Talk:Polish Righteous Among the Nations

Sort of GAR

I will take a look at the article, and raise issues. This is not a GAR because I feel conflicted in light of the running AE thread. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:41, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

1. The lead mentions,

   The list of Righteous is not comprehensive and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided tens of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors.

   I have no doubt that the list is incomprehensive but the figures matter esp. given the debatable extent of Polish complicity in the Holocaust. The cited source is Hans G. Furth, a Professor of Psychology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C; his paper has a GScholar citation count of 9 but on probing, most of the citations are in weak sources (Tilar J. Mazzeo) and dissertation theses. Thus, we either need to find far better sources or this needs to go from the lead. I do not even see how his paper is due for inclusion, at all.
2. The Polish Righteous not only defied the Nazis but also a majority of their own folks who were complicit with the Nazi regime. Which makes their actions even more commendable. This is a point highlighted by multiple sources and needs to go into the lead.
3. Count of the population: We cannot be using primary sources from 1941.
4. Gilbert used to be a specialist on Churchill, and he is a popular historian. I won't say that he is unreliable but we need to find better sources.
5. The work cited by Piotrowski has been subject to a set of scathing reviews by multiple historians. We cannot be using it.

   I am not sure what happened here; the ridiculuosness of the count was fixed to some extent but but it broke text-cite integrity.

6. Sławiński is a retired proffessor of chemistry; why are we citing him here? London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association is not a reputed publisher either.
7. What is the academic qualifications of John T. Pawlikowski who appears to oppose Piotrowski, et al.? I failed to find anything convincing and need to check his pubs.
8. Gunnar S. Paulsson [..] has demonstrated that, despite the much harsher conditions, Warsaw's Polish residents managed to support and conceal the same percentage of Jews .. - In p. 230, Paulsson writes [..] but for the Hotel Polski and the Warsaw Uprising, the survival rate among Jews in hiding in Warsaw would have been about the same as that in Western Europe, contrary to all expectations and contemporary perceptionsy. He does not assign particular credit to the Poles and as his (as well as others') work note, Jews escaped the Nazi regime by a variety of ways which did not always include the colloboration of the natives. Sometimes it even included not disclosing their Jewish identity to the Pole landlords! So, I am afraid that the line in our article is a violation of our policy on synthesis.
9. Anyone from the Aryan side caught assisting those on the Jewish side in obtaining food was subject to the death penalty. The usual punishment for aiding Jews was death, applied to entire families. On 10 November 1941, the death penalty was expanded by Hans Frank to apply to Poles who helped Jews "in any way: by taking them in for the night, giving them a lift in a vehicle of any kind" or "feed[ing] runaway Jews or sell[ing] them foodstuffs". - This is largely repeating the same stuff over and over. It needs to be highlighted that the Poles faced fatal danger for helping the Jews but not in this way!
10. The page has nothing on the persecution faced by the Righteous in post-War Poland even involving targeted assassinations. Thus, the article fails NPOV.
11. The article claims that the Jews were saved by entire communities, with everyone engaged, from Villages X, Y, ... I think we need far high quality sources for such claims. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:13, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

• These are all good point, can you please change it to a numbered list, so it would be easier to refer to each of the points? Marcelus (talk) 23:46, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

• Done. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:01, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

• Piotrus and K.e.coffman, fyi.TrangaBellam (talk) 07:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  Since I was pinged. This article likely needs a number of improvements to meet modern GA standards. Most of your comments above seem reasonable. But why the NPOV/disputed tags? What is not neutral, and what is disputed? (Regarding the unreliable sources, that is certainly a valid tag, a few seconds of glancing at the refs gives curios such as ).Sunday.niedziela.pl - that's pl:Niedziela (czasopismo) or "F O R U M : : : : Żydzi - Chrześcijanie - Muzułmanie", seriously, a forum, sigh). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:29, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  NPOV - Points 2 and 10. To quote our policy,

  NPOV [..] means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
  — WP:NPOV

  Accuracy disputed - Points 1 and 5. Not sure about Point 11. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:45, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  Argument that "majority of Polish people was complicit with Nazi regime" certainly isn't neutral nor supported by majority of RS. Ad. 10 what kind of persecution do you have in mind? Marcelus (talk) 09:53, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  Point 2: I do not argue that other editors blindly put whatever I claimed above. That said, many reputed scholars do support #2 and that is no fringe view; for example, Mordecai Paldiel:

  The threats faced by would-be rescuers, both from the Germans and blackmailers alike, make us place Polish rescuers of Jews in a special category, for they exemplified a courage, fortitude, and lofty humanitarianism unequalled in other occupied countries."

  I can give other examples; Gross says something to these effects though I cannot find the precise quote ... TrangaBellam (talk) 10:16, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't deny they were blackmailers, but they weren't majority. I think it's mainstream consensus that most people were "bystanders" when it comes to the destruction of the Polish Jewry. Marcelus (talk) 10:20, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  My point is not on whether such Poles were majority or not. It is that many scholars note the Righteous Poles to be exceptionally brave courtesy the threat they faced from both the Nazis and other Poles (however miniscule they might be). Our articles does not touch on this aspect at all. That is why a NPOV tag is merited. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: not up to the current GA standards. See also comments at #Need of GA reassessment?. --K.e.coffman (talk) 11:02, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Ad. 1: see the section below

Ad. 3: fixed

Ad. 4: Gilbert is absolutely RS when it comes to WW2 and Holocaust

Ad. 5: Is this the consensus? It seems to me that Piotrowski is ok when it comes to basic factography. The objections to his book stem from its selection and the construction of a certain narrative. But it is always worth finding better RS

Ad. 6: It seems to me that this is Andrzej Kazimierz Sławiński, a member of the Polish underground, a Warsaw insurgent, then a prisoner of German POW camps. A distinguished figure, but when it comes to WW2 history a hobbyist. I have not found any book or article published by him, except what is in the link. There are better sources.

Ad. 7: John T. Pawlikowski has been an active participant in the Christian-Jewish Dialogue as well as the wider interreligious dialogue for nearly fifty years He served for six years as President of the International Council of Christians and Jews and has served several terms on the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He was deeply involved in the development of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington having served four terms on its board by presidential appointment. I think he qualifies RS.

Ad. 9: I slightly corrected it.

Ad. 10: Even involving targeted assassinations? Can you elaborate?

Ad. 11: Libionka is high quality RS. It's need to be checked if he really says that Marcelus (talk) 13:20, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Case in point

Here's a case in point, of problematic contents and sources:

The usual punishment for aiding Jews was death, applied to entire families.

References

Sources:

1: “Righteous Among the Nations”: Statistical Breakdown by Country -- has nothing to do with the contents in question. Jewish Virtual Library is not RS to begin with.

2: Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not"™ -- a dubious-looking web site https://isurvived.org/ by "© NatureQuest Publications, Inc." which also repeats the erroneous claim that "...among all the countries occupied by the Third Reich during the Second World War (1939-1945) only in Poland was any kind of help to a person of Jewish faith or origin punishable by death".

3: [1] compares the situation in Poland to that in Belguim and vaguely states that "in Poland [the aid] could and often enough did mean death...", in the context of discussing the narrative from the Polish perspective. Does not support "the usual punishment", of which there were ranges from fines to imprisonment to death.

Etc. --K.e.coffman (talk) 13:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Murder of entire families undoubtedly happened, but it was not the rule. In general, there were no rules here, people who helped Jews were often killed, but they were also sent to prisons, camps, sometimes punished only with a fine, etc. Compare this to the section: Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during_the_Holocaust#Punishment_for_aiding_the_Jews, which I recently edited using Grabowski's book. Marcelus (talk) 14:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

To be more specific: My comment was to point out the article not using reliable sources and not reflecting what the sources actually say. The very next sentence also has problems. And this is just one example I looked at in detail. I thus believe the article should be delisted. -- K.e.coffman (talk) 14:13, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I concur. This article is not up to modern GA standards. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree Marcelus (talk) 14:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done TrangaBellam (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Procedurally this might have been closed too quickly, but the end result would be the same, so IAR I guess. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:24, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Relevant data

Couple helpful sources (my translation).

Number of Poles aiding Jews:

The exact number of rescuers and rescued will never be known. What is known is that the helping attitude in Polish society was rare and did not meet with universal approval. Thousands of stories of help are known, but we will never know about many rescuers. Difficulties in documenting the history of aid are due, among other things, to the secretive nature of the rescuers' actions, the concealment of the fact that they were helping for fear of social ostracism, the post-war migration of the population and political conditions. These factors determined the disproportion between the cases of aid that were able to be confirmed by irrefutable testimonies and the likely larger number of people who were involved in this activity. 6,992 Polish women and men have been honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations (as of January 1, 2019). The award is given by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem to people of non-Jewish descent who gave selfless help to Jews during the Holocaust. Estimates of the number of Poles who sheltered Jews are scarce, especially those based on specific calculations. In the 1980s. Teresa Prekerova indicated 160-360 thousand, assuming that the number of Jewish survivors was 40-60 thousand, and that each survivor received support from 2-3 people. In 2002. Gunnar Paulsson estimated the number of people helping Jews in Warsaw at 70-90 thousand, and those seeking refuge at 28 thousand. Referring to Mordechaj Paldiel's assessment, he surmised that the number of rescuers in Warsaw was ¼ of the total, giving a national figure of 280 to 360 thousand.
— sprawiedliwi.org

Number of saved Jews by Poles:

The number of rescued reported by Datner [80-100,000] is not confirmed by the research of other historians. Shmuel Krakowski estimated that about 300,000 Jews escaped from the ghettos and camps, while about 30,000 survived on the so-called Aryan side. Michał Borwicz, on the other hand, calculated that 40-50,000 Jews survived on Polish soil. According to Teresa Prekerowa's estimates, 60-115 thousand Jews survived the occupation of Polish lands, of whom 30-60 thousand on the Aryan side, 20-40 thousand in the camps, and 10-15 thousand in the woods or in the partisans. Lucjan Dobroszycki estimated that with the help of Poles, about 30 thousand Jews survived the occupation. Similar figures were given by Philip Friedman (20-30 thousand) and Israel Gutman (30-35 thousand saved this way). Grzegorz Berendt indicated that the number in the occupied territories of the Second Republic did not exceed 50,000. The already mentioned Stankowski and Weiser estimated that about 15-20 thousand Jews were saved by Poles.
— Grądzka-Rejak, Martyna; Namysło, Aleksandra (2022). "Prawodawstwo niemieckie wobec Polaków i Żydów na terenie Generalnego Gubernatorstwa oraz ziem wcielonych do III Rzeszy. Analiza porównawcza" [German legislation towards Poles and Jews in the General Government and the lands incorporated into the Third Reich. Comparative analysis]. In Domański, Tomasz (ed.). Stan badań nad pomocą Żydom na ziemiach polskich pod okupacją niemiecką (in Polish). Warsaw: Institute of National Remembrance. pp. 109–110.

Marcelus (talk) 13:27, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

The first one is a low-hanging source. I will read the second source in a while. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:32, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

It's reliable, the page is created by Jewish Historical Institute and Polin Museum. But these figures are given with the citation of the authors, this is more of a hint of what works to refer to Marcelus (talk) 13:37, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I would stick to 2nd source here, and it seems to provide the number of 15-20 thousand. I suspect this should be a range of numbers provided by different sources. But the range from 7+ thousand to 1 million seems way too extreme. Someone does need work more with sources here. My very best wishes (talk) 20:16, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

The first source gives the number of Poles involved in helping Jews. The second source gives the number of Jews who survived the war by hiding outside the camps, which most researchers agree was only possible thanks to the help of Poles.

I don't think we should pick any of these numbers, but give them all with a footnote to the original source, and also with a note that these are only the survivors of the war, not all who received aid. Marcelus (talk) 21:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Polish Righteous Among the Nations

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

See t/p. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed redirect

While this article may arguably satisfy Notability criteria, the existence of articles also depends on how the encyclopedia should best split or merge related topics. We already have a top level article on Righteous Among the Nations and 9 national list articles including List of Polish Righteous Among the Nations. The only country to have a nationalized list AND a nationalized article is Poland. That is inappropriate. This page serves little purpose except as a magnet for the Arbcom/Antisemitism in Poland and Arbcom/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland mess. An excessive percentage of the article edit history is either edits by sock/blocked users, or reverts of those edits. Much of the content is entirely redundant to the Polish list, and the top level Righteous Among the Nations can cover can cover all of Europe.

I propose redirecting this page to List of Polish Righteous Among the Nations. That would also resolve the tags for tags for factual accuracy, neutrality, unreliable sourcing, not to mention the failed article review. It will also improve the Polish-Arbcom problems. Alsee (talk) 16:38, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Alsee. Please revert your WP:TNT of the article, it's higly improper way of dealing with such controversial moves, which should be done via discussion on WP:RM. I don't want to start move war, so please revert your changes and start proper discussion. Marcelus (talk) 16:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I also disagree with your proposal. Wikipedia needs more articles, not less. If you want to have this article deleted, go to WP:AFD. Otherwise, yes, this article needs some cleanup, but it's not bad enough to warrant WP:TNT. PS. That said, looking at what's in this article (and also in Polish, note this has ~7 interwikis) there is a lot of content overlap with other articles. It might be good for us to think about how to remove such overlap, and that may include moving (merging) some content up to and incluing making this article much shorter and even, yes redirecting it. But this requires discussing first, not blanking the content, without even merging it (while I might support redirecting after merges, I strongly object to redirecting now without rescuing any of the content here). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:22, 16 June 2023 (UTC)