Talk:Nazi crimes against the Polish nation

punitive operations for hiding Jews

The article reports:

About 20,000 villagers, some of whom were burned alive, were murdered in large-scale punitive operations targeting rural settlements suspected of aiding the resistance or hiding Jews and other fugitives. Seventy-five villages were razed in these operations

It also reports that

Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where the penalty for hiding a Jew was death for everyone living in the house; other laws were similarly ruthless

The first sentence, according to the G&K paper, is false: These statements distort and lie. Individual shootings were reported on numerous occasions, but never were entire village populations targeted for helping Jews. The sentence is referenced with "Kulesza 2004, PDF, p. 29." but as far as I see at p. 29 the source doesn't mention 20,000 villagers. I might be wrong because I don't understand Polish. The second sentence is supported by "The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust", p. 114, which however is only summarising the information provided by C. Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust. I'd replace the reference, but since the second sentence is dependent on the first one and doesn't make sense alone, I'm now removing both of them. Given the subject of the article, content about Poles helping Jews is also off-topic and UNDUE. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:02, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gitz6666 I don't have time to review the history of this, but I assume the ref was added to support the second part of the first sentence, re, Pacification operations in German-occupied Poland - but you are right, that refernece does not support most of the other claims made in this sentence. I'll ping editor familiar with this topic, @Dreamcatcher25, who just translated Krasowo-Częstki massacre from pl wiki, an article that states " On July 17, 1943, the village was completely burned, and 257 of its inhabitants, mostly women and children, were murdered. ". In general, the confusion seems to be related to the claim that "villages were burned for helping Jews". At this point I have no knowledge of such incidents (although this is interesting to double check; some sources it mentions may not be reliable or may be primary), but there is no denying that Germans burned many villages for aiding the resistance or such. But we already cover this in detail in Nazi_crimes_against_the_Polish_nation#Terror_and_pacification_operations, so I think the content your emoved is fine (as in, it is fine to remove it). PS. Markowa is sometimes mentioned as an example of a village that saved the Jews, but while several families there sheltered Jews, I don't think it was a unified village-wide action. PS. Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during_the_Holocaust#Jews_in_Polish_villages states that "Postwar research has confirmed that communal protection occurred" and that " In Cisie near Warsaw, 25 Poles were caught hiding Jews; all were killed and the village was burned to the ground as punishment." I would need to investigate the sources cited more (the claim for Cisie cites Szymon Datner, which AFAIK is reliable but dated - 1968). The other source seems reliable, but I cannot access it (Ryszard Walczak, IPN). In either case, note that the article on Cisie does not claim that the entire village was destroyed, only that 25 people were killed for helping Jews. Sigh. I'll tag that claim with verification needed and research this further when I have more time. PPS. That said, "individual shootings" - murdering 25 people is hardly "individual", IMHO. Or the murder of Ulma family at Markowa (Józef and Wiktoria Ulma with Seven Children). The last time I checked, "invidual" means "a single human being". Sigh. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:23, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

1. @Gitz6666, @Piotrus I think that establishing clear definitions should be a crucial starting point in this case. Grabowski and Klein wrote: "there were never entire village populations targeted for helping Jews." Hard to disagree. However, we should bear in mind that Polish scholars examining Nazi crimes in the Polish countryside adopt a far broader definition of 'pacification'. It is not limited to the cases where majority or entire village populations were exterminated. It rather encompasses all German repressive actions against Polish villages, even those with limited casualties or no fatalities. Of course, if there was connection between some of these repressive actions and aid provided to Jews by peasants, remains a separate issue. Numerous instances of such aid&pacifications are cited in older Polish sources, albeit we need to treat them with caution. For reliable data on Poles killed for assisting Jews, 'Repression for Helping Jews on Occupied Polish Lands during World War II' (2019) and the 'Register of Facts of Repression on Polish Citizens for Helping the Jewish Population during World War II' (2014) stand in my opinion as the only credible sources so far. From the confirmed facts of repression documented in these sources, certain events could be considered 'pacifications of villages due to hiding Jews.': the Stary Ciepielów and Rekówka massacre (33 victims), (the Paulinów massacre (14 victims), the Pantalowice and Handle Szklarskie massacre (9 victims), Przewrotne massacre (11 victims), Wierzbica massacre (16 victims). I only indicated those massacres where the victims came from more than one family in a given village. If we included repressions against individual families, such as the Ulma family from Markowa mentioned by Piotrus, the list would be longer.
2. Regarding "Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where the penalty for hiding a Jew was death for everyone living in the house" that is obviously not true, since similar represions was in force in occupied territories of USSR and in the Balkans.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 14:47, 12 November 2023 (UTC)