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Grammar/punctuation

In the third paragraph: "Where the Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings." The "the" before Germany is unnecessary.

Additionally, the period preceding citation 10 should be inside the quotation marks.

Adding time stamp so this will autoarchive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, "Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings." should be "When Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen would murder Jews and political opponents in mass shootings."

Institutional collaboration

Perhaps there can be a reference to Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens and his call, along with members of the greek academic community, to halt the deportation of Greek Jews from Nazi occupied Greece. Damaskinos formally protested against the deportation, clashed with the german authorities and was threatened to be shot, in an incident documented by "The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation" (http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/general/greek-orthodox-church-academic/).

Apart from that, the greek version of the article about the Archibishop claims that he ordered the priests to supply the Jews with certificates of (orthodox) baptism, in order to rescue them from arrest by the Nazis, but i can't provide any source for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.86.12 (talk) 15:20, 1 October 2011

Adding time stamp so this will autoarchive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Grammar/punctuation

In the third paragraph: "Where the Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings." The "the" before Germany is unnecessary.

Additionally, the period preceding citation 10 should be inside the quotation marks.

Adding time stamp so this will autoarchive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Typo in quote from Peter Novick

There is a typo in this quote: "Peter Novick argued: "A moment's reflection makes clear that the notion of uniqueness is quite vacuous . . . [and], in practice, deeply offensive. What else call all of this possibly mean except 'your catastrophe, unlike ours, is ordinary'"

"What else call" should be "what else can."

Adding time stamp so this will autoarchive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Please include this in the article

This excerpt is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Bulgaria and roughly summarizes the remarkable act of saving the entire Jewish population in the pre-war territory of Bulgaria. I think this is a very positive example from the dark-years of the war and we should keep examples like this one as a guiding sign that a light can be found even in the darkest times. I copied it from the script section:

During World War II, the Bulgarian Parliament and Tsar Boris III enacted the 1941 Law for the Protection of the Nation, which introduced numerous legal restrictions on Jews in Bulgaria. Specifically, the law prohibited Jews from voting, running for office, working in government positions, serving in the army, marrying or cohabitating with ethnic Bulgarians, using Bulgarian names, or owning rural land.[1][2][3][4] The legislation also established quotas that limited the number of Jews in Bulgarian universities.[4][5] Not only did Jewish leaders protest the law, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Bulgarian Workers' Party officials, twenty-one writers, and professional organizations also opposed.[4][6]

Unlike some other Nazi Germany allies or German-occupied countries excluding Denmark and Finland, Bulgaria managed to save its entire 48,000-strong Jewish population during World War II from deportation to concentration camps, with Dimitar Peshev playing a crucial role in preventing the deportations, as well as Bulgarian Church officials and ordinary citizens. The story of the Bulgarian Jews during World War II has been told in "Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews"[7] by Michael Bar-Zohar, an Israeli historian, politician and former Knesset member who was born in Bulgaria. On the subject is also a book by Tzvetan Todorov, a French intellectual born in Bulgaria and the Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (C.N.R.S.) in Paris. Todorov wrote "The Fragility of Goodness: Why Bulgaria's Jews Survived the Holocaust" (published by Princeton Univ. Press), where he uses letters, diaries, government reports and memoirs to reconstruct what happened in Bulgaria during World War II, which led to the preservation of the lives of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews.[8]

On the eve of the planned deportations requested by Nazi Germany, the Bulgarian government asked for a breakdown of the German plans for the eventual deportees, and was told that roughly one-half will be employed in agriculture in Greater Germany and one-fourth, reported to be semi-skilled laborers, will be "allowed to redeem themselves" by "volunteering to work" in the war industries of the Ruhr, while the remaining one-fourth will be transported to the Gouvernement General (German-occupied Poland) for employment in "work directly connected to the war". This information was also distributed to the neutral countries via German diplomatic channels and was reported on March 24, 1943 in the New York Times from Berne, Switzerland, along with the rather cynical statement that "the former death rate in the Jewish colonies of occupied Poland has shown a considerable decrease in the past three months", with the listed reason being that "now many of the male Jews are employed in army work near the fighting zones", and these receive approximately the same rations as German soldiers. Still hesitant to German deportation requests, in late 1942 and early 1943 the Bulgarian government utilized Swiss diplomatic channels to inquire whether possible deportations of the Jews can happen to British-controlled Palestine by ships from the Black Sea rather than to concentration camps in Poland by trains, about which rumors of mistreatment spread, and for which the Germans requested a significant amount of money. However, this attempt was blocked by the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden.[9] Following that failure, Bulgarian authorities permitted Germany to deport the majority of the non-Bulgarian Jews in the areas of Bulgarian occupation zone in Greece and Yugoslavia which were under Bulgarian administration during the war. Thus, 4,500 Jews from Greek Thrace and Eastern Macedonia reached Poland, while 7,144 from Bulgarian occupied Vardar Macedonia and Pomoravlje reached Treblinka. None of them survived.[10] Although Bulgaria had effectively controlled the regions immediately beyond its borders, German authorities, who were in charge, recognized only the Bulgarian military administration and not the civil one. Bulgaria granted citizenship both to all ethnic Bulgarians and to others who wished so in those territories, but not to Jews that were already beyond its borders.[11] It is important to note, however, that the territories of Aegean Thrace, Macedonia and other lands controlled by Bulgaria during WW2 were not considered Bulgarian; they were only administered by Bulgaria, but Bulgaria had no say as to the affairs of these lands, following directives from Germany. In contrast with the old Bulgarian territories, where widespread protests against the deportations took place, including petitions to the Sofia government, in Aegean Thrace and Macedonia such organized movements were lacking.[12] As to the Jews in the sovereign state of Bulgaria, deportation to the concentration camps was denied. Furthermore, Bulgaria was officially thanked by the government of Israel despite being an ally of Nazi Germany during the first part of WWII. This story was kept secret by the Soviet Union because the royal Bulgarian government, the King of Bulgaria and the Church were responsible for the huge public outcry at the time, causing the majority of the country to defend its Jewish population. The communist Soviet regime could not countenance credit to be given to the former authorities, the Church or the King, as all three were considered enemies of communism. Thus, the documentation proving the saving of Bulgaria's Jews was suppressed until the end of the Cold War in 1989. Only then did the story come to light. The number of 48 000 Jews was known to Hitler, yet not one was deported or murdered by the Nazis.[12]

The Bulgarian occupational zone included neither Thessaloniki, with its over 55,000 Jews, nor the Western-most part of Macedonia, including the towns of Debar, Struga, and Tetovo, which were part of Italian-occupied Albania.[13] Bulgarian authorities did offer protection to Jews with no Bulgarian nationality, including those who had fled to Bulgaria from Nazi occupation elsewhere.

Adding timestamp so this will autoarchive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Holocaust/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Midnightblueowl (talk · contribs) 23:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC) Hello there. I'm no expert in this subject, but I would be interested in undertaking this particular GA review, with the help of others if they are also interested. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Checklist

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
  1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. I think that there is a lot of superfluous wording here, alongside other textual issues. For example:
* "Etymology and use of the term" could be better titled "Etymology and terminology."
* "used in English to denote great massacres" - is "great" really the best term to be using here, considering its multiple meanings ?
* "television mini-series Holocaust" - what country was this produced in; in what nations did it introduce the word "Holocaust" too ?
I could go on and on...
  1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. * The lead does not sufficiently summarize the rest of the article; there is little or no mention, for instance, of the legacy left by the Holocaust, or the original motivation of those who perpetrated it.
* The general layout of the article is not as user friendly as it could be, for instance jumping about chronologically between the "Distinctive Features" and "Development and execution" sections. The reader is told about the extermination camps before learning the reasoning behind the genocide.
* Why are some subsections in the "Development and execution" section given dates, and others not ?
* Whole chunks of text are just quotes from published sources, which is not permitted by Wikipedia policy.
* Again, I could go on...
2. Verifiable with no original research:
  2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. Not all paragraphs are referenced.
  2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). There are sentences, such as that beginning with "The Nazis used a euphemistic phrase..." which are unreferenced. There is also at least one "[citation needed]" notification.
  2c. it contains no original research. There are sentences, such as that beginning with "The Nazis used a euphemistic phrase..." which are unreferenced; are they therefore original research ?
3. Broad in its coverage:
  3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. There is little on the Holocaust's legacy in the world.
  3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Some sections go into quite a bit of detail, others go into very little; Wikipedia cannot accept this haphazard manner.
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. I'm not confident that this page manages to remain neutral on this hugely controversial issue; its use of language consistently betrays a bias towards the belief that the Holocaust was a bad thing. For instance, the term "murder" is regularly employed – I appreciate that this term is itself widely used in the literature on the Holocaust, but it is also a term that carries with it solely negative connotations. Imagine that you were a Nazi, or a Neo-Nazi, who really believed that the Jews were an evil threat to German civilization who had to be eradicated; would you consider the deaths in the Holocaust to constitute "murder" in that instance, or would you instead think of them as justified executions ? Terms like "killings", "deaths" and "genocide" could be used without the same connotations. Furthermore, in a brief section discussing the Nazi motivation for the Holocaust, it remarks "in an attempt to justify the killings", containing the implication that the killings were not succesfully justified; a far more NPOV use would be "as justification for the killings".
Furthermore, there seems to be a major emphasis on the genocide of the Jews, not of other communities exterminated by the Nazis; this betrays a bias towards the controversial belief that the "Holocaust" refers only to the extermination of the Jews which can be seen as denigrating the suffering inflicted upon homosexuals, the disabled, Romani etc.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
  6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
  6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
  7. Overall assessment. There's clearly been a lot of great work that's gone on here recently, and the page is in much better shape than when I last checked it out. I'm sad to say however that I cannot award it GA status, for it falls short on far too many of the categories. It really is an important issue, and for this reason has to be really, really good before it can go on to reach GA and then FA. I'm sceptical that continual tinkering will actually bring this article up to GA quality; I think it needs a methodological, systematic improvement campaign, based on heavy use of the established, specialist and primarily academic literature into the subject. Ideally, that needs an expert in the subject. Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments on GA Review

Religious Leaders Definite 'Countervailing' Force Against Antisemitism

I definitely agree on the lack of neutrality in this article, but not for the same reasons sited in the review. The article portrays all German society as devote Nazis and antisemitic. It not only fails to acknowledge dissidents to the Nazi regime, but claims there were none. I have an interest in religious thought especially Lutheran religious leaders such as Bonhoeffer. A comment in the article reads:

"Saul Friedländer writes that: "Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity with the Jews."[22] He writes that some Christian churches declared that converted Jews should be regarded as part of the flock, but even then only up to a point. Friedländer argues that this makes the Holocaust distinctive because antisemitic policies were able to unfold without the interference of countervailing forces of the kind normally found in advanced societies, such as industry, small businesses, churches, and other vested interests and lobby groups.[22]"

I believe this statement is the complete opinion of the writer, could possibly misrepresent Friedlander (although I have not read Friedlander's work), and is a false statement. The church was most definitely a countervailing force. Religious leaders such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer not only wrote as dissidents to Hitler, but also put their lives on the line (by choice) to stop Hitler. They used every means at their disposal to stop Nazism including plans to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer was tragically killed before the end of the war by the same concentration camps he opposed. I think the article should, at least, be revised to include this alternative point of view and mention of leaders such as Bonhoeffer. The Bonhoeffer article also includes a more in-depth discussion of the church's role including claims of rigged church elections.

This maybe considered a fine point by many, but I think it is an important point underscoring the often overlooked German opposition forces to the Holocaust, antisemitism, and the Nazi party. Willsh10 (talk) 04:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)




(I posted the below yesterday, but it didn't show up on the watch list. I realize that I don't understand the process that is being used here so would appreciate any correction of what I have done.)

I would have responded earlier but I am traveling, in fact to study certain aspects of the Holocaust. Thank you for the effort and comments above. I most certainly agree that the article is a long way from being a GA, if only because of the conflict between the definition in the first paragraph and the many paras and stats relating to non-Jews. A lot of discussion has taken place about the distinction between the Holocaust and the Nazi mass murders of non-Jews. This distinction, which is made by many prominent scholars of Nazi Germany, is well summed up by Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale as follows "The term Holocaust was introduced after the war and, by the 1990s, was generally (although by no means always) understood to mean the mass murder of the Jews by the Germans. In this book the term Holocaust signifies the final version of the Final Solution, the German policy to eliminate the Jews of Europe by murdering them. (Snyder, Timothy (2010-10-12). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Kindle Locations 7591-7594). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.)
I am also rather surprised at the opinion about the use of the word "murder" as reflecting a POV. What is important is that most if not all (I know of none who don't) reliable sources use the word "murder" as a descriptive word. I wouldn't consider a neo-nazi as a reliable source. Perhaps the Nazi leadership would not have used the word murder, but they were certainly convicted of it.
Within the history profession, the proper noun, Holocaust, is no longer controversial. Norman Finkelstein in his important muckraking book, The Holocaust Industry, describes how the capitalization was used by the American Jewish establishment for its own interests and prefers to use the term "Nazi holocaust". But he is really an exception within the history community, an important one non-the-less.
Your overall assessment is well taken. But when a real editing expert, Dianaa, offered to put the article in GA form, her suggestion to remove the list of non-Jewish victims met with resistance from those who do not distinguish Holocaust victims from all Nazi victims. This is an on-going problem and I see no resolution in the near future. In the meantime, there are a lot a good references in the article and for anyone who is willing to drill down there is a lot to learn. The more casual visitor will be rather puzzled.Joel Mc (talk) 07:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

point 2a

Reference 112 completely disagrees with the statement it is supposed to support. --Lacek2 (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
One should check not only of there are references, but if the references make any sense at all (particularly if they support a highly controversial statement). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lacek2 (talkcontribs) 15:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
It does not contradict the text at all, but it's not really a 'reference', but rather more a piece of supplementary information. The statement needs an actual reference. Paul B (talk) 15:55, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I have added an actual reference, of course there are more...Joel Mc (talk) 17:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 May 2013

Kjw894019 (talk) 22:45, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Please read the instructions - you have not stated what it is you are suggesting should be edited. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Addition

I think Displaced persons camp should be added to the "See also>Aftermath" section. It was a huge social and cultural event that lasted for several years after the war. I'd add it myself but the article is locked. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 18:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

5.5 million Jews or 6 million Jews?

Adolf Hitler article:

Hitler's aggressive foreign policy is considered the main cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. His antisemitic policies and racially motivated ideology resulted in the deaths of at least 5.5 million Jews, and millions of other people deemed racially inferior.

Holocaust article:

The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt")[2] also known as Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "catastrophe"; Yiddish: חורבן, Churben or Hurban, from the Hebrew for "destruction"), was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, throughout German-occupied territory.

RaphaelQS (talk) 13:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no contradiction between "at least 5.5 million" and "approximately 6 million". There can be no precise figure. Paul B (talk) 14:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I have posted information on this topic at Talk:Adolf Hitler. -- Diannaa (talk) 14:40, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Gun control RFC

There is an ongoing RFC that may be of interest to editors in this article. Talk:Gun_control#RFC Gaijin42 (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

The bottom of the thread says that the RFC was closed on 28 June due to disagreement of the basic principles of the discussion - correct? Ckruschke (talk) 18:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke
No it doesn't. The thread is still open. Its relevance to the Holocaust, however, is next to non-existent. Paul B (talk) 11:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Holodomor vs Holocaust

The Holodomor needs to be compaired with the Holocaust.

The Holodomor, or Hunger plague, was a famine engineered by the Soviet Union as part of a series of actions, including mass executions, designed to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Census data reveal a shortfall of 11,000, 000 in the Ukrainian population by 1937. Before and during 1937 large numbers of Ukrainians would be executed in the Great Terror which, although all the Soviet Union was affected, had a specifically Ukrainian dimension. http://www.holodomor.org.uk/

The Secret Behind Communism! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WrieUdYe_e8

The Holodomor was a massive famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a constituent union republic of the Soviet Union that took the lives of between 7 and 10 million people. Some communists, like the Swedish Communist Party, still deny that it ever happened. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Holodomor

Holocaust denial vs Holodomor denial needs to be investigated and reported on.

Wikipedia is censored by Holodomor denialists, as it will try to delete and remove this talk and all references to the Holodomor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.215.50.108 (talkcontribs)

Holodomor is a valid article and should be discussed there. Holocaust is a separate article on a separate genocidal event. Please confine your discussion at this talkpage to improvement of the Holocaust article. Acroterion (talk) 03:00, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
"The Holodomor needs to be compaired with the Holocaust." Maybe you can do this on the Holodomor page. A comparison would be useful if there is someone who is knowledgeable about both events. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 18:59, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Any comparisons would need to be based on appropriate published sources, and inclusion would require evidence that undue weight wasn't being attached to particular perspectives. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Would adding Holodomor to the Holocaust (disambiguation) page under "See also" solve, or at least help, the perceived problem in an appropriate way? Just a suggestion. RCraig09 (talk) 11:07, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
No, because dismbiguation pages are for articles one might be looking up using a particular search term. No-one would type in "holocaust" looking for Holodomor. It is not a list articles on mass killings over history. Paul B (talk) 13:07, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Upon further thought, given the broad general definition of holocaust (example: "2. The annihilation or near-annihilation of a group of animals or people, whether by natural or deliberate agency"), the disambiguation page's "See also" section seems an appropriate location for Holodomor for readers searching for holocausts in general. I'm adding it to the disambiguation page and will continue discussion there if needed. — RCraig09 (talk) 16:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 12 July 2013

Search "Jewdaism" should redirect to "Judaism" not "Holocaust" 216.165.126.103 (talk) 22:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

  Done What an odd redirect. GabrielF (talk) 22:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Vandals think they're clever. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 22:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Jafeluv (talk) 07:56, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


The HolocaustHolocaust – This issue has been discussed in years past, but consensus can change. I don't think there can be any doubt that this title fails the second criterion of WP:THE—the definite article isn't capitalized in running text. While it's technically true that the presence or absence of the definite article can change the meaning (Nazi extermination of Jews vs. other events referred to as holocaust), the capitalization difference is more important. And tellingly, there's no conflict that would lead to separate articles, such as crown and The Crown (the example used at WP:THE) or pentagon and The Pentagon. However we title it, the Holocaust is the overwhelming WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term "holocaust." Just ask Google (holocaust -wikipedia). Indeed, the term without the definite article already redirects here. When in doubt, we don't use "the." Just look at the examples. Renaissance is an especially appropriate case. BDD (talk) 21:27, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Support per nom, i.e. WP:THE and general linguistic usage. Holocaust already redirects here so there's not an issue with disambiguation. Cf. Holodomor, Rwandan Genocide, Porajmos, &c. — —  AjaxSmack  01:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. The article clearly doesn't meet WP:THE; Holocaust is the name of the event. Knight of Truth (talk) 11:22, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support, per nom, sounds rational, sensible and logical. — Cirt (talk) 18:09, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support, as long as it is not forgotten that Holocaust remains capitalized in the text as a proper noun.Joel Mc (talk) 08:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Support - LudicrousTripe (talk) 08:50, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Follow-up discussion about a hasty decision

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. There is a rough but clear consensus to revert. Andrewa (talk) 18:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


HolocaustThe Holocaust – I'm listing this at RM again, per request and comments below. (Please note that the stable title before the recent move was The Holocaust, so that should probably be considered the default choice if this results in no consensus.) Jafeluv (talk) 09:53, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

The above decision needs to be reversed for the following reasons:

  1. Context is everything in the use of words and in language. And it is a great shame that this is now not recognized because any time this particular event is referred to as a stand-alone topic it is as "The Holocaust" and not just "Holocaust" which while used in other contexts such as in "Holocaust denial" it is never used as just plain "Holocaust" when referred to or introduced as a notorious event in history. While WP may have some minor language rules, they cannot displace the way this phenomenon is correctly referred to in academia and common language alike since 1945 unchanged.
  2. Considering that this topic has had the title The Holocaust (with Holocaust redirecting to The Holocaust and not the other way around) since 2001 for almost 12 years [1] that in and of itself bespeaks an incredible long-term, long-standing and undisputed accepted WP:CONSENSUS with hundreds of editors (all very familiar with the English language) contributing to this lead article as well as to the many hundreds that have spring up from it working and accepting the name "The Holocaust" and NOT just plain "Holocaust".
  3. The hastiness and carelessness of the above change can be seen from the fact that the title The Holocaust has been the lead article for hundreds of WP:CATEGORIES that all start with the name "The Holocaust" and not just "Holocaust" see Category:The Holocaust and see examples such as Category:The Holocaust by country. Why were those dozens if not hundreds of categories not challenged and changed in WP:CFDs as well??? Maybe because they will look ludicrous since everyone knows that in many contexts "The Holocaust" is not called "Holocaust" as if referring to someone/some thing only by one truncated name, since in this case the use of "The" has ALSO become part of the way this two worded proper-noun is commonly used!
  4. It is therefore incredible, actually inconceivable, and in fact essentially very rude, and a clear violation of WP:ETIQUETTE, that within one week, half a dozen random editors can pass judgment on so awesome a long-standing topic basing themselves on some flimsy misapplication latter-day WP rules from styles of writing and grammar. At least for heavens' sake give the matter more time.
  5. Certainly there should have been an appeal to some expert editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Judaism#Proposals; Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/History#Proposals; Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Europe and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Europe#Proposals; none of which were either notified, informed or asked to comment. (5 of the prior forums have now been notified: [2]; [3]; [4]; [5]; [6]).

The nominator is kindly asked to reverse his hasty proposal until such time as thorough discussions have been held, and asking for neutral admin help in reversing the decision that would have required far longer and more in-depth and fuller discussion for such a sweeping change for a such a serious topic's title. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 07:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

--
Your arrogance is rather tedious. The bit about the categories is irrelevant, since they surely follow from the name of the article. They need to be changed, but your argument is putting the cart before the horse.

Why aren't you arguing analogously for Holodomor to The Holodomor etc.?

"for almost 12 years..."
Is there a certain cut off after which articles can no longer be renamed? If so, when is it? One year? two? five?

"it is never used as just plain 'Holocaust'..."
You don't know what you're talking about, and your use of the word never makes it especially easy for me, since I only need one counterexample to secure victory. Here are four, though there are plenty more:
1234

Thank you, LudicrousTripe (talk) 08:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

"Holocaust" and "The Holocaust" are two different things, as the article explains. "Holocaust" was and still is used in English for catastrophs, mainly those caused by fire (see e.g. the incident about Donald Duck shouting "Holocaust" in the German version of one of the comic books). "The Holocaust" on the other hand only means the genocide of the Jews (and possible other peoples) by the Germans and their helpers during the Nazi regime. "The Holocaust" would imo be the proper lemma here. --Ajnem (talk) 08:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC) P.S. I can't say that I'm particularly happy about the tone LudicrousTripe has chosen.

To User LudicrousTripe (talk · contribs): 1 Kindly observe WP:AGF and WP:NPA. 2 There are zillions of books that go in all sorts of directions and prove very little. Of the 4 books you cite, some are based on foreign (non-English) languages, one from psychology and they prove nothing, just that one can use words in telegramatic style. 3 The common style used by the Jewish people, the main victims of "The Holocaust" and NOT "Holocaust" remains "The Holocaust" in English worldwide. 4 The problem is that the word "holocaust" is just a word, see holocaust (wiktionary) not necessarily related to any particular historical event/s while the phrase "The Holocaust" is known to refer to the genocide of the European Jews by the Nazis during WWII. 5 Unlike The French Revolution that can easily be cut down to French Revolution because it is clear what the subject is i.e. about the French, same for The Industrial Revolution" it can be "Industrial Revolution" but when one says "holocaust" and WP throws that up to the world as the the "main word" in an article it is not clear because who is to say which and what "holocaust" is being referred to? While the word "The" makes it very specific. 6 There are many holocausts, including the word itself, such as in Holocaust (disambiguation). What is to stop the next "move" of making Holocaust into "Holocaust (Jewish)" or "Holocaust (Nazi)" and then you can add a string of holocausts violating all the laws of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up one day. 7 As for your other citations, "Holodomor" is not the subject here. You are throwing in red herrings. It is for those who know about those events to decide, and not for WP editors to make such decisions. 8 The real problem is that there is a factor called Holocaust denial, as well as Antisemitism in the world that caused the Holocaust. 9 So this is a real landmine and it's surprising that people jump to make quick changes here and not expect to be challenged and please note that the word "Holocaust" goes with the word "denial" such that "Holocaust denial" is the polar opposite of "The Holocaust" and whenever changes and truncations take place all the antennae go up. 10 Of course 10+ years is significant. The editors who worked on this article for all those years are not idiots and must be assumed to be well-informed because they produced such a prodigious body of truly encyclopedic work. It is just self-respect for WP to respect all those editors who came before us. Be sensible and it is wise to remember not to induce changes quickly in highly contentious and controversial topics. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 09:17, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, IZAK, you are not doing yourself or anybody who agrees with you a favor by linking users who prefer the lemma Holocaust to The Holocaust to Holocaust deniers and Antisemites. One can disagree with you and argue against lemmata with the article The without being a villain. Cheers, --Ajnem (talk) 10:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I concur with Ajnem on the immediately preceding. However, I have to say that I find this move to be pretty disappointing. I appreciate that LudicrousTripe (talk · contribs) found book title examples supporting a position. But in each of those examples, the word appears in a context that makes its reference to the Nazi-era Holocaust apparent. I would challenge you to find places where "Holocaust" is used on its own other than (a) within that kind of context, or (b) functioning as as an attributive (adjective). Out here, on its own, by itself in search engines, it is surely The Holocaust.
I have to add that I get frustrated a bit when people invoke WP:MOS rules like WP:THE to change things that otherwise function very well and very clearly, as this title surely has over 12 years. I can invoke other rules as well, like WP:COMMONNAME. I do wonder whether WP:TITLECHANGES was considered: "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." Do you actually believe that The was a good reason to change it? Really? That kind of style violation is that egregious? I'm sorry; I'm not buying. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The term with the article is the almost universally used term., as far as I can tell, and is much clearer as meaning the specific historical event. Izak asked me, and rather than just giving my own opinion I checked with people involved in the RW editing of subjects involving this. The MOS is not a straight-jacket. DGG ( talk ) 17:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert to The Holocaust per most of what IZAK posted. Even one of his points is enough. The article is about The Holocaust, not a dictionary article about holocausts'. --Shuki (talk) 20:44, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert to "The Holocaust". "The Holocaust" does fit the principle of WP:THE in the sense of "official or commonly used proper name..." I find that almost all common uses include "The" or "the"; LudicrousTripe's four examples are from book titles—which are non-common usages, book titles being contrived as clever or dramatic, purposely non-standard word usages. RCraig09 (talk) 22:50, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I would argue for reverting back to "The Holocaust", which is the generally used reference for the material that we find in this article. The title of an article suggests its scope. I don't think we should tinker with the title of this article in this way unless our intention is to alter the scope of this article. Is our intention, in the title change, to alter the scope of this article? Bus stop (talk) 05:57, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert. Although most of IZAK's points are irrelevant, "holocaust" is the generic noun, and "the Holocaust" is the specific one talked about in this article. This clearly meets WP:THE point 1. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert Arthur Rubin has crystallized my thoughts nicely on this. Dbrodbeck (talk) 13:23, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert. 'The Holocaust' is clearly the more common usage. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:29, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert. per IZAK. Is there really any room for discussion about this? רח"ק | Talk | Contribs 15:12, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert per IZAK. The Holocaust clearly meets WP:THE point 1. Calling the page Holocaust does not uniquely refer to the Jewish Holocaust, but to many other genocides; the Armenian Genocide immediately comes to mind, and they do call that a Holocaust. A generic term like Holocaust might just as well be a disambiguation page (see Holocaust (disambiguation)). But The Holocaust is an instantly-recognizable term for the Jewish Holocaust, both on Wikipedia and in general media, for decades. Yoninah (talk) 21:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
    • But "Holocaust" has always redirected to this article so it's clearly not ambiguous.  AjaxSmack  00:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert per actual English usage, and also to clearly distinguish the technical ritual term "holocaust" (which used to be the primary usage, though it's not anymore). 168.12.253.66 (talk) 13:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert to The Holocaust per Arthur Rubin. Very weird, I don't recall seeing the previous move on WP:RM... maybe I just wasn't paying attention. SnowFire (talk) 00:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert to The Holocaust per WP:THE point 1. (Hohum @) 06:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert. In this case, "the" has a specific meaning and disambiguates appropriately. --jpgordon::==( o ) 15:35, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Disambiguates from what? "Holocaust" has always redirected to this article so it's not ambiguous.  AjaxSmack  00:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose a move per WP:THE and general linguistic usage. I don't deny that the definite article is usually used with "Holocaust". It is also used with Holodomor, Rwandan Genocide, Porajmos and other similar articles, too. It is also used with Rocky Mountains, Cultural Revolution, Renaissance, and no doubt thousands of other terms. However, like these other examples, "Holocaust" does not meet the two main criteria of WP:THE. The first is that the name with and without the article have different meanings. While this may have been the case decades ago, the fact that "Holocaust" (without an article) redirected to The Holocaust for all of those years shows the two are synonymous. The second criteria is that the article would be capitalised in running text. This is also not the case with the Holocaust. In short, there is no meaningful difference between the examples above and the Holocaust. —  AjaxSmack  05:04, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose; the word holocaust almost exclusively refers to this event, and therefore it is the primary topic for Holocaust and therefore should be here, as per WP:THE. Red Slash 18:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert This is the Holocaust. There are other events referred to as holocausts. Dougweller (talk) 12:01, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Snowball revert. "The Holocaust" without a modifier has always been about the genocide of Jews, Roma/Sinti etc by the Axis powers in WW2. Any attempt to change it is a violation of WP:NC. JFW | T@lk 16:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Revert The consistent use of the definite article to distinguish this specific tragedy is fully consistent with WP:THE. As discussed with the closing admin regarding the rename, I am also deeply concerned by the decision to change the title of an article with this kind of visibility with such a small number of participants. The overwhelming opposition demonstrated here is indicative of broader community opinion on the subject. Alansohn (talk) 04:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Possible technical errors

When performing this move I received an error message which said that Wikipedia was "unavailable" and to try again later. But an immediate retry failed as the move had already occurred. I then poked around to see exactly what had failed, and so far have found nothing.

Unfortunately I didn't record the exact message. I just wanted to say that if you do find a problem, this may be the cause of it, and I'd appreciate a heads-up on my talk page. Andrewa (talk) 19:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Disconnect between the first request and the follow-up revert request

  • It is interesting that the initial request with discussants who are primarily disinterested in the topic was unanimously in favour of "Holocaust" while the subsequent discussion where various interested parties were notified is overwhelmingly in favour of "The Holocaust". I hope the closer and other users will consider that titles should reflect community consensus as reflected in policies and guidelines and not narrow interests of specific user groups. See WP:Yogurt Principle for more on this. —  AjaxSmack  00:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
I think you will find that 'community consensus' is that such decisions should be made based on actual understanding of the subject matter. As for supposed 'narrow interests of specific user groups', would you care to enlighten us as to exactly whom you are referring to? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Reply by the closer: It's a very interesting example, for many reasons including those you raise. But discussion of this Yoghurt Principle, and the precise meaning of consensus, is ongoing. See also WP:consensus can change, which I note is policy, while the Yoghurt Principle is a controversial proposal in user space. As the Yoghurt Principle seems to support stricter adherence to policy, to quote it as a reason for ignoring policy seems somewhat ironic and not at all logical. Andrewa (talk) 19:51, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 17 August 2013

It is said that the number of Jewish Holocaust victims is 6,000,000. This number cannot be correct for the following reasons: 4,000,000 of the 6,000,000 Jews were supposed to have been killed in Auschwitz alone. However, the official number of Auschwitz victims is not 4,000,000 anymore but 960,000. Franciszec Piper, director of the historical committee of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, said that according to recent research, 960,000 Jews died there. (The commemoration plaque that indicated that 4,000,000 Jews died has been replaced with the accurate numbers.) Other Auschwitz victims included, according to Francicizec Piper, approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma(Gypsies,and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war; and 10,000- 15,000 members of other nationalities (Soviet civilians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, German, and Austrians). Also, the official numbers of Holocaust victims who were supposed to have perished in the the concentration camp Buchenwald is now 30,000 and not 300,000 as it was claimed before. This means that the number of 6,000,000 Jews who died during the Holocaust is not correct anymore since it included the 4,000,000 of Auschwitz and the 300,000 from Buchenwald. Subtract 3,040,000 from the Auschwitz death toll and 270,000 from the Buchenwald death toll from the 6,000,000 and the correct number is 2,690,000 and not 6,000,000.

24.222.133.115 (talk) 20:01, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Our article is based on published reliable sources. You cite none whatsoever. Unless and until the consensus amongst academic historians changes (which seems unlikely, given the degree to which the Holocaust was documented) we will report what they have determined - that around 6 million Jews were systematically murdered in the Holocaust. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:10, 17 August 2013 (UTC)


As requested, here is the source for the reduced numbers of deaths in Auschwitz: “Auschwitz: The Final Count” by Vivian Bird (anthology). Again, if 6,000,000 Jews died in concentration camps and the 4,000,000 deaths from Auschwitz are included in that number, then the final number of deaths during the Holocaust cannot remain at 6,000,000! The same is true for the revised number of deaths in Buchenwald from 300.000 to 30,000. Source for Buchenwald revised numbers will be provided in my next post.

Barnes Book Review of Vivian Bird's anthology: Auschwitz: The Final Count

"On April 18, 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, The New York Times reported that 4 million people died at Auschwitz. This “fact” was reported over and over again during the next half-century, without being questioned.

However, on January 26, 1995, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, both The Washington Post and The New York Times itself reported that the Polish authorities had determined that, at most, 1.5 million people (of all races and religions)-not “4 million”-died at Auschwitz of all causes, including natural causes.

Yet this was not the first time this drastically reduced figure appeared in the major media. Almost five years previously, on July 17, 1990, The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The London Daily Telegraph. That article stated: Poland has cut its estimate of the number of people killed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp from 4 million to just over 1 million . . . The new study could rekindle the controversy over the scale of Hitler’s “final solution” . . .

Franciszek Piper, director of the historical committee of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, said yesterday that, according to recent research, at least 1.3 million people were deported to the camp, of whom about 223,000 survived. The 1.1 million victims included 960,000 Jews, between 70,000 and 75,000 Poles, nearly all of the 23,000 Gypsies sent to the camp and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

Shmuel Krakowsky, head of research at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial for Jewish victims of the Holocaust, said the new Polish figures were correct: “The 4 million figure was let slip by Capt. Rudolf Hoess, the death camp’s Nazi commander. Some have bought it, but it was exaggerated.” . . . [P]laques commemorating the deaths of 4 million victims were removed from the Auschwitz museum earlier this month.

This detail of history was intriguing, since, after all, history books had said for a generation that of the 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust, 4 million died at Auschwitz alone. Thus, if the new facts were correct, the actual overall number of Jewish Holocaust victims had to be considerably less than the much-talked-about figure of 6 million. Put simply: subtract the former 4 million Jews dead at Auschwitz from the popular 6 million, and that leaves 2 million Jews dead. Simple math-and a controversial conclusion indeed.

The book features a fascinating introduction by Bird exploring the little-known but thoroughly documented phenomenon in which the numbers of the official Auschwitz “death toll” have plummeted from a “high” of 9,000,000 dead to a rock bottom of 73,137 (of whom 38,031 were Jews). And readers will note that of the 26 widely varying figures cited by Bird, all come from a variety of “responsible” and mainstream sources."

24.222.133.115 (talk) 03:20, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

As I have already pointed out, our article is based on published reliable sources - mostly recognised academic historians. I can see no evidence from Google Scholar that Vivian Bird has received any recognition for his work, and a review published by the Holocaust denial website Barnes Review is clearly of no relevance. We reflect academic consensus, and that is entirely clear on this matter - the Holocaust led to the deaths of around 6 million Jews. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:39, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
  Not done: The best construction I can put on this is that it's synthesis. Discussion can continue, if continue it must, without the edit request remaining open. Rivertorch (talk) 04:17, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Follow up on Edit request

You are supporting your refusal for the editing of the 6,000,000 Jewish Holocaust death figure with the argument that your are using " mostly recognised academic historians". I would like to draw attention to the word "mostly".  Who decides which  sources for your articles are credible when you are not using recognized academic historians? 

The six million figure of Jewish Holocaust deaths needs to be revised or at least it should be mentioned in the Holocaust article that this figure has been put into questions by acknowledged scholars like, for instance, Norman Finkelstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein) and famous scholars like Noam Chomsky who supports Finkelstein in his findings regarding the "Holocaust Industry". If you are looking for credentials here they are:


 Noam Chomsky Academic achievements, awards, and honors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University; in January 1970, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies"; in 1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom in Cape Town,[183] in 2011, the Rickman Godlee Lecture at University College, London [184] many others.[185]

Chomsky has received many honorary degrees from universities around the world, including from the following:

   University of London
   University of Chicago
   Loyola University Chicago
   Swarthmore College
   University of Delhi
   Bard College
   University of Massachusetts Amherst
   University of Pennsylvania
   University of St. Andrews
   Georgetown University
   Amherst College
   University of Cambridge
   University of Colorado[186]
   University of Buenos Aires
   McGill University
   Rovira i Virgili University
   Columbia University
   Villanova University
   University of Connecticut
   University of Maine
   Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
   University of Western Ontario
   University of Toronto
   Harvard University
   University of Chile
   University of Bologna
   University of La Frontera
   University of Calcutta
   National University of Colombia
   Vrije Universiteit Brussel
   Santo Domingo Institute of Technology
   Uppsala University
   National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
   University of Cyprus
   Central Connecticut State University
   National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
   Peking University[187]
   National Tsing Hua University[188]

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others.[189] He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by The National Council of Teachers of English for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language" (in 1987 and 1989).[190]

He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.[191]

In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society.[192] In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor's degree in commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus.[193] In February 2008, he received the President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway.[194] Since 2009 he is an honorary member of IAPTI.[195]

In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany.[196] In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship.[197]

Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.[198]

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention to polls".[199] In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of our time".[200]

Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album, called Pandemoniumfromamerica, to Chomsky.[201] The Megachile chomskyi holotype.

On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium at MIT.[202][203] The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens of his family and friends, featured music composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by Chomsky's colleagues, including David Pesetsky of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the linguistics department at Harvard University.

In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his "unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights".[204]

In 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".[205][206]


All that is necessary to affirm that the 6,000,000 Holocaust figure is not correct is to use a calculator. The figure of six million was arrived at on the basis of two sources: first on the evidence of a former SS officer, Wilhelm Hottl, who before the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials stated that Adolf Eichmann, head of the Jewish Division of the Gestapo, had told him that 4 million Jews had died in concentration camps and 2 million had died "elsewhere". (Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany, Vol. XXI, Doc, 2738-PS, p. 85).

Again, out of the 6,000,000 Jews, 4,000,000 are said to have perished in Auschwitz alone but the Auschwitz numbers have been revised and the plaque that proclaimed 4,000,000 deaths at Auschwitz was removed and was replaced with a reduced number of of 1,500,000 deaths of all victims not just Jews. Jean -Claude Pressac, published authority on the Holocaust of World War II, confirms the following:" (...) that between 631,000 and 711,000 were killed at Auschwitz.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Pressac)which is a far cry from 4,000,000.

And this is what is posted on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=100051890 "At least 960,000 Jews were killed in Auschwitz. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma (Gypsies), and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war; and 10,000-15,000 members of other nationalities (Soviet civilians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Germans, and Austrians)."

So, how can you still insist that 6,000,000 Jews died during the Holocaust? It is just a question of adding up the numbers correctly.

Jaala22 (talk) 02:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, for example, gives the figure of six million dead as well [7], so you're clearly confused in choosing this as a source to support your argument. But the broader point is that the "six million dead" figure was never based on the inflated Soviet claims of four million dead at Auschwitz; it was reached independently by historians, so no subtraction of the kind you're proposing is necessary. To quote the Auschwitz article:
"After the collapse of the Communist government in 1989, the plaque at Auschwitz State Museum was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers have attempted to use this change as propaganda, in the words of the Nizkor Project:

Deniers often use the 'Four Million Variant' as a stepping stone to leap from an apparent contradiction to the idea that the Holocaust was a hoax, again perpetrated by a conspiracy. They hope to discredit historians by making them seem inconsistent. If they can't keep their numbers straight, their reasoning goes, how can we say that their evidence for the Holocaust is credible? One must wonder which historians they speak of, as most have been remarkably consistent in their estimates of a million or so dead ... Few (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure, having arrived at their own estimates independently. The museum's inflated figures were never part of the estimated five to six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, so there is no need to revise this figure.[14]

-- Khazar2 (talk) 02:36, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Marking this request as closed. Besides the very valid points made by Khazar2, this article, like all good Wikipedia articles, are WP:Verified by references to WP:Reliable sources. In fact this article quotes multiples sources dealing with various studies that have all come to conclusions of approximately six million Jewish victims. Please do not keep making the same request over and over again... WP:DEADHORSE mentality will just lead to a conclusion of disruptive editing. Singularity42 (talk) 02:44, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Political Anti-Semitism

Why there is no mention of the political Anti-Semitism of Vienna's mayor Karl Lueger, who had a big impact on A.Hitler's ideology?

As mayor of Vienna, he was known for making use of an exclusory and discriminatory political strategy of populist Anti-Semitism.

"Lueger initiated something which nowadays would be regarded as a normal part of merchandizing. However, at the time it was absolutely innovative because of the extent to which he and those surrounding him, carried it out. Whether it was the illusion of availability he presented to his female followers based on his bachelor status (or keeping his relationships secret), the Lueger March composed for him by Eduard Nerradt and played at various events or, to name but one example from an extremely wide selection from the raft of devotional objects, the Lueger plate distributed at election meetings. These carried sausages and mustard and visualized exactly who the eaters had to thank for the meal they had just consumed in the form of a portrait of Lueger.
In addition there was something which would nowadays be called corporate identity, viz, Lueger’s characteristic beard. This allowed him to be easily identified in any of the representations. There were, and are, a wealth of these: diverse paintings (e.g. by Wilhelm Gause), portraits, postcards, caricatures, relief’s, etc."

Harald D. Gröller, Cult of personality, guest commentar on luegerplatz.com

From a speech of Karl Lueger, 20. July 1899:
„Der Einfluß auf die Massen ist bei uns in den Händen der Juden, der größte Teil der Presse ist in ihren Händen, der weitaus größte Teil des Kapitals und speziell des Großkapitals ist in Judenhänden und die Juden üben hier einen Terrorismus aus, wie er ärger nicht gedacht werden kann. Es handelt sich uns darum, in Österreich vor allem um die Befreiung des christlichen Volkes aus der Vorherrschaft des Judentums.
(Lebhaftes Bravo! Redner mit erhobener Stimme:)
Wir wollen auf dem Boden unserer Väter freie Männer sein und das christliche Volk soll dort herrschen, wo seine Väter geblutet haben. (Tosender Beifall.)
Aller Zwist, auch der bei uns in Österreich herrscht, ist darum durch die Juden entfacht, alle Anfeindungen unserer Partei rühren daher, weil wir der Herrschaft der Juden endlich einmal zu Leibe gerückt sind."

“The influence on the masses is in the hands of the Jews, most of the press is in their hands, the largest part of the capital and especially the big business is in the hands of Jews, and the Jews practice here a form of terrorism, beyond all imaginations.
It is about us, especially in Austria, to act for the liberation of the Christian people from the domination of Judaism.(Thunderous applause of the audience)
All discord, also that one in Austria, is sparked by the Jews, all hostility against our party, is because we have finally started to end the rule of the Jews. (audience: Bravo!)”

Aus einer Rede des Bürgermeisters Karl Lueger in der am 20. Juli 1899 abgehaltenen Versammlung des christlich-sozialen Arbeitervereins in Wien, in: Weiningers Nacht, Europa-Verlag, Wien 1989

Leaflet „Lueger, our father“ ("Lueger unser Vater" Flugblatt, 1896):
„Vater Lueger, der du wohnst in Wien, gelobet sei dein Name, beschütze unser christliches Volk (...) sondern erlöse uns von dem Juden-Übel. Amen.“
„Father Lueger, who art in Vienna, hallowed be your name, protect your christian people(...), but deliver us from the Jews-Evil. Amen.“

Creed for Lueger called “Lord God of Vienna” It begins, “I believe in Dr. Lueger”.

Eva Philippoff: Die Doppelmonarchie Österreich-Ungarn. Ein politisches Lesebuch. Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2002
Stadtchronik Wien, Verlag Christian Brandstätter, 1986, S.356

Adolf Hitler about Karl Lueger and the effect of Lueger's ideology on him:

"I was not in agreement with the sharp Anti-Semitic tone (!!), but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought.(!!)
At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger I and the Christian Social Party.

When I arrived in Vienna, I was hostile to both of them.
(...)
My common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment (!!) in proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work(!!); and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration.(!!) Today, more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times.
How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement!
My views with regard to Anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all. "

Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf; Volume one; Chapter 3, General political considerations based on my Vienna period, Conversion to anti-Semitism; 1925

A.Hitler believed in Karl Lueger's Anti-Semitism and Lueger's political strategy got copied:

Nazi „Lord's prayer“:
"Adolf Hitler, you are our great Fuhrer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice; order us by thy leadership. For we will obey to the end and even with our lives. We praise thee! Hail Hitler!"

From a Nazi „Creed“: "We believe in our Fuehrer,..."

M. Hesemann, Hitlers Religion – Die fatale Heilslehre des Nationalsozialismus, Pattloch Verlag, München (2004)

Stefan Bach, --188.22.76.249 (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

From your content above, it seems he had no direct action during the holocaust, but was just an influence on Hitler. This may be an interesting addition to Hitler's biography, but unless you can find significant reliable sourcing saying that this person was influential in the Holocaust, it would be WP:UNDUE in this article. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2013 (UTC)


Houston Stewart Chamberlain (born September 9, 1855 – died January 9, 1927)
Hermann Ahlwardt (born 21 December 1846 — died 16 April 1914)
Heinrich Claß (born February 29, 1868 - died April 16, 1953) was memeber of NSDAP but had no direct part in the Holocaust, but an ideological influence on the Nazis.

"In Austria an organization called the Antisemitenbund had campaigned against Jewish civil rights since 1919. The organization took its inspiration from Karl Lueger the legendary 19th century antisemitic mayor of Vienna who inspired Hitler and had also campaigned for a boycott of Jewish Businesses. Austrian campaigns tended to heighten around Christmas and became effective from 1932. As in Germany, Nazis picketed Jewish stores in an attempt to prevent shoppers from using them."
From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism By Bruce F. Pauley page 201 North Carolina 1992

Stefan Bach, --188.22.76.249 (talk) 18:52, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
So this source says he was an influence on the "Antisemitenbund" and hitler. Still seems too minor for inclusion in the holocaust article, but as I said, I could see inclusion in hitler's article, or perhaps a standalone article on this person if there are other sources discussing him. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:50, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The three are also all mentioned in the first volume of the Evans trilogy, The Coming of the Third Reich, for example, but I agree that there just isn't the room in a review article like this to include detailed discussion of antisemitic influences and precursors. Definitely interesting, though, and worth including in related articles. LudicrousTripe (talk) 19:08, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the above; it seems over-detailed for this already very long overview article. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:10, 26 August 2013 (UTC)


The antisemite Karl Lueger had a key role in the Antisemitism which led to the Holocaust.
"Antisemitism is a starting place for trying to understand the tragedy that would befall countless numbers of people during the Holocaust."
About K.Lueger's influence on A.Hitler:
"Some politicians began using the idea of racial superiority in their campaigns as a way to get votes. Karl Lueger (1844-1910) was one such politician. He became Mayor of Vienna, Austria, at the end of the century through the use of antisemitism -- he appealed to voters by blaming Jews for bad economic times. Lueger was a hero to a young man named Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria in 1889. Hitler's ideas, including his views of Jews, were shaped during the years he lived in Vienna, where he studied Lueger's tactics and the antisemitic newspapers and pamphlets that multiplied during Lueger's long rule."
About K.Lueger's influence on the Nazis:
"Karl Lueger is elected mayor of Vienna. He holds this position for 13 years, until his death in 1910. Lueger, co-founder of the Christian Socialist party, uses economic antisemitism to gain support from the small businessmen and artisans who are suffering after the surge of capitalism during the industrial revolution in Austria. He claims that Jews have a monopoly on capitalism and that they thus compete unfairly in the economic arena.
Adolf Hitler, a resident of Vienna during Lueger's mayoral reign, is greatly influenced both by Lueger's antisemitism and by his ability to rally public support. Lueger's ideas are reflected in the Nazi party platform in 1920s Germany. "
Antisemitism, Key Dates: April 1897, Karl Lueger, Antisemitic mayor of Vienna; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., ushmm.org
Stefan Bach, --188.22.76.249 (talk) 19:46, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
This is an article about the Holocaust, not about antisemitism. Obviously the two are linked, but equally obviously they are not the same thing at all. There has been a very long history of antisemitism. There's no point in detailing it here. We have other articles for that. The Holocaust is an example of racial/ethnic extermination. The ideology of racial extermination has a separate history, and is not specifically linked to antisemitism (see Herero and Namaqua Genocide for example), but rather more to imperialism. Are we to detail the history of imperialism too? If Lueger specifically advocated mass murder of Jews it might be appropriate to mention him, but as far as I know he did no such thing, he merely built support among petty-bourgeois Germans by arguing that they were being cheated out of their rightful rewards by Jews. Such political exploitation of ethnic tensions is commonplace to this day. Indeed the current article on Lueger quotes from very reliable sources arguing that his antisemitic statements were largely rhetoric designed to appeal to his core voters: Karl_Lueger#Anti-Semitism. Paul B (talk) 10:58, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
It is just strange that there is not a single word about Karl Lueger in this article, although Hitler wrote himself, that he turned an Anti-Semite, because of Karl Lueger.
A.Hitler wrote: "And on such occasions I sometimes picked up the Volksblatt (for information: Newspaper with articles about Karl Lueger, Christian Social Party, slogans like "Buy only by Christians"), which, to be sure, seemed to me much smaller, but in these matters somewhat more appetizing. I was not in agreement with the sharp Anti-Semitic tone (!!), but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought.(!!)
At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party.
How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement!
My views with regard to Anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all. "
In my point of view, it is very strange, that such important influence on A.Hitler (the reason why he turned Anti-Semite !!) is not mentioned. Hitler decribed his ideological changing very detailed:
After confronted with K.Lueger's anti-semitic propaganda, Hitler wrote:
"There came a time when I no longer, as in the first days, wandered blindly through the mighty city; now with open eyes I saw not only the buildings but also the people. Once, as I was strolling through the Inner City, I suddenly encountered an apparition in a black caftan and black hair locks. Is this a Jew? was my first thought."
He continued: "As always in such cases, I now began to try to relieve my doubts by books. For a few hellers I bought the first antiSemitic pamphlets of my life. Unfortunately, they all proceeded from the supposition that in principle the reader knew or even understood the Jewish question to a certain degree. Besides, the tone for the most part was such that doubts again arose in me, due in part to the dull and amazingly unscientific arguments favoring the thesis.
I relapsed for weeks at a time, once even for months. The whole thing seemed to me so monstrous, the accusations so boundless, that, tormented by the fear of doing injustice, I again became anxious and uncertain.
Yet I could no longer very well doubt that the objects of my study were not Germans of a special religion, but a people in themselves; for since I had begun to concern myself with this question and to take cognizance of the Jews, Vienna appeared to me in a different light than before. Wherever I went, I began to see Jews, and the more I saw, the more sharply they became distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity."
Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf; Volume one; Chapter 3, General political considerations based on my Vienna period, Conversion to anti-Semitism; 1925
The person A.Hitler was one of the main perpetrators of the Holocaust , it is not important to know how he became such a cruel person?
Stefan Bach, --188.23.143.18 (talk) 17:02, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
None of what you say is about the Holocaust. This is not an article about Hitler's antisemitism. You quote long passages most of which aren't even about Lueger (the "antisemitic pamphlets" he mentions are evidently nothing to do with Lueger). This is an obsession about an irrelevance supported by evidence that's that's not even on topic to Lueger, let alone the Holocaust. Paul B (talk) 17:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
Even if there is nothing in the article, I want to have mentioned it.
Anti-Semitism led to the Holocaust. Karl Lueger spread Anti-Semitism propaganda and also made A.Hitler an Anti-Semite, who was a main-actor in the Holocaust.
About your statement: "the "antisemitic pamphlets" he mentions are evidently nothing to do with Lueger":
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.190.170.241 (talk) 11:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
A.Hitler bought the antisemitic pamphlet to "try to relieve my doubts by books. For a few hellers I bought the first antiSemitic pamphlets of my life."
The Antisemitism of K.Lueger started "the greatest transformation of all" in A.Hitler -> he became an Anti-Semite.
Farewell, Stefan Bach - --178.190.170.241 (talk) 11:31, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Spanish Republican Prisoners

I think Spanish Republican prisoners (who fled from Spain to France after Franco's victory and were turned over by Vichy's government to the Nazis, and interned mainly at Mauthausen) should be added to the table of non-Jewish victims. The death estimate ranges between 10,000 and 16,310/ Here is a reference:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/SpanishRepublicans.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.67.211 (talk) 07:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Scrapobookpages ist not a reliable website, it's the mere personal website of an holocaust revisionist... 78.251.245.128 (talk) 01:20, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
What about this one? (last paragraph) http://www.exiliadosrepublicanos.info/en/history-exile — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.19.222 (talk) 20:57, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Jews, Jewish women, Jewish children

Apologies if this is a FAQ, but I am curious as to why Jewish males are systematically referred to in the article as "Jews", whereas "Jewish women" and "Jewish children" are used for adult females and children? Wouldn't "Jewish men" make more sense? glopk (talk) 16:42, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I've been through the article. It's simply untrue that only men are "systematically" referred to as "Jews" but women and children are not. When men are specified, it usually makes that clear. Many passages refer generally to "Jews", clearly meaning men, woman and children. I could only see one sentence that corresponds to your criticism: "The screening of the population, however resulted in 13 Jews, 27 Jewish women and 11 Jewish children, of which 13 Jews and 19 Jewish women were shot in co-operation with the Security Service." This particular sentence should be rewritten. I'll just do it, but the sentence itself is grammatically confusing, so whoever wrote it may wish to check that I understood it correctly. Paul B (talk) 17:26, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
In fact I can't change it because it's a quotation. That's not clear because the layout is flattened due to the dense use of images. Quotations should never be altered unless the source is being quoted incorrectly. Paul B (talk) 17:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

American or British English

American English seems to be used throughout the article, with the exception of the first paragraph. Can we decide on a standard? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.98.193.203 (talk) 02:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The Holocaust Is Not Unique

We can read somewhere Yet the six million murder victims make the holocaust a unique crime in the history of mankind. Even if highly regrettable it was unfortunately not unique at all. There was a greater known one: the 80 million Indians murdered in the Americas mostly by the Spaniards. That makes 12 fold the accepted number of holocaust. As unbelievable as it may seem the names of the genocide perpetrators and mass murderers are still street names on all Spanish towns as heroes. If we read the description of their savage behavior by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas (see about him here on Wikipedia), an eye witness, we will be astonished and will have to acknowledge that their crimes were way worse than the Nazi's. How can this be forgotten? Sorry for my broken English and if I did not do it properly because it seems complicated if one is not used to, but facts are facts no matter how they are told. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.180.44.149 (talk) 02:22, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

The natives were mainly killed via disease, and the majority died prior to full scale invasion/colonialism, so it isn't strictly the same, but certainly that does not diminish the atrocities that were done intentionally. Gaijin42 (talk) 02:34, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Unique is not really a good term to use here because it easily transposes to the idea of uniqueness in suffering. However, serious scholars who consider the concept generally don't refer to the numbers killed but rather to the use of ideology and state power see quotes by Bauer and Jäckel:Ideology and scale.--Joel Mc (talk) 08:53, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Muslims persecuted during the Holocaust

This article certainly contains a credible excerpt from the works of Nihad Halilbegović about the harm done by the Nazi's to the Bosniak Muslim community. My question is what about what the harm the Nazi's did to the Muslim Roma population in Europe, no information is provided about this very important community inhabiting Europe. Furthermore I believe a separate section in this article is required, that should be dedicated to the vibrant Muslim community and their suffering during the Holocaust.182.182.64.33 (talk) 12:07, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The Nazis did not target people because they were Muslim. The Roma were targeted because they were Roma, whether they were Muslim, Christian or anything else. We don't have sections on bald people, or musicians, for example, even though some of the Jews targeted were no doubt bald, or musicians, or both. Paul B (talk) 12:20, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
There is no doubt that many people/peoples suffered tremendously under the Nazis. But all of those who were persecuted, murdered, and suffered under the Nazis are not part of what historians generally refer as the Holocaust. The Nazis carried out the mass murder of Jews with the purpose in end of exterminating all of those that they described as the Jewish race. It was a question of blood, not religion nor nationality. This is so important that it is worth repeating over and over.--Joel Mc (talk) 13:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
That's not quite the issue. Yes, of course all victims of the Nazi war machine are not included. But there are sections in this article on non-Jewish groups, including the Roma, who have been included in the "Holocaust" by several historians or memorial centres. The Muslim Bosniaks were killed by the Croatian Ustashe, who were part of the Nazi machine, but also had their own agenda. There is a section in this article on their activities, but it is part of this rather ambiguous or "fuzzy" area of war crimes that may or may not be counted as part of the Holocaust. In any case, most of their victims were Serbs, who were on the whole non-Catholic Christians. The Roma were targeted directly by the Nazis and are often included in the specific event we call the "Holocaust", but the fact that some of them were Muslim is irrelevant to the reasons for their inclusion. Paul B (talk) 14:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Beg your pardon, but I do think that it is the issue. The proposal to add a separate section "dedicated to the vibrant Muslim community" is linked to religion, which is not what the Holocaust was about. The fact that there are sections in the article about Nazi victims who few serious historians of 20th century Europe would include as part of the Holocaust is besides the point, though it has certainly discouraged a number of editors who tried to improve the article and bring it up to GA status.Joel Mc (talk) 15:45, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
It is certainly not "beside the point" that the article contains sections on non-Jewish victims. It is completely central to the point. You are missing my argument. There is already a section which mentions Bosnian Muslims as victims of the Ustache, which is sometimes seen as part of the Holocaust, though much more typically it isn't. There is no clear and unambiguous definition of what is and isn't "The Holocaust", which the article acknowledges. The Roma are much more commonly included as victims of "The Holocaust" than are Bosniaks, for good reasons, but the fact that some of them were Muslim is irrelevant, as I've said several times now. Paul B (talk) 16:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Were some muslims killed or otherwise harmed by Nazi Germany? Absolutely. Did Hitler's racial ideology put Arabs at the bottom? Absolutely. Were they targeted as part of the holocaust? No. (Although had Germany won, it is plausible to think they would have been in line). Did the Nazi's in fact work with and support many Muslim & Arab governments and organizations to further their own ends? Yes. We have a whole article about it Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:53, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I realize this is not directly applicable to the Roma Muslim point made above, but it is further argument that roma muslims were targeted as roma, and not as muslims. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Title should be "Jewish Holocaust"

The title should read "Jewish Holocaust", as there have been many many other holocausts throughout history, throughout the world, not only in Europe. For example, 100 million Native Americans were slaughtered and lost their homeland here in America, this was also a holocaust. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.112.74.219 (talk) 18:35, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

There have been a lot of massive slaughters and horrible killings of millions of people throughout history, many of which are considered even worse than the Holocaust by some. However, when referring to the Nazi genocide of the Jews in WW2, the word holocaust is capitalized - its current name has been widely implemented long ago. To answer your question, the reason for that is because there's been nothing comparable to the Holocaust in the sense that it was the only massive systematic murder of a specific innocent group with the aim of exterminating them. Shalom11111 (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
It's not because there has been nothing comparable, which is arguable, but because the term has come to be used to refer to mass murder of concentration camp inmates by the Nazis. In this respect it is the same as The Terror or The Enlightenment, terms used to refer to specific historical events, not to every example of "terror" or "enlightenment" in history. That's exactly why the "The" is important, and it's why we don't list every other atrocity ever committed in this article. Whether or not the term should be restricted to Jewish victims of the Nazis is another issue, but it has nothing to do with other examples of atrocities and mass murders in history. Paul B (talk) 20:19, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
A good point except it was more than "concentration camp inmates", see for example Einsatzgruppen.--Joel Mc (talk) 05:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
The title shouldn't be the Jewish Holocaust. That utterly marginalizes the suffering of the homosexuals, the mentally handicapped and every other group that was systematically targeted for extermination by the Nazi regime. How often do you hear the "six million" talked about, as if the other eleven million victims never existed. This article goes on for two paragraphs about the Jewish experience before saying "Some scholars argue that the mass murder of the Romani and people with disabilities should be included in the definition..."

In fact, this isn't a matter for argument. The Romani, in particular were included in the Nuremburg laws right beside the Jews. The experience of Russian prisoners of war, Slavic civilians and millions of others were in no material way different from the Jewish experience. The Jews were the largest single group in that vast horror and it is a vital part of Jewish history, but it was not only their tragedy.

The article should open by covering the entire holocaust, and then later provide detail on the Jewish view and terminology, along with the Romani and other experiences. Let's not do the Nazis work for them by letting two thirds of their victims slide out of focus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.212.146.234 (talk) 03:14, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The article doesn't seem to support your view, nor that of the OP of this thread. Read the Eberhard Jäckel quote. Narc (talk) 23:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Those who are critical of the term are in the right. There have been mass executions throughout history even comparable to the amount of people killed during WW2 to some degrees. Systematic mass killing was not unique to the nazi dictatorship. The problem with the article is that it is centric to killing against people with judaic religion, but the Nazis killed many more people there. Wikipedia should be neutral and objective, and this article emphasizes solely the suffering of one group of people - in doing so, it automatically marginalizes everyone else who was systematically hunted and executed by the Nazi. 84.112.136.52 (talk) 21:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

1991

'fall of the Soviet Union in 1989', it's supposed to be 1991. 83.83.1.229 (talk) 07:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

It was real in my mind

The gas chambers are a myth, there is only dubious evidence to support it, I believe that this article should have a section regarding the fact that the gas chambers may or may not have existed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spurdö-bär (talkcontribs) 09:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

As sickening as this comment may be and regardless of who the person who wrote this is, I ask that no one remove it. I cannot get my neighbor to share his experiences from there here nor can I show my family relatives' ashes from these chambers as a proof, but I can ask "Holocaust revisionists" to read about the subject more before daring to say such things and want to introduce a link from the Nizkor Project/Skeptic magazine about this, click here. Shalom11111 (talk) 17:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I agree. ..."regarding the *fact* that the gas chambers may or may not have existed" - I mean, what rubbish. He can't even use the term fact correctly, let alone provide any justification for such a proposal at all. I visited this page partly because it is important for the whole world to remain aware of what happened but also to check that none of this horridness had crept in. Humanity will have turned a dark corner when a place like Wikipedia cannot hold back this sort of insidious apologism. 121.45.108.97 (talk) 10:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
This whole thread was started by someone who is not only an obvious idiot, but who also doesn't understand that "Talk" isn't a forum for discussing our POV's - it's a place to improve the page. As such the thread should have been deleted as soon as it was posted. I'd get rid of it now, but I agree that it is now instructive on what "some people think". However, we shouldn't be spending any more time belaboring the point that this guy is a Grade A fool who should be ignored...

Should Action T4 and the persecution of Roma be given more mention?

I've always thought that the Holocaust referred to all of the people targeted by the Nazis, and not just the Jewish people. After all, the Nazis' first victims were the mentally ill, and Action T4 was the beginning of the Nazis' industrialized murder system.

2601:7:800:2B0:4D01:9539:15D:D960 (talk) 23:45, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Controversy

Why no mention of the numerous reputable sceptics of the holocaust? David Irving etc. need a mention to ensure balance. This is propaganda... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.46.191.165 (talk) 22:37, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no controversy, Holocaust deniers are a fringe (and rather nasty, as an aside) group. Their opinions mean next to nothing. They are covered in the Holocaust denial page. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:49, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
There are no 'reputable' sceptics of the Holocaust. One doesn't 'balance' historical fact with lies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Lies are historical facts. Ppl lie; noting that is part of the overarching story. Whether deniers are correct or not is beside the point of its inclucsion in the page. In fact, showcasing deniers illegitimacy both strengthens the holocausts veracity AND makes Jews appear more sympathetic. It's highly suspect when deniers are not addressed in this page. It makes you look like you don't have the truth and can't bear scrutiny. I specifically came to this page to hear deniers rebutted, giving deniers no benefit of doubt and trusting page. Complete fail on Andythegrump's part. I looked over page for any links to a sub-page about deniers but did not find it. Truth doesn't need training wheels. It stands on its own unassisted. It definitely feels like Andythegrump doesn't think his version of the holocaust has this property. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.45.184 (talk) 23:41, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Spanish Republicans

I'd like to request the following three changes (or at least the first two):

  • Add a row in the victims table under "Victims and death toll"

Spanish Republicans|7000|[15]

  • Add an entry in the Non-Jewish section titled Spanish Republicans with the following text:

"After losing the Spanish Civil War many republicans fled to France. With the subsequent fall of France, many were sent to concentration camps, particularly the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where about 7000 died.[16][17]"

  • Add a picture box with the following caption and image: Mauthausen survivors cheer the soldiers of the Eleventh Armored Division of the U.S. Third Army one day after their actual liberation. (Banner in Spanish reads: The antifascist Spaniards salute the liberating troops). http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=5632

Context:

After losing the Spanish Civil war many republicans fled to France. With the subsequent fall of France, many were sent to concentration camps, particularly the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. About 7000 died there. I think this should be added to the Non-jewish section of the article, under the "The political left" section or in a section of its own. Note that the number of victims is comparable to other groups such as Homosexuals and Jehova's Witness which are in the text and in the table of victims.

Some pointers from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

Some books on the topic:

  • Pike, David Wingeate. Spaniards in the Holocaust: Mauthausen, the horror on the Danube; Editorial: Routledge Chapman & Hall ISBN 10: 0415227801 / ISBN 13: 9780415227803. London, 2000.
  • Benito Bermejo (2002) (en español). Francisco Boix, el fotógrafo de Mauthausen. Fotografías de Francisco Boix y de los archivos capturados a los SS de Mauthausen.. Barcelona: RBA Editores. ISBN 978-84-7901-847-4.
  • El holocausto de los republicanos españoles: vida y muerte en los campos de exterminio alemanes (1940-1945). Pons Prades, Eduardo. Barcelona: Belacqua de Ediciones y Publicaciones S.L. ISBN 84-96326-24-1


The table and the paragraph   Done. the photo   Not done (need more input from other editors to add more photographs I think) Gaijin42 (talk) 21:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Civiliands killed in Yugoslavia

The article is listing the total number of civilians killed in Yugoslavia as victims of extermination by the nazis. If you check the article "Yugoslav front" it gives exactly the same number as the total number of civilians killed, either by the nazis and by the other sides involved in the conflict, while here they're all being listed as victims of the Nazi and colaborationist forces. --190.172.207.183 (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Whole Yugoslav section is problematic and full of propaganda. E.g. uninformed reader can get impression that Ustase prosecute Muslims (Bosinaks) and that is just opposite from truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.137.150.5 (talk) 23:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Three million men and two million women?

Article claims that "over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men." I don't see how this can be accurate. Why were a million more men than women killed? Military deaths cannot account for this, according to Wikipedia Jewish military deaths were only 142,500 in the Soviet Union. John Martin Walker (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)#Casualties

France and Belgium

Article claims that the number of Jews killed in France and Belgium is, alternatively, 32,000 and 130,000. I think, based on what I've read about it and what most sources say, that 130,000 is closer to the truth. John Martin Walker (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Notice of a discussion on the Gun politics in the U.S. talk page

There is a Split proposal discussion on the Gun politics in the U.S. talk page that may be of interest to editors of this page. Lightbreather (talk) 05:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Section "Disabled and mentally ill" - Opening citation without source

"Our starting-point is not the individual ...": who said that/when? (Joseph Goebbels, according to a quick search but the article doesn't say)

Bardoligneo (talk) 16:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Reference was there but did not appear because of formatting mistakes. --Joel Mc (talk) 08:26, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2014

Empty poison gas canisters used to kill inmates and piles of hair shaven from their heads are stored in the museum at Auschwitz II

Please add commas after "inmates" and "heads". 149.160.175.36 (talk) 14:48, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

  Not done: I could do that, but that wouldn't be proper English. Not every and needs a comma. — {{U|Technical 13}} (tec) 14:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Without the comma, it parses weirdly, looking like <empty poison gas canisters> used to kill <inmates and piles of hair>... If you don't care to help, at least show help by rewriting it. 149.160.175.36 (talk) 15:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
  Partly done: I changed "and" to "along with". Now it should be clearer. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Number of victims in Yugoslavia

I've aready written this but I got no reply at all, so I will comment again. The section "non jewish victims", "Ethnic Serbs and other South Slavs" is listing a total of 581,000 serbs civilians killed entirely by the usatashe. But if you go and check the article Yugoslav front there says that 581,000 civilians (exactly the same number) were killed by all the sides involved in the conflict, either the ustashe, the chetniks, the partisans, etc. --190.172.243.206 (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok. So what is your suggested edit? Ckruschke (talk) 02:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)Ckruschke

Why the small caps in the bibliography?

Why are the authors listed in the bibliography using Small Caps? (And at World War II, for that matter.) I can't remember seeing that anywhere else. — Scott talk 19:47, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting, I guess it's probably an editorial choice. The use of these small caps in this article (rightly) distinguishes itself from other articles where authors are listed, and I think we should leave it as is. Shalom11111 (talk) 22:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 March 2014

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust I strongly suggest a contextual edit that includes R. J. Rummel's work in the "Uniqueness" section, as well as the term "democide." Professor R. J. Rummel at the University of Hawaii has the most extensive, well-researched collection of democide statistics in the world. His term "democide" is an essential extension to study of the holocaust, because it denotes mass murder by government, not including battle deaths or conflict "collateral damage," that is not based on race. Ie: All genocide is democide, but not all democide is genocide.

This is absolutely relative, and essential to any page on mass murder by government, especially the democides of Germany, Russia, China, Rwanda, Armenia, and Cambodia, for which there is an immense amount of information available. R. J. Rummel's page on wikipedia is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Rummel and his homepage at the university of hawaii is http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills Democracy Decentralized (talk) 01:01, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, so, per the request: where is the complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it? --jpgordon::==( o ) 02:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I also would be interested to see the specific suggested texts to be removed and the replacements. I have a lot of respect for Rummel's work, but the term "democide" has not really caught on and is not widely used by historians of genocides. In this article it could even obscure rather than clarify, but I await the examples.Joel Mc (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — {{U|Technical 13}} (tec) 02:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2014

I believe that the children of the Holocaust should be a section in the Holocaust Wikipedia page. This is a rough draft of a possible paragraph included in this section about the children of the Holocaust. Please consider including this in the page. Thank you.

Many people don’t think of children in the Holocaust important, but they had to endure just as much as the adults. Children made up a quarter of the total amount of Jews killed, approximately 1.5 million children had died. In the concentration camps such as Auschwitz, many children were put to work in factories and taken advantage of their labor. Others, were plainly killed upon arrival. Children were often worked to exhaustion and death, if not killed in killing chambers such as the gas filled rooms. They were also used as medical experiment test subjects or shot for sport with telescopic rifles by the Nazi guards. There was also an abundance of children who died through disease and starvation. The chances of being killed as a child were higher for adolescents (13-18 years). The infants or small children had less of a chance to live. Many infants were killed shortly after birth like in “Ravensbruck” 870 babies were killed. During 1938-1940, a rescue effort to save thousands of refugee Jewish children had taken place with the informal name of “kindertransport”. The organization transported the children, leaving their parents to escape to the safety of Great Britain. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143 Kowens5862 (talk) 13:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

It sounds like a good suggestion, I'll appreciate it if you could provide specific relevant sources about the subject please. Thanks Shalom11111 (talk) 22:08, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — {{U|Technical 13}} (tec) 02:01, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2014

Please do not 216.170.90.130 (talk) 18:44, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Do not what? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Notice of RfC and request for participation

There is an RfC on the Gun control talk page which may be of interest to editors of this page:

Thank you. --Lightbreather (talk) 16:39, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Search - Suche

Hi all, i am asking for a refer-help. I am living in germany und looking for the catalogue for this exposition:

  • “Portraits of Our Past: The Sephardic Communities of Greece and the Holocaust”

in the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County

Link: holocaust-nassau.org, Ort: Welwyn Preserve, 100 Crescent Beach Road

Is there any collection of the pictures? a.s.o.

Thanks for helping - Danke für evtl. Hilfe --asdfj, 09:59 CEST, 2013, June 3rd--

I've never heard of it. I do know that most Sephardic Jews are Holocaust deniers. Sephardic Jews and Karaites were mostly unaffected by the Holocaust. In Israel, Sephardic Jews make Holocaust jokes all the time and tell Ashkenazi Jews that their ancestors are bars of soap (mocking the Holocaust). That's when they aren't saying we are Khazars and not real Jews (because they say that too): — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.228.228.166 (talk) 03:21, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
[citation needed] Evan (talk|contribs) 03:29, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Everywhere the Nazis were in control, Jews were exterminated or nearly so. The only place in Europe that they escaped (besides Britain) was Spain and Portugal. Sephardic communities elsewhere in France and the Balkans were VERY MUCH affected. I think the IP editor is basically guilty of vandalizing this section of the TP, and am requesting that an Admni "hat" that comment. Thanks. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Eugen Fischer and his contact/influence with Mengele

See disussion here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Josef_Mengele#Eugen_Fischer_and_Otmar_Freiherr_von_Verschuer prokaryotes (talk) 10:43, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

And thr relevance is what? Paul B (talk) 19:26, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

First use

At this edit, @Paul Barlow reverted this edit by @Tomsega, regarding the first use of the word in Britain, stating "misleading and irrelevant - and it isn't the earliest use of the term either".

Based on The Jew in the medieval book : English antisemitism, 1350-1500, Devizes actually wrote in Latin, which should be mentioned, but it is certainly an early use of a Latin root and it does not seem unreasonable to mention it. It's also mentioned at Names of the Holocaust#The Holocaust to which I've added a cite to that book. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The main problem is that it is completely misleading. "Holocaust" meant all-consuming fire - a meaning that was the dominant one well into the 1970s. All that the reference means is that a group of Jews got burnt in a fire. The fact that they were Jews is purely coincidental. It would be like referring to the first use of the term "final solution", which just happened to be a combination of those words, but other wise had no connection to what the Nazis meant by it. Or the first use of "Shoah" (which means "disaster". No doubt many events involving Jews have been referred to as "disasters"). It creates the false impression that there was some special connection between the word "holocaust" and Jews dating back to medieval terms. But there never was. The connection dates from the 1960s-70s when the word becomes the most common term in English to characterise the Nazi "final solution". Paul B (talk) 14:44, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
A good point, but wouldn't this all be worth mentioning, then, alongside the fact that Devizes was the first to use the term in Britain. It is after all merely a section dedicated to the etymology of the English word 'holocaust', a word which was nevertheless derived from its earliest Latin usage by medieval scholars. I will rewrite the section emphasising that the word did not explicitly refer to Jews until the mid-20th century (despite the fact its first-ever use in England WAS indeed in specific reference to Jews - a point which complicates your thesis somewhat..) --Tomsega (talk) 08:16, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Motivation

It says: "Finally, he argued that those of a non-criminal bent who committed crimes did so because they wished to conform to the values of the group they had joined and were afraid of being branded "weak" by their colleagues if they refused.". Does "argue" here mean "contradict" or "say"? I mean, you probably mean the first one, but it may lead to misunderstandings. It's a difficult topic and the term is ambitious, so I'd like you to be precise. Thanks in advance! Thomas Limberg (Schmogrow) 93.197.54.123 (talk) 09:22, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I read it as 'presented with evidence' that sort of thing. It is not an uncommon use of the word, but perhaps we could change it. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:41, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, yeah, thanks for your opinion! But I actually don't wanna know how you read it, but what it really means! The word "argue" is ambigious. It can also mean "contradict". You have interpreted it the way you did. But since the word "argue" also has the meaning of "contradict", I wanna know it for sure!!!!! Thomas Limberg (Schmogrow) 93.197.54.123 (talk) 14:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I would bet real money that is what it means. Perhaps others might chime in. I don't see how one could read it another way. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:12, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
"I don't see how one could read it another way.", that is actually pretty simple: I translated the word argue into German and from about 25 translations 3 mean "contradict". Furthermore, when you read the whole paragraph, the historian (Hans Buchheim) makes a series of controverts to what people may think. The writer of the paragraph does not make any point that this series would stop. So I think, the last one is a controvert, too. Thomas Limberg (Schmogrow) 93.197.54.123 (talk) 14:30, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
As a native English speaker I don't see the issue. but, as I said, others might chime in, let's see. Dbrodbeck (talk) 17:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
"As a native English speaker", you should know, that it has two meanings!!! Even I knew or at least supposed that!!! (as a native German speaker). Yeah, let's wait for others to give their opinion! Thomas Limberg (Schmogrow) 93.197.54.123 (talk) 17:26, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I'd say that Dbrodbeck is right. If it were to mean 'contradict', the paragraph would have presented the author's own opinion after the part that was supposed to be 'disproved'. As it stands, it is rather clear that the author 'argues' or 'presents' his own thoughts in what follows. 83.83.1.229 (talk) 09:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

"Do you want the £5 argument or the £10 argument?" It seems pretty obvious to a native English speaker what "argued" means in this context: "expressed the point of view that ...". One argues one's case in a court, but one never argues with the judge. Perhaps the German translation, if it exists, can address this point? Steve Holden (talk) 05:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Definite Article

Why is "the" Holocaust given the privilege of the definite article, whereas the Holodomor is not? JDiala (talk) 02:19, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Because the word Holodomdor is only ever used in this one sense in English, whereas the word 'holocaust' has historically been used in other contexts. For example, The Terror refers only to the "reign of Terror" during the French Revolution in a historical context (though there are also films with that name, etc), not to any form of terror. Hence, The Terror and terror link to different articles. Why do you assume that having the word "the" is some sort of "privilege"? Paul B (talk) 11:22, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Changes to archive settings

The settings on this page governing the activities of the archival bot previously read:

{{User:MiszaBot/config
|archiveheader = {{aan}}
|maxarchivesize = 200K
|counter = 28
|minthreadsleft = 4
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|archive = Talk:The Holocaust/Archive  %(counter)d
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I have changed them to:

{{User:MiszaBot/config
|archiveheader = {{aan}}
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|minthreadsleft = 10
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Wikipedia provides some reasonably clear Talk page guidelines. One of the sections within the guidelines concerns: When to condense pages. It says: "It is recommended to archive or refactor a page either when it exceeds 75 KB, or has more than 10 main sections". At the point of this edit the page contained 11.9 KB I have set the time setting to a relatively moderate 30 days but a higher value might be considered. Gregkaye (talk) 12:03, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

  • I just want to add that I appreciate that some admin type Wikipedia pages have low level settings in "minthreadsleft" and, in this context, I can understand how a low level setting might have been installed here.
In my pov, talk pages like this connect to important subjects to which a wide variety of views may be ascribed. It seems to me that adequate space should be given for the address of relevant issues and by a variety of editors. Gregkaye (talk) 10:48, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
I changed it to 5 min threads; 10 was way high. Please bear in mind that the guideline you quoted is just that -- a guideline. It also is somewhat dated (ie it does not reflect current practice). Also, you are quoting a section on condensing a talk page, not archiving. They are different concepts and no one really condenses pages any more. Short story, the current page length should not be a consideration in determining the thread archival age. I do not support increasing the archive interval higher than 30 days. As a reminder, there is a search button on the archives. VQuakr (talk) 20:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Duplicated word; please correct

"In total, of the approximately 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust, over 1 million were children." Second paragraph of the intro, second sentence. The emphasised 'were' in the above extract needs to be either removed or prefixed with 'who'. Thanks. 213.233.149.24 (talk) 14:57, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Murder as used by historians

An example is Timothy Snyder in Bloodlands: "In this book, Holocaust means the murder of the Jews in Europe..." See also title of Peter Longrich's book: Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Joel Mc (talk) 20:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. JDiala (talk) 03:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

6 million or 11 million?

To my knowledge, feel free to correct me, the Holocaust refers exclusively to the genocide of the Jewish people by the Nazis. On, 02:59, 29 July 2014‎ User:Red Slash altered it to the genocide of "approximately 11 million people". Note that prior to that date, the lead sentence referred to it as the genocide of 6 million Jews(check the history). He changed it somewhat arbitrarily. It's also worth noting that this user never altered the previously cited sources, all of which were originally in place to substantiate the claim that the Holocaust refers to the specifically to the genocide of six million Jews.

Now, I would have immediately reverted it, since #1 The alteration was not mentioned on the talk page and #2 He never cited any new sources to substantiate that claim, but I think a serious discussion needs to be had on this issue: what was the Holocaust? Does it refer to the genocide of all of the demographic groups whom the Nazis exterminated, or specifically the Jews? Some sources, like the USHMM [8] describe it as the genocide of the Jews, but then others also refer to to "non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust" such as the Jewish Virtual Library [9]. Both of these sources are WP:Reliable. Again, I think some discussion needs to be had on this; feel free to add your input JDiala (talk) 18:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

If you use the talk page archive search box above you will notice that this has been discussed a number a of times. a keyword of "scope" will get you several of them. (Hohum @) 19:07, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't know; you tell me (with sources) what the Holocaust is? Red Slash 20:19, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
(Note Holocaust victims, an article that I have not edited.) Red Slash 20:20, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

It's weird. This article acknowledges that most scholars refer to "the Holocaust" meaning Jews, but then decides that the Holocaust includes 11 million people. It shouldn't take a stance on the matter. --Monochrome_Monitor 17:23, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I reverted your edit since you need to wait for a consensus; there is at least one other editor who disagrees with the "Jews-only" definition. And no, it does not. If you look in the victims and death toll section, the precise definition is clearly disputed. In my opinion, there's a decent compromise: refer to it as six million, but then add that the scope of the Holocaust is disputed.

JDiala (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Been there before. If my memory serves me, years ago the accepted definition for the Holocaust for this article was the mass murder of European Jews. Someone came a long and disagreed with that definition, changed it in the article and when attempts were made to revert it back to the orginal fought on the basis that there was no consensus to go back to the original definition. Now it takes only a few who disagree to maintain the status quo. This is in spite of fact that most recognized historians of the period use the definition to refer only to the mass murder of the Jews. Furthermore, the strange idea that not including the mass murders of non-Jews in the definition of the Holocaust somehow devalues their suffering. I can give an arm-long list of historians who limit the definition to Jews, but let me just repeat what I wrote before (it seems like years ago): A lot of discussion has taken place about the distinction between the Holocaust and the Nazi mass murders of non-Jews. This distinction, which is made by many prominent scholars of Nazi Germany, is well summed up by one of the formost historians of the period, Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale as follows "The term Holocaust was introduced after the war and, by the 1990s, was generally (although by no means always) understood to mean the mass murder of the Jews by the Germans. In this book the term Holocaust signifies the final version of the Final Solution, the German policy to eliminate the Jews of Europe by murdering them. (Snyder, Timothy (2010-10-12). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Kindle Locations 7591-7594). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.) Joel Mc (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Fine. But, then you need to be consistent with that definition in the "victims and death toll" section ([10]), and further, you would need to alter the Holocaust Victims article significantly such that it conforms to "Jews only" definition. JDiala (talk) 07:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Any chance you could link to the previous discussion, @Joel Mc:? Snyder is a good source, but he goes out of his way to make clear than the academic position is not unanimous. If the term is the subject of academic debate, then the article should reflect that. VQuakr (talk) 07:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Back on 14 August 2012 when I opposed changing the definition of the Holocaust from the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis to including non-Jewish victims, I wrote: "Using the definition of the Holocaust is a descriptive statement based on the use of the term today by a vast number of scholars (you only have to look at a shelf of books in the German history section of any library to get see this.) Scholars use the term today to distinguish the mass murder of Jews from other Nazi mass murders because there are important different characteristics of each of the mass murders, i.e. there is a difference between anti-semitism and anti-slavism, not to "forget the suffering of other groups". To lump all together makes it more difficult to understand what actually happened. It has been repeated over and over again in this discussion that the label used by historians is descriptive and not a judgement about more or less suffering by the different groups that were murdered by the Nazis." Footnote 3 of the article gives us a list of the major scholars (a sort of "who's who" of Holocaust historians) writing in English. While it is true that there are some writers who use an expanded definition, an encyclopedia entry should focus on what the experts say. There are very few experts writing in English who use a wider definition (in French the term, Shoah, is clearer and refers only to the mass murder of Jews). Snyder is just acknowledging that there is some usage of a wider definition (I doubt that there is academic unanimity on anything--a sort of oxymoron--but he does not imply that any experts use it.) In fact he prefers to use the term mass murder to avoid sterile debates. To the best of my knowledge there really isn't much of an academic debate about the definition. I have done no work on the Holocaust Victims article, but I seem to remember that it has been used to get around the lack of consensus for changing the definition in this article. As I mentioned in the GA review (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Holocaust/GA1) my disappointment with this article is that a casual or first time visitor is likely to be unnecessarily confused about what experts mean when they refer to the Holocaust.Joel Mc (talk) 07:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough. I think the current state of the article is fine; the Holocaust is defined as the murder of 6 mil. Jews but it's mentioned that it was a part of a broader range of crimes committed by the Nazis, and the other victims are given a fair degree of attention throughout the article. Thanks for your input. JDiala (talk) 03:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I perused a few of the sources in footnote three, and found the argument given by Dawidowicz in the first chapter of Historians particularly convincing. VQuakr (talk) 06:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Armed resistance in the lead

I think that it is important that the article's coverage of armed Jewish resistance have a place in the lead. There is a misconception that the Jews did not resist the Holocaust. Having coverage of the armed resistance by Jewish resistance fighters is importantOnBeyondZebrax (talk) 16:16, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

lessons of the Holocaust

Would articles about classes for university students by Chabad fit under The Holocaust? Where would these kind of articles go?

For example

http://www.jewishpresstampa.com/news/2010-04-16/World_News/JLI_offers_course_on_lessons_of_the_Holocaust.html

http://thealternativepress.com/towns/madison/articles/beyond-never-again-new-course-to-explore-modern

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/bernikow_jcc_to_offer_6-week_h.html

http://www.chabad.org/search/results.aspx?searchWord=%20Course%20looks%20at%20effects%20of%20Holocaust

Adamreinman (talk) 21:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't saying there are classes on a topic is particularly valuable to the article. There are classes on every notable subject. What would those classes be teaching other than something along the contents of this article (or the sources this article is based on). Gaijin42 (talk) 22:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

See also: “Other genocides and mass killings”

What is the objective for that section? There is a link to the article genocide right at the beginning of the article. There some kind of well-structured treatment of the topic can be found, why should we have an arbitrary selection in this article? --Chricho ∀ (talk) 09:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Can someone add a proof section?

Hi, I was looking for contemporary accounts of the holocaust from German citizens, stuff like diaries etc. I searched for the text string "proof" in this page expecting to find a section with background on the proof that the holocaust happened (which would hopefully have links to what I was looking for), and found nothing. Can someone add this? Things like Goebbel's diary, air surveillance pictures of the camps and first hand accounts from Germans of the jews dissapearing are good examples of stuff that could be added. 70.162.46.129 (talk) 19:29, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Each of the examples you cite above is a primary source. Those can be useful, but for an encyclopedia article about a topic for which there is so much reliable secondary coverage (secondary sources are the main source of information for a tertiary work such as an encyclopedia), there really is no reason to directly use them. You might find some of the information you are looking for in Criticism of Holocaust denial. VQuakr (talk) 19:53, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
This article is based on the consensus amongst credible academic historians - and amongst such historians, there is no dispute as to the reality of the Holocaust - it no more needs a 'proof' section than any other historical account. It states historical fact, and cites the sources from which such fact is derived. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:03, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Escapes, publication of existence (April–June 1944)

Why isn't this a separate article? I assume this has been asked before. But it seems like there is now plenty of material for a separate article. And this section here seems like it has been constrained due to the size limitations imposed by trying to cover this important issue in this huge article on the the Holocaust.

And "(April–June 1944)" should be a subsection header in that section. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:22, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 October 2014

The number of people killed in the Holocaust is inaccurate. The Nazis had 5-15 million non-Jews killed as well, including: Romani, mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists, political dissidents, ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, ethnic Byellorussians, Poles, and Slavs. [11][12] 2605:6000:9D83:D800:A83D:D19E:790F:3520 (talk) 23:13, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

See the second paragraph of the lede. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:03, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Concern about photo not adequately capturing the horror of the Holocaust

The lead is often the only part of the article that a reader will read. As such, I am concerned that the lead's photo of Jews waiting at the railway station to be selected for death camps does not adequately capture the horror of the Holocaust. Given the horrific nature of the Holocaust, I think that a photo depicting the killings, several of which exist in the body of the article, would better communicate the terrible nature of the mass murder.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 15:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I disagree with that. Not in the lead. Ideally later in the article. The train photo is one of the most iconic photos of the Holocaust. That is why it appears in the lead. The suffering doesn't need to be 'captured'. 6 million innocent people (11 million if you count non-Jews) died. It's a given. Further, we don't have images of dead bodies in the lead for any other massacre/war/genocide. JDiala (talk) 21:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
The train station photo is still there. Well, if no other massacre/war/genocide articles have pictures of dead victims, perhaps the Holocaust article is a good place to start. I will check on your statement that no other leads have dead people in them, and get back to you. I think the suffering does need to be captured in the lead. The lead is often the only part of a WP article that is read. If the horrific pictures are only in the later sections of the article, some readers may not see them.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 22:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
The article for My Lai Massacre has a shocking photo of dead civilians, in colour, right in the lead. I think it helps the reader to grasp the horrific nature of the My Lai Massacre.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 22:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
The number (6 million Jews) is just so staggering that it is hard to grasp. The picture helps the reader to see the scale of the mass murder.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 22:09, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse has a colour photo of prisoner abuse in the lead.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 22:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
No, you're missing the point. These are exceptions, not rules. Considering other genocides and massacres, like the Armenian Genocide, Columbine High School massacre, Bombing of Dresden, the Blitz or war battles like the Battle of Berlin and the Siege of Leningrad, the lead images are geared more towards iconic or symbolic images rather than images which purely serve to convey the magnitude of human suffering. Others, like the Holodomor just have images of a few bodies rather than mass graves (which also could have been used). The purpose of Wikipedia isn't to provoke an emotional response of sadness or disgust, but rather to inform. It boils down to personal preference. And, in my view, the train photograph by itself, considering how iconic it is, does that the best. And no, I don't think the suffering is particularly hard to grasp. It's a given. If the reader wishes to comprehend this event and how 'staggering' it was, he should do that on his own accord. Wikipedia merely exists to inform. The subjective and emotional aspects of particular subjects are not of primary concern.
I have no objection to the photograph whatsoever. The photo itself is fine. However, it's ideally placed later in the article. I don't think the lead is an ideal place for it. Honestly, I just think it looks ugly. Again, the train image by itself looked great, and it, along with the image of the boy with his hands up, are the most iconic and recognizable images regarding the Holocaust. JDiala (talk) 06:59, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
The lead is now too cluttered. The original photograph was fine by itself. Please move the other one back to the relevant section. (Hohum @) 12:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
A poor photo of a pile of bodies does nothing to aid the article or to "capture the horror of the Holocaust". The fact that people are dead tells us nothing (they might have died from a natural disaster or from a plague outbreak). The established picture shows people being shepherded by Nazi officials in a way that much more effectively captures the 'managerial' treatment of masses of people. Paul B (talk) 18:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Paul. Keep the established picture by itself.Joel Mc (talk) 07:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree that the current image is a good one to use but I think the caption could be edited to more directly explain what is going on in the image. For example it could read: "Hungarian Jews being selected by Nazis to be sent to their deaths in gas chambers at Auschwitz extermination camp, May/June 1944." and not "Hungarian Jews are selected by Nazis to be sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz concentration camp, May/June 1944.[1]" Monopoly31121993 (talk) 11:08, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Definition

The introduction refers only to Jews. Yet the article as a whole refers to Jews and non-Jews. The article is either about Jews alone, or all those killed by Nazis. If the latter the lede needs to be rewritten to refer to non-Jews, and ideally in a way that does not emphasise any one group.Royalcourtier (talk) 05:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you take the time to read again the second paragraph of the introduction. --Lebob (talk) 11:32, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Arrangement of Section 3

Would it be OK to structure Section 3, "Development and Execution", as: Exclusion, Expropriation, Concentration, Deportation, Extermination? --YeOldeGentleman (talk) 13:51, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 November 2014

The holocaust started from late 1930s till early 1940s 2601:E:9F80:797:C12B:9506:9622:65CD (talk) 02:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Stickee (talk) 02:34, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Footnote 281.

The following link became unavailable: http://www.ds-rs.si/dokumenti/publikacije/Zbornik_05-1.pdf The new location is: http://www.ds-rs.si/sites/default/files/dokumenti/zbornik_zrtve_vojne_in_revolucije.pdf— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.61.59.35 (talkcontribs) 17:59, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the working link. The replacement has made on the page.--Ddcm8991 (talk) 19:00, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

subtle difference between "dying" and "lying"

dear all, I do like the way this page is totally clear from propaganda. unfortunately it came to my attention that the image of a child have an incorrect description. from the file info you can see and read that the image is decribed as "child lying on the streets", instead in our glorious propaganda free entry it states "child dying". Please dear admins who protected the page provide correcting the mispelling in our page. thank you and keep up the good work keeping wikipedia free of npov and unsourced material. cheers!--Lorenaalsalzia (talk) 10:43, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

  Done Cannolis (talk) 11:02, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
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  2. ^ Fischel, Jack (1998). The Holocaust. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 69. ISBN 0-313-29879-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Wyman, David S. (1996). The world reacts to the Holocaust. JHU Press. p. 265. ISBN 0-8018-4969-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ a b c Benbassa, Esther (2000). Sephardi Jewry: a history of the Judeo-Spanish community, 14th-20th centuries. University of California Press. p. 174. ISBN 0-520-21822-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Levin, Itamar (2001). His majesty's enemies: Great Britain's war against Holocaust victims and survivors. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 37. ISBN 0-275-96816-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Levy, Richard S (2005). Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution. ABC-CLIO. p. 90. ISBN 1-85109-439-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ http://www.amazon.com/dp/158062541X ISBN 1-58062-541-X Adams Media Corporation, 2001.
  8. ^ A description of the book and some reviews can be found on the website of Princeton Univ. Press, http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7026.html
  9. ^ A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard M. Sachar, Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y., 2007, p. 238
  10. ^ (eds.), Bruno De Wever ... (2006). Local government in occupied Europe : (1939 - 1945). Gent: Academia Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-90-382-0892-3. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  11. ^ L. Ivanov. Essential History of Bulgaria in Seven Pages. Sofia, 2007.
  12. ^ a b [13] Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews, Michael Bar-Zohar
  13. ^ Chary,p. 45
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference AuschwitzGambit was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Pike, David Wingeate. Spaniards in the Holocaust: Mauthausen, the horror on the Danube; Editorial: Routledge Chapman & Hall ISBN 10: 0415227801 / ISBN 13: 9780415227803. London, 2000.
  16. ^ Pike, David Wingeate. Spaniards in the Holocaust: Mauthausen, the horror on the Danube; Editorial: Routledge Chapman & Hall ISBN 10: 0415227801 / ISBN 13: 9780415227803. London, 2000.
  17. ^ Españoles deportados a los campos nazis (1940-1945)