Talk:Muselmann

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Military history: Balkan / European / German / World War II

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This and Mussulmen describe the same topic. Vote merge. Demilio 17:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. ---Releeshan 17:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merger

I am about to merge muzulman and mussulmen. The title I found most appropriate is muzulman (~360,000 against ~16,000 google hits). --Ben ^T/_C 12:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take a better look at the top of those hundreds of thousands of Google hits: they apparently refer to the Polish word for Moslems, i.e. adherents to the Islamic faith, rather than the term used in the context of Nazi concentration camps. The term used by the English language edition of the Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust is the German: Muselmann, and I'm investigating a rename of this page accordingly, with citation. Deborahjay 23:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

done. The Mussulmen article now redirects here. I had to leave out the following unsourced references:

One person describes them as follows:

"While one person's response to a difficult or painful situation may be to become fanatical and give in to hatred of another group, another person's response may be to become indifferent, Mr. Wiesel commented. 'Indifference is not the beginning of the process, it is the end. If I am indifferent to you I will be indifferent to myself. Anger may be an inspiration. At the moment when you are angry you can organize a movement. If you are indifferent, however, it is finished. My suffering, and the general suffering of Jews in the Holocaust, was not just because of the Nazis, but also because of the indifference of those who logically should have been our friends, such as the bishops in England and Jewish leaders in America.'

For Elie Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald while his father, mother and younger sister perished in the camps, the incarnation of indifference, or one who has given in to despair, is the 'mussulmen', as certain camp inmates were called. 'A muselmann was someone who died before their time; someone who was still alive but had become indifferent to his or her fate. They no longer suffered from the beatings or from hunger. In their indifference, however, they had become their own victims." - Nancy Loevinger

This position has been critisized as being merely an extension of fascist ideology, whereby the will would prevail over all other conditions, and Nazi victims are accused of bringing about their own fate.

--Ben ^T/_C 12:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note from a late-commer. The Polish term Muzułman (used also in the form of Musulman and Muzulman by the camp inmates of non-Polish and non-Jewish ancestry) refers strictly to this phenomenon. The name for Muslim people in Polish is Muzułmanin, which is a completely different word. Hence with 99% certainty all instances of Muzulman on the web refer to the concentration camp history, not to Muslims. Not that the current title was wrong, I simply never seen the term used in its German form. //Halibu tt 18:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Title

Shouldn't the title of the article match the spelling, or at least be mentioned as an alternative spelling, in the article itself? Frozen North. 08:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the title should be "Muselmann" and nothing else. Why does it use this unique fantasy spelling? Could this be because this actually documents how anti-semitism and Islamophobia go together? Viande hachée 21:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page move

Based on the comments above, including Deborahjay's in the previous Merger section, I have moved the page to Muselmann. There are very few uses of the Polish spelling "Muzulman" in the literature, and use of the German spelling predominates by at least an order of magnitude when referring to the concentration camp phenomenon. In addition, the article itself used "Muselmann" consistently. --MCB 05:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the term

The term Museleman in this connection, comes from Yiddish and not from German.--Gilisa (talk) 14:54, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Section on Action 14f13

This section is very interesting, but has nothing to do with the term Muselmann. Is it needed here? This page, I guess, is about the history and usage of the term.Michtrich (talk) 20:33, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is very relevant since this is what happened to Muselmanner in the camps. You cannot consider the term and its meaning without referring to their fate. 86.175.194.97 (talk) 15:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, but maybe let me clarify why I think it is not relevant here (whereas I won't at all instist on that). Muselmann is a derogatory slang term and by providing the information about how concentration/extermination camp prisoners were treated in this article you kind of strenghten or validate the slang term and its intention, which was to degrade (or at least it was supposed to). By providing this kind of historical information to this article you treat it as if it (i.e. a Muselmann) is an objective entity that really existed (e.g. in nature or as socially or culturally accepted concept). But it only existed in a very specific context among KZ prisoners (and they would rather ot have had it) and KZ staff and was equivalent to dying or dead. It was kind of making fun of death and very sarcastic or ironic at best. It is important to have an article on the slang term and its history and usage, but I think the information on how KZ prisoners were treated has a more respectful place in a more 'objectivly' titled article, without a negative context/connotation. Maybe this is a bit far-fetched, but it is like explaining feminism on a page titled 'slut'. Just a thought. Does it make sense? Any other opinions? Thanks, Michtrich (talk) 22:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The term was not just used by KZ staff but by KZ victims too, as the quote from Primo Levi shows. The prisoners knew very well what the "staff" were doing to them. It is a term used to describe the effects of starvation and emaciation on the human body, but it had unequal effects, perhaps because some prisoners were also affected psychologically as well as physically. It seems to me important to explain what happened to those poor victims, and it also highlights the extreme cruelty exerted by KZ "staff". 86.175.194.97 (talk) 22:48, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]