North America" from the link in the opening of the RfC are pretty clearly the equivalent of self-published sources - the "Polish Educational Foundation in North America" is not an established publishing house and Paul was apparently closely associated with it.--tronvillain (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2018 (UTC); edited 14:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Keep for non-controversial claims. As I stated several times here and on related pages, there's nothing wrong with keeping him for non controversial claims. Of course, replacing cites to him with proper, scholarly research is preferrable. Fortunately, Paul, at the very least, is pretty good at citing sources, so it shouldn't be too much trouble. For controversial claims, we could discuss it, but the point is I don't recall a single controversial claim made by him, outside the ones about generalization on collective rescue by Jews. He seems to have made a few more controversial claims in his works, but we don't mention those here, so really, what is this RfC 'storm in the teacup' for? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
That seems reasonable and I might agree. But in this case Icewhiz is saying that Paul is being used as a source for a long list of villages which are an controversial claim - and one that Paul doesn't really even make for all cases that I can find - that the listed are villages which collectively rescued Jews during the holocaust (I could be wrong that Paul doesn't make the claim; it is especially hard to check because Paul doesn't provide a list the individual villages are mentioned in different places throughout the 2/4 books; from what I can see Paul claims some villages made collective efforts, but in other villages only one or two people are mentioned as taking part in rescues). Can you clarify, do you think the list of communities should stay? Smmurphy(Talk) 04:16, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I would contend that in the subject matter Paul covers, most claims are controversial. Certainly if one were sourcing trivial information (e.g. on which date a certain well known operation began) then Paul might be OK, but in such cases there is bound to be multiple better sources (particularly since each of Paul's larger self-published manuscripts is a response to highly cited and discussed books by notable authors - a response which attempts to refute the published books' conclusions and premises) - if I were to see such a non-controversial claim (which is certainly not the case here) - A citation needed tag (after redacting Paul) or better source (leaving Paul) tag - both leaving the non-controversial text - would be the correct course of action.Icewhiz (talk) 04:57, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
@Smmurphy and Icewhiz: I agree this is a problematic list. I don't think we should accept Paul as a sole and sufficient source for this. However, some of the places on that list have outside citations. For others, as I noted, Paul seems to provide generally reliable references to other sources. I'd suggest reformatting the table, with a new column added - summary of rescue efforts. This would allow us to distinguish, indeed, cases where an entire population might have been doing or only a part of the community. Now, here's how to do it: the first entry in our list, village of Białka, Parczew County, seems to be based on Paul's claim that "About one hundred and fifty Poles were killed in mass executions in the villages of Białka in the Parczew forest and Sterdyń near Sokołów Podlaski for extensive help given to Jews by those villages. See Zajączkowski, Martyrs of Charity, Part One, pp.123–24, 228." While I couldn't find full text of Zajaczkowski online, snippet view search confirms Białka is mentioned on page 123; here's a snippet: "December 1942. As a reprisal for hiding a Jewish woman and aiding Jewish partisans, the German SS men selected one hundred men from the population of that remote village and executed them near the local school; among others, Karol Walecki, 17, who was voluntarily joined by his father, Aleksander Walecki, 51. The Jewish woman was killed and, along with her, the following Christians: four brothers, Bronisław Bartosiewicz, 45, Ignacy Bartosiewicz, 48, Kazimierz Bartosiewicz, 35... (the list continues for a while, then I can no longer access the snippet)" Now, to be honest, I am not sure if we can make a case this is about a collective action, or a collective responsibility, without further investigation - how many locals were aiding Jewish partisans/people? Is Paul misinterpreting the sources by claiming that all those selected were helping the Jews? Without access to the full text (and hopefully, sources) from Zajączkowski, I am not sure. Polish Wikipedia, btw, in the article about the village, cites a slightly different number - 96 people executed "for aiding Jewish partisans after a Jewish partisan unit was located in the village's vicinity", sourced to "Józef Fajkowski, Jan Religa, Zbrodnie hitlerowskie na wsi polskiej 1939-1945, Warszawa 1981, s. 21-22." (no online copy I can find). In [8] I found the similar list of names of people "executed for aiding Jews and partisans" from Białka (sourced to Zajączkowski and two other works, with a note that sources differ with regard to the exact number of people executed; I didn't count how many names are listed, few dozens at list). Again, did all executed helped the Jews? To be honest, and knowing a bit about the historic reality of that times, I doubt it - Germans loved to terrorize locals through collective responsibility. But what we have for now, from sources, is a clear example that some people in that village aided the Jews, and the price they paid. (I'd hope that this might give a pause to some editors, who seem rather fond of questioning every case of Poles aided Jews, and/or express astonishment why many Poles did little or nothing). PS. Massace at Białka is likely a notable topic and someone should try to constructively stub it - a better activity than trying to effectively 'censor' such information from Wikipedia, because it is referenced to Paul. Having fact checked his work on a few claims like this I am pretty sure he is not lying or inventing his examples, though his conclusions may be not always bulletproof or neutral.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
@Piotrus: I think the list, as a large list (and poorly sourced one to boot), is LISTCRUFT. However - covering 2-3 notable examples, well covered in the literature, and treating them as examples (and not as an overall trend) - could be quite possibly DUE. E.g. Białka (which is currently on the list twice for some reason + a short sentence elsewhere) - might be a good topic to expand in this article (to say a short paragraph) prior to spinning out. Certainly Germans executed Poles - for helping Jews and for other activities (and sometimes for the whole amalgamation of suspected activities or just plain terrorizing) - though one should note that while they did execute families and villages, they weren't as punitive in all cases. I personally (if I'm included in "some editors") - do not question every case of a Pole helping a Jew - there are thousands of very well documented cases. I do however question when the exceptional positive examples are cast towards a norm or widespread phenomena. A few illustrative examples, well documented and sourced ones, serve a much better purpose than a list.Icewhiz (talk) 09:44, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
@Piotrus: Surely the definition of a non-controversial claim would be one that can be substantiated by other sources, in which case we should just be using those instead. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:19, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No. We've had several discussion about it already - he's not an RS. He's virtually unknown outside of a narrow circle of Polish writers, some contested themselves. His citation count on Scholar is two, he isn't listed by Scopus, and AFAIK he never published outside Glaukopis, which is an issue both in its own right as well as because Glaukopis itself is questionable [9]. He presented no conference papers that I'm aware of. Outside of this discussion, someone like that knocking at your door would be suspected of a Nigerian sting. François Robere (talk) 10:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No (Summoned by bot) were the sourcing of the very best quality, this would still be LISTCRUFT, designed to create a particular impression while imparting little real information. There are sufficient doubts about the quality of the sourcing to compound that diagnosis. Pincrete (talk) 12:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • No, and given the clear outcome of the survey, isn't it about time it was removed? Pinkbeast (talk) 06:49, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
  • No, in part per my comments at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 241#The Holocaust in Poland: Ewa Kurek & Mark Paul. The list is excessive and unnecessary. For example, by having a list one would expect that a linked article would contain some information on the locality's role in rescue. Finally, Keep for non-controversial claims is not a viable approach for such a source. It seems that everything is controversial when it comes to Polish-Jewish relations. So if an item is indeed "non-controversial" it's probably along the lines of sky being blue, or at the very least much better sources are available. There's no need to source obscure items of history to equally obscure, and possibly fringe, sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Extended Discussion

Tatzref noticed something that I missed, I looked at google scholar for references to the books by Paul being discussed and didn't find any. It looks to me that they also checked google books. I looked through the 16 refs they mentioned. Some of them reference different books by Paul, 5 of them reference The Story of two Shtetls and 2 reference Neighbors on the Eve of The Holocaust. 1 mentions Paul but does not cite any work by Paul. I could not find any information about 1. Of the rest, most of them use Paul as a source for testimonials or information about testimonials. The exceptions, which cite these books about statements of fact, are those by Musial, Lossin, and Chodakiewicz. I'm fairly convinced by criticism of the usefulness of Musial and Chodakiewicz (and Wierzbicki and others) by Michlic here, but that aside, neither of those notes are particularly revealing, and neither are in peer reviewed or academic presses (none of the sources Tatzref mentioned are, I think). I'm not sure which of these sources are academic historians; Stachura, Biskupski, Goldenberg, Piotrowski, Piskorski, and Salter are all respected scholars (Mazzeo is a respected writer but is not a historian). Here are the sources being discussed with a brief note about how they use Paul:

Tilar J. Mazzeo (Irena’s Children) - In this book, Mazzeo is quoting Pauls quote of Marek Halter's Stories of Deliverance in Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews. That is, Mazzeo is quoting Paul's quotation of a testimony in Halter.
Marek Wierzbicki (Polacy i Zydzi w zaborze sowieckim) - In this book, Wierzbicki references Paul's Neighbors on the Eve of The Holocaust, neither of the books being discussed.
Bogdan Musial (Sowjetische Partisanen: Mythos und Wirklichkeit; Sowjetische Partisanen in Weissrusland) - Musial cites Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy in a footnote, stating that Paul gives examples of the involvement of Jewish partisans in the actions against the Armia Krajowa.
Eike Lossin (Katholische Geistliche in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern) - Lossin cites Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy in a footnote, stating that Paul's can be read for an overview of the procedures of the Gestapo and SS in occupied Poland.
Peter Stachura (Poland, 1918-1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic) - Stachura refers to Paul in his introduction and does not cite any particular work by Paul.
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947; After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War II; Ejszyszki: Pogrom, ktorego nie bylo; Intermarium: The Land between the Baltic and Black Seas) - Chodakiewicz cites Neighbors on the Eve of the Holocaust and The Story of Two Shtetls in most of those books. In Intermarium, Chodakiewicz quotes Paul's Tangled Web in his chapter on Koniuchy, stating that Paul has written the most exhaustive study of the massacre so far, confirming "the version championed by [Kazimierz] Krajewski and others."
Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski (Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future) - Biskupski cites The Story of two Shtetls.
Myrna Goldenberg (Before All Memory Is Lost: Women’s Voices from the Holocaust) - Goldenberg cites Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy. in a note about a farmhouse mentioned in the Testimony by Eva Kuper (discussing the actions of Sister Klara Jaroszyńska who was active in Lasek, Warsaw, and elsewhere - but not necessarily in the villages under discussion that I know of)
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and a Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Each Other) - I could not find how Paul is cited in this book.
Tadeusz Piotrowski (The Polish Deportees of World War II: Recollections of Removal to the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World) - Piotrowski cites The Story of Two Shtetls.
Jan M. Piskorski (Die Verjagten: Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts) - Piskorski includes Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy. in his bibliography, it isn't clear how Paul is used in the book
Mariusz Bechta (Pogrom czy odwet?) - I could not find this book, I'll note the English translation of the title is, Pogrom or retaliation.
Frank Salter (On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration) - Salter cites The Story of two Shtetls.

While I found this exercise interesting, it doesn't materially change my comment above. None of the sources citing Paul refer to the list discussed here. Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy. is cited by 5 books, 4 of which cite testimonials included in the book but do not discuss the historic accuracy of the testimonials. I am not sure how the book is used in the 5th source. Paul's A Tangled Web is cited once, by Chodakiewicz, in reference to the Koniuchy massacre and not to the list being discussed here. It isn't clear that Tatzref thinks any of these works in particular justify using these works by Paul in this article, and I think they do not justify using Paul as a RS in any way. Smmurphy(Talk) 18:45, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Note this unimpressive haul (some of which would not count as a cite for h-index calcs) - is over 20 years (and Wikipedia WP:REFLOOPs dating back a decade) - AFAICT The Story of Two Shtetls harks back to 1998. It is also a collective work (essays by other authors as well - unlike all the rest).Icewhiz (talk) 19:11, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

We’re facing a very bizarre situation. Academics, scholars and professional historians can and do refer to Mark Paul’s work in publications published by reputable publishing houses, but Wikipedia users can’t. Mark Paul’s research on Ejszyszki was relied on extensively by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz in his book Ejszyszki: Pogrom ktorego nie bylo, which he acknowledges in several places (e.g., 2010 ed., pp. 15, 86, 181), He cites Mark Paul’s two studies found in The Story of Two Shtetls, Bransk and Ejszyszki, Part 2, pp. 9-172 and in the online publication A Tangled Web, Part 1, and states they are the most comprehensive treatment of the topic. Chodakiewicz’s book won the 2003 Jozef Mackiewicz Literary award and was praised by Gazeta Wyborcza, Gazeta Wyborcza also acknowledged that Chodakiewicz proved that there was no pogrom in Ejszyszki, which is also Mark Paul’s thesis. Bogdan Musial, in his Sowjetische Partisanen in Weissrusland (R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004) refers to the Canadian Polish Congress internet publication on Koniuchy, which contains relevant excerpts from Mark Paul’s Tangled Web, Part 2. In his Sowjetische Partisanen, 1941-1944 (Ferdinand Schoningh, 2009), Musial does likewise, and also refers to A Tangled Web, Part 2, for “many such examples” of partisan activity. He also lists Mark Paul’s A Tangled Web in the bibliography. Musial’s books were published by highly regarded German publishing houses (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Oldenbourg_Verlag; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlag_Ferdinand_Sch%C3%B6ningh). The fact that they are not academic presses is irrelevant: Timothy Snyder’s two most famous books weren’t published by an academic press either. Joanna Michlic’s opinions of these historians, as well as others such as Marek Wierzbicki, are besides the point. She is no expert in the subject matter of their research, and her opinions have been disregarded by historians who are. Yehuda Bauer praised Musial’s Sowjetische Partisanen, 1941-1944 as “a most important contribution” to the history of the war, the Soviet partisans, and Polish-Jewish partisan relations in Belorussia. (Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 38, no. 2.) Wierzbicki’s articles have been published in the journal Polin and in the collective volume Stalin and Europe: Imitation and Domination, 1928–1953 (Oxford University Press, 2014), edited by Timothy Snyder and Ray Brandon. Apart from the copious sources he cites (more than 1800 footnotes in A Tangled Web), Mark Paul is also being mentioned by accomplished historians like Musial and Chodakiewicz because of the quality of his research. If his work was fringe or suspect, it is highly unlikely the other scholars who cited Mark Paul wouldn’t have noticed that something was amiss.Tatzref (talk) 03:19, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

That is much the same as I found. The works discussed of Paul are cited a few times in some of the books. None of those citations cover the material being discussed and these works of Paul's are not published in peer reviewed sources (if I'm wrong on that, can you point to the editorial board that reviewed Paul's work). Most of the rest of what you say I disagree with, but I'll leave it aside. In any case, that Paul is outside of the mainstream among academic historians is certainly not in question here - I am pretty sure that he himself says that he is, and Stachura certainly does. Smmurphy(Talk) 03:31, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Chodakiewicz’s Ejszyszki denial book was not academically published, and winning a minor right wing prize does not amount to much. Musial's work was highly criticized, and his favorable mention of the KPK does not amount to much beyond an idealogical ILIKEIT. Michlic is one the leading Holocaust historiography researchers and is well publishhed and cited. Even the right wing fringe historians who find Paul's work agreeable do not dare to cite him in a peer reviewed journal, relegating these mentions to a minor footnote mention in books that are not as vetted.Icewhiz (talk) 03:42, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Icewhiz, you seem to be rejecting every Polish historian, describing them as “fringe,” “right wing” etc. Chodakiewicz, Musiał, Kurek, Pietrzak list goes on and on... Tell me, who other than Gross and Grabowski out of Polish all historians is acceptable for you as a source? Please, name just a few. (Answer the question please, not wall of text.) Name few Polish historians that are acceptable for you. Is Tadeusz Piotrowski ok? GizzyCatBella (talk) 04:16, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
I've used Polish historians. I do think we should avoid "forbidden history" mass market writers (Pietrzak) who do not publish in RS, the highly questionable Kurek (Poland stops ceremony for author accused of anti-Semitism, How Ewa Kurek, the Favorite Historian of the Polish Far Right, Promotes Her Distorted Account of the Holocaust) - who has not (or barely?) published in a reputable outlet for over a decade. Chodakiewicz (DID A POLISH FAR RIGHT ACTIVIST HELP DONALD TRUMP WRITE HIS SPEECH IN WARSAW?, and Musiał (The Dark Return of Polish Anti-Semitism) works have been criticized quite a bit, and are described in historiography RS as the most extreme spectrum of ethnonationalist/monumental historiography aimed at defending the good name of Poland,[10][11][12][13][14] however taking WP:BIASED into concern and if published in a reliable outlet (as opposed to a political blog), and not thoroughly roasted by reviews - these two could be usable if balanced appropriately (by multiple historians of more mainstream schools)..... I've used Dariusz Stola (who is fairly mainstream center) and Alina Cała (who should be noted to be on the leftward side of Polish politics - though possibly quite mainstream in a world view) recently - and there are actually many mainstream Polish historians - if your criteria of selecting an historian is publication in scholarly journals, citations, international recognition - then there are many such historians. On the other hand if you select a source based on a denialist column in Nasz Dziennik or similar/worse press/blogs (e.g. this blog - whose author is a subject of mentions in RS as a manifestation of various phenomena - his views on Jews, feminists, etc. - but is not cited in anything remotely academic) - then that's not how we source history here. (It is a topic of study - Kwiatkowska, Hanna Maria. Conflict of images. Conflict of memories. Jewish themes in the Polish right-wing nationalistic press in the light of articles from Nasz Dziennik 1998–2007. University of London, University College London (United Kingdom), 2008..Icewhiz (talk) 06:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
O yea? You just removed this [15] from Alina Cała page. Why? Criticism of her not allowed or Andrzej Paczkowski is fringe? GizzyCatBella (talk) 06:37, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
So basically highly scrutinized Alina Cała and questionable Dariusz Stola you allow. So let’s see, Gross, Grabowski, Cała, and Stoła, all just happen to have a negative narrative towards Poland, everyone else is fringe and unacceptable? GizzyCatBella (talk) 06:48, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Most published Polish historians - and published in the sense of established peer review journals - and cited by others in such journals - are quite acceptable as sources. Turning back to Paul - he's not published, and his copious work in producing these on-line tomes has led to but echoes of mentions in the footnotes of others (some fringe elements mentioning him as further reading in non-academic publications, some copying of Wikipedia references in a WP:REFLOOP, and a few scant mentions (footnotes) criticizing Paul's work as an "anti-Jewish tract", containing "demonstrably false claims", and expressing the "myth of the "ignoble ungrateful Jew".). Oddly, it would seem Paul's work is promoted on Wikipedia for some reason far beyond his (non-existent or close to such) academic footprint (and no - uploading one's work to www.coursehero.com - does not create an academic footprint).Icewhiz (talk) 08:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
And why would you say that "Gross, Grabowski, Cała, and Stoła ... happen to have a negative narrative towards Poland"? These are well established Polish-born scholars.Icewhiz (talk) 08:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Oh common Icewhiz, we both know that Gross and Grabowski are considered the most criticised historians in Poland, probed and rejected by virtually everyone else (except Cała of course). So all these other Polish historians who don't agree with Gross and Grabowski are fringe? GizzyCatBella (talk) 08:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Well - there are several historians at Polish Center for Holocaust Research - I suppose you reject them all as having "negative narrative towards Poland"? I know that the "official historical memory politics" in Poland, of late, may be causing some difficulty, but Poland is still a diverse society. How about Jerzy Jedlicki, was he patriotic enough? Krzysztof Persak? Paweł Machcewicz? Joanna Tokarska-Bakir? Anna Bikont? Elżbieta Janicka? Tomasz Żukowski? Icewhiz (talk) 09:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Grabowski is an academic writer and an activist, so some his opinions are academic and some are political. Gross is mainly an activist. Xx236 (talk) 08:56, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Gross is one of the most cited scholars in this field.Icewhiz (talk) 09:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
O yea? Perhaps because of the statements like this: Poles killed more Jews than Germans[16] Gross is fringe not M.Paul.GizzyCatBella (talk) 11:05, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
If this were KPKpedia - perhaps (but we would have to update so many things to reflect the government in exile being the official government until 1989). Gross - a Pirnceton university professor, work described as groundbreaking in multiple publications, works with hundreds of citations (I wonder what his h-index is - no profile on scholar - but it is very high) - is a reliable source. Poles were not particularly successful at killing Germans - accounting only for a very small fraction of the 5.3 milllion German military deaths - there's not particular reason to doubt Gross's estimate here.Icewhiz (talk) 13:01, 30 May 2018 (UTC) Gross has some support -e.g. Jacek Leociak - "The claim that Poles killed more Jews than Germans could be really right – and this is shocking news for the traditional thinking about Polish heroism during the war" AP.Icewhiz (talk) 13:54, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
If Professor Gross meant that the Poles, in Poland under German occupation, did not kill many Germans, then he betrays poor judgment and a surprising ignorance of what was happening under the German occupation. The Poles' first objective under occupation was simply to survive. In retaliation for the killing of a German, the Germans executed dozens of innocent civilians caught at random on the streets. Moreover, the Poles had few weapons; when the 1944 Warsaw Uprising broke out, the insurgents had to make do with what weapons they could capture from the Germans. As it is, during World War II the Germans killed nearly as many ethnic Poles as Jewish Poles.
Nihil novi (talk) 14:05, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Dariusz Stola is a director of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and some of his recent comments aren't academic.Xx236 (talk) 06:51, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Alina Cała [17].Xx236 (talk) 07:12, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Xx236, for Ebenezer Rojt, "Alina Cała Hunts Down Antisemites, or Nonsense Common and Esoteric" (in Polish), in Kompromitacje: Przypadki słabości ludzkich (Embarrassments: Examples of Human Weaknesses): "Added to all this is the abysmal incompetence and sloppiness of Dr. Cała, who all too often speaks on matters of which she knows nothing and cites books that she has not read."
In his review of Cała's book, Żyd – wróg odwieczny? Antysemityzm w Polsce i jego źródła (The Jew – Age-old Enemy? Antisemitism in Poland and Its Sources, Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Nisza, 2012), Rojt produces a cornucopia of embarrassing examples. Rojt's review makes a telling commentary on the reliability of some of our vaunted experts. I wonder, was Dr. Cała's book peer-reviewed and published by a reputable academic publisher? Is it cited by other experts?
Nihil novi (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Cała's book, Żyd - wróg odwieczny? Antysemityzm w Polsce i jego źródła was published in pl:Wydawnictwo Nisza, not an academic publisher but a fairly respected publisher. As such, it would likely be acceptable as a RS, but not preferred. Rojt's self-published review could be useful in addressing the question of whether or not the book is reliable, but a published or even academic review would be preferred. Smmurphy(Talk) 11:08, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
By the way, the comments on this thread starting with GrizzyCatBella's of 04:16, 30 May 2018 (UTC) have been off topic. If someone else agrees, I think it and those since should be collapsed so that the main issue (Paul's 2/4 books in the bibliography and the list of villages) can continue to be discussed. Smmurphy(Talk) 11:10, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Smmurphy, it is on topic because it points to demonstrate how certain scholars are chosen over the others and might explain why Mark-Paul is being sought to be eliminated as a source. Please leave it uncollapsed if there are no further objections (excluded my persona and Icewhiz) GizzyCatBella (talk) 11:30, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Please leave uncollapsed. Perhaps we can find some other utterances more worthy of collapsing.
Nihil novi (talk) 12:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Very well. Please excuse me if I keep my comments to Paul and the proposed material as much as possible. Regarding more general points, I'm happy to look things up, such as the name of a publisher, but I am not terribly interested in solving all of the issues with dozens of pages all at once. Regarding the general point, I've already expressed my opinion that I find Michlic generally respectably published and convincing in these matters. Smmurphy(Talk) 12:49, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Keeep returning to the same old things that have been amply debunked won't make them any more valid. Icewhiz insists against all evidence: "Turning back to Paul - he's not published." Smmurphy claims: "Neither are published in peer reviewed joutnals" It's been pointed out several that Mark Paul's articles "Rescue of Jewish Escapees from the Treblinka Death Camp" (pp. 117-137) & "Poles and Jews in Poland's Eastern Borderlands in September 1939" (pp. 257-293) were published in Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? Studies on the Fate of Wartime Poles and Jews, ed. by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Wojciech Jerzy Muszynski, and Pawel Styrna, eds., (Washington, D.C.: Leopolis Press, 2012. Mark Paul has published a number of articles in the journal Glaukopis, no. 25/26, no. 27, no. 28, no. 30. This can be readily verified: http://www.glaukopis.pl/index.php/biblioteka-cyfrowa/numery-archiwalne/40-numer-34-nadchodzi. Glaukopis is an accredited scholarly publication with an editorial board with professional historians and scholars (http://www.glaukopis.pl/index.php/o-wydawnictwie/zespol-redakcyjny), and published articles are peer reviewed.

This whole exercise is turning into a bit of a farce. A few users want to ban all references in Wikipedia to works that a significant number of scholars, academics and professional historians cite. Users who do not seem to have contributed to the discussion of Polish-Jewish relations in the past appear out of the blue. Inaccurate information is spread about Mark Paul’s publication history and the content of his work. Accomplished historians who cite Mark Paul (e.g., Bogdan Musial, Marek Wierzbicki) are derided based Michlic’s highly questionable views, which prominent historians who are far more knowledgeable than her disregard. It’s all meant to support the enforcement activities Icewhiz has started on his own by removing all sorts of text that refer to Mark Paul’s work from this and other articles – text that has often been there for years. He even removed a link to Chodakiewicz’s book (note the animus): 20:12, 20 May 2018‎ Icewhiz (talk | contribs)‎ . . (97,846 bytes) (-244)‎ . . (→‎External links: Already in references, with link. Wikipedia is not a place to promote Marek's books.) Here are more examples. The article on the Bielski partisans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans) was also purged of an external link to Mark Paul’s Tangled Web, Part 2, which is where Bogdan Musial directed readers to find more examples of certain partisan activities. A like-minded user (Pinkbeast), acting simultaneously with Icewhiz, then deletes Musial’s acclaimed Sowjetische Partisanen for an entirely spurious reason (again note the animus), and when it’s restored, Musial is again removed by another like-minded user (K.e.coffman). Here’s the history: • (cur | prev) 00:30, 30 May 2018‎ K.e.coffman (talk | contribs)‎ . . (19,592 bytes) (-1,337)‎ . . (rm per wp:further - in foreign lang; dead links; personal web sites; etc.) (undo) • (cur | prev) 15:03, 28 May 2018‎ Tatzref (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,929 bytes) (+137)‎ . . (→‎Further reading: Musial's book was called “a most important contribution” by historian Yehuda Bauer in Yad Vashem Studies) (undo) • (cur | prev) 08:44, 28 May 2018‎ Icewhiz (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,792 bytes) (-137)‎ . . (Undid revision 843297591 by Icewhiz (talk) Oops - edited old version! Undo.) (undo) (Tag: Undo) • (cur | prev) 06:16, 28 May 2018‎ Icewhiz (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,929 bytes) (+137)‎ . . (Highly questionable fringe SPS.) (undo) • (cur | prev) 02:55, 28 May 2018‎ Pinkbeast (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,792 bytes) (-137)‎ . . (And remove this one, given it's part of the same POV-pushing exercise.) (undo) • (cur | prev) 02:47, 28 May 2018‎ Pinkbeast (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,929 bytes) (-570)‎ . . (Remove both perWikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_241#The_Holocaust_in_Poland:_Ewa_Kurek_&_Mark_Paul) (undo) • (cur | prev) 02:45, 28 May 2018‎ Pinkbeast (talk | contribs)‎ . . (21,499 bytes) (+26)‎ . . (Better to fix the ISBN than remove it. Article's getting pretty heavy on external links, too.) (undo) Remember, Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer called Musial’s book a “most important contribution” to the history of the war, the Soviet partisans, and Polish-Jewish partisan relations in Belorussia. (Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 38, no. 2.). So after axing a professional historian, with an academic a background, published by a highly regarded German publishing house, and who refers to the activities of the Bielski partisans in his book, the remaining “authorities” include journalists (Peter Duffy), non-professional historians (Chaim Lazar, Allan Levine), and a sociologist (Nechama Tec). The kinds of “authorities” that are dismissed if they refer to Mark Paul’s work. This has all the appearances of an ideological war going on.Tatzref (talk) 15:02, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Smmurphy mentioned just one reference to Mark Paul in Tilar Mazzeo’s Irena’s children, and noted that she’s not a historian. True, but Wikipedia describes her as a “cultural historian,” and she’s also an associate professor of English. Smmurphy: (Mazzeo is a respected writer but is not a historian). Here are the sources being discussed with a brief note about how they use Paul: Tilar J. Mazzeo (Irena’s Children) - In this book, Mazzeo is quoting Pauls quote of Marek Halter's Stories of Deliverance in Paul's Wartime Rescue of Jews. That is, Mazzeo is quoting Paul's quotation of a testimony in Halter. Tatzref: I don’t have the entire book but from what I can see on p. 296, n.161, the reference to Mark Paul’s work as “Wartime Rescue of Jews” with no publication details strongly suggests it was referred to earlier. “wartime rescue” comes up at pp. 164, 178, 266 ("wartime rescue of Jews"). But more importantly, n. 10 on p. 281 -- “Generally the reluctance to have Catholic and Jewish children play together was on the Jewish side; see Mark Paul, “Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles,” January 2015, www.kpk-toronto.org...” -- clearly refers to a conclusion Mark Paul draws from sources he gathered. As a cultural historian (and academic), Mazzeo is fully entitled to accept or reject his conclusion. She accepts it based on the strong evidence Mark Paul gathered. Mazzeo also cites “Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles” in the bibliography.

So before we axe Mark Paul, let’s get some accurate information. Let’s stop repeating Michlic’s bogus charge that he propagates the myth of the ungrateful Jew, when Mark Paul’s treatment of that topic in “Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy” consists of compiling a broad spectrum of views expressed by rescued Jews (most of them grateful), and it is Jewish scholars (Eva Hoffman, Shimon Redlich, Michael Checinski) who point out that there also some ungrateful people among those who were rescued by Poles who risked their lives.Tatzref (talk) 18:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Yet Michlic published in top notch journals and acadmic publishers and is cited by others. As for Irena's Children - the citation is quite obviously WP:REFLOOPed from Wikipedia, and furthermore Mazzeo does not actually cite Paul, but rather cites a quotations from two sources via Paul. With most sources, even poor ones, that is acceptable (as opposed to citing conclusions or actual research from a poor source) - however had Tillar (after entering a time machine) read here some of discussions regarding the veracity of Paul's quotations of others she perhaps would've avoided this.Icewhiz (talk) 19:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow everything you wrote, so if I fail to address something feel free to point it out. I want to point out that this discussion relates to the two works by Paul that were in the diff, not to all of Paul's work. That is what the "Neither" was referring to in my statement that "Neither are published in peer reviewed journals". I also want to point out that the editorial board of Glaukopis is associated with INR, so while I have no strong feeling against using work published in that journal, POV issues with INR have been pointed out before and should generally be kept in mind in some cases when using work published by them or their affiliates. Luckily for my part in this discussion, I am not talking about any work published in that journal. The other work you mention is published in Leopolis Press, a university-associated publishing house run by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz[18]. I haven't thought about whether a publication in an edited volume published by an press run by the editor of the edited volume has significant RS problems, but luckily for me I am not talking about any work published in that volume. Beyond that, you refer to another dispute which I am not commenting on, you express an opinion on Michilic without citing any sources, and are discussing details of a citation based on the google book clippings you see. Using clippings is fine, I use them in part as well. It is a stretch to say anything definitive about how Paul is used if neither of us has access to a copy of the book being discussed, but if I missed anything related to Mazzeo that you find I apologize. My aim was to provide notes about how Paul was cited, paying particular attention to the two sources discussed. My notes were not meant to be perfect, just what I found. I didn't mean to misrepresent anything. In any case, I apologize if my comments seem farcical, I assure you I am thinking about this dispute in good faith. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • As mentioned earlier in this discussion, two of Mark Paul’s studies were published in the book Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold?: Studies on the Fate of Wartime Poles and Jews, ed. by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Wojciech Jerzy Muszyński, and Paweł Styrna (Washington, D.C.: Leopolis Press, 2012): "Rescue of Jewish Escapees from the Treblinka Death Camp" (pp. 117-137) & "Poles and Jews in Poland's Eastern Borderlands in September 1939" (pp. 257-293, alongside the following academics/professional historians: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Peter Stachura, Piotr Gontarczyk, Waldemar Chrostowski, John Radzilowski, and Wojciech Jerzy Muszynski.Tatzref (talk) 17:27, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think we can ignore the possibility that we're talking to fewer actual people than accounts, given the extensive article editing overlap and the similar style. Icewhiz et al, I just got here, though, what do you think? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
I have one note about that; Icewhiz and I were recently accused of being the same person recently (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Smmurphy/Archive). Smmurphy(Talk) 20:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
@Smmurphy: I wasn't suggesting that you/Icewhiz were the socks, sorry if it came across that way from my phrasing! –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:30, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
No worries, it didn't. I just thought I should disclosure that if you were bringing up socking. Smmurphy(Talk) 02:48, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Running the search query Poland author:"Mark Paul" through Google Scholar [19] gives the following:

  • "Neighbours on the Eve of the Holocaust", which other editors have shown is not an RS
  • "Defending Poland's Reputation from the Slander of Nazi Collaboration" - a letter to an editor cited by a third party
  • A Ph.D dissertation about Pope John Paul II, which may or may not be his (it's ascribed to Mark Paul Francis Hart)
  • "Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles" (eight versions), which rather shamelessly pushes the claim that Jews were at least partly responsible for antisemitism because of Orthodox Jews' seclusion, relying on quotes like the one claiming there was a "monopolization of commerce by Jews", and an Amazon book review (!) by this guy
  • "Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy" (seven versions), which I didn't read

Per Scholar, the total citation count of these five items is two. François Robere (talk) 09:16, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

  • It seems that a small group of users who follow each other around are behind most of the attempts to "discredit" authors like Mark Paul and Bogdan Musial, striking in tandem. The Bielski article purge of Musial's acclaimed Sowjetische Parisanen is a flagrant example of that. The unsourced letter -- "Defending Poland's Reputation from the Slander of Nazi Collaboration" - a letter to an editor cited by a third party -- cannot be evaluated. "Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles" is a fact-laden study with more than 600 footnotes, often with multiple referenced publications. (http://kpk-toronto.org/wp-content/uploads/Jewish-Attitudes-6.doc) A very large portion of those publications are by Jewish scholars and memoirists. Amazon book reviews are only mentioned a handful of times, to summarize the content of scholarly publications. Of the more than 800 publications (books, journal articles) cited, which ones exactly are "illegitimate"? The impact of Jewish seclusion on relations with Poles is referenced almost exclusively to multiple Jewish sources. As for the monopolization of commerce, don't shoot the messenger. It was stated by Dr. Berthold Zarwyn and appears to be a balanced assessment, unless one believes that Poles are exclusively responsible for all the problems in Polish-Jewish relations: "It appears to me that two main factors led to anti-Semitism in Poland. The monopolization of commerce by Jews forced into this area by exclusive regulations, and the lack of cultural interaction based mostly on religious ignorance. The attitudes of Catholic clergy on the one-side and of Orthodox Jewry on the other did not stimulate a normal understanding and intermingling." See Jakob Weiss, The Lemberg Mosaic: The Memoirs of Two Who Survived the Destruction of Jewish Galicia (New York: Alderbrook Press, 2010), p. 373. This book has a Wikipedia page which discusses Zarwyn's afterword (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lemberg_Mosaic), but when Mark Paul cites from this book he is accused of relying on dubious sources and propagating myths.Tatzref (talk) 17:27, 31 May 2018 (UTC)Added more to this post.Tatzref (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

As has been pointed out several times, the opinions of Michlic, a minor historian, about Bogdan Musial, Marek Wierzbicki and Marek Jan Chodakiewicz have been disregarded by far more prominent historians than she, who continue to praise, cite, and publish these authors (Yehuda Bauer, Timothy Snyder, Peter Longerich). At this point, her opinion is irrelevant.

The other claims advanced by Icewhiz are becoming more and more bizarre. There is no reason to believe that Tillar Mazzeo, a reputable scholar and academic, did not read “Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles,” and instead lifted something from Wikipedia. Nor does the claim that she “does not actually cite Paul, but rather cites a quotations from two sources via Paul,” have any merit. This can be readily verified. Mark Paul states (in his own words): “as Jewish testimonies confirm, the objections most often came from the Jewish side.” (http://kpk-toronto.org/wp-content/uploads/Jewish-Attitudes-6.doc, footnote 160) Mazzeo states: “Generally the reluctance to have Catholic and Jewish children play together was on the Jewish side; see Mark Paul, “Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles,” January 2015, www.kpk-toronto.org...” Moreover, since she rejected a contrary view, Mazzeo must have been persuaded by the evidence collected by Mark Paul.

Icewhiz has presented not one iota of evidence that undermines the veracity of Mark Paul’s quotations of others. This is yet another spurious claim--a list that keeps growing. Which of these quotations, cited by Mark Paul, are fudged? (1) “At home they tried to implant within us elevated feelings. They emphasized morning and evening that we were different—better, more elevated than the goyim. What was theirs was non-kosher, disgusting, and despised. … And in the house meanwhile they would tell me, “Don’t play with the shiksas, the non-Jewish girls, with their colored eggs, and don’t taste their giant Easter bread, and don’t go into their homes which are absolutely non-kosher.”” (2) “Our neighbors were the Izbrechts, a Polish family … The youngest girl was named Józka, and I played with her all the time despite the fact that my grandmother beat me good so that I would not play with her. My grandmother did not allow me to play with Józka Izbrecht because she was Polish and she feared that if I went to her home I would eat something with pork in it. So my grandmother beat me, but I still played with Józka.” (3) “Why, oh, why didn’t my parents know a single Polish family they could turn to in times like these? It was always “Jewish this, and Jewish that,” and “we want you to associate only with nice Jewish boys we approve of” and “we don’t want you to have anything to do with the goyim.” Damn them, it’s their own fault. How can you live in a country surrounded by Poles, their country, and all but isolate yourself from them?” … Once I brought home a Polish friend, and I was told not to invite him again.” Moreover, these testimonies are consistent with Polish recollections. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a member of the wartime Council for Aid to Jews (Zegota), recalls that, when he was growing up in a tenement-house in a primarily Jewish area of prewar Warsaw, the mothers of the Jewish children often scolded their children for playing with “that stupid, Polish goy.” Stefania Podgorska, who rescued thirteen Jews in Przemysl, recalled that in the small village she grew up in, “sometimes the mother of the Jewish children would say to them, ‘Don’t play with the goyim.”

It is becoming more and more apparent that those users who deride Mark Paul do so not because his sources are unreliable, but rather because they are very reliable, and therefore “dangerous” for the promotion of their own views of Polish-Jewish relations.Tatzref (talk) 02:34, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I find it difficult to understand what information you (or Paul), imagine is endorsed by this series of anecdotes. Wherever two distinct communities (seperated by class, ethnicity or religion) exist side-by-side, would you not expect some mothers/fathers/grandmothers etc. to warn kids to stay away from the kids from the "other side of the tracks", not to trust them, befriend them (and certainly not marry them). That is even assuming that the anecdotes are impartially and accurately recorded in the first place. Pincrete (talk) 12:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
@Pincrete: (OR / Book report warning) the thesis in these documents, as I understand them, is that Jews (or elements within Jewish society) mistreated and betrayed the Poles (who were, none the less noble and tried to save the Jews from the Nazis) - this is presented via a series of anecdotes (of varying severity, the one above is mild...) and use of primary sources (Jewish sources, or at least cherrypicked ones, are used quite a bit - seems this is used as a "Jewish admission of guilt"). These documents, a few hundred pages each with copious footnotes, are filled with example after example - which may make for convincing reading for some (at least those predisposed to agree with the thesis).Icewhiz (talk) 13:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

There are no broad ideologically driven theses in Mark Paul's work. His starting point is: "Mutual prejudices and stereotypes have been harboured by both Poles and Jews in regard to one another." Since there's a huge body of literature on the former, Paul focuses on the latter. He presents a mass of evidence, including reputable historians, so he's hardly cherry-picking. The citations were set out to show: (1) why Mazzeo accepted Paul's conclusion (which Icewhiz denied), and (2) to counter Icewhiz's false claim that Paul is fudging citations. So please don't turn things around and distort them.

If one wants to see a blatant example of concerted, in tandem, ideologically driven enforcement activity on the issue of Polish-Jewish relations in Wikipedia, look at the “Bielski partisans” article history (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bielski_partisans&action=history). Users Icewhiz, K.e.coffman and Pinkbeast keep removing from "Further Reading" an acclaimed book by Bogdan Musial, a professional historian with academic credentials, yet retain books by journalists (Duffy) and freelance historians (Levine, who has had no academic positions and whose publisher publishes books on adventure, fishing, hunting, sports, nature, pets). Why? According to Icewhiz it's a “fringe work”! According to Pinkbeast, "it's part of the same POV-pushing exercise”. This is the impugned book and what Holocaust historians have said about it: Musial, Bogdan, Sowjetische Partisanen 1941–1941: Mythos und Wirklichkeit. Ferdinand Schöningh, 2009.ISBN 978-3-50676-687-8 According to Yehuda Bauer, Musial's book is “a most important contribution” to the history of the war, the Soviet partisans, and Polish-Jewish partisan relations in Belorussia. Reviewed by Yehuda Bauer (2010). "Bogdan Musial. Sowjetische Partisanen 1941-1944: Mythos und Wirklichkeit. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2009. 592 S. ISBN 978-3-506-76687-8". Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 38, no. 2. Historian Karel Berkhoff stated that the book will likely remain a comprehensive description of partisan warfare in Belarus due to its large source base. This is “fringe”? Do these comments and activities have any validity or credibility? Are they supposed to dictate the content of Wikipedia?

Why has Pincrete and others suddenly appeared on the scene? Because they've been called in by the "feedback request service": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pincrete : Please comment on Talk:Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust[edit]The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)Tatzref (talk) 15:31, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Paul does explain his theses in his writings. In Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles, you quote the first sentence of the first paragraph. Generally this is a hook and not a thesis. The thesis is usually the last sentence in one of the first paragraphs. The last sentence in the first paragraph of that work is, "However, there were many times in the past that Poland’s Jews had overtly excluded themselves from the Polish nation, and the modern “Jews as nationality” concept only enhanced and formalized this self-exclusion."[20] The last sentence of the first paragraph of Patterns of Cooperation, Collaboration and Betrayal is: "This dark chapter [of Jewish collaboration with the Germans] of the wartime history of Jews is one that merits closer scrutiny."[21] Of Neighbors is: "Moreover, collaborators from among the national minorities, very often Jews, played a prominent role in the assault on the Poles, the first and primary victims of the Soviet invaders, who were targeted for arrest, execution or deportation to the Gulag."[22] Other publications of Paul's have so many long quotations, I couldn't find a clearly "introductory" paragraph, but if there is one I missed, feel free to point it out. Smmurphy(Talk) 16:18, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

These theses are not particularly novel. What is significant, I believe, is the vast quantity of evidence, mostly from Jewish sources in the first two of these works, that Mark Paul has gathered to support these theses.Tatzref (talk) 05:13, 4 June 2018 (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.

Nazi changed to German

Can we discuss this change please? Not all perpetrators of the Holocaust were German. Even Hitler wasn't German. I think it's more accurate to say that these were Nazi crimes and not exclusive to Germans. Fefil14 (talk) 21:54, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Further reading

Preserving here by providing this link. My rationale was: "remove per wp:further - this is Further reading, not bibliography & unneeded". Please let me know if there are any concerns. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Irena Sendler smuggled 2,500 Jewish children

It's a controversial statement. Xx236 (talk) 06:17, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

June 2019 edit

Preserving here by providing this link. I removed "Some estimates put the number..." as dated and undue for the lead. The other edit was to change the language around "Occupied Poland was the only country..." as it's incorrect, and the source does not even support the claim. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:04, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Grabowski's press review of this article

Recently Jan Z. Grabowski published an article on Gazeta Wyborcza, in which he mentions this article. Below is the Google Translation of his critique of this article. PS. I did contact him and receive a permission to post that excerpt, translated, here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:55, 29 February 2020 (UTC)


Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 November 2021

Please remove the <sup> ([[404 Error]])</sup> from the citation of Dariusz Stola's The Polish government in exile and the Final Solution (name="stola"), since that link still works (assuming it's intended to go to p. 87 of the book). Also, please add {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718023524/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/194439.html |date=18 July 2011}} to the citation of Robert Szuchta's Śmierć dla szmalcowników (name="www3"), since the link given there is dead. - LaetusStudiis (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:54, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 June 2021

Krystian Brodacki's article "Musimy ich uszanować!" in Tygodnik Solidarność, cited as name="KB", is available online in an archived webpage at https://archive.today/2006.12.18-232337/http://www.tygodniksolidarnosc.com/2004/51/2_mus.htm, although the original URL at http://www.tygodniksolidarnosc.com/2004/51/2_mus.htm is now dead: please add this link to this article's citation. 73.195.249.93 (talk) 22:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I am adding this more specific request to satisfy the template's requirements: Please change the citation for Brodacki's article to: "Krystian Brodacki, "Musimy ich uszanować!" Tygodnik Solidarność, 17 December 2004. (in Polish) Archived from the original on 18 December 2006." (Or to the preferred format for archive links in this style of citation if that is different.) - 73.195.249.93 (talk) 23:09, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 Done Elli (talk | contribs) 17:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Concerns have been raised about this article

Concerns of pro-Polish bias in this article have been raised in this research paper:

Jan Grabowski & Shira Klein (2023) Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust, The Journal of Holocaust Research, DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939

Relevant section: Wikipedia also downplays the scope and nature of Polish collaboration with the Germans. The Wikipedia article ‘Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust’ claims that ‘less than one tenth of 1 percent of native Poles collaborated, according to statistics of the Israeli War Crimes Commission.’ Historians have no way of making such an estimation, which depends on how one defines ‘collaboration.’ Some early work by the Israeli government estimated the number of people directly and institutionally engaged in organized killings, but the number of individuals who contributed indirectly to the Jewish catastrophe remains unknown.

Kind regards, W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 09:42, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

See the related discussion at RSN - GizzyCatBella🍁 09:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. See also #Grabowski's press review of this article, by the same scholar, from a while back. PS. The "Israeli War Crimes Commission" rings a bell, see Talk:Collaboration_with_the_Axis_powers/Archive_7#What_is_the_Israeli_War_Crimes_Commission?. Not sure what happened to that claim in that article (Collaboration with the Axis powers), I don't think it's present there anymore, which probably is good, given that discussion. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
So how did anyone arrive at the mathematics of "less than one-tenth of one percent"? Even going by every source which cites this unclear "Israeli War Crime Commission", the number of collaborationist Poles is given as "7,000-7,500 from a population of twenty million ethnic Poles". 7500/20,000,000 = 0.000375, or 0.0375%, which is a whole different order of magnitude... while technically true that it is "less than one-tenth of one percent", I don't think we should use such flowery language based on shaky data. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 11:08, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
If you want to change that to "7000 out of population of twenty million" I don't think anyone would object. AFAIK no one's ever brought that up before. Volunteer Marek 12:22, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
No, I want to remive the sentence entirely because the sourcing is shaky. There is simply no way this post-facto Committee (if it really existed) could have ever known if those seven thousand were the only collaborators among twenty million, at least unless we can snag the Committee reports themselves so that we don't have to sift through others' editorialising of its findings. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 15:54, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
@Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI Be bold. Nobody is defending this claim, and years ago I alraedy was skeptical of it. I mean, nobody ever clearly even identified what this Israeli War Crimes Commission was (a mistranslation of sorts?). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
The same source says that Richard C. Lukas’s 1989 book Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust, a book that has been heavily criticized by experts and provides some evidence of poor quality historical research.
Also Lukas, Richard C. (1990). "Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust by Richard C. Lukas". The Polish Review. 35 (3/4). University of Illinois Press: 350–351. ISSN 0032-2970. JSTOR 25778533 confirms: This is the weakest of Professor Lukas's four book-contributions to recent Polish history because, in spite of some valuable sources, it is uneven, poorly organized and lacks focus ... Oral history definitely requires self-discipline on the part of the editing questioner.
Lukas is quoted no less than 10 times in the article. I remove the statements that, based on the article by Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein, seem most questionable, starting with the one they quote from the lead: Of the estimated 3 million non-Jewish Poles killed in World War II, thousands were executed by the Germans solely for saving Jews. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:04, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
@Gitz6666 I'd be more cautious here. Where is that "heavy criticism"? The review by Lerski you cite does point out faults with the book but also says
It would thus be of greater scholarly value if Dr. Lukas followed his fine introductory analysis of that complicated problem... and concludes with the reviewed book of Professor Lukas is also timely despite its shortcornings.. Pointing out some shortcomings while commenting on a "fine introductory analysis" is what I'd call a mixed reception.
Another review for the book I located, by John D. Klier in The Slavonic and East European Review [24], seems positive, containing the following opinion: As Lukas correctly observes.... In his conclusion, Klier notes some shortcomings of the book's coverage too, but writes that These caveats aside, this book is a useful contribution, especially for nonspecialists, to the continuing debate on Poles, Jews and the Holocaust.. I'd call this review mildly positive.
The final, third review I located is in German [25], so I had to use machine translation. It suggested also mildly positive or at least mixed reception: However, the probative value of the testimonies published by him suffers including the fact that they mostly refer to Warsaw and thus one representation is difficult to verify. Likewise, the excerpts are sometimes a bit short. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that Luke is one of the few editions of this kind presented in the West and thus contributed to the objectivity of the discussion.
So the only "heavy criticism" of this book I see so far comes from the new essay by Grabowski and Klein. What other experts have "heavily criticized" this work? The fact that one scholar (or two co-authors) are criticial of a source that has been generally seen as acceptable to reliable or praised (your assessment of how exactly the three reviews I found classify the book, may, of course, vary) by others should not result in its blanked removal. If a particular fact is criticized, I'd instead suggest attributing both sides and letting the reader draw their own conclusion, in the form of "Richad C. Lukas wrote that x, a claim that has been criticized by Grabowski and Klein as [insert criticism]". Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm not particularly impressed by two mildly positive (Klier, Pohl) and one kindly critical (Lerski) reviews, considering that the book's presence in the scientific literature is practically nil [26]. Most importantly, we have two experts on the subject openly saying that that book, published more than 30 years ago, contains false information. I am not saying that the book should be regarded as globally unreliable (the interviews are certainly authentic and citable) but it is unreliable as a source of statistical, or pseudo-statistical, information about the numbers of people involved. This information is most likely inaccurate and should be removed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:31, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
@Gitz6666 I don’t think it should be removed until we establish that Lucas is unreliable as RS and the other two, know better 🙂 Take it to RSN. So for now, slow down with the removal of the RS. Okay Gitz 🙂 ? - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:36, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Right. I will repeat what I said above: it's fine to add sources that have different estimates, but there is no valid reason to remove existing sources, simply because one article criticized them. When scholars disagree, we don't pick sides, we report both sides, per WP:BALANCE. (To be clear, I am fine with regards to removing the first claim noted, the one about the Isreli War Commission - I kind of thought we got read of that tidbit years ago...). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that there's a lively scholarly disagreement on these estimates? Jan Grabowski & Shira Klein provide an overview of recent estimates and the numbers are of a different magnitude than those provided by Lukas. Lukas's book was published in 1989: has there been any progress in historical research on the subject? I notice that Lukas is barely quoted in Zimmerman (ed.), Contested Memories, Rutgers University Press, 2003. Zimmerman's introductory essay provides an apparently balanced and informed overview of the scholarly debates between Polish and Jewish historians and could be used to de-POV this article, which looks very one-sided and apologetic. By the way, that introductiory essay doesn't mention Lukas's contribution at all. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
IMO, Lukas definitely represents "older scholarship" on the subject. Having said that I don't think we should remove him simply "to placate Grabowski". It is not Wikipedia's job to adjudicate disputes among historians and Lukas definitely qualifies as RS. Rather what we could say is "Lukas' numbers were criticized by..." (this is putting aside for the moment the unsavory connection of this article to an indef banned user). Volunteer Marek 15:11, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Lukas definitely qualifies as RS? They don't appear to. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
A professor of History at a major American university with numerous works published by reputable journals and university presses. Yes that qualifies as RS, unless you have some very weird definition of what RS means (and no, the definition of a reliable source is not "personally approved and certified by one Jan Grabowski"). Why exactly are you starting these arguments? Volunteer Marek 22:00, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
From the reviews it seems that all of their work is not created equal. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, some received more mixed reviews, others - most, arguably - genereally positive. So? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:24, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Are you asking about the number of collaborators? I don't think anyone has estimated their exact number. First of all, it is difficult, because it all depends on the definition of collaboration, in Polish historiography, collaborators usually include primarily blackmailers or voluntary Volksdeutsche, etc., the emphasis is primarily on voluntary cooperation and harming others, supporting the system of terror. For example, the Blue Police has always been a formation with an unclear status, membership in it was not voluntary (all pre-war policemen were called up by force, but on the other hand, many people enlisted in it later, because it was a steady job), and their main occupation was simply maintaining order. Grabowski's research, among others, goes in the direction of emphasizing the role of policemen in the liquidation of ghettos (in large ones their role was secondary, but in smaller ones they often acted directly), as well as in the subsequent persecution of Jews in hiding, often without German initiative. While he showed convincingly that such situations did occur, more often than was commonly perceived, it is impossible to relate it to the scale of the entire country, or a formation of 15-20 thousand people. In general, I would advise against giving any specific numbers, as the margin of error is too large and definitions are vague. It seems to me that the information that the collaboration in Poland or rather the collaboration of Poles was smaller than in other countries is sufficient and well documented. Marcelus (talk) 10:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I think this question was addressed to me - sorry for answering so late. With "estimates" I was not referring to the number of collaborators specifically. I agree with you that estimating the number of collaborators is difficult or even impossible, and that is precisely the reason why I removed this content Less than one tenth of 1 per cent of native Poles collaborated [27]. When I enquired here about the existence of a "scholarly disagreement on these estimates" I was referring to Of the estimated 3 million non-Jewish Poles killed in World War II, thousands were executed by the Germans solely for saving Jews (source: Lukas). According to Grabowski and Klein, and to the sources they quote, today the estimated number of non-Jewish Poles killed in WW2 is between 1,8 mln - 2 mln, and the estimated number of killed rescuers is around 800 individuals. Therefore, I removed this [28]. Probably the 800 figure could be provided somewhere in the text of the article, if there's agreement between editors. Moreover, I removed the following estimates by Lukas, some of which were also challenged by Grabowski and Klein:
  • Richard C. Lukas estimated that upwards of 1,000,000 Poles were involved in such rescue efforts,[1] "but some estimates go as high as three million."[1]... [29];
  • ...Lukas estimated that the number of Jews sheltered by Poles at one time might have been "as high as 450,000... [30];
  • According to Lukas the number of renegades who blackmailed and denounced Jews and their Polish protectors probably did not number more than 1,000 individuals [31];
  • Richard C. Lukas estimated the number of Poles killed for helping Jews at about 50,000 [32]. It seems to me that this last one is the only fully verifiable (although possibly undue) content.
If we have different numbers and/or different sources, these estimates can be replaced or, if they are accurate, restored. My rationale was that I'd avoid using older scholarship that has been openly challenged in recent academic sources. If there are sources showing the existence of a lively scholarly debate about these numbers, we should describe that debate. However, if there's not such a debate and Lukas's estimates are simply outdated and fringe, we should remove them, as I did. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:20, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
@GizzyCatBella: That is completely backward, it is those who want to use a source which have to establish its reliability not those who want to not use it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
We're talking about a History professor at a major American University with multiple works published in peer reviewed journals and books published by university presses. Your criteria would seem to exclude the very best kinds of sources we can use. Do you really think that we should automatically presume that scholars and academics are unreliable? How does that even make sense? Volunteer Marek 22:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Are Lukas and Lucas the same person? Are these two different people or is it just a spelling error? PS somewhere a crowd at FSU is cheering because someone just called them a major University. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:13, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, well, their football team still sucks. Volunteer Marek 22:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Re [33] - first, it's not true that the text "fails verification". Here is the direct quote from the source: "(Poland was) the only German-occupied land where Christians automatically risked death for aiding Jews". "Only German occupied land" and "was unique to Poland among all German-occupied countries " mean the same thing and this is just a paraphrasing to avoid WP:COPYVIO.

Second, this is not how Wikipedia works. If one source says "this is true" and another source says "this is not true" then we don't pick and choose which one we believe and which one we don't, we include both. It's perfectly fine to include sources which disagree with this conclusion but it is not fine to remove reliable sources (and yes, Lukas is a reliable source per WP:RS) on the basis of "somebody said so".

Finally, in regard to the merits of the matter, this discussion seems to ALWAYS involve different degrees of equivocation and interpretation of the word "automatically". It is most certainly true that in other parts of occupied Europe individuals could face death for rescuing Jews. The question is whether this was "automatic" and applied to the same degree as in Poland. Related to that is the legal framework - the claim that is usually made is that occupied Poland was the only place where an legal edict was issued by Nazis which imposed the death penalty on people helping Jews whereas in other areas the Nazis acted on more ad hoc basis. Volunteer Marek 19:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Lukas was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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