Talk:Glinciszki massacre/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 13:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The single image is correctly licensed. I was surprised to see a list of victims, as I've often seen those removed from articles, but checking the archives at WT:NOTMEMORIAL I see the decision is left to editors at each article on a case-by-case basis. I'm copyediting as I go through; please revert if I make any mistakes.

• Looking at the sources, I see a heavy reliance on Rokicki. Searching for mentions of him online, his work seems to get cited as one would expect for a scholar, so I have no reason to doubt citations to him, but are there no other studies of the massacre that could be added as sources?

  Rokicki wrote a comprehensive monograph on both crimes (Glinciszki and Dubinki), which has earned high praise. Of course, one can reach for older historiography, but those are far inferior, relying on single, isolated sources. In fact, the topic has not, to my knowledge, been studied in depth before, appearing only in passim in works devoted to other topics.Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• What was the name of the village at the time of the massacre? The article says it was on the Polish side of the border before the war, and as far as I can tell it was then called Glinciszki, but if so I would have expected to see that name used in the narrative. However, I also see that the Vilnius region was "handed over to Lithuania", so perhaps the Lithuanian name became official at that point? In which case the name in the narrative is fine. I think we should clarify in the article what name was in use before the war, and what name was in use at the time of the massacre. And I also see that the victim table reverses the narrative, with the Polish name given first.

  See the discussion above. The village was part of Poland, that was occupied after 1939 by Soviet Union, which handed it over to Lithuania, and again was seized by Soviet Union after annexation of Lithuania, to be finally occupied by Nazi Germany after 1941. The whole time it was de iure part of Poland. I think we should use Polish name throughout the article, but it was blocked by other users.Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Does that mean that in June 1944 the official local name was Glitiškės? I understand the de jure comment, I would assume that any local Polish speakers would have said Glinciszki, and any local Lithuanian speakers would have said Glitiškės; I'm trying to figure out what it would have been called by the local authorities. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is an issue for GA -- I think it can be made clear to the reader either way -- but I would prefer to see consistency if possible. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Local authorities were imposed by occupier, I don't think their stance should be taken into account. And no, it wasn't Glitiškės, because it was German occupation Marcelus (talk) 23:10, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  What was the name as far as the Germans were concerned then? And I'm a bit concerned about neutrality and stability, both of which are of course requirements for GA. If the village name is represented inconsistently in article, and you can't get agreement on the talk page for a consistent way to name the village, I'm not sure the article is ready for GA. Re "I don't think their stance should be taken into account": we don't get to make those judgement calls. Currently you have a long and hard-to-read parenthesis giving the name of the village under different regimes; perhaps it would be better to make this a subsection of the "Background" section, explaining the history of the village name and saying what it was known as at each point. That could make it apparent to the reader that a name at a certain time was the name given by an occupier. But having done that we still need to be consistent within the article about how we refer to the village. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  I really don't know what name the Germans used. To check it I would have to go to WP:PRIMARY. But I also don't think we should pay attention to it. After all, we do not use the names used by occupation regimes to describe wartime events. We are talking about the Warsaw Uprising (not Warshau Uprising) or Valley of Death (Bydgoszcz) (not Valley of Death (Bromberg)), etc. Examples can be multiplied.

  I think the passage in parentheses should be removed, I did not add it, it is not sourced. The name of the article should be "Glinciszki massacre" and this name of the village should be used throughout the article. We really don't need much more information than that the Polish name of the village is Glinciszki and the Lithuanian name is Glitiškės. This is nothing difficult, any reader will figure it out. "History of the village name" is completely secondary here, and in fact does not go beyond what I said. Marcelus (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  I think we should use the Polish name Glinciszki to be consistent with the title of the article. But due to the fact that Cukrakalnis (talk · contribs) imposes the use of the Lithuanian name, and I don't feel like arguing about something so secondary, we can use Glitiškės in the text. Clarification: "The Glinciszki massacre was a mass murder of Polish civilians in the village of Glinciszki (now Glitiškės in Lithuania)," seems to me to be perfectly sufficient. Marcelus (talk) 14:55, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  The village was no longer part of Poland by 1944, so it is only logical to just use the Lithuanian name instead of a Polish one for a location that was and still is in Lithuania. When I proposed the article be moved to Glitiškės massacre instead of Glinciszki massacre for that precise argument (Talk:Glinciszki massacre#Requested move 18 June 2022), several Polish editors voted against it. It's not about me imposing something, but about WP:UE: follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject (German for German politicians, Portuguese for Brazilian towns, and so on). Ergo, Lithuanian for Lithuanian villages. Cukrakalnis (talk) 16:05, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  Thata was already discussed in Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Święciany_massacre_and_others; it was territory of Poland under a foreign occupation. Certainly it wasn't part of the Lithuanian state in 1944. Marcelus (talk) 16:23, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  The article is currently inconsistent -- Marcelus, I appreciate that you've been willing to change the village name in the text to the Lithuanian name, but it makes no sense for the article to be at one name and the content to be at another. I'm going to fail this; I don't see how to pass it unless the editors of the article can agree on consistent usage between the name and the body. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm sad to hear that, and frankly think your decision is unjustified. I don't think that such a trivial reason would be an obstacle to getting a GA; moreover, it is not an unresolvable problem, so I am surprised by your haste in making such a decision. Regards. Marcelus (talk) 19:09, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

• Not a GA issue, but I think it would be more natural to use "Background" as the section title rather than "Prelude".

  Agree Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• "It was a mixed nationality region, where national self-identification was fluid and some of the respondents tended to identify with the current state authority, which then translated into their declared nationality, therefore, the results of the German census of 1916 seem to be relatively reliable." I don't follow the last part of this. The village was inside the Polish border, so this means respondents would have declared their nationality as Polish; I understand that. Why does this mean that we should trust the census data?

  The 1916 German census is considered reasonably reliable because it was done for internal use and was not intended for propaganda purposes (to show the superiority of "ours" in the region). Basically, the Germans entered an unfamiliar country during WW1 and, to their surprise, encountered large numbers of Poles, Belarusians, etc., contrary to what the Russian census claimed. In view of this, they decided to organize their own censusMarcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  That makes sense, but I think some of that reasoning needs to be in the article so the reader understands the argument. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• It's hard to follow the census data presented in this way. Could it be put in a table with columns for nationality, percentage, date of census, authority taking the census, and notes on reliability? There would still be a need for discussion in the text but a table would be a lot easier to read.

  This would be quite difficult because we do not have serial data for the village itself, and the ones we have are for administrative areas with different borders.Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Well, if the data is relevant in the narrative text, despite that problem, it's no less relevant in table form, is it? This is just a presentation issue. And the fact that the administrative areas are different would be more apparent, not less, assuming that one of the column headings in the table would be "Administrative area". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• If Böhme is definite about the outcome of the ambush (four killed, two injured, two escaped) why are we unclear (i.e. saying 8-9 instead of 8) about the number of auxiliary policemen ambushed?

  I'm not sure, Rokicki writes like this: a squad in the strength of a company, i.e. 8-9 people, 4 killed, two wounded, two escaped. Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  OK -- you're faithful to the source, so I think there's no way to improve that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• "Within hours, a company of about 50 men from the 258th Battalion arrived in Glitiškės." I would mention immediately that Polekauskas was with the company, or its commander if we know that.

  Ok, he was with them. Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• "Józef Bałendo, who was wounded in the hand and covered with other bodies, survived." Since two others, Józef Klukowski and Wanda Bałendówna, were only wounded, and not killed until later, I would say so at this point, and name them. How did Balendo survive the mass burial?

  Ok, I will add the info about the circumstances of his escape.Marcelus (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  See below re Klukowski and Bałendówna. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• "According to some witnesses, the torturers were influenced by the attitude of the Dutch agricultural instructor." I don't understand this -- do you mean that those who beat Żywiecki did so because of his attitude towards them?

  Clarified the sentence Marcelus (talk) 11:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• "By their side they killed two wounded victims": I think this means that while the eight men were digging the grave the two wounded victims were killed. If so I would make it "While these men were digging, the offices killed two of the three wounded victims, Klukowski and Bałendówna."

  Agree Marcelus (talk) 11:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  I also meant that they should be mentioned when Bałendo is mentioned. I.e. change the earlier sentence to "Three people were not immediately killed: Józef Bałendo, Józef Klukowski and Wanda Bałendówna. Bałendo, who was wounded in the hand and covered with other bodies, survived, slipping out of the execution site unnoticed." Then change this sentence to "While they were digging the graves, the policemen killed Klukowski and Bałendówna, the two wounded victims who had not escaped." Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Done Marcelus (talk) 13:29, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• I don't understand the sequence of events involving Władysław Komar. The article says he was a known member of AK; known to who? To the Lithuanians? If so he would have been a fugitive, wouldn't he? And if he appeared to be a representative of Landbewirtschaftungsgesellschaft Ostland why would they have suspected him? Why did the Lithuanian police in Paberžė suspect him?

  Added more context, hope it's fine Marcelus (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

• I would keep the aftermath in chronological order. As currently written it's surprising that there were exhumations by the same company that committed the massacre, until one discovers that the Germans were displeased and had arrested Poleskauskas and others. What date were the arrests?
• "the evacuation of Lithuanian colonists": what does "colonist" mean here? Were Lithuanians moving to the area to try to make it more ethnically Lithuanian?

  Yes, I will add more about that to "Background" section

• According to the massacre section, 40 people were gathered; one was spared and one survived, but Rokicki thinks there were 39 dead. Is the "40" just an estimate? Should it say "about 40"?
• Judging from the prior paragraph the "List of victims" table is Rokicki's version; I would add a sentence above the table saying so.
• "A few days later, the dead were exhumed and reburied near the road to Paberžė (Polish: Podbrzezie) on German war cemetery from 1915. At the same time, a list of the victims ..." The exhumation and reburial is already described in the previous section. Perhaps make this "When the dead were exhumed and reburied a few days after the massacre, a list of the victims ..."
• Does Rokicki explain why he adds one to Sławińska's total?

I'll do some spotchecks on the sources once these points are addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:08, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm failing this. I asked above for some consistency to be implemented in the article for the name of the village, and I gather this has been an ongoing point of contention and is not going to be quickly solved. I would recommend settling the issue, and making the name consistent between the article title and the name used for the village throughout the article, before renominating. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)