Talk:Repatriation of Poles

Merge suggestion
Given that Repatriation of Poles (1955–1959) consists only of four sentences and is on the same subject as Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946), they should be merged into Repatriation of Poles. Skäpperöd (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Object. The pl wikipedia article proves there is ample scope for expansion (just think of the multitude of German expelling subarticles series).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This article (55-59) has been in that extremely low developed state for quite a while. I would not object keeping that separate if it had kind of a minimum size, but four sentences? Skäpperöd (talk) 20:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There are many, many old stubs on Wikipedia. As long as it is agreed they can be developed, it shouldn't be too much of a cause. I will see about developing this article, perhaps in January? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Move proposal
Given that "repatriation" is a propaganda term, the merged Repatriation of Poles article (or both of them if the merge proposal above fails to reach a consensus) should be renamed Expulsions of Poles after World War II or Expulsion of Poles from the Kresy or Expulsion of Poles from the territories east of the Curzon line. Repatriation of Poles would become a redirect and the article should mention that the expulsions in the post-war era were sold as "repatriations". Skäpperöd (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Is the "expel" title more popular in literature? IIRC, some sources also speak of deportations.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have no intention to push for the term "expulsion", one could also use (forced) resettlement or (forced) displacement. My aim is to get the slogan repatriation out of the title. It must of course be noted in the article that the contemporary authorities termed that process to be a "so-called repatriation, or in fact displacement to postwar Poland." (Piotr Eberhardt in Przemiany narodowościowe na Ukrainie XX wieku, Obóz, 1994, p.320). There were of course real  repatriations going on - eg from France to Poland, but you cannot call someone a repatriant whose family lived in Lemberg for generations and because of a bordershift finds himself outside his "patria" and is forced to leave, in some cases even to areas redefined to be his "patria" just moments before. For a repatriation it is necessary that one actively moves to another country and then moves back, not that the country is moved about and one is forced to run after. Skäpperöd (talk) 20:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is true not all sources use repatriation, but shouldn't we check what's the most common use in English, before renaming it? Our logic can take us only so far until we run into WP:V and WP:NC. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. The Poles in Kresy region were not native people but result of centuries of immigration and settlement as well as cultural influence that made people gave up their national identity. A Pole was just as alien to Lviv as German to Wrocław(not that we can compare the agressive racially based Germanisation actions of Nazi Germany or German Empire to Polish cultural influence of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or discrimiantion under IIRP). Since nationalism was combated in Poland in the period after 1945, there is not so much rhetoric to portay those events in Poland in similiar way as de-germanisation of non-German territories by West German nationalist circles during Cold War which coined the POV propaganda term "expulsion". In fact the correct them for those events should be population transfers/exchange as per definition of international law. Also please remember that it is English Wikipedia-use English terminology rather then Germanised versions for Ukrainian cities like Lviv. As to rest of your arguments-they are simple synthesis and original reasearch. We are not here to write what Wikipedians think, but to relate what the scholars and what reliable books on the matter do. There are clear policies on naming issues-please read them-personal opinion is original research and I assure that the expulsion is not the most used term--Molobo (talk) 23:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Poles in Kresy region were not native people - what is native? Is 300 years in Western Ukraine not enough to become native? Germans were perfectly native in Breslau, dominated by Germans during 500 years.
 * My family was probably native, Orthodox Ruthenian. Does Polonization and conversion to RC make our expulsion acceptable?

Xx236 (talk) 16:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree (with Xx rather than Molobo). We are not here to make historical judgments, just to describe the events that happened. These people were not being sent "back" to any country they had left, so repatriation seems to me (intuitively) to be the wrong word. --Kotniski (talk) 09:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So what title would you prefer (both Xx236 and Kotniski)?Skäpperöd (talk) 09:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Expulsions of Poles after World War II, or Forced resettlement of Poles after World War II, seem fine to me.--Kotniski (talk) 09:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Per Piotrus and Molobo, I think a brief survey of the terminology used in English-language academic writing would be enlightening. Knepflerle (talk) 10:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not have access to abundant English material on this, and in a google books/scholar search I would not know how to set the parameters right (every book on this issue preferring "expulsion" or another similar term will also mention "repatriation", which was the official term). Skäpperöd (talk) 10:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We don't particularly need exact numbers for this, just a rough idea of what is used in the sources that the editors of this page are actually using would be illustrative. Knepflerle (talk) 10:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * These people were not being sent "back" to any country they had left

In case of Germans calling themselfs expellees they were in certain cases. Fritz Ries-a German industrialists, born in Saarbrücken; lived n Germany till 1939. Sent to Poland to oversee slave labour and production. Has expellee status, based on the fact that during his work there he took home as administrator of the works. Prominent person in German political life post-war, close associate of Kohl years later.--Molobo (talk) 18:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't want to mix this up with the German expulsion article, but in this case I agree with Kotniski and Skapperod that "repatriation" is a wrong word here. Many of the people involved certainly didn't think of themselves as being "repatriated".radek (talk) 19:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A need for cooperation
We have reached an impasse in the negotiations on the issues of politically charged terminology originating from the Cold War era, making the corresponding articles written about comparable subjects seem like they don’t relate to each other. The only question is whether a balance can be found between conflicting policy guidelines discussed here by both German and Polish editors, namely, WP:V and WP:NC.

The issues revolve around the migration of Poles and Germans after World War II, euphemistically called “repatriations” and/or “expulsions” and/or “deportations” and/or “flight” and/or “displacement” depending on which side of the fence the sources originate from. In the process, we created conflicting realities within one project, all of them inflammatory and misleading. The only legally correct term for these events in my opinion is population transfers, as per definition of international law, and in accordance with academically neutral language applicable to all cases. Unfortunately, editors inspired by emotive eloquence of writers and historians from across the Iron Curtain disagree on many particulars, so I’m not sure if all of us can see the writing on the wall.

Liberated German and Polish POWs travelling from Siberia to new Poland and to new Western Germany were encountering similar challenges along the way, to a differing degree of course. A lot of them went to great lengths to have their nationality recognized by the Russians, who routinely refused them the right to migrate back to their countries of origin (with already redrawn borders). Stalin considered many of them as his subjects, while, at the same time, conducting massive operations across central Europe in accordance with the provisions of Yalta Agreement. The Americans, the French and the British were not around to significantly influence the process of forced resettlement, which was a source of much tragedy and distress for civilian Germans from Pomerania and Silesia as well as the civilian Poles from Kresy, Volhynia and Podolia. The similarities are striking, not only in terms of how it must have felt for many of them, but also, how the Wikipedia articles about the affected cities and towns are presented. We all know that there's no going back.

I would like to propose that the articles dealing with these matters were re-examined for neutrality and renamed, so they can fit into the same category within the postwar history of Europe and world. We can start with two corresponding subjects, i.e. the Resettlement of Poles after World War II, and the Resettlement of Germans after World War II, as they are two parts of one area of postwar history. Please express your opinion. --Poeticbent talk  22:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland.   --Poeticbent  talk  22:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany.   --Poeticbent  talk  22:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree, the proposal of Poeticbent is logical and follows accepted international law standards. The post-war events were not WW2 expulsions but population transfers. Resettlement is a good choice. I agree also that those articles need carefull review, right now they are based on series of unreliable sources rather then on honest scholary books, and full of personal opinions. They also lack much information that is presented in scholary works(for example works by Ingo Haar or Detlef Brandes from Germany).--Molobo (talk) 18:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, there are two big arguments here: My past research into this, unfortunately, shows that the two above are in this case contradicting one another :( I suggest that in this case we should decide on the most technically correct and neutral term, and use it for both Polish and German (and others if notable) post-WWII population transfers. In fact, "X-nation population transfers" may be the best (most neutral) option, since population transfer covers both organized and unorganized evacuations, expulsions, emigration, repatriations and whatsnot. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * the naming of post-WWII population transfer should be the same, for consistency and NPOV
 * the naming should correspond with academic usage

Batch rename for all World War II evacuation and expulsion articles
Articles on those subjects are chaotically and confusingly named. Please see a proposal to standardize all names here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:56, 13 July 2009 (UTC)