Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Szczuczyn pogrom

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Leaving renames to post-close. MBisanz ^talk 02:28, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Szczuczyn pogrom

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Highly problematic, WP:OR/WP:N issues. No reliable sources discuss 'Szczuczyn pogrom' (pl. 'Pogrom w Szczuczynie'). While it does appear that there were some crimes committed on Jews in that region ([1]) it does not seem likely that this crime was notable, nor that this is the correct term for it. Pl wiki uses the term 'crime', not 'pogrom', see pl:Szczuczyn_(województwo_podlaskie)#Zbrodnia_w_Szczuczynie Naming aside, I am not sure if the crime is notable, most related publications talk about the related 'Bzura crime' (pl:Mord w Bzurach, [2], [3]), and the events in Szczuczyn did not get enough coverage. The article makes some claims about a wider pogrom (100 deaths) but I cannot find source to support that claim. It is likely the author confused time and place of several other events. In either case I think it qualifies for deletion due to mistakes/OR/N, or plain WP:TNT mess. Ping User:Poeticbent. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:31, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 09:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 09:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 09:50, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 09:50, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 09:50, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep. The sole question here is whether to use massacre or pogrom (both are used by sources). Polish POV, as reflected by Polish wikipedia, is not a source for anything (The Polish government is attempting to rewrite history - denying the complicity of Poles in the holocaust, and attempting to outlaw the term "Polish death camp" - Poland's New Government Looks to Rewrite Polish Role in the Holocaust). There are ample sources on the massacre/pogrom in Szczuczyn by Poles prior to the German occupation, e.g. - [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. After the Germans bypassed the town on their way foward, the locals killed some ~300 Jews by an axe wielding mob on 28 June, killed ~100 jews on 24 July, +possibly some other incidents (e.g. the murder of the 11 women farm hands - not sure if this is the same Szczuczyn), leaving ~600 Jews for the Germans to kill in August (and pack the remaining Jews into a ghetto, and subsequently off (fairly early) to Treblinka extermination camp - AFAIK there were very few survivors from Szczuczyn (they did however cobble together a Yizkor book with more details - [10]) - the "efficiency" in 1941-2 perhaps reduced the amount of coverage - which still reaches GNG).Icewhiz (talk) 10:21, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note the place has several variant spellings in Yiddish/Hebrew as well as a town in present day Belarus with the same name in Polish (Shchuchyn in enwiki per translit from Belarussian) where circumstances were different. Very few survived Szczuczyn - those who did mostly left (voluntarily or forcibly) in 1939-41 (during the Soviet occupation), some Hebrew sources - Yad Vashem entry, Polish Jewish heritage center entry, yizkor book, book by a survivor (online version), who left eastwards by covers the town in an appendix.Icewhiz (talk) 11:06, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also - Kopstein, Jeffrey S., and Jason Wittenberg. "Deadly communities: Local political milieus and the persecution of Jews in occupied Poland." Comparative Political Studies 44.3 (2011): 259-283. - that discusses the events as a pogrom (referring to the Chaye Golding PRIMARY letter that is questioned in the article at present) and discusses the motivations and causes leading the Poles to massacre the Jews.Icewhiz (talk) 11:22, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of completeness, and I'm bringing this up due to the nom asserting the Polish Wikipedia (While it does appear that there were some crimes committed on Jews in that region ([11]) it does not seem likely that this crime was notable, nor that this is the correct term for it. Pl wiki uses the term 'crime', not 'pogrom', see pl:Szczuczyn_(województwo_podlaskie)#Zbrodnia_w_Szczuczynie as a source (the POV of which I've commented above) - this is described in length in hewiki entry on town(towns with little content on hewiki other than the massacres/Jewish history don't always get a standalone massacre), ~~ruwiki entry on the Pogrom, and uawiki entry on the Pogrom. So we have 3 at least cross-wikis here.~~ Perhaps someone should update the Polish wikipedia entry on the town (assuming it is still legal (in Poland) to do so)?Icewhiz (talk) 13:33, 5 December 2017 (UTC) Struck since it appears uawiki and ruwiki are very recent and possibly same author - however the Hebrew article dates back to 2015.Icewhiz (talk) 13:35, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Icewhiz has shown enough RS to establish notability. The article needs a lot of work but definitely appears to have notability. - Galatz ^Talk 12:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As discussed above, notability has been demonstrated. The proper naming and transliteration of Polish orthography needs to be addressed and further sourcing added to the article. Alansohn (talk) 13:27, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Article can be cleaned up using massive number of WP:RSs provided by Icewhiz.E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Referencing in this article is an absolute joke right now. We know that the Szczuczyn community existed as shown by weblinks provided by User:Icewhiz. Most of those links confirm the existence (!) of that community, period. This is not a part of the original write-up by User:Roman Frankiv from Ukraine (159 edits). Historian Anna Bikont (ISBN 0374710325) writes that (allegedly) a mass murder was committed in the forest near Szczuczyn by a man who was sentenced to death by the Stalinists in 1950 (the Stalinists themselves were a criminal organization). Do you see a difference between the two claims? Poeticbent talk 15:22, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article can easily be improved - and some of the problems in the article seem to arise from POV pushing after the initial version (and not by the author) - e.g. this one revision 811723148 is a reasonable description of events (sourcing should've been improved - but sources are readily available). The 1950 trial of a side incident to the whole affair (the good town folk - who went about and murdered 300 Jews with axes in June 1941 (while the town was not under German occupation, as they bypassed it and didn't enter - ironically (wrongly per later events) Jews in Szczuczyn greeted the Wehrmacht in relief upon their entry due to the atrocities commited against them by the townfolk) - were not tried by the Polish communist government). This Kopstein, Jeffrey S., and Jason Wittenberg. "Deadly communities: Local political milieus and the persecution of Jews in occupied Poland." Comparative Political Studies 44.3 (2011): 259-283. and this The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: Seredina-Buda-Z, page 1276, Szczuczyn amply source the two "main" events by Poles - the massacre of 300 Jews in June, and 100 more in July.Icewhiz (talk) 15:34, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't wp:bludgeon me with links which do not confirm your wayward claims. Prewar Poland was a multi-ethnic country, and names such as Yakubtshuk, Shviatlovski, Yankayitis (from Kopstein & Wittenberg), certainly do not sound Polish. Poeticbent talk 15:48, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's WP:OR, though possibly correct, however the fact that the residents of Szczuczyn (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Ruthenian, German (minority outside Germany), etc.) massacred the Jewish population of the town has been amply demonstrated by RS. Kopstein&Wittenberg published in Comparative Political Studies as a peer reviewed journal is a RS, and this journal article has been cited by others.Icewhiz (talk) 16:21, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There are ample sources on the massacres (or June-July 1941 pogrom) in Szczuczyn, and additional ones in the region, and all this in multiple languages. gidonb (talk) 01:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There might be some problems with the article but the subject itself is certainly notable (though in regard to Icewhiz's comment above I also have no idea what the Polish government is suppose to have with the Polish wikipedia). Volunteer Marek 14:41, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Volunteer Marek: The Polish government, elected by the Polish people, reflects the POV of some of the Polish people (presumably those who voted for them). Furthermore, when it is illegal (or poposed to be illegal) to who publicly and against the facts, accuse the Polish nation, or the Polish state, [of being] responsible or complicit in Nazi crimes committed by the III German Reich punishable by prison terms of up to three years[12] - editors in Poland may be under duress / criminal liability. Polish ministers deny Polish involvement in Jedwabne pogrom (incidentally - one of the editors here pushing for deletion - removed the holocaust sidebar there - diff), and Kielce pogrom - Two Senior Polish Ministers Deny Poles' Involvement in Massacres of Jews. And this isn't a "new" 2016-2017 "thing", as may be seen here - Shafir, Michael. Between denial and “comparative trivialization”: Holocaust negationism in post-Communist East Central Europe. No. 19. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, 2002.. I hope this makes the POV/legal situation on the Polish Wikipedia clearer.Icewhiz (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that - the Macleans source - is an op-ed from a very biased author who's book was roundly criticized by professional historians. The op-ed makes several false assertions (for example it is completely untrue that Jaroslaw Szarek "flatly denied Polish involvement in, and responsibility for, the communal genocide in Jedwabne in 1941". Also no such law as you mention actually exists, nor has actually been proposed afaict, what you're quoting is some media sensationalism from a two year old interview). The source basically falls within WP:FRINGE. Nobody's prosecuting anybody for editing Polish wikipedia. That's ridiculous and a bit unhinged. Volunteer Marek 16:34, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, all that's off topic. And these WP:NOTAFORUM kinds of comments are really irrelevant to the topic's notability. Volunteer Marek 16:38, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Better sources - Poland wants to outlaw phrases like 'Polish death camps', CNN, August 2016, Nazi atrocities: Implying Polish guilt to become crime, BBC, Feb 2016. But you are correct, I will cease commenting on this.Icewhiz (talk) 16:41, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I think some of the confusion above stems from the fact that there were more than one spate of murders around the town and different sources discuss different events. Volunteer Marek 16:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Icewhiz provided a couple of good RS in response to Poeticbent. If I understand correctly, no one claims these accounts were fake. Given that, the pogrom was a matter of fact and sufficiently well documented. Is it notable enough to have a page? It does seem to be notable, especially since there is an article about it in an encyclopedia about Holocaust [13]. My very best wishes (talk) 18:58, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Icewhiz has produced enough reliable sources to establish notability of the topic. My suggestion would be to consider renaming the article to plural, as it describes several waves of violence that took place over at least three months. — Kpalion^(talk) 17:12, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per good work by Icewhiz.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:01, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw nomination. Better sources have addressed my concerns, however the closing admin may want to move the article to plural pogroms or start a RM per several reasonable suggestions here. (Piotrus on alt account). --Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 07:10, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.