Talk:Denis Avey

revisions of 3rd October
Mystichumwipe >Biographies of living persons ("BLP"s) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy.< Biographies of living persons. I struggle to be 'conservative' myself. I think what establishes his notability are his most recent claims, as detailed in the book, so I have put this into the present tense. Indeed part of the controversy is that identities have changed. I think Avey has a perfectly reasonable response to AuschwitzIII/Birkenau confusion in the 'Notes on Sources' but less so to the identity of the prisoner with who he swopped. On the 2001 IWM tape it is the person who sleeps next top Ernst and he enters the camp with Ernst. However so far as I can tell only after Ernst's video testimony come to light, where he says nothing about the swap, and only after Avey has said to the daily Mail (not always in the real world a reliable source) does the name Hans emerge.

Maybe the contoversies section should be subdivided, criticisms and Avey's supporters responses. We can go into these questions there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sceptic1954 (talk • contribs) 09:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

So yes, why not have two main sections Biography and Controversies. Biography can be reasonably concise, as we have it now, and 'Controversies' can be longer? 'Controversies' would have to include Avey's supporters responses to questions raised. But I am not agreeable to amplifying 'controversies' and 'contradictions' in the lead, that just comes across as an attack on the subject.Sceptic1954 (talk) 10:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Daily Mail inaccuracies It might be helpful to point out that the daily Mail is not also the most reliable.

There is a difference between two accounts by Guy Walters

Daily Mail 8th April 2011

>On July 16, 2001, Mr Avey gave a five-hour interview to the Imperial War Museum in which he spoke about his incarceration, as well as the psychological impact of the war and his problems with nightmares. Not once in this interview did Mr Avey talk about smuggling himself into Monowitz. <

New Statesman 17th November 2011

>According to the article, Avey's account of how he had bravely swapped places with a Jew to enter into Auschwitz was radically different from an interview he had given to the Imperial War Museum in July 2001. In the taped interview, Denis Avey claimed that he had gained entry to Auschwitz-Birkenau by swapping places with an unnamed "stripey" -- as British prisoners of war (POWs) called the Jewish inmates on account of their striped uniforms -- and had been accompanied by a Jew called Ernst. However, in the published book, Avey claims that he broke into Auschwitz-Monowitz (a camp about four miles from Birkenau), swapped places with a Dutch Jew called Hans, and that the man who accompanied him was not "Ernst".< Long and Broomby, ‘Notes on Sources’ (p.274) (Denis’s somewhat unclear account of the swap in the 2001 interview was not included in the brief summary on the Imperial War Museum’s computerised indexing system, which has led to some confusion about when Denis first talked of the swap.)

Obviously not everything you read in the Daily Mail is correct either!Sceptic1954 (talk) 10:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Excessive use of primary source material
There is far too much primary source material in this article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources

Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.[4] Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material. Use extra caution when handling primary sources about living people; see WP:Biographies of living persons § Avoid misuse of primary sources, which is policy.

Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source about the war, but where it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source about those experiences. A book review too can be an opinion, summary or scholarly review.[7]

Scepticism
Noting that there is increasing scepticism surrounding Avey's claims re Auschwitz. This article outlines some of the discussion, and Avey's publishers are adding qualifying notes to future versions of The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 13:26, 4 May 2022 (UTC)