Talk:Death marches during the Holocaust/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Pseudo scholar Daniel Goldhagen stated that those death marches prove the anti-semitism of the SS-men and SS-women, because, he says there was no organization to enforce orders anymore. So he says, the SS-men acted out of their free will. I think a more probable answer to the question why these death marches took places is

1. a residual sense of obedience. Obedience had been drilled during years into the SS-men and hence did not disappear overnight. Himmler had ordered to take the Jews with them as a kidnapper and use the Jews as a warrant to negotiate with the Allied forces.
2. fear of having to fight the enemy if they had no task anymore (i.e. if they had no Jews anymore)

Unfortunately I have no references for what I write so it cannot go into the article. Please do not insert Daniel Goldhagen's opinions in the article. Andries 21:42, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Freedom fighter or terrorist, dissident or extremist, patriot or nationalist extremist, holocaust revisionist or holocaust denier, concentration camp evacuation or death march, .... They all mean the same, but the first has a more or less objective meaning and the second has a strong pejorative leaning to it. It's strange how selective Wikipedia tends to be in its objectivity.

The "death marches" were just evacuations of the camps. The poor conditions were normal, regarding the fact that war had been going on for several years and the Germans were about to lose it. The shooting of prisoners who couldn't follow, is something I'm sure the Americans or Russians would also have done. Calling the evacutions "death marches" is yet another attempt as demonised the Germans by using semantics. --IlluSionS667 16:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is no limit to self-deception and selective interpretation. Although Goldhagen's work is not rigorously defensible historiography, the above writer has even less justification for his asinine comments. "Evacuations" normally take place out of fear of the individuals falling into the hands of hostile forces. There was no such danger for the occupants of the concentration or extermination camps, whether Jews or gentiles. The purpose of these horrific death "marches" was twofold: (1) attempting to prevent the victims from being discovered by advancing Russian troops (there was still an irrational hope that Germany would not lose the war), and (2) continuing the attempt to exterminate them all, in the weeks remaining until Germany's surrender. 66.108.4.183 23:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth

I believe joining a death march was voluntary - some chose to stay behind ( they were not killed ) ie Wiesel was given the chance to stay behind in the hospital. However,Elie and most who were not sick cast their lot with the SS - not unreasonable, the Russian troops reputation was scary. The Arolson files should be able to clear up his mother and sister's fate - death certificates, his other two sister I believe lived to be old ladies. 159.105.80.141 18:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussions here / merge proposal

Whoever slapped on the merge tag did nothing to explain why he/she did this; so I removed it. Other than that, this seems to have been a place for history forgers to vent their spleen. --Leifern 13:49, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I have read that joining the march or staying behind was voluntary. Any info on whether this was true or not. Photos of "rescued" camp inmates show people who remained behind were either sick, old, etc or in very good condition.

Expansion

This article should be expanded given that the death marches were a significant part of the holocaust

Much/most of this seems to be based on the USHM. The USHM article has some very odd points - march people all the way to the sea to shot them there. Any evidence of this? Also the Auschwitz march gives numbers that would amount to 400+ bodies per mile - any link to this, I have never seen or heard of this amny bodies being recovered along any march route. It appears from the photo in the article that the "march" went past many small houses and villages - there must be some evidence of the bodies every 10 feet or so, local people would be hard pressed not to have noticed.159.105.80.141 14:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Cattle cars

Mentioning this serves really no purpose, and goes only to show malicious bias in the article, CATTLE CARS are also used to transport people, it is a non issue, nothing "genocidal" about it. To this day, like MILITARY TROOPS when they travel on mass by rail, to deploy on operations or on training. And certainly during WW2. Russian, Finnish, German troops for sure, but im sure others did and still do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.154.204.152 (talk) 21:35, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

That expressions like "pseudo scholar" about the academically tenured Harvard professor Goldhagen (some Jewish Germanophils like Jacob Neusner and the late Raul Hilberg choose to think that pre-WW2 and WW2-era Germany weren't that antisemitic and therefore don't like his idea that the Nazis were popular because of a pre-existing "eliminationist antisemitism" in Germany) should be entertained even in a Talk Page seems part of the disastrous internation drift towards antisemitism. OF COURSE there were Death Marches, exactly as described; my aunt and her children died in them. Neo-Nazis, stay out of Wikipedia; stay out of the world. You're wrong, evil and stupid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.185.240.120 (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

User 91.XXXXXX has some anti-American attitudes. He called the members of the Polish Uprisings a bunch of terrorists. That section got removed under the guise of being a flame-note. He thinks it is illegal to shoot at a prison riot under the definition that they are civilians that are unarmed and defenceless, though they are still capable of staging a rising. Maybe he is a Barrister, surely it has nothing to do with Nazism? --83.108.30.25 (talk) 00:04, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Funny - the wording cattle cars you can find in descriptions of post-war expulsions of Germans. Xx234 (talk) 14:25, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Stutthof to Lauenburg

There are errors, it's the text from Stutthof article but incorrectly rewritten.Xx234 (talk) 14:27, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Section 1.5, Stutthof to Lauenburg, seems to accurately reflect the citation in reference #2, but the second-last paragraph in the "Overview" paragraph is not supported by the citation (which is indicated as having been retrieved in April 2015, prior to the last update to the source in August 2015). In particular, these sentences are not supported by the citation: "Seven hundred prisoners were killed during one ten-day march of 7,000 Jews, including 6,000 women, who were being moved from camps in the Danzig region. Those still alive when the marchers reached the coast were forced into the Baltic Sea and shot." The citation (as well as section 1.5) does not refer to a ten-day march, nor does it suggest that those forced into the Baltic Sea and shot were those who were left. I'm not sure if it is better to find a new source for the text or to change the text to reflect the source used. Hopefully the person who added that text will be able to reconcile it. --RealGrouchy (talk) 03:21, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of memoirs from the Holocaust death marches

I was wondering how to approach this. On the one hand, some memoirs provide invaluable first-hand accounts of death marches; on the other hand, they also disseminate Nazi propaganda lies often on the same pages of books published in good faith. The outcome is unacceptable, because the required links to online previews display both, the painful truth, and the hearsay monstrosity ... side by side. Anyone, clicking on such a link, would have the right (guarantied by the Wikipedia:Citing sources policy guideline) not to ignore any parts of the statements made by the author. This is described at "Help:How to mine a source" in the following way: You are "cherry-picking" by only citing sources (or parts of sources) that agree with the claim you want to include. This is a fraudulent approach, a fallacious form of original research in which the editor is deciding what is and isn't true and warping Wikipedia content and citations to fit this personal pre-conceived notion. — Here's an example of this sort of virtual entrapment from the book Survivor: Auschwitz, the Death March and My Fight for Freedom By Sam Pivnik, ISBN 1444758403. On page 153 while giving his readers a day-by-day (and harrowing) account of the Auschwitz death march, Pivnik writes (in exactly the same paragraph):

"We got no food that night and precious little sleep for all we were exhausted. And the place, someone told me, was Gleiwitz, where all this madness was supposed to have started the day before my thirteenth birthday, when Poland attacked, without warning or provocation, a German radio station." — Now, please read the Gleiwitz incident in Wikipedia.

I have no choice but to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Poeticbent talk 20:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

The page is of poor quality

• Evacuated priosoners in 1945 were of different ethnicites, so the name of the page is controversial - Holocaust?
• Massacres aren't described here - Celle, Palmnicken, Gardelegen massacre.Xx236 (talk) 07:40, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Lead image

Buidhe, can you say why you believe the lead image fails WP:NFCC? [1] SarahSV ^(talk) 21:54, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, Because free images exist which show the same event (death marches) and contextual significance is not shown. If you disagree feel free to open discussion at FFD. buidhe 22:05, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Can you link to a free image showing people marching? I'm not aware of any. Also, what do you mean here by "contextual significance"? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:07, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, I'd appreciate a response. If there are free images of Holocaust death marches (marches, not corpses), please link to them and I will take a look. And what more contextual significance is needed for a lead image of a Holocaust death march in the article about Holocaust death marches? SarahSV ^(talk) 21:46, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Instead of replying here, Buidhe has nominated the image for deletion. [2] SarahSV ^(talk) 22:10, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Text copied?

Diannaa, your edit summary states, directly after my edits: "Attribution: text in this article was copied from The Holocaust on April 1, 2020." That makes it appear that I've committed plagiarism.

I assume you mean the text beginning "Already sick after months or years of violence and starvation". I added that text to this article when I created it in March 2005: "Prisoners, already sick after months or years of violence and starvation ...".

On 1 August 2005, Goodoldpolonius2 added it to the Holocaust: "The Nazis marched prisoners, already sick after months or years of violence and starvation ..."

Yesterday, as part of my efforts to improve this article, I restored it to the lead.

So it's my own writing I'm restoring. And another editor copied it to the Holocaust. Nothing in this article has been copied from that article or from any other (that I know of). SarahSV ^(talk) 21:33, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

If you are the sole author of the prose, attribution is not required. There have been a lot of reports lately and the Wikiblame tool has not been functioning lately so I didn't have time to manually search for who had originally written the prose or in which article. Sorry to have bothered you.— Diannaa (talk) 22:14, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Diannaa, thank you. Would you please revdelete your edit summary? SarahSV ^(talk) 22:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

There's no revision deletion criterion that matches this situation. I could do a retraction edit summary if you like. — Diannaa (talk) 22:24, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a false allegation about a living person. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:07, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Diannaa, I'd prefer not to have to keep pinging you. Can you say how this happened? You made one edit to this article in 2013 but otherwise you've not been involved in it. What happened to make you look up the text you thought had been copied? And if you thought there was a problem, could you not have asked about it on talk? SarahSV ^(talk) 00:21, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The edit appeared at CopyPatrol, our tool that lists items that are flagged as potential copyright violations. It looked like unattributed copying to me, so I added the required attribution. Here is a link to the bot report. — Diannaa (talk) 00:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing there that explains it. Flagged by whom? Where does it mention the Holocaust article? And why didn't you leave a note for me on talk? I would really appreciate an explanation, rather than having to keep asking.

I don't copy from other articles. I don't want to make a rod for my own back by saying I never do it, but I dislike the practice because it cheats the reader, so if I do it, it's unusual; I would say very unusual. I know that you do it. When I was expanding Auschwitz concentration camp recently, I found parts of the background section, which you added here, in Wannsee Conference, Nazi Germany, Josef Mengele, Nuremberg Laws, and Joseph Goebbels. Adding attribution means it's allowed, but it doesn't mean it's okay. I didn't say anything because life's too short. So it's distressing to have you suddenly appear here, assume bad faith, accuse me in an edit summary of plagiarism, then put me in a position of having to tease out an explanation and ask you to fix it. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:33, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The edit was flagged by a bot because your addition appeared elsewhere. It was not my intention to be deceptive or coy - for some reason I assumed that you knew of this bot's existence. It was not my intention that my edit summary should be interpreted by you or anyone else as an accusation of wrongdoing. I apologise for the mistake, and sorry for causing you distress.— Diannaa (talk) 09:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

What might not be obvious is that nobody activated the bot. The bot runs continuously, checking all additions over a certain size to article space and draft space. The bot has been in operation since 2016.— Diannaa (talk)

Diannaa, I would appreciate it very much if you would fix this. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:48, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

What specifically do you want me to do?— Diannaa (talk) 10:59, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Diannaa, this is out of order. I asked you to revdelete it. If you're not willing to do that, then make it clear that you made a mistake. If I had done it, I'd have apologized and fixed it as soon as the error was pointed out. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:31, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I did apologise already, on April 2. I can't do revision deletion, because there's no policy-based reason to do so. I offered on April 1 to do a retraction edit summary; you never said whether or not that would be an acceptable resolution, which is why I never did it. I will do so now, since revision deletion for a simple mistake such as this does not fall under any of the revision deletion criterion. — Diannaa (talk) 01:25, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

You wrote in your new edit summary: "content was actually restored from an old revision of this page". It was restored from the earliest version, which I wrote. What is happening here that you won't acknowledge that? SarahSV ^(talk) 01:42, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 26 May 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Death marches during the Holocaust (non-admin closure) Lennart97 (talk) 10:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

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Death marches (Holocaust) → Death march (Holocaust) – Singular form, per WP:PLURAL: none of the listed exceptions apply. Lembit Staan (talk) 04:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Update: Option II: Death marches during the Holocaust, suggested during the discussion

• Oppose I believe that meets the criteria "Articles on groups or classes of specific things". Death march in singular refers to any individual march, but death marches in plural refers to a stage of the Holocaust. When it refers to the subject of the article, death marches is always pluralized in reliable sources. See examples:
  • Encyclopedias:
    • "Death Marches". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
    • "Death Marches". The Holocaust. Sydney Jewish Museum. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
    • "The Death Marches". Facing History and Ourselves. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
    • "Death marches, 1944-1945 – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for schools". London Jewish Cultural Centre. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
    • "The Death Marches". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
    • Gutman, Israel, ed. (1995). "Death Marches". Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Macmillan Library Reference USA. ISBN 978-0-02-864528-5.
    • Rozett, Robert (2013-11-26). "Death Marches". Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Routledge. pp. 182–184. ISBN 978-1-135-96950-9. (note: these are two separate books with the same title)
    • Walter, Baumel Judith Tydor Laqueur; Laqueur, Walter; Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor (2001-01-01). "Death Marches". The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-300-13811-5.
  • Scholarly publications:
    • Blatman, Daniel (2011). The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05049-5.
    • Cole, Tim (2013). "Holocaust roadscapes: Retracing the "death marches" in contemporary Europe". Cahiers de géographie du Québec. 57 (162): 445–459. doi:10.7202/1026528ar. ISSN 0007-9766.
    • Winter, Martin Clemens (2015-09-02). "Evacuating the Camps: The Last Collective Crime of Nazi Society". Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust. 29 (3): 138–153. doi:10.1080/23256249.2015.1083734. (see abstract)
    • Bauer, Yehuda (2011-08-02). The Death Marches, January–May 1945. K. G. Saur. ISBN 978-3-11-097651-9.
    • Krakowski, Shmuel (2011-08-02). The Death Marches in the Period of the Evacuation of the Camps. K. G. Saur. ISBN 978-3-11-097651-9.

(t · c) buidhe 04:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• "Articles on groups or classes of specific things" -- this is not a criterion, but a group of criteria, listed below. Because just as well I may say "Trees" is an article about a very specific class of things. Therefore this argument does not seem to be convincing. The list of title did not convince me either. I can readily find bokk titles like Trees: structure and function. or Decision trees (differn kind of trees:-). On one hand, Birds, their structure and function. On the other hand, Birds of Japan does make a sense, because indeed it would be very strange to have Bird of Japan. ... And while I was typing this it dawned on me that this is just the kind of title we need: Death marches during the Holocaust: just like Birds of Japan is a subcategory of birds, DMdtH is a subcategory of death marches. What do you think? Lembit Staan (talk) 06:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

  I'm fine with Death marches during the Holocaust. (t · c) buidhe 07:13, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support change to Death marches during the Holocaust, and oppose Death march (Holocaust). Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 06:41, 27 May 2021 (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.

Holocaust in first sentence?

The first sentence of the lead currently doesn't mention the Holocaust, even though the Holocaust is a prominent part of the article's title (both before and after the move). Should it maybe start In the context of the Holocaust instead of In the context of Nazi Germany, with part of the second sentence changing from toward the end of World War II and the Holocaust to simply toward the end of World War II? Lennart97 (talk) 10:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I've made the change I proposed above, except for starting with During the Holocaust, as in the context of seems unnecessarily wordy. Feel free to improve. Lennart97 (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)