Talk:Sobibor trial

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Auschwitz Trial which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:23, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 21 March 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: MOVED all three articles as proposed. WP:CONSISTENCY was the battleground, but every argument against the move failed to source its argument that the unaccented title would be inconsistent, and multiple times asserted things that are at worst simply untrue or at best unbacked by any sourcing listed here ("the diacritics are in fact commonly used in English-language sources anyway", "evidence suggests that the un-accented Sobibor is not a German or English form but just a lazy form", etc. What evidence and sources they were referring to will be left as a mystery for the ages). Blind assertions of "sources" are unfortunately not something we can rely on, leaving this a clear consensus to move. Red  Slash  01:04, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

– Since these are articles about the German camp Sobibor and not about the Polish village Sobibór, their main title headers should be the same as the ones in German Wikipedia. The English-speaking world has been using German names for the camps and Polish names for the localities where the camps were situated. Thus "Auschwitz" for the camp and "Oświęcim" for the town, "Kulmhof" for the camp and "Chełmno" for the village, "Belzec" for the camp and "Bełżec" for the village, etc. It may be further noted that the 1987 British TV film, which had a primetime network TV broadcast in the U.S., is titled Escape from Sobibor, not Escape from Sobibór. This triple nomination should be considered as part of the currently active nomination at Talk:Sobibór extermination camp. If these nominations achieve consensus, their associated categories and templates, such as Category:Sobibór extermination camp and Template:Sobibór extermination camp can be moved without further discussions. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:45, 21 March 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. bd2412  T 00:30, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Sobibór trial → Sobibor trial
 * List of survivors of Sobibór → List of survivors of Sobibor
 * List of victims of Sobibór → List of victims of Sobibor


 * You missed List of victims of Sobibór. Also, these should not be going on simultaneously with the other RM. Perhaps you should discuss with K.e.coffman if he wishes to withdraw his request and open a larger multimove of some kind. Srnec (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for bringing the overlooked entry to my attention and I am adding it to the nomination. Taking into account that K.e.coffman's nomination was already being discussed, it seemed appropriate to resolve all Sobibor-related matters at the same time. Each nomination is mentioned at the venue of the other and I certainly agree with your proposal that the two separate venues would be best combined. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:11, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * At least. I wonder if it is also best to combine all the extermination camps (except Auschwitz) to discuss "Germanizing" the titles. Or swapping out "extermination" for "death". But I do not have a strong opinion on any of that. Srnec (talk) 03:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I definitely agree that the most intuitive resolution would envision a combined Germanization of all death camp names, in all German-controlled territories, such as the Semlin extermination camp in occupied Yugoslavia which has, as its current main title header, Sajmište concentration camp (given as an example in Talk:Sobibór extermination camp). This matter is not new and has been raised in past years (Talk:Bełżec extermination camp/Archive 1, Talk:Chełmno extermination camp). However, as years pass, new Wikipedians participate and WP:Consensus can change. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:25, 22 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose all English uses Polish spelling for Polish people and place names not German. Just because atrocities were committed on Polish soil does not call for Aryanization of Polish place names in English Wikipedia. Nor indeed the Germanization of any other area of Europe affected by Nazi atrocities. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:47, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * A strong misunderstanding of the nomination. These are the key words, as indicated above: "Thus "Auschwitz" for the camp and "Oświęcim" for the town, "Kulmhof" for the camp and "Chełmno" for the village, "Belzec" for the camp and "Bełżec" for the village, etc." There is no Germanization or outdated "Aryanization" of Polish place names being proposed. The Polish place names remain in Polish — only the names of the German death camps should be in German. The "strong oppose all " does not even make an exception for Auschwitz which, by the "all " standard, would need to be referenced by its Polish name, "Oświęcim". This nomination also aids in illuminating and clarifying the "Polish death camp" controversy which centered upon misleading terminology that did not make it clear that the camps were German, not Polish. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * "oppose all" refers to all, if we must use highlighter in this RM, which are simply accent-stripping of name now called Sobibór in German-language WP:RS anyway. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Procedural comment. As I have just noted at Talk:Sobibór extermination camp, the question here is whether to Germanize the spelling of entities in Nazi-occuppied Poland which are known for their association with Germany — or, as in this case, created by Germany.
 * It seems to me that point needs a wider consensus, rather than being decided on a solely ad hoc basis. A wider consensus may involve some hard rules or some general principles with scope for exceptions. But either way, it seems to me to be something which needs a group nomination of all related pages, or preferably at an RFC. The opening by of this discussion in parallel with the other one creates a split discussion on the same point of principle, which is very unhelpful to consensus formation.
 * I assume that it was not Roman Spinner's intention to engage in forum-shopping, but that is the unfortunate effect of this parallel nomination. Per WP:MULTI, this discussion should be centralised. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:26, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * PS I should add that if either RM discussion is closed as a rename, I would oppose the speedy renaming of categories to match changes which arise from such a flawed discussion process. I have no substantive preference on which spelling to use, but a split discussion such as this is not a solid consensus. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:30, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * , I appreciate your suggestion of listing this matter at WP:RfC, which I will proceed to do. I will also list it at WP:WikiProject Germany and WP:WikiProject Poland to attract wider participation. If you or anyone else would care to suggest additional WikiProjects or other venues where these discussions may be listed, such suggestions would be also appreciated. I regret that the parallel nomination had the effect of forum shopping and you are correct in assuming that engaging in forum shopping was not my intention. The original nomination at Talk:Sobibór extermination camp started with the additional element of the proposed move "extermination camp" → "death camp" and I was uncertain whether waiting for its outcome would affect other Sobibor related articles. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 03:24, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * this is an RM discussion, not an RFC, so the only way to list it at WP:RFC is to open a new discussion. That would leave us with 3 parallel discussions, unless the RMs are closed without action.
 * Further advertising this discussion has not in any way resolved the fact that it covers the the same issue as Talk:Sobibór extermination camp. It would be much better to withdraw both these RMs, and start an RFC. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:55, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * , since I already listed this discussion at RfC (even if that simultaneous discussion is only conducted here, below the RM discussion) and cannot withdraw another user's nomination, all three venues having attracted comments, all that I do now is to await further comments and eventual resolution. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 12:29, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * you have now created an utter mess, with the same issue being debated in no less than three different places ... and two of those are you creating forks of the discussion.
 * If you had deliberately set out to screw up consensus formation, this would be a highly commendable effort. I hope that you had some other goal, in which case, fewer prizes. But this is going to need some intervention.  I will take it to WP:AN. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:04, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * , I'm afraid I will have to accept fewer prizes — I did not deliberately set out to screw up consensus formation and had, indeed, some other goal — to broaden the discussion from one death camp, Sobibor, to all the other camps. Never having participated at RfC before, I posted there on the basis of what appeared to be your suggestion, without realizing that you intended RfC to be the sole venue, replacing the two RMs at Talk:Sobibor extermination camp and Talk:Sobibor trial. Upon arriving at this point, any intervention is welcome and I will appreciate whatever measure may be decided at ANI. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 13:45, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Note: Announcement of this discussion appears at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:22, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong support all. We should follow English sources in this regard and not turn Wikipedia into a foreign-language tutorial. Bermicourt (talk) 08:51, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is not GermanificationPedia (and Germanizing something like this in particular would be remarkably inappropriate). WP does not censor out diacritics we know belong there, even if older, and some modern but lower-end, sources have a tendency to do so (for expediency or outright jingoism). Proposals also appears to fail WP:COMMONNAME since the diacritics are in fact commonly used in English-language sources anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:44, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak support all - Whether we use German (the trial here was in Germany), Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, or anything else - is not the issue here (and there is no particular reason to favor Polish for this borderland). What is the issue - is WP:COMMONNAME in English. In this case, the common name is, per my purview of English language sources in google books and scholar, without the "ó". Icewhiz (talk) 16:33, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support all: this is not about "Germanising" the names, but about using WP:COMMONNAME in the English language. Please see Google nGram: where the version of "Sobibor extermination camp" with the diacritic does not even register. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:02, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per above evidence that the proposed form is the common name. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose all. Not in line with other articles of the same kind. Also, should be a single multi-move with the main article on the camp or possibly all the death camps and sub-articles (save Auschwitz). And evidence suggests that the un-accented Sobibor is not a German or English form but just a lazy form. Every author's got the right to be lazy, I suppose, but that's not how we normally do diacritics here. If it were, you would never see Jaromír Jágr. —Srnec (talk) 01:55, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No one is proposing to remove diacritics from the names of Polish people or Polish places, such as Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship [Polish language does not use accents — all the marks in the Polish alphabet are diacritical marks]. In fact, a number of discussions in Wikipedia's first decade concerned opposition to moving the name of Poland's ancient capital, once known in the English-speaking world as Cracow, to its native name [with the diacritic], Kraków.
 * Likewise, World War II German death camps should be indicated in their native German form. Here is the entry for Sobibor death camp in German Wikipedia, with no diacritics in the main header. By contrast, here is German Wikipedia's entry for the Polish village of Sobibór, with the Polish diacritic included in the main header, despite the fact that Polish diacritics are not part of the German alphabet. Thus "Sobibor" [without the diacritic] is not a "lazy form" at all, but the actual name of the death camp, clearly differentiated from the name of the Polish village.
 * As for the nominated titles not being "in line with other articles of the same kind", that is being addressed in this nomination and upcoming nominations. No reason to oppose this nomination simply because we have not, as yet, attended to the proper name forms for the other death camps. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 06:08, 3 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Request for comment on using German names for World War II German concentration camps

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The two WP:RMs at Talk:Sobibór extermination camp and Talk:Sobibór trial, which would have been best handled as a unified RM, raise wider issues for the Germanization of the names of all other World War II German concentration camps. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:22, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose of any default Germanification An effort should be made to assess the impact on 100s, potentially 1000s, of articles affected by German activity during WWII to see whether German spelling (or presumed German simplification, if simply removing accents) of Slavonic and other place names would have across the encyclopedia. We are all aware of Auschwitz as a mega-exception, where the German form of a local place name has acquired awful currency in English, but this an exception. Most places the Germans went, and even most places the Nazis committed atrocities and/or sought to Germanify the local place names, have remained using the real local name used before and after the Wehrmacht and SS came and went. There is an added issue in the example chosen that the absence of the Polish accent in some English (and German) sources is not in fact an attempt to Germanify the name but a font limitation in pre-Unicode books. Modern German sources for example Bernd A. Weil Verfolgt - deportiert - überlebt: Unvergessene Nachbarn, Volume 2 ....... "Gasmeister von Sobibór", "Sonderkommando Sobibór" actually do not employ "the German name", since there is no German name, there is only a local geographical name which historically some German and English fonts did not fully capture in older sources. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:31, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong support for English source usage of using WP:COMMONNAME and following the sources. This is not Germanification versus Slavonicisation; it is a matter of following English language practice. While we respect native language names where appropriate, we are not in the business of turning Wikipedia into a foreign language tutorial for the English-speaking world. And we shouldn't be second-guessing how the sources 'might' have spelt names; only how they have actually spelt them; otherwise we're simply pushing a WP:POV. Bermicourt (talk) 08:56, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * But WP:RS English sources use Sobibór, Sobibór is the English name: Reynolds Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance "individuals who perished at Sobibór", Fulbrook Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution "the main Sobibór trial ", even fiction Bialowitz A Promise at Sobibór: A Jewish Boy’s Story, etc. etc. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:12, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Incidentally these English sources show the impossible nature of "Germanizing" (sic) the camp name and "leaving as en.wp" the geo name. Look at either Reynolds or Fulbrook above and we'll see the text moving from reference to the camp and the village and back again in the same paragraph. It's impossible (or just bizarre) to go through the page leaving half Sobibór mentions accented and half Sobibór mentions accent-stripped according to whether the reference is 1942 or 1960 or 2019. Which is why in English books don't do this, and neither does the en.wp article corpus. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:17, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Once again, there is no diacritic-stripping [Polish language has no accents — only diacritics]. Most of the places where Nazi Germany constructed death camps were outside small settlements which have no historical distinction other than for the infamy of the nearby World War II camps. Since Wikipedia lists or will list every place in the world, those places are indeed listed.
 * However, there is very little reason to mention the villages of Chełmno nad Nerem (population 350), Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship or Bełżec, Lublin Voivodeship except for any Holocaust museums or memorials located there [no need for Lublin Voivodeship — the names Sobibór and Bełżec, with hatnotes, are sufficient to identify the villages — the names of the death camps do not use diacritics].
 * In the same manner as Auschwitz/Oświęcim, the death camp located in the place of present-day village of Chełmno nad Nerem had a German name, Kulmhof. As for Sobibor and Belzec [without diacritics], virtually all mentions of those names are in relation to the German death camps, thus there is nothing "impossible" or "bizarre" about separate orthography differentiating the camps from the settlements. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 11:59, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * This is a WP:COMMONNAME matter (i.e., generally use what English-language sources use). In the two ongoing RMs, this is actually a typical, tedious "Wikipedia shouldn't use diacritics" dispute. It's a losing argument because English language-sources routinely do include the diacritics; WP does not censor diacritics we know belong in a name even when some English-language sources drop them, out of expedience or jingoism; and Germanizing the names of these things in particular is spectacularly inappropriate.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:56, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * . You are 100% right that it is a WP:COMMONNAME issue, but then misapply it in saying that, because diacritics are routinely what English sources use (and that's debatable), ergo we should always use diacritics. That's not a argument that WP:COMMONNAME would recognise. WP:COMMONNAME is meant be applied to each individual case, not used to generate blanket rules. That does sometimes lead to inconsistencies, but that is just a reflection of the sources. So the first step is to concentrate on the facts and assess what the majority English-language sources say in these cases. And BTW you need to be careful about accusing editors of "expedience or jingoism; and Germanizing" - that's bordering on personal attack - you have no idea what their motives are. As I've made clear, the aim is to reflect English, not German or Slavonic, sources. Bermicourt (talk) 16:26, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Criticizing news style guides and their publishers for both an over-focus on expediency, and a hostility to anything but the plainest possible English (i.e. dumbing down to the lowest-common-denominator readership) is not any form of personal attack. Nor is noting that imposing German names on these things is culturally and historically insensitive. Anyway, the plain fact is that WP doesn't remove diacritics from names that are reliably sourceable to contain them,  even if some RS do so.  We are not bound by the expediency practices of particular publishers.  Otherwise WP would use nearly zero diacritics. In actual fact, we retain diacritics in almost all cases, except those where an overwhelming majority of current RS in English drop them, or (typically for BLPs) the subjects themselves provably eschew the diacritic (e.g. it's Stana Katic, not Stana Katič; and various Hispanic American sports and TV/film personalities use Gonzales not Gonzáles – that's a WP:ABOUTSELF matter). We have around 18 years of precedent on this stuff.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:52, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The source language for death camps is often not Polish - in fact - in most cases it is not Polish. Most of the victims did not speak Polish. Most of the perps did not speak Polish. And Sobibor (and other Holocaust locations) was located in an ethnically mixed area (Polish, Jewish, Ukranian, Belarusian). During and after the war this became a homogenized region - but when events took place there was no compelling reason to favor Polish over other languages. This is different from a modern day Spanish or Polish speaking person.Icewhiz (talk) 05:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Not relevant. Sobibór extermination camp isn't a proper name in any language, but an English-language descriptive phrase for the death camp at Sobibór (which is a proper name and which we do spell that way). WP:CONSISTENCY policy tells us to use the same spelling here, too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:12, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It was not the proper name of the place in the 1940s (or earlier). There is no particular reason to follow the modern Polish spelling (other than COMMONNAME) which was irrelevant in the 1940s. Place names in Poland changed after the war - e.g. Danzig/Gdańsk, Stettin/Szczecin, however in historical articles we generally use the name in use at the time.Icewhiz (talk) 05:57, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose, we should follow the English common name. There is not reason to favor German, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian or any other language here - except English. For Holocaust topics, particularly camps, we have ample English language sources available. We should follow the COMMONNAME as reflected in the sources (and this may shift - e.g. 30-40 years ago - I'd say most sources stuck to the Anglicized Yiddish form. Lately there is more Polish. It also varies per locale - e.g. it is unlikely Auschwitz will change (e.g. see Kiev/Kyiv vs. other names in Ukraine for an analog)). This is an article by article decision (though obviously if Sobibór camp changes - child/list articles should change - as it is the same). Icewhiz (talk) 16:37, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Support for English source usage, which would be "Sobibor", "Treblinka", "Belzec", and "Chelmno". This is not about "Germanising" the names (or "Polonising" them for that matter) but about following the WP:COMMONNAME usage in the English language. See for example this Google nGram:, where "Chełmno extermination camp" does not register. "Kulmhof extermination camp" is not found either. There's also the point of the "Polish death camp" controversy; there's no point in using the Polish names of the (unrelated) localities. It could only perpetuate the stereotypes. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:15, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * COMMONNAME is not a style policy; never has been, never will be. It is not used for determining diacritics matters. What we do is determine whether RS demonstrate that the placename (in this case – might be something else in another case) properly has a diacritic in it, and that various RS in English use the diacritic. If they do, then we do as well.  Otherwise we'd strip diacritics from the name of every single celebrity with one in their name, since the number of low-end entertainment journalisms sources (especially online ones) that are too jingoistic and lazy to bother with diacritics, combined with old books from before diacritics were easy, will always outnumber more precise writers and publishers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:12, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Support for English source usage in the English-language Wikipedia. No doubt, Wikipedia articles in German or Polish use the German or Polish forms of the names. All of this makes perfect sense. Note: Even the German web site http://www.auschwitz.dk/Sobibor/Trials.htm shows the name as Sobibor, without the accent, on its English language page. As do https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-sobibor-trial-war-crimes-trials and https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/sobibor. That also applies to the article Sobibor extermination camp (no accent). Peter K Burian (talk) 12:59, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * English source usage per above - as the English wikipedia, we should follow English sources, or official translations, to the extent possible. --DannyS712 (talk) 04:38, 14 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Auschwitz trial which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Crimes against humanity category removal
Crimes against humanity is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)