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A fact from Cold Crematorium appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 April 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that a Holocaust memoir translated in 2023 described prisoners so dehumanized by the Nazis that they introduced themselves in past tense, as in "My name was ..."?
Latest comment: 4 months ago19 comments4 people in discussion
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
Play around with different permutations and find one you prefer. Some examples:
"that prisoners of Nazi concentration camps were referred to only by number, and were so dehumanized that they spoke of their given names in the past tense?" (155 chars)
"... that in József Debreczeni's memoir, prisoners of Nazi concentration camps were referred to only by number, and were so dehumanized that they spoke of their given names in the past tense?" (184 chars)
Yeah those are good. How about this
ALT 1 * ... that a a newly translated memoir describes how prisoners were so dehumanized by the Nazis that they became numbers, only using their names in the past tense?
True, numbers are not a new element and we don't want to make it seem that it is. However what is new, and I haven't seen this anywhere else (and I'm familiar with Holocaust literature), is that prisoners referred to their own names in the past tense. How about this:
ALT 2 * ... that a newly translated memoir says prisoners were so degraded by the Nazis that they used their names in the past tense. "My name was...."?
Ok. If you can clean that hook up for presentation (you're missing the question mark, and you'll want to remove that parenthetical), I will complete the review. Also, if you have other hooks in mind (I see a lot of potential hooks in your article!) please also add them. Viriditas (talk) 20:42, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
OK did the cleanup. Yes there is much that can come out of that book. I must tell you frankly that I have never read a book like that before, and I have read tons of Holocaust books. In a sense, not much really new. We know prisoners were caned. We know they were starved. But what makes this book stand out is the manner in which it was described, so vividly. We know prisoners were assigned numbers, for instance. But I have never read a memoir that referred to prisoners themselves abandoning their own names so casually. "I was Farkas." Coretheapple (talk) 20:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's a tough hook! I'm not sure we can do it exactly like that, but I see what you are trying to do now. I didn't know you actually intended to keep "My name was" in the hook. Let me think about how to best do this. Viriditas (talk) 20:53, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's fine with me. Incidentally the secondary source referencing that passage refers to this as an indication of "dehumanization" so we can sub "dehumanized." May be more precise. So how about:
ALT4: ... that a Holocaust memoir translated in 2023 described prisoners so dehumanized by the Nazis that they introduced themselves in past tense, as in "My name was..."?
Overall: Earwig really dislikes "originally published in Hungarian in Yugoslavia in 1950" and "translated into more than a dozen languages", so figure out a way to rewrite those phrases. I realize some people might let that pass, but I think it should be easy to rephrase it so that it stands out from the original source. Although it is not essential or required, I would link kapo in the body, and remove it and the duplicate link to József Debreczeni in the see also section. As for the hooks, I'm fine with ALT 4. Viriditas (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Coretheapple My apologies to spring this on you if you were not already aware. Given that this was nominated after 8 March, and that you appear to have more than 20 nominations, you should provide a second QPQ.--Launchballer21:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply