Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland/Evidence

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Frequently asked questions (including details about the summary page)

Target dates: Opened • Evidence phase 1 closes 09 April 2023 • Evidence phase 2: 17 April 2023 - 27 April 2023 • Analysis closes 27 April 2023 • Proposed decision to be posted by 11 May 2023

Scope: Conduct of named parties in the topic areas of World War II history of Poland and the history of the Jews in Poland, broadly construed

Case clerks: Dreamy Jazz (Talk), Firefly (Talk), MJL (Talk), ToBeFree (Talk); Drafting arbitrators: Barkeep49 (Talk), Primefac (Talk), Wugapodes (Talk)

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

Evidence phases

• During the first evidence phase all evidence that relates to the scope of the case will be accepted. For the first week after the case opens, evidence may be submitted for the purpose of adding another party to the case.
• During the second evidence phase, only evidence that rebuts other evidence (see Rebuttals below) or which answers a question posed by an arbitrator will be allowed. Any evidence which does not meet this standard may be removed, collapsed, closed, or otherwise addressed by an Arbitrator or clerk without warning.

Submitting evidence

• Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute.
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Word and diff limits

• The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee.Evidence that has been summarized and collapsed does not count against an editor's word or diff limits
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• Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.

Supporting assertions with evidence

• Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.
• Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

Rebuttals

• The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page.
• Analysis of evidence should occur on the /Analysis page, which is open for comment by parties, arbitrators, and others.

Expected standards of behavior

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Consequences of inappropriate behavior

• Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
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Evidence presented by Adoring nanny

Summarized at /Summary#Naliboki massacre

Having more editors is good for this topic area In particular, the article Naliboki massacre was vastly improved by a recent series of edits by editors with different points of view. Version as of mid February[1]. Current version (March 13)[2]. The old version was borderline antisemitic. I don't see such issues with the current version, though others may differ. The old version left the question of the participation of Jewish partisans a bit mysterious, with a few hints of yes, and somewhat-stronger hints of no. The current version makes it clear that the allegation is unproven at best and probably false. The old version contained useless info about a commission not having completed its work as of years ago. The new version summarizes what they did. The collaboration was required. For example, I certainly could not have done it on my own as I don't speak Polish. That said, the differing points of view of the various editors, much of which involves issues I don't understand, is severe enough that it resulted in an AE thread[3] with some mild sanctions. Certainly some people were less than happy with each other. I do wish everyone would calm down. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:15, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Ealdgyth

(2285 words) Ealdgyth (talk) 14:49, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

(Small aside - if arbitrators want copies of relevant books that I have in my library in print form, I do have a scanner and am not afraid to use it) Ealdgyth (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Ealdgyth, and we'll be in touch if we can't get our hands on something. You're already doing quite a lot, so I'm happy to make scanning books an ArbCom job. — Wug·a·po·des 22:57, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

First, a note of warning. I'm up to 28K words documenting inaccuracies that I've found in our articles on the Holocaust (not just in Poland, but also some of the more general topics) (and still working on it - I've only gotten about halfway through Treblinka extermination camp where I'm comparing much of the article to the sources and discovering that much doesn't support things - I've also done a lighter look at Extermination camp, Judenrat, and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). Much of it is source-integrity issues and in a lot of cases, it's almost impossible to figure out who originally added the problem because so much reverting has gone on over the years as well as shuffling of text around without making sure the source citations stayed with things. So some of my evidence will be of a generalized nature - just showing how skewed or inaccurate our articles are without necessarily trying to "pin blame". I'll try to keep the evidence to the worst cases - rather than drive you all as insane as I'm feeling with discovering this massive problem. (Yes, I'm keeping a list of all the errors I'm finding and will fix them as the case concludes) (This section

The Holocaust in Poland:

1. "Given the severity of the German measures designed to prevent this occurrence, the survival rate among the Jewish fugitives was relatively high and by far, the individuals who circumvented deportation were the most successful." has issues with much of it being unsupported by the sources as well as not conveying all nuance of the sources

   Details: This is sourced to two sources - One is: this article by Paulsson which does not support the first phrase "Given the severity of the German measures designed to prevent this occurrence". (We're going to ignore the issues with this information not making sense within the larger framework of the paragraph its in). The second source is Lukas 1989 (2013 edition) p. 13. I've got access to the 1989 edition through internet archive here which is problematic for a number of reasons - Lukas' numbers are not generally accepted. He admits as much right here "Recent research suggest that a million Poles were involved, but some estimates go as high as three million. My own research puts the figure much higher than is customarily accepted." The conclusion "given the severity of the German measures... the survival rate among the Jewish fugitives was relatively high and by far, the individuals who circumvented deportation were the most successful." seems unsupported also - nothing in either source says anything about circumventing deportation or the other. This information was restored with Special:Diff/1003491753 in Jan 2021 by Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs), of Special:Diff/1003309879 a removal by Buidhe (talk · contribs)

   Thanks to VM and MVBW for pointing out the copy-paste error here ... the details section should be:

   is sourced to two sources - this book review by Timothy Snyder in the New York Review of Books and this article by Paulsson. Nothing in either source supports the first phrase "Given the severity of the German measures designed to prevent this occurrence" (we'll leave aside that I'm unclear what "this occurrence refers to since the previous (and only) sentence in the paragraph is about hiding children in convents) and the next part is also not clearly related to the previous thoughts - are these fugitives ... fugitives from the ghettos? Or fugitives who fled to the Soviet Union? The last part is again, not supported by either of the sources given - neither source talks about fugitives vs. non-fugitive survival rates... so ... what's this supposed to be sourced to or discussing?

2. "Historian Richard C. Lukas(source for the 3 million figure is here) gives an estimate as high as three million Polish helpers; an estimate similar to those cited by other authors." The "estimate similar..." section is not supported by the sources and is a definitely an outlier in the research, which our article cherrypicks without making this clear. The edit was added with Special:Diff/826962453 in 2018 by Nihil novi (talk · contribs)

   Details: The part from "an estimate similar to those cited by other authors." gives two sources - handily the first gives a quote from the source also. The first is Smith's Moral Geographies ... and the quote is "It has been estimated that a million or more Poles were involved in helping Jews" which flatly contradicts the "three million helpers" statement. The second source given is Lukas again... which can't support the "given by other authors" part of the statement. The original edit also gave this survival story introduction, this book that was self-published (Xlibris is a self-publishing outfit), the Moral Geographies book from above (which isn't by a historian of the Holocaust - it's topics are given as "social justice, human geography, enviromental ethics" etc) which still only says "Nevertheless, it has been estimated that a million or more Poles were invovled in helping Jews" (gives Polanski 1989: 240 and Lukas 1997: 150 as the sources) which does not support the 3 million figure, and Lukas 1989. Using Lukas here is obviously NOT a "cited by other authors" thing.

3. "In December 1939 around 100 Jews were shot by Wehrmacht soldiers and gendarmes at Kolo" is sourced to this source which is just a primary account of the shooting and is greatly undue here. It was added in June 2019 by Chumchum7 (talk · contribs) with Special:Diff/900372922

   Details: One - why is this shooting highlighted? And it is not clear who the gendarmes were - the article text seems to imply that they were part of the Wehrmacht but one of the witness statements implies that the gendarmes were local - it isn't clear if they were Polish or Volksdeutsch or something else. It's also not clear who did the supplementary text here - who's saying the Wehrmacht was involved? Is this some subject matter expert? The entry for Kolo in the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos doesn't mention any shooting in 1939...we should be using secondary sources, not primary sources for this information.

4. "Between 1942 and 1944, the most extreme measure of the Holocaust, the extermination of millions of Jews from Poland and all over Europe was carried out in six extermination camps. There were no Polish guards at any of the Reinhard camps, despite the sometimes used misnomer Polish death camps. All killing centres were designed and operated by the Nazis in strict secrecy, aided by the Ukrainian Trawnikis." The second and third sentences are not supported by the sources or are flatly contradicted by other sources and minimizes Polish contributions to the killing of Jews - there were Polish guards at Belzec and the Trawnikis were not just Ukrainian but other Soviet nationalities. It was added in Special:Diff/791174510 in 2017 by Poeticbent (talk · contribs).

   Details: This is sourced to Rethinking Poles and Jews which is a problem, because the one bit that might support it - "there were no Polish guards at the camps" is pulled out (you can tell because the google books snippet is from a search for the phrase "There were no Polish guards at any of the camps") but the context is missing. The phrase is in a paragraph that is discussing how Polish accounts of the Holocaust differ from non-Polish accounts. So the phrase "there were no Polish guards in the camps" is what the partisan Polish accounts state, not a fact that can be stated in wikipedia. And the rest of the information given in these sentences cannot be supported at all by the source given. I'll also point out that this US Holocaust Museum article on Belzec specifically mentions that some of the guards at Belzec were "However, the bulk of the guard unit, between 90 and 120 men, were either former Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) of various nationalities or Ukrainian and Polish civilians selected or recruited for this purpose." which would seem to contradict the statement our article makes that there were no Polish guards in any of the Reinhard camps (for those not aware, Belzec/Sobibor/Treblinka are collectively known as the Reinhard camps - for Operation Reinhard which operated those three death camps).

Judenrat

1. "The Judenräte are notorious today for their collaboration with the Nazi regime..." this is ... quite the POV framing here, it should be attributed and is not the historical consensus (there are some historians who would not consider all members of the councils as collaborators) This was added to the lead(!) of the article with Special:Diff/1115124934 in Oct 2022 by Drevolt (talk · contribs). I hope I don't have to explain why "notorious" is an incredibly loaded phrasing that needs careful sourcing and attribution
2. "While some scholars have described the institution of the Judenrats as a collaborationist one," is not supported by the sources and is a vast oversimplification of the research - many scholars qualify their views of the Jewish Councils with a great deal of nuance and do not feel that a broad brush "collaborationist" or "not-collaborationist" view is helpful. It was added in Special:Diff/964872329 in June 2020 by Piotrus (talk · contribs)

   Details: Tis is cited to two sources. One is The Holocaust and the Historians p. 135 which does not quite support this - it discusses that early works often charged the councils with collaboration but then discusses Arendt's Eichman in Jerusalem charge of collaboration and dismisses Arendt's charge. And the second is a specialized monograph on one particular council, not them as a whole. The original edit also had an additional source to Trunk's work on the Judenrats which did not support the information either

3. As a whole, this article is woefully inadequate in summarizing the literature and research that has been done. The fact that it gets almost 7000 views a month shames me that I haven't dug down and fixed it.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

1. This section is more of a "feel of the article" discussion, which would require a LOT of background.
2. Much of the Jewish force discussion is about material and who provided it and opinion about why the ZOB is better covered in works about the Uprising, and does not discuss the organizations that contributed fighters, how many fighters there were, who the leaders were. The focus distinctly feels ... off. A lot is devoted to help that the Jews received from the Poles - and not actually about the Jewish fighting organization.
3. In contrast - the Polish section of the forces discussion is very detailed and describes a number of actions the Polish underground attempted to do... as well as very detailed descriptions of the aid the Polish underground gave. THis section totals 1019 words, compared to 637 words in the Jewish forces section. Comparing this to the coverage of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Rozett and Spector's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust which covers the Polish aid to the Ghetto fighters as "They [the ZOB] made contact with the Polish Home Army, which recognized the new resistance organization and sent it a small number of weapons." and, describing the end of the uprising, "Several dozen fighters managed to escape with the help of ZOB members on the Polish side of the ghetto who led them through the city's sewer system." Longerich, in his Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews covers the Uprising on pp. 377-378 and doesn't mention Poles at all. Cesarani covers the Uprising on pp. 613-617 of his Final Solution. The only mention of aid from the Poles during the revolt is from a letter that Anielewicz sent to Jewish fighters outside the ghetto - Cesarani says that Anielewicz "was thrilled that the AL had conducted a supporting attack". Then on p. 617 Cesarani says that "Polish reactions to the uprising and the liquidation of the ghetto varied from admiration through compassion to glee. The AK and the AL mounted at least eleven supporting attacks on German targets outside and at least one AK unit may even have penetrated the ghetto to fight alongside the ZZW. In a press bulletin the Home Army high command praised the 'courageous, determined armed resistance... the fighters of the Warsaw ghetto should be accorded full respect and support.' Broadcasting from London on 4 May, General Sikorski called on his countrymen to 'give all help and shelter to those being murdered'. He added that 'before all humanity, which has for toolong been silent, I condemn these crimes'. But a Catholic underground paper saw the tragedy as an opportunity for the Jews to convert: 'Their souls will be cleansed and redeemed by the baptism of blood... they can be saved in the face of destruction by baptism and the true faith'." Shmuel Krakowski devotes an entire chapter to the Uprising in The War of the Doomed and very very little is mentioned about Polish forces taking part in his detailed description of events during the uprising. I have no diffs for this as the edit history of the article is a bit of a mess. I welcome someone using "Who Wrote This" detangling the edit history.
4. Along with the above - listed in the infobox as "supporting" the Jewish Uprising are the Home Army and the Gwardia Ludowa, but in light of the historians above, I'm not sure we can really say that historians would agree that their aid was significant and uncontroversial enough to include in the infobox. This was added Special:Diff/1142187963 in March 2023 by Marcelus (talk · contribs)

General Government

1. "Thousands of anti-Semitic posters were distributed in Warsaw." is not supported by the sources attached and was added Special:Diff/842732210 this May 2018 edit by Xx236 (talk · contribs)

   Details: This source the source only discusses anti-semitic propoganda in Germany, nothing about Warsaw. A second source is also given, but that's an abstract of a journal issue - and doesn't support the information either (the article may support it, but the article should be given, not the webpage of the abstract)

Evidence presented by El_C

Volunteer Marek BLPCRIME vio (March 6, 2023)

Summarized at /Summary#Summary of evidence involving Volunteer Marek

During very lengthy discussion at Gitz6666's talk page, a discussion which I had noticed in passing and did not read in full, Volunteer Marek (VM) violated WP:BLPCRIME using shocking language (17:55, 5 March 2023 — admins only), which I immediately (Redacted) and revdeleted (22:22, 6 March 2023 — admins only). No further action (or a recommendation for one) was taken by me save for that urgent revdel, citing specifically this impending case.

GizzyCatBella AE misuse (March 3, 2023)

Summarised at /Summary#Summary of evidence involving GizzyCatBella

A bit of background. A little while ago, new ArbCom member, GeneralNotability, dropped by my talk page to ask: Since you have the dubious honor of being a very active AE admin, I'm curious to hear whether you have any suggestions for things ArbCom could do to make your life easier at AE (12:05, 16 January 2023). I was away for a few months, but I eventually replied, emphasizing on enforcing AE's existing word/diff limits as a perennial problem and challenge. I also pointed out that enforcing the word/diff limit can often be a matter of some urgency in any given case, stating that such enforcement usually needs to happen fast, because once one user, say, exceeds the word/diff limit several fold, then another might reply in turn, several fold (16:44, 4 March 2023). Now, consider GizzyCatBella (GCB) at WP:AE#TrangaBellam (permalink). GCB is (or at least should be) very familiar with the AE board: as a filer, as a party, as a participant, as an appellant, etc. Her misuse in this AE complaint —a complaint featuring TrangaBellam, a content opponent of GCB's (I think?)— was that GCB had used double the number of diffs that's allowed: +40 instead of the max of 20 (05:46, 3 March 2023). The thing is I did actually get to it fast, stating only a couple of hours later that: Enforcement requests and statements in response to them may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs. I count +1,500 words by Marcelus and and 40+ diffs by GizzyCatBella. Both need to be trimmed accordingly (07:06, 3 March 2023). However, GCB replied (10:26, 3 March 2023) with @El C - I’ll trim some diffs by the end of the day (I’m sorry, I'm busy now). A reply I'm not sure I had seen at the time –but– too busy to remove the entire 40+ diff list in the meantime? Anyway, long story short, no changes were ultimately made to GCB's diff list, with that AE report now having been closed with her original +40 diffs remaining.

Evidence presented by GizzyCatBella

Summarised at /Summary#Summary of evidence involving GizzyCatBella

Responding to the accusation of misconduct (not trimming my diffs at AE) by EC_I: I exceeded the permissible limit by error (I will be more careful in the future), then I received clear instructions from the reviewing administrator (I didn't asked for it) that said --> Quote: You can keep your diffs.. - @User:El_C - No, I don't believe I should be Topic Banned for not removing diffs after being permitted to keep them. - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:59, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Volunteer Marek

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

@Clovermoss - I did not accuse the person of being a sock puppet or proxy. I said they were involved. I will post evidence relating to sock puppets etc (other users/accounts) later.

It’s also noteworthy that all evidence presented so far, except for Ealdgyth, is about “what happened after the publication of the paper” rather than anything prior to it.

(and "you posted too many diffs at AE so you should be topic banned"... seriously?)

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