Talk:Jedwabne pogrom/Archive 7

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Lead sources

Commenting on this article, Jan Grabowski wrote:

I have been dealing with the extermination of Polish Jews for a long time, but I am not aware that there is currently a scientific debate in which participants would prove the "participation" of Einsatzgruppe B (which on July 10, 1941 was near Minsk) in the Jedwabne murder. Indeed, shortly after the publication of "Neighbors" by Jan Tomasz Gross, speculation was made about the presence in the town of the commando Hermann Schaper, but for several years there were no "scientific debates" on this topic. Well, but Wikipedia "editors" don't have to be professional historians and bother with facts. It is enough if they think they know each other, and the rest will be dealt with by their patriotism, specifically understood "Polish raison d'etat" and a link to any sources.

Einsatzgruppe B and "is a matter of academic discussion" remain in the lead. There are four sources:

1. [archive.is/vw1if IPN (2002), Końcowe ustalenia śledztwa w sprawie zabójstwa obywateli polskich narodowości żydowskiej w Jedwabnem w dniu 10 lipca 1941 r.].

IPN. Citation not written properly. Can't tell what it is or what it says.

2. "Contested memories By Joshua D. Zimmerman, Rutgers University Press - Publisher; page 67-68".

Also not cited properly. Zimmerman is the editor, not the author. The author and article title are missing. I can't see a mention of Einsatzgruppe B on pp. 67–68. The article after that one is about Jedwabne, but we need a page number for Einsatzgruppe B.

3. Levy, Richard S. (March 26, 2005). "Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution". ABC-CLIO – via Google Books.

Again, Levy is the editor, not author. No page number, just a link to a search for "Soviet Jedwabne". This is a tertiary source. These should generally be avoided. Jedwabne is on pp. 366–377; entry by Steven Paulsson. I can't see any mention of Einsatzgruppe B.

4. Alexander B. Rossino, Polish 'Neighbors' and German Invaders: Contextualizing Anti-Jewish Violence in the Białystok District during the Opening Weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 16 (2003). Internet Archive. Referenced citations: #58. The Partisan: From the Valley of Death to Mount Zion by Yitzhak Arad; #59. The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet Rule, 1939-1941 by Dov Levin; and #97. Abschlussbericht, 17 March 1964 in ZStL, 5 AR-Z 13/62, p. 164.

The link goes to myinternetarchive-recovery.blogspot.ca. Not clear what's being cited. Rossino, Arad, Levin and something else. Does Rossino support that there's an academic debate about Einsatzgruppe B and Jedwabne?

SarahSV ^(talk) 03:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• SarahSV, thank you very much for this, really appreciated. Please see the discussions about Grabowski and the lede higher up this page. Can concur that in general the lede is not in sufficient shape, and concur specifically with the points you raise here. Six days ago I drafted an entire write-through and pasted it there, and have not WP:BOLD added it to the article yet while awaiting a reply from User:K.e.coffman (last edit three days ago) and input from anyone else who wishes to chime in.
• Like you, also have issues with the use of source in the lede, starting with [1] Strzembosz, which besides being in Polish appears to serve no purpose at all. WP:LEDE infoms us that The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. So the draft is an attempt to summarize the article.
• This article - and our sourcing - was in need a comprehensive summary of the updated scholarly consensus. We already have the Rossino paper which is extremely helpful but dated to 2003; also Joanna Michlic and Professor Antony Polonsky (the compendium including Gross' reply to scrutiny of his methodology), also 2003 but very segmented and afaics not offering a concise overview of the scholarship on the sequence of events. Went and found Persak (2011) [1] which appears to do the summary of events and scholarship very professionally. If you have a read of that paper, maybe you'll agree it serves our purposes well. Have added that source to our article in several places.
• The proposed lede attempts to reflect the union (set theory) of what the scholarship converges on, excluding fringe nationalist historians. On the specific point about the level of German involvement, it appears all sources refer to what Gross (2001) calls German "gendarmes" being present (afaics Polin may have mistakenly translated them as Ordnungspolizei); Gross (2001) also has testimonial referring to the presence of Gestapo, Longerich (2007) refers to the presence of Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei) which had been assigned to Einsatzgruppe B, while Persak (2011) says the Gestapo identified in Gross' testimonials were probably Sicherheitspolizei or Sicherheitsdienst. Persak - conveniently for us - shows that the German involvement is not crystal clear in the scholarship; he also specifies the "gendarmes" are Feldgendarmerie and that there were eight or eleven of them present. The proposed lede attempts to attend to that lack of clarity without discussing it, by simply cutting all mention of specific units such as Einsatzgruppe, Gestapo, Sicherheitspolizei, Ordnungspolizei, Feldgarmerie, etc. And as we all appear to concur above, the German factor shouldn't dominate the lede in any case, which is good reason to expand it much further.
• NB the WP:COMMONNAME use of the word "massacre" is also being discussed above.
• Am hereby pasting another draft, including minor improvements, to reflect all that:

The Jedwabne massacre (Polish: Pogrom w Jedwabnem, pronounced [jɛdˈvabnɛ]), also known as the Jedwabne pogrom, took place on 10 July 1941 during World War II in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland. At least 340 Polish Jews were murdered by at least 40 Polish collaborators under the authority of at least 8 Nazi German personnel.

The massacre occurred among many others in the Podlasie region with the arrival of German troops shortly after their 21 June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, which had until then occupied Jedwabne in an 20-month reign of terror since the Hitler-Stalin Pact divided Poland in 1939.

When the Germans replaced the Soviets as the occupying power, they implemented a policy of inciting "folk pogroms" alleging all Polish Jews had been pro-Soviet traitors. The killers at Jedwabne used the accusation of Jewish Bolshevism against their victims, who included children. Prior to the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland, Jedwabne had been located in an area which favored National Democracy, an anti-Semitic party opposed to the government in Warsaw, which had outlawed its radical violent wing in 1934.

Knowledge of the massacre only became widespread in 1999 due to the work of Polish film-makers, journalists and academics, who prompted an official murder investigation in 2000-2003. The country was shocked by its findings, which contrasted with the record of the rescue of Jews by Poles in the Holocaust and Poland's fight against Nazi Germany. The President of Poland apologized on behalf of the country in a ceremony at Jedwabne in 2001. The generally accepted account of the massacre remains contested by some far-right groups and nationalist historians.

Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:19, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Chumchum, I've removed the unsourced from the lead. The article has lots of issues. I think the place to start is to determine what the high-quality scholarly sources are, because this article should reflect what they say. The citations are written in several different styles, so tidying those (once we've established which sources are staying) will make things clearer too. Can we not rely more on Gross's book? That's the source that is cited the most by others. We can flag where the IPN inquiry disagreed with it or where Gross has updated his views.

The source you suggested, Persak, was the co-author of the IPN report. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:48, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that the best way to determine what's in the lead is to get the body of the article into shape, then that will make it much easier to determine the lead. If we're worried the lead isn't NPOV, then we can strip it to bare bones while we work on the body content. Focusing on the lead is generally a bad idea ... because the lead should reflect the body content, and if the body isn't in good shape, the lead can't ever be. And it's just a waste of time to focus on the lead when the body is in flux. --Ealdgyth (talk) 14:20, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:51, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• Like several of us, I've been involved with the highly volatile Eastern Europe topic area for more than a decade, and have seen many countdowns to sanctions and arbitration. I want to steer us away from any drift in that direction, and this is what's behind my verbose replies. Ages ago I worked on this article with User:Icewhiz to root out what could have been perceived to be Polish nationalist or apologist elements, and was sorry to see him indeffed for climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man. If he had conferred more, he'd still be around. I get the slight vibe that this article might be the spill over of a battleground that I don't have a side in, and I am not going to be drawn into. Let's nip it in the bud if we can.
• While I would ordinarily support SarahSV's recent lede content changes per se, I'm slightly concerned about procedure and think they need to take just as much care as Piotrus needs to. I remain friends to them both, equally. User:Piotrus and SarahSV have already been in disagreement at Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum, where I've tried to broker middle ground partly by pointing out my differences with both of them on stronger positions on content.
• On this Talk page, User:Piotrus called for a lengthening of the lede here, in response to User:K.e.coffman raising the subject of concerns about the lede. I put in a lot of work drafting a longer lede, attempting to establish WP:CONS with the two of them and anyone else who cared to comment. User:Piotrus then supported that proposed content; the change was pending further editors' input for WP:CONS. Without input on the content Piotrus supported, SarahSV then went ahead a made a different lede content change to the one supported by Piotrus:[2] That was after this Talk page exchange with me, in which I again signposted the longer lede [3] and before telling me that the change was now done [4] In my experience, a look at that exchange from an external administrator working in the WP:ARBEE area might ask for an improvement in communication and consultation next time around.
• While attempting to broker some peace at Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum, I recommended User:Piotrus and SarahSV WP:DISENGAGE. It was alleged that Piotrus 'canvassed' my input there (closer analysis would show he and I have had disagreements). On that precedent, one could ask what the difference is by users User:Ealdgyth and User:K.e.coffman being invited here by SarahSV. If canvassing hasn't taken place, then let's keep inviting more people into the discussion. An uninvolved administrator's guidance may be useful.
• On the new and separate topic of main body article content, Gross and the IPN. (1) It would be great if Ealdgyth could specify their concerns here so that they can be attended to. (2) Gross (2001) and the IPN (2003) are not in contest with each other, they are complementary. Both are on the record as valuing each other. (FWIW I don't consider the IPN a reliable source today because it has become too politicized.) I don't see a conflict between Gross and Persak. (3) Yes I agree there is more space for Gross (2001) in the article, and not because it is referred to by others. They do so because he was the groundbreaker and (although to be fair he pinched the story from a woman named Agnieszka Arnold) in the same way that Freud was the groundbreaker for psychoanalysis. Both groundbreakers are rightfully recognized as pioneers, both are generally perceived to have understandably got some things wrong, there has been much more work since the initial ground was broken. Persak (2011) is mainly useful because has an overview of that work. Wikipedia policy on WP:RS doesn't appear to say that one source should be predominant for any reason, it appears to say we should build NPOV by using multiple sources. I'd resist any calls for more Marek Jan Chodakiewicz to be added, per WP:FRINGE.
• At present, I don't see exactly where the lede Piotrus supported it contradicts the body of the article, or corresponds with problematic article content. If someone could point that out, it would be most helpful so that we can resolve it.
• I love SarahSV's move of Antonina Wyrzykowska's photo to the left-hand, more prominent side of the page. It's beautiful, and I'm sure she's the granny we'd all like to have.

Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 07:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Chumchum, just letting you know that I'm reading Persak.

I'm sorry to raise this, but think it's important that none of us frame ourselves as neutral brokers, because everyone has biases. For example, your description of what happened at Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum is not how I experienced it. Similarly, the lead you suggested contained what I saw as advocacy, including the findings "contrasted with the record of the rescue of Jews by Poles in the Holocaust". Imagine: "X number of women were raped last year in England; this contrasts with the much larger number of women who were helped by men."

What I'd like to see is a list of the high-quality mainstream scholarly sources, preferably in English, so that we can summarize what they say. On that note, thank you for suggesting Persak. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:30, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I think it is very important to admit we all have bias, and I commend you on reminding us that (I too have biases, of course). Anyway, the current short lead is IMHO acceptable, through I do prefer the more detailed one simply because most people only read the lead, and having 2-3 sentences about such an event is a disservice to them. Could you try to adapt parts of the lead proposed above to the current version? For the record, I don't see why we should mention rescue of the Jews in the lead here. If we were to remove the sentence "The country was shocked by its findings, which contrasted with the record of the rescue of Jews by Poles in the Holocaust and Poland's fight against Nazi Germany", would there be any other issues remaining with the lead as proposed above? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Ealdgyth that first the article should be fixed. The sourcing is a problem. For example, I've just noticed that the English novelist Julian Barnes is a source: his review of The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne is used (with in-text attribution) to support: "though many Jews might have been relieved by the first arrival of the Soviets in 1939, which freed them from anti-Semitic Nazis who had invaded earlier in the year, the new arrivals brought their own (Russian and atheistic) anti-Semitism". SarahSV ^(talk) 05:34, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm truly dismayed. You appear to have ignored the point, which is that we were amidst consensus-building on this page. You had every opportunity to express your opinion about the content here before going ahead and making changes to the article. Indeed you were directly invited to participate in consensus-building and chose to ignore that. You ignored Piotrus' support for the proposed content. You ignored my request in conversation with K.e.coffman, that we discuss changes to the lede here first.
• I find the invocation of rape in connection with my proposed content profoundly inappropriate. You don't know who I am, where I am from, and what I have been through. Rape is a worldwide crime and has been throughout history, whereas this specific massacre became well known only in 1999 and therefore caused a shock to a country's self-narrative at that moment specifically.
• What you perceived as a line of advocacy in proposed content does not entitle you to ignore the consensus-building process underway in any case. Indeed that's what it's for, to discuss such matters. If you had expressed the concern, you might not have jumped to assumptions about what the line was doing there. Because in expanding the lede I was reflecting an old line of content, that held WP:CONS at the top of the article for a long time, to explain the Polish public reaction to learning about the massacre 1999-2003, and how it contradicted their mainstream national narratives. The majority of sources discuss this. That's why the line - which you have not quoted in full - starts with The country was shocked by its findings... I also gave an explanation on the Talk page about this already: [5] which included a reference to the USHMM directly contrasting the record of the rescue of Jews by Poles in the Holocaust with Jedwabne in consecutive paragraphs. But you appear to have ignored that. Given your previous complaint that Piotrus' conduct feels like gaslighting, you are psychologically aware enough to know that behaving as if what someone else has said never happened is a form of communication itself.
• It feels pointed that you homed in on one clause in one line to allege my advocacy for Poles while omitting that I also phrased content to make it clearer than before that the murderers were Poles, that they were collaborators, that (per Bikont) they were in a political context of antisemitism way before the Soviet arrival that they used to justify as retribution against Jews, that they used the antisemitic canard of Jewish Bolshevism, that there were many other such massacres, and in case there is any ambiguity whether this was a military, political or retributive crime - that they murdered children. Are some editors going to interpret that as my advocacy, too? And if so, would that justify them ignoring a discussion of proposed content on the Talk page? I don't think so.
• I disagree that I am framing myself as neutral broker; I would never claim that, as we are all human none of us can be neutral. I would rather say that in good faith I am trying my best to work towards consensus, and I don't wish to participate in a fight.
• Another advantage of you stopping to confer with us before editing is that you would have been assisted with a small point of precision. Your line sourced to USHMM refers to a German 'police' presence; Gross and others choose not to refer to them as police but as 'gendarmes. As we know this is the term for the French military police. The strange usage seems to be a direct translation from testimonies in Polish which use a similar word to the French and is derived from what the Germans used about themselves, which we don't normally use in English. That is Field Gendarmes or Feldgendarmerie (sourced in the article to Persak, 2011) who were not part of the Police forces of Nazi Germany; so to be precise they are military police, and that can be further sourced. The the usage of that term 'police' is a minority in the sources. Additionally the gendarmes Gross also refers to the presence of Gestapo on the day of the massacre (who are not generally considered to be 'police' despite being technically part of the Police forces of Nazi Germany), and the use of this term has also been refined by later sources. Again, I made some effort talking about this above,[6] but again you appear not to have incorporated that.
• I also don't understand why - afaics - you have unilaterally removed the WP:RS Rossino from the article: he's always been part of the scholarly discussion and afair there has always been WP:CONS about using him: I thought his references linked to a website that hosted his peer-reviewed academic paper in a scholarly journal so that everyone could read it. If your objection is to the website not being a WP:RS itself and potentially WP:COPYVIO, then the obvious solution per WP:PRESERVE would be to cite the journal itself. But in any case that could have been discussed here.
• You seem to have avoided the matter I raised about additional editors' opinion and canvassing.
• You've previously alleged Piotrus communicates too much: "You need to start engaging with the arguments, not throwing back walls of text in the hope that people get fed up and wander off"[7] Your characterization of his conduct may or may not be accurate, I recommended you strike out that line for your own benefit and you have not done so. In my observation you communicate too little, and you use non-verbal communication. I'm hereby letting you know - after several messages that things are drifting in the wrong direction - that this has now crossed a line. I feel it would be best taken up with uninvolved administrators working in the WP:ARBEE space.

Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 07:18, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

• • Sarah did not address the canvassing point because she didn't canvass me. I've had this article watchlisted for a long time, since I began working on the main Holocaust article. So there was no canvassing in my situation. I'm willing to bet that K. E. Coffman is the same situation - they had the article on their watchlist for a while. And addressing one small other point - we should NOT link to copyright violations - so that was actually a good removal. We have no way of being sure it was an accurate transcription - and if ***Sarah does not have access to the actual original article, she should not be citing that original article as if she was sure that the information was supported by the original article. You can only cite something you have seen yourself, that's the most basic of wikipedia sourcing rules. --Ealdgyth (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Googling the source brings it up in a second [8] at the Jewish Virtual Library and that site can be found at RS/N. We're asked to preserve material where we can, which would apply when fixing suspected copyvios too. And my point is about cooperation. It has been alleged that I was canvassed: what I said is that "if canvassing hasn't taken place, then let's keep inviting more people into the discussion." You remain warmly invited to state your concerns about the article, as I said: "It would be great if Ealdgyth could specify their concerns here so that they can be attended to." Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 18:20, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
      • There is no indictation that the Jewish Virtual Library has permission to republish that article (and in fact it doesn't even have the original publication information there at all... which is just plain crappy behavior). I'm not saying that it's a problem of being a Reliable Source, it's a problem of copyright violation, which is totally separate. Per WP:EL and our copyright policies, we should not link to copyright violations, which is why I was talking about whether the JVL has permission to repost that article. RS status has no bearing on it. There is much more to research for Wikipedia than just googling and taking the first thing that comes up. Going to Google Scholar (which is always a better way to find sources) - you get this result for searching for Rossino's article. Google Scholar generally only links to legitimate reposts of an article, so it's unlikely that we should be linking to those other sites. This doesn't make the original article unusable, but again, we cannot use a source that we haven't personally seen. It appears that Sarah doesn't have access to that source, and when removing the likely copyright violating link, since she hadn't seen it, she quite properly did not act like she'd seen the source and verified that it supported the informaiton in the article. And can I ask that indenting be practiced properly on this talk page? --Ealdgyth (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
        • Thank you for what you have said. My point was about cooperation. Fyi I'm going to invite uninvolved administrators to take a look at this page. -Chumchum7 (talk) 19:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
          • Chumchum, I have no recollection of saying you were canvassed. I replied once to your post on Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum. Apart from that, I didn't post there again, except to list the old page moves. Can you link to the canvassing comment, please?
            As for Alexander B. Rossino, the blogspot.ca link was a copyright violation. That apart, I haven't been able to find any academic posts Rossino has held, and this article seemed to lean heavily on him and quoted him twice at length, including the strange claim that "Gross challenged the long-cherished notion in Poland that all Poles—Christians and Jews—had suffered equally under the Nazis." It surely cannot be the case that, before Gross's book in 2000, people in Poland believed that ethnic Poles and Jews had suffered equally during the Holocaust. As I said above, we should compile a list of the core scholarly sources, the sources other historians and tertiary sources cite. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
            • I've been trying to carve out time for this article, but losing several hours every day dealing with rehab for the hubby is ... playing hell with my ability to get time for wikipedia. I'll try to at least look at the sources currently used in this article and see where they stand - I recollect that a quick glance showed some things that were a bit iffy, but I haven't had time to do a deep dive. --Ealdgyth (talk) 20:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
              • Ealdgyth, I've just started going through each source from the top. I'm hoping to write up a very brief note about each one, although I don't know how far I'll get. But I've made a start. Currently working on the background section. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:08, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Per guidelines, let's not edit each other's comments like this: [9] I don't mind using indentation at all, and I have used bullet points to break up text, but I'm not familiar with this format of indented comments starting with a bullet point and I don't wish to use it. You did not say I was canvassed. I was not referring to you saying I was, I was referring to the allegation by another editor at Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum who alleged Piotrus canvassed there: [10] and it appears to be in reference to Piotrus inviting my input at 22:44, 29 March 2020 on this page. The point I was making is that if inviting people or pinging people is not canvassing, then let's invite more editors onto this page to have more eyes on the important changes and to discuss them, for long-term article stability. In any case, I have several concerns very clearly stated above, which are bigger than the removal of one linked website without discussion. My feeling is as it was, that outside administrators need to take a look at this page, and also Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum. I'm hereby letting you know that I'm going to step back for a while. - Chumchum7 (talk) 20:03, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Are you replying to Sarah? Then indent under her. I used the * because you were using them to start statements and I assumed you were replying to someone else. If you do not want people to reply to your replies ... then use bullet points in the middle of your posts but use standard indention. It's very very difficult to keep track of a conversation when the indentation randomly goes back to the outside while it appears from the context of the posts that it is a reply (such as the one I'm replying to here ... it's clear it's a reply to someone, but the indentation isn't helping at all.) Yes, it's picky ... but it makes conversations much easier. --Ealdgyth (talk) 20:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Chumchum, the best thing is to copy whatever the person to whom you're responding has done, with one more indent. This helps people using screenreaders too. A useful way to make paragraph breaks without breaking up the post is to use {{pb}}. You write it with the squiggly brackets at the point you want the break to appear, and it creates a break without messing up the indentation. Also see MOS:INDENTMIX. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC); edited 21:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Since Alexander B. Rossino was mentioned, I don't see him as unreliable, you don't need to work at a university to be a scholar, the important part is whether one is published in reliable sources. I restored him to [11] since it is hardly a controversial claim; I don't see why citation to him was removed and replaced with a cite needed? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:14, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Recent addition

Not in a million years would this be appropriate for an infobox:

[Antisemitism], particularly related to National Party propaganda; robbery and looting; collaboration by Poles who served Soviets seeking to please new Nazi occupiers; revenge by collective punishment for alleged Jewish collaboration with Soviets

And another new citation style (Harvard referencing). SarahSV ^(talk) 23:17, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why this is not appropriate, outside being perhaps too long. Information on profiteer (robbery etc.) and revenge motives should be included, antisemitism is not the only reason for the massacre. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:03, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Polish Wikipedia lead

In light of recent comments by Grabowski that Polish Wikipedia is 'more neutral and accurate' in such topics, here is how the lead of the Polish article leads right now: "Pogrom in Jedwabne - a mass murder of German inspiration by a group of at least 40 Poles living in the city of Jedwabne on several hundred Jews living in the city and its surroundings on July 10, 1941, during the German occupation of Poland. As a result of the crime, at least 340 people were killed, of which about 300 were burned alive in the barn." --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Recent addition (mid-April 2020)

This needs a scholarly source, and it has to be explained clearly. This doesn't say what local militia refers to.

Bikont writes that the Poles and Jews of Jedwabne had differing experiences of the local militia under Soviet occupation, which provided names to the authorities of anti-communist and antisemitic National Party members: "Polish accounts repeated that they were made up of Jews. The Jews themselves talk about Jews who made themselves of service to the Soviets in this first period, but they emphasize that they were the exception rather than the rule."

SarahSV ^(talk) 02:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

What we need is one neutral high-quality English-language scholarly source that clearly explains the source of the tension and why each group held a different view of the Soviet versus German occupation. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree re this needs expansion but isn't Bikont a scholarly source? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Roger Petersen who I mention below would be this source, he describes in more details why there was tension between two groups and what could have caused it. A vital point missing in this article is that Jedwabne was site of major fight and repressions by NKVD against Polish resistance starting from June 1940-this is debated in sources including Gross, but is missing in this article at the moment.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

First, consider Gross's treatment of the Soviet destruction of the local Polish underground in June 1940. After a Soviet attack on the Polish underground headquarters, the Soviet regime impisoned 250 people from the area of Jedwabne, Radzilow and Wizna, the towns where the mass murderers of Jews occurred one year later. Gross rightly states, "Naturally, a historian investigating the trail of violence in the area would like to know whetever any connection can be established between these two extraordinary events, the destruction of the Polish underground organization in the June 1940 by the Soviets and the mass murder of Jews in July 1941 by the Poles" Gross cities documents that show that Jews were not among the informers who betrayed the Polish underground to the Soviets. Therefore, Jews cannot be logical targets of revenge a year later. He concludes the section by stating, "In any case, the Jews from Jedwabne were not implicated in this whole affair" However if one views the perpetrators as driven by group comparisons, as Resentment holds, it would seem impossible to so easily disconnect this event from the one that happens only a year later. Local Poles suffered imprisonment and death under Soviet occupation. Even if Jews were not the direct cause of this suffering, they did not suffer in the same way as Poles. In the region, Jews were not organising a local underground, NKVD troops were not "ferociously attacking" Jewish positions, the Soviets did not apparently did not arrest and interrogate Jews for participation in anti-Soviet activites.Resenment holds that Poles in this area would have compared their lot to that of other groups. Through comparison, they would likely come to a belief that Poles are anti-Soviet resisters and Jews are not. Gross points out that Jews were not active collaborators and thus makes the case that the killing of Jews could not be revenge. Resentment is not revenge, however(...)The most relevant factor is perception of change of group position(...)Of course these local events occurred within the broader contours of the communist takeover in Poland B. Building a point made earlier in the Lithuanian case, an emotion-based approach generates a viewpoint concerning how Poles were likely to perceive Jewish participation in the new Soviet regime. As Gross recognizes Jews took positions in the Soviet administration(...) Gross makes the case that this collaboration was not extensive, it was normal given the circumstances, that "it is impossible to identify some innate, unique characteristics of Jewish collaboration with the Soviets during the period 1939-1941". From the point of view of the emotion-driven Polish what does it matter if Jewish collaboration was non extensive and normal rather than "innate and unique"? In the comparative thinking of the Poles, Jews were a subordinate group in interwar Poland, but under Soviet occupation indicators showed that they gained a measure of equality. That fact alone, without regard to why it happened created an emotional reaction in the Polish population(...) While antisemitism helps explain the ease and he intensity of group essentialization, the phenomenon itself is a general one. Pages 133-135 Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe Roger D. Petersen Cambridge University Press, 2 Sep 2002

• The fact about the underground fight and repressions is confirmed by Gross

But in one respect the gmina Jedwabne had a history unlike that of most places under the Soviet occupation. A vast anti-Soviet underground organization had been established there early on, and in June 1940 it was tracked down by the Soviet secret police, NKVD, and destroyed.First, its headquarters in the Kobielno Forest nearby was overwhelmed was overwhelmed by an assault of NKVD troops, and a considerable number of people on both sides were killed. by an assault of NKVD troops, and a considerable number of people on both sides were killed.According to respected Polish historian, Tomasz Strzembosz, knowledgeable about this subject, some 250 people from the vicinity of Jedwabne, Radzilow and Wizna were imprisoned on this occasion Jan Gross Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland page 47-48

This is also covered by other authors The Polish Underground, 1939–1947 page 60 David G. Williamson In December 1939, Aleksander Burski arrived from Warsaw to take over an Underground network centred on the small town of Jedwabne, and within a few months had expanded the network to embrace some twenty villages. He commanded about 200 men and trained them in intelligence and sabotage operations, but as a result of betrayal by one of his soldiers, the group was broken up by the NKVD in June and Burski had to escape.

In Jedwabne in 1940,the NKVD smashed two underground resistance groups:the Partisans, numbering about thirty five members and the Armed Combat Union, whose eight soldiers came from the Bialysok region and the Jedwabne area. After their organization was penetrated by NKVD agents, about a hundred members of the Polish underground gave themselves up in December 1940.Documents unearthed in Soviet archives and published recently in Studia LomzynskieLomza studies indicate that the NKVD recruited eighteen of these former non-Jewish partisans as agents, a fact that was not known at the time when public opinion, placed most of the blame for denunciations on the Jews. In June 1941, the NKVD began arrests in Jedwabne on partisans who had turned themselves in, along with their relatives and those who had helped them, including one priest. Some were deported eastward just before the German-Soviet war broke out. Others avoided that fate only because of the panicky flight of the Soviet authorities. Andrzej Kaczynski Initial Reporting The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland edited by Antony Polonsky, Joanna B. Michlic pages 57-58 --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 17:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the interesting sources. I feel that they are very essential to expanding the background section, which needs to be much longer. Would you concur? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:03, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

There was no consensus for cutting down the background section in the first place and there needs to be a review to check if anything important has been lost. User:MyMoloboaccount's work here is excellent and they are entirely correct about the omission of the NKVD crackdown of resistance, which needs adding. As far as I recall the sources show it went well into 1941, indicating the massacre was the culmination of a cycle of violence. Bikont (2015) is helpful because she shows it went back further than the Soviet oppression 1939-1941 for which Jews were collectively blamed, but way back to the prewar, 1933 Radzilow pogrom, in which Polish nationalists were killed by Polish socialist government forces protecting Jews. Gross is helpful because he shows ethnic Polish collaborators with the NKVD had a leadership role in the massacre because they had the motive to prove to the Germans that they could now be trusted as collaborators with the Germans. These men would have been feared or despised by most people, ethnic Jews and Poles alike. So on that point, we can't have the content reducing Jedwabne to two 'sides' because there were many. Polish socialists didn't get along with Polish nationalists, Jewish nationalists didn't get along with Jewish socialists, etc. Collaborators with the Soviets and collaborators with the Nazis were both tiny percentages of the population, even locally and when divided by ethnicity. In general, the scholarly consensus is about undermining stereotypes. On the concept of a "neutral" source we have guidance on this per WP:NEUTRALSOURCE, also known as WP:PRESERVEBIAS because we are rather asked to incorporate and clearly show bias for what it is per NPOV. So there would be no rationale for ranking Peterson above Gross or Bikont on the grounds of neutrality per se. There's further reading about the guidance at: We do not document exclusively neutral facts or opinions, we write about all facts and opinions neutrally. -Chumchum7 (talk) 07:07, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Wasersztein (various spellings)

The content: "According to an eyewitness, Szmul Wassersztajn, the group was taken to the barn, where they were made to dig a pit and throw the statue in. They were then killed and buried in the same pit."

needs to be checked for accurate representation of sources because so far I can't see Wassersztajn in Ignatiew (which incidentally is a press release and so may have WP:RS issues of its own) or Persak.

The excerpt of Wassersztajn now in the article is long, and may come under WP:PRIMARY even though it is filleted from a secondary source. It's also selective, in that it's one testimony and the IPN murder investigation is on record as having called 111 witnesses.

Secondary sources including Bikont have commented on Wassersztajn's credibility: https://wyborcza.pl/magazyn/1,124059,931462.html

Google translates what she says as: Thanks to him, the crime in Jedwabne was revealed. True, he is not her most credible witness: he mixes what he has seen with what he has heard from others and with what he has imagined. It is not true that he cooperated with the NKVD and was in the UB. He was an unfortunate man, whose crime committed on July 10, 1941 on his family and compatriots was constantly on his face, not letting him forget

He has another testimony at Yad Vashem: https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/wyrzykowski/wasersztein-testimony.html

This testimony also includes the line: "Meanwhile a rumor spread that the Germans would soon order the killing of all Jews. The order was given by the Germans on 10 July 1941 and the following day the Polish bandits initiated the most cruel pogroms, using terrible torture, and burned the Jews in a barn…."

I suggest the excerpted passage from Gross is removed in favor of sourced content, and the line attributing Ignatiew and Persak corrected if necessary.

Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 12:07, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

The passage from him is from his 1945 statement, as published in Gross 2001. When you say it "may come under WP:PRIMARY", what do you mean? And what do you mean by "in favor of sourced content"?

Note: this article isn't about the Polish government inquiry or the Polish response or Poland. It's about the pogrom. Also note that a pogrom often involves a massacre, so I don't know what you mean in the infobox by "pogrom or massacre". SarahSV ^(talk) 19:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I've shortened the quotation. Do you know which English-language source contains the most witness statements and the dates they were made? SarahSV ^(talk) 03:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Rather than just shortening it, I've made it invisible for now. I need to learn more first about the survivor/witness statements. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

On a semi-related note, one of the witnessed cited (but not mentioned in the current visible text), Chaja Finkelsztejn - I did wonder in the past if they are notable enough to warrant an article, but I never got around to investigating it further. Any thoughts will be appreciated particularly if you find any good sources about them in your review. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The spirit of our PRIMARY guidance appears to be relevant even when primary sources are filleted out of secondary sources. Also, that could be interpreted as cherry-picking: why for example do we not show the part of Waserstein's testimony quoted in secondary sources showing that the Germans gave the order for the massacre to start? By preferring 'sourced content' here, to be precise I meant content in Wikipedia's own voice representing NPOV, as preferable to block quotes from primary sources presented by secondary sources. That's notwithstanding the specifics of Gross (2001) as important ground-breaker having been called into question by many peer reviews and later scholarship (as I have explained before, and of which Petersen is just one example), Waserstein being a minority witness of 1 out of 111 (afair all available in the IPN report, and that could also be seen as primary), and Waserstein's credibility having been called into question by Bikont and others. -Chumchum7 (talk) 07:40, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Roger Petersen Professor of Political Science in publication by Cambridge University Press

Roger D. Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2 Sep 2002, devotes a significant part to this event, and is in part critical of some assumptions made by Gross. He also discusses some other events that were mentioned by Gross and others but seem to be missing here in the article.

This is a valuable scholar in English language, published by a reputable university press. https://polisci.mit.edu/people/roger-petersen "Roger Petersen holds BA, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago. He has taught at MIT since 2001 and is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science. Petersen focuses on within-state conflict and violence. He has written three books: Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He is currently working on a manuscript entitled A Social Science Guide to the Iraq Conflict. He teaches classes on military intervention, conflict and violence, and emotions in politics." --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

MyMoloboaccount, thank you for suggesting this source. I'm working (slowly) on a rewrite of parts of this article in a sandbox, so I'll definitely look at Petersen. SarahSV ^(talk) 17:44, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

MyMoloboaccount, nobody owns this article so feel free to add it yourself, although it's always going to be helpful to confer about major changes first in order to build consensus. -Chumchum7 (talk) 14:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Key point of contention

Re: [12]. Perhaps a cite template would be better? I think this likely could be referenced. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

If you can fix it right away, please do so. There is general scholarly agreement that as Jan Gross (2001) says, "At the time, the undisputed bosses over life and death in Jedwabne were the Germans. No sustained organized activity could take place there without their consent. They were the only ones who could decide the fate of the Jews. It was within their power also to stop the murderous pogrom at any time. And they did not choose to intervene. ... But it is also clear that had Jedwabne not been occupied by the Germans, the Jews of Jedwabne would not have been murdered by their neighbors." There is contention between that generally accepted majority view and fringe Polish nationalists quoting e.g. Wilczewska who say that there were no Polish murderers and that the murderers were German; but we removed that per WP:FRINGE. The sources slightly diverge where Gross doesn't see the Polish murderers as requiring much encouragement from the Germans (in the form of the 'Gestapo' visit in the morning and the German order for the massacre to begin which Waserstein speaks of on p.3), but later e.g Longerich sees is at as German operation and an example of Polish collaboration: he says "closer analysis of the crime" shows that the pogrom was "engineered by a unit of the German Security Police", probably a unit from the Zichenau Gestapo office that had been assigned to Einsatzgruppe B, and which "had recruited local Poles as auxiliary 'pogrom police'." Later still, Persak effectively incorporates both of these possibilities as far as I can see. Per WP:NPOV and WP:YESBIAS we accommodate all perspectives. What there may be, rather than contention, is varied speculation about the exact extent of German participation, or less clarity about the role of the German authorities than there is about the 40 Polish murderers. -Chumchum7 (talk) 15:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I see. You are right, I primarily meant to note that there are some extremists on both side who still deny that either the Germans were present there at all, or who claim the lack of Polish involvement. But it is quite likely such FRINGE views don't warrant possible WP:WEASEL issues. You are right that the sentence might be better removed for now. However, such extreme FRINGE views aside, I believe there is still no consensus on what exactly did the Germans do. For example, you mention that one witness states that they gave the order for the massacre to commence, but is it a commonly accepted fact, or is it disputed? Basically, the lead states "German military police were present in the town at the time and the role of the German authorities in instigating the events remains controversial" and I thought this paragraph might warrant an opening that is related to this. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

The testimony is from Waserstein, which is the single source Gross primarily relies on, and his heavy use of it (the credibility of which itself has been questioned by peers) is what brought him so much skepticism from other scholars. (People who haven't read much on the subject sometimes assume any criticism of Gross only comes from malicious Polish nationalists, and aren't aware that peers had issues with his methodology per se.) The only place I've seen the info in Gross about the German order contradicted is by fringe commentators who say the Germans were the murderers - in which case they could not have given Polish murderers any orders. Post-Gross scholarship tends to both confirm Gross's initial thesis that the murderers were Poles not Germans (as corroborated by the IPN), and also increases the level of German behavioral form at e.g. Razdilow, German documented planning of incitement and German deployment of personnel (per Longerich, etc).

The divergence between the scholarship isn't much, so it can be accommodated by NPOV phrasing. Gross's testimonies say German Gestapo agents visited in the morning, German military police were in authority and that the Germans gave the order for the Poles to carry out the massacre. Later scholarship would be accommodated by saying that while the Germans incited the massacre and had a policy in place to do so, the full extent of the German authorities' role in the event remains less clear. WP:LEDE asks us to include controversy, but that controversy would be from the nationalist fringe saying the Germans didn't order the Poles to carry out the murders; it may be that WP:FRINGE informs us not to incorporate controversies kicked up by the fringe.

I'm seeing diffs showing removal without consensus being established on the Talk page of the content (i) sourced to Gross that I have quoted above and (ii) sourced to Longerich on "closer analysis of the crime" and (iii) sourced to Persak (among other things he comments on documented Nazi "folk pogrom" policy being a factor). Salvaging of this sourced content would make the situation clearer. (Also salvaging the removed content that was sourced to Bikont on the 1933 Radzilow pogrom would show there was violent political antisemitism in the area well before the German and Soviet arrivals, which does the opposite of letting the Polish murderers off the hook.)

Your line German military police were present in the town at the time and the role of the German authorities in instigating the events remains controversial is an improvement, and still needs some more.

In the lede you supported a few weeks ago, I chose the wording (i): At least 340 Polish Jews were murdered by at least 40 Polish collaborators under the authority of at least 8 Nazi German personnel. and The generally accepted account of the massacre remains contested by some far-right groups and nationalist historians.

I am wondering about either that, or alternatively (ii): Nazi German personnel were in authority and incited the massacre, and the full extent of German planning and involvement remains unclear. The generally accepted account of the massacre remains contested by some far-right groups and nationalist historians.

Right now (i) seems clearer, but we'd need to find a way of fitting it into the current text. -Chumchum7 (talk) 16:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Media

I think the section would benefit from an overview of books about this topic. (I've recently stubbed The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne). Thoughts? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a strange use of one section: the three books, two documentaries and a play. Two of the books are secondary sources and they belong in inline citations. In my view the Chodakiewicz book is fringe and ought to go; even if others don't concur it's fringe then it doesn't merit its own section with scholarly criticism about it. The documentaries were non-fiction, the play is a fiction loosely inspired by the events. Similarly, the separate section on the Role of the German police and others - MoS doesn't ask us to take out one or two cogs from a machine, omit them from the main narrative and give them special attention lower down articles when they are verifiable part of the whole. Both sections need better incorporation into the rest of the article somehow. -Chumchum7 (talk) 16:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

What repetition?

Re: [13]. The background needs to be more comprehensive, understanding why the massacre happened is extremely important. For example, the removed content had the link the a very important concept, the Żydokomuna stereotype. Why remove it from the article?? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Do you read what you're editing? You did this recently at the Holocaust too, where you complained that something wasn't in the lead when it was. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Please read this, then tell me why you're dropping another way of saying it into the middle of it:

Anna M. Cienciala writes that most of the Jews understandably welcomed the Soviets as a "lesser evil than the Germans". The business and Orthodox communities did not support the Marxist ideology of the Soviets, and the latter, suspicious of the Jewish intelligentsia, arrested leaders of the socialist Jewish Bund. According to NKVD (Soviet secret police) documents about Jedwabne and the surrounding area, "few Jews were involved as agents and informers, fewer in fact than Poles", she writes.

qu But young Jews did accept roles within the Soviet administration and militia, and according to Cienciala, it was widely known that communist Jews helped the NKVD find and arrest Polish officials to be deported. (Twenty percent of those deported in 1940–1941 were Jews.) The betrayal felt by ethnic Poles provided a backdrop to the pogroms in Jedwabne and elsewhere.

SarahSV ^(talk) 02:31, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

And which part of this mentions the Żydokomuna? This is a complex issue that needs several paragraphs to expand. As far as I recall, User:Chumchum7 also criticized your shortening of the background section here few days ago. Please don't go against the consensus. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

You're using a non-scholarly source to say exactly the same thing. If you honestly can't see that the text you added said the same thing, then there is a major problem here. Not to mention that you dropped it right into the middle of the text. So, please, number one: focus on scholarly sources only for this section. Number two, please explain what your addition conveyed that isn't already there (forget that one word): what meaning did you add? SarahSV ^(talk) 03:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Run it by me how come you consider the book by Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki non-scholarly? And Anna Bikont may not be a scholar but she is clearly a reliable source; you don't need to be a professor to be cited here. Her book was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a reliable publisher, and clearly meets WP:RS. PS. It even got a major prize (see The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne, now stubbed). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

First, this article has special sourcing expectations, per the ArbCom case. The Bikont book is very interesting (have you read it?), but we need historians for this section.

Rather than arguing about sources, please explain first what meaning your text added that isn't already there. Did you notice that you even repeated some of the same words? (Words that I wrote originally, by the way.) SarahSV ^(talk) 04:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The ArbCom sourcing expectation is not meant to restrict the field only to people employed by university. If it was meant for that, it would say so clearly. As the history of clarification requests and related discussions show, the Arbs and the community are not even clear whether newspapers should be ruled out or not; certainly books that underwent a peer review at reliable presses are reliable. But you could file a clarification remedy and ask about that if you have doubts. As for the repetition, I will ask you again: where in the current text do we discuss the concept of Żydokomuna? Please quote the part that does so. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Piotrus, I understand that adding more stuff on Żydokomuna shifts blame from one side to the other, but however you turn it you can't escape the fact that this was motivated by antisemitism. And yes, Sarah is completely right regarding WP:APL#Article sourcing expectations; you really shouldn't have added this source. François Robere (talk) 08:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand what makes you think that anyone here is trying to deny that antisemitism played a role in it. I'd have thought that by now you had done enough reading in this topic area to understand that antisemitism and like don't appear out of the thin air. It is only reasonable that a background section should explain why antisemitism lingered, grew in strength and eventually resulted in this calamity, and per numerous sources cited, such an explanation clearly involves issues related to the Żydokomuna stereotype. Anyway how come Bikont's book doesn't meet the requirement for of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland#Article_sourcing_expectations? I think it clearly meets the requirement for "academically focused books by reputable publishers"? Please explain. An assertion is not the best type of an argument. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd have thought that by now you had done enough reading in this topic area to understand that antisemitism and like don't appear out of the thin air That's some shocking reasoning on your part, Piotrus. You're coming awfuly close to claiming racist perceptions are based on objective reality.

It is only reasonable that a background section should explain why antisemitism lingered, grew in strength and eventually resulted in this calamity That's a good question. Most Poles living today probably never met Jew - they constitute barely 0.02% of Poland's population - but a third of Poles would not like a Jewish neighbour,[14] and around a quarter believes they used to kidnap Christian children.[15] So why is it that this antisemitism lingers, Piotrus?

I think it clearly meets the requirement for "academically focused books by reputable publishers" Because..? François Robere (talk) 08:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I can only recommend you read Antisemitism#Causes, although I admit this section is rather disappointing. History of antisemitism seems to do a better job addressing this. There's a USHMM video on this topic here, if you prefer a quick video. If you want to do some more in-depth reading, check [16] which in turns mentions another useful book. As for the situation in Poland, this is something to be discussed in antisemitism in Poland, a notable article I repeatedly asked Icewhiz to write, sadly he never found the time or will to do so. As for "because", well, because it is an "academically focused book" in my professional judgement as an academic, and it is clearly published by a reliable publisher. Do you think we should ask at WP:RSN about it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, please. And will you read Żydokomuna? That way we'll all be slightly better versed in what we're actually writing about. In the meanwhile note that in no place in that section does anyone suggest antisemitism is the result of Jews being "collaborationist communists", which is what you're promoting here some revisions of this article have been implying. Rather, the section suggests that: Antisemitism has been explained in terms of racism, xenophobia, projected guilt, displaced aggression, and the search for a scapegoat - these I am more than willing to state here in Wiki-voice. François Robere (talk) 16:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Again, ethnic hatred does not appear out of thin air. It is generally based on the dislike (fear, jealousy) of Other. It takes many forms, one of which is the fallacy of fFaulty generalization, which is what Żydokomuna is. As noted in the ZK article, as well as in Jedwabne_pogrom#World_War_II, a small number of Jews (a minority) collaborated with the Soviets (of course, so did a minority of Poles and others). Because the Poles were the majority, and Jews, the minority, the majority (Poles) accepted the faulty generalization and Żydokomuna and it fed into the larger antisemitism. I'd have thought you understand the mechanics of this already. So no, to say that "antisemitism is the result of Jews being "collaborationist communists"" is clearly incorrect, as this is the faulty Żydokomuna stereotype. But scholarly works recognize that "one of many reasons for antisemitism is the result of a minority of Jews being "collaborationist communists"". This is why for example Cienciala writes that what stuck in Poles' minds was "the image of Jews welcoming the Soviets", despite the fact that in reality, most of the Jews were not particularly pro-Soviet. Bottom line, discussing the reasons for antisemitism does not mean one endorses antisemtism or the underlying reasons, and I'd appreciate if this discussion did include any speculations about the motivations of other editors (per User_talk:François_Robere#Request_to_refactor_personal_attacks). Thank you, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello again François Robere, in good faith you may have inadvertently jumped to conclusions without having full visibility. I recall we've cooperated well before and that you have kindly asked me not to leave (as I often do), for the sake of NPOV at antisemitism-related articles. (It may even have been here in connection with my removal of the fringe Hieronima Wilczewska, but I don't recall exactly.) If you are referring to the Bikont source, it was me who originally added it. Bikont is a Jewish woman working for a leading left-wing quality newspaper. She has fought against antisemitism for most of her career. Her book on Jedwabne discusses Żydokomuna in depth. The discussion of Zydokomuna reflects the general Jedwabne scholarship across the past 19 years from Gross onwards. Discussing Żydokomuna does the exact opposite of shifting blame 'from one side to the other' - but note per above, scholars show there were no 'two sides'. The discussion shows Żydokomuna was a stereotype and that the collective retribution was unjustifiable; it was also a product of National Party propaganda that went back to the nearby Radzilow pogrom of 1933. Żydokomuna is certainly presented as a volatile and complex matter in the Jedwabne scholarship, but that is why Wikipedia is required to address it. For what it's worth I don't see inclusion of Żydokomuna here as an attempt to 'escape the fact that this was motivated by antisemitism'. For the record I regularly disagree with Piotrus, for example I raised the inclusion of content on antisemitism over at Stanislaw Kot. Please read Bikont, or if you don't have immediate access, Persak linked here in full has a good overview. Finally, you have inadvertently reverted not to a 'stable' version but to a 'work in progress' version started by SarahSV not long ago, prior to which the article had a long period of stability going back to a version Icewhiz and I had cooperated on. Note SarahSV ignored my proposed lede on this Talk page and despite being invited to confer unilaterally added her own, with the later justification that it is just a "skeleton" because the article article is in "flux" [17], to which I added a 'work in progress' template precisely to signpost less involved editors such as you what is going on [18]'; she then removed my 'work in progress' template without discussion [19], and I have complained about what appears to be too little collegiality on this talk page. We are now in full-blown instability. One possible option would be to revert to an even older version that Icewhiz approved before SarahSV's changes to the article. Please read back from Piotrus' query about the lead. [20] -Chumchum7 (talk) 09:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

There's "explaining" and there's "insinuating": we should explain, yes, but we shouldn't suggest anything that isn't supported by sources. We know Żydokomuna was unfounded and that the meager Jewish participation in the Soviet apparatus was never the main reason for the horrors they had to endure; as long as this is crystal clear in the text, then add what you will.

Sarah's work thus far is fine by me. François Robere (talk) 09:11, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

François Robere thank you, I entirely agree that we shouldn't suggest anything that isn't supported by sources, and that we know Żydokomuna was unfounded and that the meager Jewish participation in the Soviet apparatus was never the main reason for the horrors they had to endure. I'm sure you'll agree that sometimes an insinuation can be perceived by some people in volatile and complex topic areas when it might not necessarily have been intended. I therefore agree with you that making things crystal clear is ideal, and I believe that is best achieved through collegiality. -Chumchum7 (talk) 17:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

"The betrayal felt by ethnic Poles provided a backdrop to the pogroms in Jedwabne and elsewhere."

This line of content is sourced to Ciencala (2003) and appears to have been first added as a replacement for content sourced to Bikont (2015) in the same paragraph. It's simplistic and unhelpful, and has probably caused misunderstandings here. Does Ciencala say all ethnic Poles 'felt betrayed'? Because that's another simplistic generalization, not supported by the majority view of reliable sources. For one, it's WP:BLUE illogical that the Polish child-killers 'felt betrayed' by the Jewish children they murdered. Second, RS show the Polish murderers in no way represented the general ethnic Polish population, many of whom feared them too as they were collaborators with the occupying enemy. And what's a 'backdrop' to the pogroms? Persak's analysis phrases it way better particularly his phrase 'revenge reflex' and the explanation that the stereotype of Jewish Communism was grounded in antisemitism (as is Bikont's explanation about the false perception of collaborators being representative of an entire community). I suggest we all check Ciencala and work on better phrasing, with consideration for NPOV of sources. -Chumchum7 (talk) 05:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

That's what we get when we try to make a complex problem 'short'. The background section needs more expansions, to reflect various subtleties of the issue here, not reduction, which as you correctly note can lead to simplistic, unhelpful generalizations. PS. From [21]: "Two terrifying forces emerge as motivating the Jedwabne pogrom: viral anti-Semitism inculcated in the population since the 1930s by the nationalist right and nourished to this day by a segment of the Polish Catholic Church, combining with insatiable greed, the irresistible need to get hold of Jewish property and hold on to it." I think both of those dimensions are not discussed sufficiently in the current background. PPS. I think the dimensions are even more clearly discussed by Joanna Michlic: [22]/[23] "[Bikont's] findings point to multiple and interwoven factors such as the intense ideological and political antisemitism of the prewar period; the persistence of earlier forms of anti-Jewish stereotypes during the Second World War, reinforced by the Soviet occupation of the region between September 17, 1939 and June 22, 1941; economic greed; “the interregnum moment” after the Soviets fled the region and Nazi Germany had not yet established its power; the Nazi condoning of the massacres; and a strong, primordial-like desire to kill on the part of its chief instigators and perpetrators, including the Laudański brothers"--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit of excerpts

User:Nihil novi thanks for your work. For clarity, may I check whether you are sure your editing of excerpts here is faithful to the original texts? [24] Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 19:00, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

I had assumed that Ignatiew 2002 was in Polish, in which case the changes in English wording that I made would have been within a translator's or editor's legitimate remit.

The Ignatiew text was, however, I now see, in English. Therefore the text may either be changed back to the rather infelicitous original version, or kept but minus the quotation marks.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Nihil novi (talk) 22:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Nihil novi, you're most welcome. In the spirit of collegiality it would be ideal if you rather than anyone else could change back your own good faith work. There is a separate issue that it is a press release. According to discussions at WP:RS/N e.g. [25] such material is not considered a straightforward reliable source such as scholarship in peer-reviewed academic journals, and the use of press releases by newspapers is the reason why WP:NEWSORG guidance cautions our use of newspapers. Afaics the material in the press release is not in any way controversial or contradicted by the majority view of scholarship, which states Ignatiew mainly corroborated Gross. But we're asked to use other types of sources. I'd welcome your thoughts on either a possible alternative or an additional citation from a straightforward reliable source. Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 04:16, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I regret I'm unable to suggest an alternative or additional source to what Ignatiew says.

In revising Ignatiew's English, I interpolated in brackets my assumption that the Lenin monument had been installed by the Soviets. I doubt that anyone else would have placed it there.

Would it be acceptable to keep my paraphrase of Ignatiew's statements, for the sake of greater clarity, while omitting the quotation marks?

Nihil novi (talk) 05:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

You could paraphrase in the main body of the article content, but I'm not sure that paraphrasing within inline citations instead of direct accurate quotation is considered good common practice. (I'm also not sure such heavy use of "note" boxes is considered standard practice as an alternative to inline citations.) Because it's a press release, it may be preferable anyway to move the whole thing lower down the article. If you don't want to do that much moving, then the quickest temporary solution would be a self-revert just to maintain accuracy for now. -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Use of sources

User:François Robere, is the content The betrayal felt by ethnic Poles provided a backdrop to the pogroms in Jedwabne and elsewhere.[19] something you have been concerned about? If so, let's work on it. I ask because afaics you removed it [26] and then restored it [27] along with other changes with which your concerns may have been allayed, which is why you may have restored it. I'd just like to understand. It would be helpful if we could also be clear exactly which "technically primary" source you are referring to in edit summary. If your edit summary here [28] refers back to a previous edit, it seems you are referring to a reference to a testimony inside Gross. If so, isn't that the exact same testimony used for our long quote from the statement in the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Białystok in our section here [29] and again for the content According to an eyewitness, Szmuel Wasersztajn, the group was taken to the barn, where they were made to dig a pit and throw the statue in. They were then killed and buried in the same pit.[29] ? If so, would you prefer them all removed in favour of what you describe in edit summary as "WP:SECONDARY sources' conclusions" ? Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Hey Chumchum, thanks for the ping. The restoration was just to avoid a 1RR situation caused by an intermediate edit by someone else.[30] I later removed that statement again.[31] I'm not quite sure why that later edit restored it. I'll go over it again. François Robere (talk) 14:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

You're most welcome. And to clarify about the primary / secondary sourcing...? Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 15:02, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

It refers specifically to this statement, though that wasn't entirely the reason I objected to it:

On 10 July 1941, according to a testimony cited by Jan Gross, the Germans gave the order that all Jews in the town should be killed, and ethnic Polish hooligans carried out the murders using "the most horrible methods".

But more importantly, Gross's includes many witness accounts; one picked account shouldn't be used to override WP:SECONDARY sources' conclusions regarding the involved's identities.[32] In particular, it's the "hooligans" qualifier that I find problematic, as it diverts blame (as many other testimonies of the time do) towards the fringes of Polish society, when the perpetrators may in fact have been completely "regular" Poles.

My apologies for the mess. I suspect I've (somehow) had an older revision loaded when I've done this edit, so it restored bits I didn't intend to restore. I've now gone through the list - do review and let me know what you think. François Robere (talk) 15:25, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

No worries. First of all, working towards solutions, what was the rest of the reason you objected to it? -Chumchum7 (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Gross's includes many witness accounts; one picked account shouldn't be used... as it diverts blame towards the fringes of Polish society... etc. François Robere (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

References

I have removed false information and falsely attributed claim

The statement In the "historical policy" of the ruling party in Poland, Law and Justice, the pogrom is attributed entirely to German responsibility, while alternative explanations are dismissed as an attack on "Polishness, Polish values and traditions, and Polish identity" and the central element in a "pedagogy of disgrace" was not supported by either Michlic or Hackman which were used by source. This is also blatantly false. Here is a statement of PiS minister stating clearly that Polish citizens were co-responsible[33]--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 00:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

You can rephrase the text, but you don't get to remove two established sources because of a random news piece. Also, I don't see how you can argue a statement by a PiS minister contradicts this policy, while at the same time arguing a statement by another minister has nothing to do with it.[34] François Robere (talk) 14:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

There are no "established sources". They are also quite misrepresented as neither of them says what the added text claims they say. Not only is it proper to remove such instances of misrepresentation but the editor(s) who put that in should be reminded of the recent ArbCom sourcing expectations. While this issue has some relevance to the article and I think it can be briefly discussed in the body, it is not important enough for the lead. It would be like inserting something about Trump views or his administrtion stance to articles on global warming or immigration. Hot today, forgotten tomorrrow. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Jörg Hackmann is a Professor of East European History at the Universities of Szczecin and Greifswald; Joanna Michlic is a Research Fellow at UCL's Centre for Collective Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, whose work has been cited hundreds of times. They are established, and removing them in favor of news bits violates not only WP:DUE, but WP:APL#Article sourcing expectations.

Buidhe's reading of the sources is reasonable, if not verbatim; as such it does not constitute a misrepresentation of either source. What's more, Buidhe was forthcoming enough to include complete quotes in footnote, so their work can be reviewed. If you disagree with their reading, then edit the text, but don't remove anything.

I agree that the addition isn't due in the lead, but neither are some of the other details that touch on transitory politics. I suggest the following: "In a 2001 memorial ceremony at Jedwabne, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski apologized on behalf of the country. With the rise to power of PiS in 2015, the subject of the pogrom has again become contentious." François Robere (talk) 12:08, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

You "suggest the following"? Could it be you forgot a word? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:37, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Done. François Robere (talk) 12:41, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how you can argue a statement by a PiS minister contradicts this policy, while at the same time arguing a statement by another minister has nothing to do with it.[35]

What are you talking about? Minister Zalewska and Minister Zalewska are the same person and the same minister. It seems you didn't even bother checking the article in question. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 17:35, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, that's even better - how can you claim that the same quote is both relevant[36][37] and irrelevant?[38]

It seems you didn't even bother checking the article in question Why would I? Wprost is a small-time magazine that doesn't pass our article sourcing restrictions. François Robere (talk) 18:06, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Questions

• Why was the photo of Antonina Wyrzykowska removed?
• Why are we quoting one contested primary source, Wasserstein, and not others such as Fogel- or more importantly, a secondary source in their place? Surely this is not in keeping with WP guidance?
• Have we adequately accommodated the peer responses to Gross, for example Stola and Wrobel? [39] (By 'accommodated' I mean: "does Wikipedia's voice reflect WP:NPOV of the secondary sources?"; I don't mean "have we included the academic replies to Gross?")
• I am dissatisfied with the lede's: "About 40 non-Jewish Poles were implicated as being perpetrators of the massacre.[a] German military police were present in the town at the time.[b]" To say the Poles were 'implicated' is a WP:WEASEL and different to saying the killers were Poles. (Let alone that this fact was established by a 21st-century Polish murder investigation entailing forensic excavation and 111 witnesses.) To say the Germans were 'present' is a WP:WEASEL and different to saying the Germans were in armed authority. (Let alone that Gross and all sources implicate the Gestapo, Sicherheitspolizei or Sicherheitsdienst.) Gross and the consensus of historians are far less vague and more assertive than our phrasing, both about Polish and German culpability. One of several formulations I would consider is: The murderers were a group of about 40 non-Jewish Poles, who perpetrated the crime under the authority of German forces in the town at the time.

Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:21, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

User:François Robere, User:Piotrus, do you concur? -Chumchum7 (talk) 16:27, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• @Chumchum7:
  • I can't comment about the picture without the particular diff.
  • I agree about PRIMARY.
  • What would you add Re: Stola / Wrobel?
  • The quotes from the IPN and the USHMM[40] justify the use of "implicate", but do not the suggestion of German coercion that "armed authority" would make.
  • Let alone that Gross and all sources implicate the Gestapo, Sicherheitspolizei or Sicherheitsdienst Quotes? François Robere (talk) 17:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• I can't find the diff. We can restore the pic and see what happens. It's useful as it undermines the narrative that Poles were not the murderers. Given that here we have a Polish witness who said Poles were the murderers whose additional targets she sheltered, and was three times beaten up by the murderers or their affiliates.
• Given you agree about PRIMARY, perhaps we can cut that content to start with. That would also accommodate the first matter about Stola / Wrobel, which is that they say the primary sources contradict each other.
• It's a good point you make about the sources USHMM and IPN. It's worth us noting here that they are state institutions rather than scholars (indeed the IPN has lost credibility in recent years because it has been interfered with by the current Polish government). We are using their summary website texts here and Wikipedia guidance would advise us not rely on such texts exclusively and to the exclusion of Gross and other scholarly works. Our voice here as I am sure you agree needs to accommodate the consensus of scholarly sources.
• Gross (Neighbors) writes three times of Germans being in authority at the massacre, and our article states just how explicit he is: He also writes that no "sustained organized activity" could have taken place in the town without the Germans' consent. WP:LEDE summarizes the article. The IPN murder investigation later also repeats Gross's assertion of German authority alongside its assertion that the murderers were Poles. Other sources further repeat it.
• Gross (Neighbors) writes of the 'Gestapo' visit on the morning or the day before the massacre. Later research described by Persak (2011) says these were probably not Gestapo but Sicherheitspolizei or Sicherheitsdienst. We have the quote in our article.
• Gross (Neighbors) refers to 'gendarmes' and Persak (2011) clarifies that these were Feldgendarmerie. We have the quote in our article.
• As a native speaker of English I instantly feel 'implicated' is a synonym of 'accused' and related to 'implied', which is not the same as conclusively 'found guilty' which is why it is a weasel word. I also understand 'authority' as entirely distinct from 'coercion'. The proposed formulation in no way undermines the culpability of the Polish murderers, specifically by adding the word 'murderers'.

Hope that helps. -Chumchum7 (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Chumchum7, Like FR, I am unsure. Restoring it should be fine. Ditto for PRIMARY, not ideal. Likewise, I think it a good idea to move beyond websites, even if they are reliable (USHMM, IPN, etc.). I will need to study this article and literature further before I can provide a more useful reply to your query #3. As for the lead, I think you make a good point, but sources are needed for such a discussion/content change. Be bold, fix what you think is wrong while citing sources, and we and others will surely take notice and comment if we feel it is necessary. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Piotrus, User:François Robere, rather than going BOLD I have invited and responded to your comments in an effort to build consensus and maintain article stability through collegiality. You will see my addition of secondary source scholarly works to the lede, which now complement the summary texts on websites of government institutions. The references to Gross, Stola and Persak now support the line, The murderers were a group of about 40 non-Jewish Poles, who perpetrated the crime under the authority of German forces in the town at the time. All sources including Gross show that (i) German secret services arrived just before the massacre; (ii) these met to confer with a group of Poles including the mysterious Volksdeutsche Bardon; (iii) German military police were in authority during the massacre. (iv) None of these sources say the murderers were coerced. ----Chumchum7 (talk) 06:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• @Chumchum7:
  • I think adding Wyrzykowska's portrait is a good idea, but it should be further down, at a Legacy section (I've created one; feel free to move subsections around).
  • I suggest the PRIMARY descriptions are replaced with SECONDARY ones who get to a similar level of detail.
  • "Consent" ≠ "pressure".
  • I'm okay with mentioning all of these, but only as "background". We can't suggest or imply that the Germans were behind it, if per RS it was planned and executed by local Poles.
  • Definitely no WEASEL from me - I'm completely fine saying the locals did it. The reason I don't think we should use a more explicit term than "implicated", is that it allows us some degree of generality, which makes writing about a subject like an historical mob much easier than if we were to eg. name names and roles. François Robere (talk) 16:32, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@François Robere:

This [41] is a good edit. To clarify, is English not your first language? --Chumchum7 (talk) 05:45, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I would like to think I'm fluent. François Robere (talk) 12:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay. Given English is not your first language, you are aware there are nuances discernible to the native speaker's ear. For example, your use of "evoking... against" here [42] feels very unusual. Persak uses the word 'evoked' in a different way. For the content you have added, I am sure "invoking" would be common usage, and clearer to the reader; but simply "using" would be best. The edit is otherwise appropriate.

Separately, note the content I added which makes a similar point, which Bergen is obviously referring to: Gross writes that a leading role in the pogrom was carried out by four men, including Jerzy Laudański and Karol Bardoń, who had earlier collaborated with the Soviet NKVD and were now trying to recast themselves as zealous collaborators with the Germans. I also brought Persak and his reference to "Jewish Communism" to this article, so I notice that where you have added Doris Bergen states in this context we are saying that Bergen is specifically addressing "Jewish Communism" also. We are now conflating Persak and Bergen, so for the avoidance of WP:SYNTH: let's check, does Bergen specifically connect the allegation "Jewish Communism" by the Polish murderers at Jedwabne with the Poles at Jedwabne who collaborated with the NKVD? -Chumchum7 (talk) 13:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I did not say that.

"Evoke against" is not non-native:

• "Rationality... is not a force to evoke against impulse and habit. It is an attainment of a working harmony among diverse desires." (John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, 1922.)
• "In France, where his feudatories could evoke against him his own overlord, the French king, Henry was never really able to discipline such magnates." (Arthur Bryant, The Story of England, 1954.)
• "It was precisely this view of the English revolution that Swift cultivated, and that he would evoke against the Whigs and the Dissenters whom he liked to regard as the descendants of the rebels." (Warren Montag, The Unthinkable Swift, 1994.)

The main difference for our purpose is that evoke doesn't require explicitness, while invoke does (in other words - "evoke" suggests, "invoke" states).[43]

Persak uses the term in the same way or a different one, depending on your reading: "[The local Poles] also felt a strong revenge reflex toward Soviet collaborators, with Jews viewed as such en bloc. The attitude to the latter was... related to the traditionally strong influence of the National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe), which evoked the negative stereotype of “Jewish communism.”" If it's the party that evoked the negative stereotype, then it's the same; if it's the party's influence that evoked it (which doesn't make sense), then it isn't.

But anyway, either "evoke" or "invoke" would be better than "used", which was in the previous version.

As stated in the note, Bergen writes that in this context, ie Gross and Jedwabne. What she means by it may be open to interpretation, but repeating it word for word in the exact same context in not SYNTH. François Robere (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I referred to the usage of ‘evoked ... against’ as very unusual. As you know, English is highly flexible which is why we get so much out of it, from Shakespeare to Snoop Dogg. So this isn't a point to win or lose. That the Google search of the phrase "evoke against" (just 4650 hits for me) brings up the first example you give proves exactly how unusual it is. But even then, that's not how we are using it here. We are breaking up the phrase with "Evoking the antisemitic stereotype of "Zydokomuna" against their victims..." For what it’s worth, I don’t mind disclosing that I’ve been paid to write professionally for more than 20 years, and have not once seen the phrase used like this. All editors have an equal right to an opinion; in mine, I'd cut it for style.

To be sure, I’m trying to help. In the interests of our fruitful cooperation and in case you have this situation with others: I came to you with a query about your unusual use of language; you’ve chosen a French username and didn’t directly confirm you’re a native speaker of English when asked, all of which gave the impression you’re not a native speaker of English. That is not a personal criticism, that is a collegial effort to improve understanding and awareness. So it may be helpful to others if you could state that you are a native speaker, on your user page – if indeed you are now clarifying that you are a native speaker of English?

Thank you for expanding on Bergen, that is now clearer. I'd welcome your feedback on the earlier issue of SYNTH /OR /V in the section below.

Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 10:39, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

As I said, feel free to CE it however you want, as long as we don't use "used".

Thanks for the input.

As stated in the note, Bergen writes that in this context, ie Gross and Jedwabne. What she means by it may be open to interpretation, but repeating it word for word in the exact same context in not SYNTH. François Robere (talk) 22:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, by asking for your further comment, I am not referring to the Bergen content. I am referring to the content I raised in the "Verification of content check" below, which appeared to have SYNTH /OR /V issues. -Chumchum7 (talk) 05:15, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Verification of content check

We have the following content:

In the historical policy of the Law and Justice party, the pogrom is attributed entirely to German responsibility, while alternative explanations are dismissed as an attack on "Polishness, Polish values and traditions, and Polish identity" and the central element in a "pedagogy of disgrace".[96][97]

I am not a supporter of the Law and Justice party and I am a supporter of Wikipedia, where we accurately represent sources. Help me out here because I don't see where in the refs it shows that in the historical policy of the Law and Justice party, this pogrom is attributed entirely to German responsibility. What I do see in the great Joanna Michlic's text is that she says there are some unnamed politicians, journalists and historians who have said this - which is (i) not the same as it being policy and (ii) is not in their own words and so only the allegation by Michlic is WP:V, meaning we can say that Michlic said it and not that it is our 'truth'.

Incidentally I am aware of the notorious case of the former Law and Justice education minister Anna Zalewska, who made the abysmal comment that we don't know for sure what happened at Jedwabne; but a few weeks later she accepted Polish culpability: [44]

I find it difficult to understand why she would have done this if it was her party's policy not to do this. I assume there has been some zealous interpretation of sources here and that we could make the content a little more subtle, even though we are describing something utterly ridiculous.

Where I do see genuine political controversy on Jedwabne in the news is around the comments of Law and Justice-affiliated (and not a member) President Duda. That, we ought to add.

-Chumchum7 (talk) 17:48, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Chumchum7, I think you are right, and this issue is even worse in the historical policy of the Law and Justice party which seems to have major OR problems... as for Anna Zalewska, maybe this would be ok to mention in her article, but is likely UNDUE here. Some politicians make comments to pander to extreme factions - be it Polish nationalists or US Teaparties. And some simply are, shockingly, uneducated and don't know thinks that we would consider basic historical facts. Sigh. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:28, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

We put Zalewska in the article when she first demonstrated her ignorance. After she publicly corrected her mistake we included that too, but then our Talk page consensus was to ignore her altogether. Rightly so. Duda attacked Komorowski for apologizing for Jedwabne in their presidential campaign debate, and that might be worth a mention. As to the IPN, I happen to be convinced their recent policy is more about political messaging than empirical research, for example this stunt: [45] At the same time I stand by my point that any criticism of anything on Wikipedia must be faithful to the reliable secondary sources. -Chumchum7 (talk) 07:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Chumchum7: I didn't reply here earlier since the text has been revised and I thought the sources adequately support it, but following your request in a previous thread here I am.

I think there was a mixup between the personal positions of IPN and PiS leaders, and the organizations' official positions. The latter do not deny Polish responsibility for Jedwabne even if some of the former do, and we should be clear on which states what.

In addition, I suggest we quote more from Hackmann under Jedwabne pogrom#Influence on political discourse (Jörg Hackmann, Defending the "Good Name" of the Polish Nation, 2018. pp. 592-593):

Since then, three major explanations of the murders of Jedwabne prevail: First, that responsibility has to be seen within the Polish society, as the Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski expressed during the ceremony on the fiftieth anniversary of the murders on 10 July 2001, when a new memorial stone replaced the old one from the 1960s, which named Gestapo and Nazi policemen as perpetrators. Second, Adam Michnik rejected the connection between the murders and a general Polish antisemitism and tried to maintain the image of the Pole being an “innocent and noble victim of foreign violence and intrigue” by Hitler and Stalin alike. And third, some historians upheld the thesis of ascribing the responsibility solely to the Germans, which in 2016 was repeated by the current director of IPN, Jarosław Szarek, although the final report of the criminal investigation of the same institution rejected this hypothesis... The symbolic meaning of Jedwabne for the Polish debate on World War II, however, was paramount. As Joanna Michlic stated, Jedwabne on the one hand, “has become the key symbol of the counter-memory of the old, hegemonic, biased narratives of the Holocaust promulgated between 1945 and 1990s.” On the other hand, Jedwabne has been regarded by the critics of Jan Gross as embodiment of “‘all the lies voiced against the Polish nation,’ and is understood as the ‘central attack’ on Polishness, Polish values and traditions, and Polish identity.” In this context, Jedwabne has been repeatedly addressed as core feature of a “pedagogy of disgrace” (pedagogika wstydu).

pp. 604-606 have content relevant to historical policy of the Law and Justice party:

[We conclude] that a major interest of [the] current historical policy by the government led by the PiS party is to put Poles and Jews upon an equal level of victimization...

In internal politics... the main goal is taking control of institutions by PiS and marginalizing opponents through shaping a monolithic view of the ethnic Polish nation, which appears as the first victim of Nazi and Soviet rule. During World War II Poles sacrificed their lives for their Jewish neighbours and fought bravely for the victory over Nazi rule. From such a perspective the impact of the Jedwabne debate, as stimulated by Tomasz Gross, has to be competed with, because it has been motivated by an aspiration for “disgrace,” as Andrzej Nowak put it. In a similar perspective the notion of critical patriotism, as suggested by Lipski and Błoński, was dismissed as politically naïve and harmful. In addition, it has been assumed that the government’s memory as well as past politics serves as auxiliary means for securing majorities on other fields of politics...

The international scholarly assessment of the historical policy by PiS is widely negative and has been seen, for instance, in an “implicit alliance,” with Russian memory politics... Even though the historical policy of the PiS government faces much criticism in Poland as well as abroad, only minor changes have been made. This leads to the assumption that internal as well as international polarization is a major driving force behind the current official Polish memory policy. However, in the light of the latest events, it seems that the general goal behind this historical policy is not so much turning the wheel of time back and to revive an antisemitic discourse in the tradition of March 1968, but to establish a new national vision that equals the Holocaust with the genocide of Poles, or with other words aims at “de-Judaizing the Holocaust.”

We may also want to quote this from Michlic (Joanna Michlic, At the Crossroads, 2017. p. 305):

According to PiS’s historical policy, the historian can only be a servant of the state who remakes and reshapes history according to the orders of the state.

And a couple of sources not currently cited:

Jo Harper, Negating Negation, 2010. p. 29:

The PiS agenda has been clear: Poland will stand up for itself, will look at and raise arguments about things that affected Poles, but will defend against any criticism of Poles in relation to (Polish) Jews, Ukrainians, and other minorities in interwar Poland both during and after the war. A central collective theme in this version of the national narrative—one that PiS attempts to exploit—is again of a morally clean nation that witnessed horror but was not an active collaborator in it. There persists a large rump in Polish society, and a series of raw cleavages, both defined by attachment—among other things—to the historical narrative of cleanliness. It is precisely along these cleavages and to (and for) this rump that PiS seeks to function, obliging waverers to choose between a patriotic party (PiS) and, by implication, a nonpatriotic one (PO).

Adam Leszczyński, The Past as a Source of Evil, 2016. pp. 3-4:

According to PiS, the source of the profound rift in Polish politics is historical, and dates back at least to the birth of the democratic opposition in the 1970s. Its most important element – the Workers' Defence Committee – grew from left-wing and (to a lesser extent) liberal roots.. [The WDC] supposedly formed an alliance with part of the communist authorities in 1989, and were guaranteed immunity and continued influence over the economy in exchange for jointly impeding the political and cultural aspirations of the national-Catholic majority... they [supposedly] taught Poles to be ashamed of their own history, for example by exposing events like the massacre in Jedwabne... This "educating by shaming" served to strengthen their grip on Polish people's minds, teaching them to despise their own heritage. At the same time, corruption was rife in the country, and those who carved out careers and made fortunes for themselves were mostly linked to the post-communist, liberal układ. PiS is on a mission to reverse the situation, and a vital component is restoring the truth about the past, to give people genuine dignity and pride in their own glorious history. The movement is therefore revolutionary, conservative and emancipatory, all at the same time.

Just in case, I should add that PiS's opponents see this vision of history as proof that the party is obsessed with conspiracies. They feel that there is no evidence of any "alliance" against the nation's Catholic-conservative aspirations, and stubbornly remind us that, in total, less than twenty per cent of the Polish electorate voted for PiS. This version of history is standard for the party in power, however, and serves as the basis for its political activities regarding history.

Regarding Zalewska - that minor scandal should be mentioned in her BLP, but not necessarily here.

François Robere (talk) 18:28, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Wizslawa Szymborska

please change ((Wizslawa Szymborska)) to ((Wisława Szymborska)) 2601:541:4580:8500:7D83:FF3D:5F42:46AB (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: per WP:NOTBROKEN. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:42, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Kurek

I removed the part on exhumations based on Ewa Kurek, as I don't think she can be considered an RS. It's been awhile since I looked into this topic but I'm pretty sure there are other, more reliable sources, including Haglund as well as Polish forensic experts, which also relate the circumstances surrounding the exhumation. Volunteer Marek 07:29, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

It would be best to cite others, if possible. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, we don't need to add WP:WEIGHT to the point that the exhumation was stopped for religious reasons - there is general consensus on that and it deserves a passing mention at best. We certainly don't need to go into who said who stopped it, and who said something else, etc. -Chumchum7 (talk) 11:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree. The official, never revealed to the public before Kola's report concerning the exhumation, with photos, is available online now. [46] - GizzyCatBella🍁 17:06, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

For the record, the PDF linked above is hosted by the website of a person suspended by his local Catholic church and deported from the United Kingdom on the grounds that he is a far-right activist.[47] Wikipedia is no place for such sources, even in talk pages. -Chumchum7 (talk) 19:17, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh really? I didn’t know that, but this is a PDF to the official report only, posted by the IP shortly after it became public[48]. I’ll try to find a better link to replace this one. - GizzyCatBella🍁 23:38, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

About the "religious reasons" for discontinuation of the exhumantions, please see the article's "note f": "Physicians for Human Rights asked Rabbi Joseph Polak of Boston University for a theological opinion; he argued that reburying someone after an inappropriate burial is 'not only appropriate but obligatory'". This is what Ewa Kurek points out. Is there anything in the deleted paragraph that is, to the best of our knowledge, incorrect? Should we not consider information and arguments on their merits? Why the haste to delete, before other sources can be adduced? Nihil novi (talk) 18:22, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

If a principal consideration is the identity of the late Polish president's living advisor, then why not simply delete it and the advisor's response to the question that was posed to him? The first of the two sentences would then read thus:

"He (President Lech Kaczyński) had been told that the Jewish religion forbade exhumation."

Nihil novi (talk) 18:41, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Why the haste to delete, before other sources can be adduced? Firstly because Kurek is WP:FRINGE. Secondly just because someone writes something about Jedwabne, it doesn't mean Wikipedia cares. Within the scope of this article, it matters that there was a discussion about what to do about the exhumation - but I don't think it matters what the details of that discussion were. That's particularly where emphasizing the discussion appears to be Kurek's attempt at discrediting the conclusions of the investigation; if she and others in a minority dispute the conclusions then we might say so in passing, but we don't talk through their reasoning in a way that uses Wikipedia to prove a point. -Chumchum7 (talk) 19:04, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. So, has it been said in passing? Will it be? And if it will, will it be said with no justification being given for dissent from conclusions based on very limited exhumations? The "Exhumation" section now includes:

"According to William Haglund, a forensic expert for Physicians for Human Rights, who attended the exhumation as an international observer, the process should have lasted several months. In his view, the number of bodies could not be estimated in the short space of time."

"The exhumation reportedly ended, according to Haglund, 'with some of the non-Jewish Polish investigators weeping in frustration as they watched one of the rabbis lowering the charred teeth and bone fragments ... back into the graves'."

It sounds as if there may be room for more than one "generally accepted" view. I am not sure that all reasonable ones have already been cited.

Nihil novi (talk) 19:39, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, personally I don't see what else that section needs. -Chumchum7 (talk) 19:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Jan T. Gross quotation

I am concerned by the Jan T. Gross quotation at the end of paragraph 1. It is very misleading and misrepresentative of his book Neighbors. While it is a direct quote from the book, it seems to be deliberately taken to support the above statements in the introductory paragraph instead of accurately representing Jan Gross. The point or thesis of his whole book is that the neighbors of the Jedwabne Jews, ordinary Poles, took it upon themselves to murder the Jewish population. I am not writing this to disagree with the initial point or emphasis of this article. That is not for me to say. However, I think it is a mistake to quote Jan Gross as a supporting citation for that point when such a point is one that he is deliberately attempting to discredit and disprove in his book Neighbors. AdrianLot (talk) 02:21, 25 January 2023 (UTC)