Talk:Stawiski

17 February 2014
I added some citation tags to the article. Reference number 4 is a blog. Can it be considered a credible source? Furthermore, the conclusions drawn from this blog entry are only loosely based on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.177.105.203 (talk) 10:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits
I've reverted this edit, which restored the 27 August 2017 version, restoring the stable version from March 2018. This version is very poorly sourced, and misrepresents the sources it uses - many of which do not cover Stawiski and/or do not contain the stmts attributed to them. Please discuss here.Icewhiz (talk) 09:18, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What was poorly sourced? Could you elaborate?GizzyCatBella (talk) 09:21, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I strongly suggest you self revert - you've restored several sources that do not refer to the town (e.g. Rossino - who simply doesn't say what you are restoring), and have introduced highly defamatory and counter-factual information in Wikipedia's voice. The stable version is from 19 March. I will be taking this to AE if you don’t self revert.Icewhiz (talk) 09:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I’m checking it right now (tagged for ref. already) and will work on the article in the next hours/day. Your version was weak in my opinion with information omitted. I’ll try to improve the article best to my knowledge and abilities. GizzyCatBella (talk) 09:37, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * {{ping|GizzyCatBella} - I am taking this to AE - unless you self-revert now - this is a serious misrepresentation of sources - there is a problem with each and every sentence here. You've also removed bona-fida academic sources that actually cover this incident. Again - yes/no - are will you self-revert this?Icewhiz (talk) 10:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Why this hostile attitude and threats??? Please stop. Will you please let me work on it? I started already and I would really welcome your input and help. Can you work with me to improve the article please? GizzyCatBella (talk) 10:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Please check the article now and improve if necessary. GizzyCatBella (talk) 10:54, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Polish participation in pogrom of Jews in 1941
I share User:Icewhiz concerns over the quality of this article (if not his approach to resolving this at AE). The article currently states "One the 15th of August the German Einsatzkommando murdered most of Jewish inhabitants". First, this is unreferenced. Second, a cursory overview of sources suggests there's more to this, and that at least some reliable sources support the version that Polish inhabitants participated in this. Quick review of sources: I couldn't find a detailed study of this, and we have to keep in mind the usual tendency to exaggeration in some sources. But I think the sentence cited above needs to be rewritten to indicate that at least some of the perpetrators where Poles. In fact, I have trouble finding any source that attributes this massacre to Einsatzkommando. There may be something on that in or  but I cannot be sure without seeing more then fragments of sentences. PS. I totally missed the fact that the latest revision by GCB does contain the crucial sentence: " Germans returned to the town during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, and in early July 1941 instigated a pogrom in which Polish locals murdered some 300 Jews", referenced to the Encyclopedia cited above. This should address most of the concerns (like not mentioning the Polish participation at all). PPS. Einsatzkommando referred to Gestapo, fixed this with existing references. Sigh. Please don't use weird synonyms. If the source says Gestapo, say Gestapo. We need a proper source for the presence of Einsatzkommando there. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The tone of this work strikes me as rather one sided and partisan, but it is nonetheless reliable. This source should not be removed (at the same time it is a WP:TETRIARY, and secondary sources would be better)
 * again, issues with neutrality in the source ('blood orgy'), but it is reliable. I am not sure if David Cymet is a professional historian (can't find a good bio of him), the publisher is reliable Rowman & Littlefield and anyway, he mentions an IPN study. We should find and cite that study as a proper source, not his reference to it. According to a bit of Googling the relevant IPN work is, but it does not seem to have an online version.
 * partisan newspaper piece, but suggests more reliable sources (in particular, Anna Bikont, The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne. This, however, raises a red flag: while Stawiski is mentioned several times in, I couldn't find any direct reference to a pogrom or such that occurred there.
 * Reprint of a press article about IPN study, suggests that there was a pogrom in Stawiski, carried out by people imprisoned by the Soviets and released by Germans from the prison.
 * Brief mention of a pogrom in Stawiski on an IPN page
 * and on Polin museum page
 * and even in the Catholic Tygodnik Powszechny
 * The reference is at the end of the paragraph. Also, please keep in mind that there were TWO mass murders. There was a pogrom in Stawiski in July in which Poles participated. And there was the mass murder in nearby Mątwica in August which was carried out by Gestapo. It sounds like you're confusing the two.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the current version makes it more clear; I was a bit confused at first. Btw, still need help for date of the first murder (4-5 July only implied by one source). Also, the Jewish encyclopedia clearly misspells the name of the forest, one of the locations of the second atrocity (Kyszlinecki forest, no google hits outside the book), so I suggest not using it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:03, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree on bias qualification above - perfectly neutral to refer to an event in which 300 people are bludgeoned to death with iron bars as a "blood orgy". Note that Jewish sources (as well as many English sources) tend to use Yiddish/German rendered into English - both for the forests around the town, and for the town (Stavisk - with various spellings) - this is generally true for all of the Pale of settlement (in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.) - the Jews spoke Yiddish, and the names differ. Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (a strong recent academic source) lists a couple of sources on Stawiski but seems only to list it in a list.Icewhiz (talk) 09:47, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Gestapo is a common description of German police used by local population. It may mean SS, Einsatzkommando, Gendarmerie or anything, but never Gestapo. Gestapo was a small formation, Geheime meant secret, Gestapo didn't invide a small town to kill, they arrested and interrogated, tortured. to collect information.Xx236 (talk) 06:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Testimony
Not eligible due to being primary, of course, but: : "W Stawiskach (pod Łomżą), też pędzono żydów w celu spalenia. (o tym fakcie, opowiadali mi ludzie z tamtych stron) Uratował ich ksiądz wikary, który wziął krzyż do ręki i szedł naprzeciw pochodowi żydów pędzonych na spalenie. Podniósł rękę z krzyżem do góry i wołał donośnym głosem, do oszalałych ludzi. "Zastanówcie się ludzie, co czynicie, nie możecie pełnić dwóch ról. Chcecie być sędziami i katami w jednej osobie. Pamiętajcie na swoją śmierć. Jak pomrzecie i staniecie na sąd Boży, Matka Najświętsza, powie do swego syna Jezusa Chrystusa. Synu, nie daruj im tej zbrodni, którą popełnili! Oni mieli na piersiach Twój wizerunek, krzyż, a zabijali ludzi". Po tych przemówieniach księdza, ludzie zaczęli się rozchodzić. Została mała garstka i ci wrócili do swych domów. Żydzi ocaleli!" --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:41, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Date of the first massacre
Jewish encyclopedia refers to early July. gives the date of late June, however: 22–27.06.1941 r. Late June period is also mentioned in. gives the date of 3 July. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:46, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think I trust sztetl here. I do have another source, which is a RS, - Yad Vashem - which says that (loose translation) - the Germans occupied Stawiski on 27 June and started to murder Jews and kidnap them for forced labor, and local Poles joined them. Jews were murdered by Poles on a day of riots and looting that occurred according to some versions in the first week of July 1941. Polish Farmers armed with melee [non-firearm] weapons murdered on the night of that day some 300 Jews and buried them in ditches outside the town. So Yad Vashem is cagey about the date of the "main event" (placing it in the first week of July - and even that with a maybe). Yad Vashem also mentions violence prior to the "main event" - this is typical - e.g. in Jedwabne pogrom there were atrocities on a smaller scale on 25 June - I saw with my own eyes how they killed Chajca Wasersztein, 53 years old; Jakub Kac; and Eliasz Krawiecki. Kac was stoned with bricks, Krawiecki was knifed – they ripped out his eyes and cut his tongue – and he suffered inhuman agony for 12 hours until he died. The same day I saw a terrible sight. When Chaja Kubrzanska, 28 years old, and Basia Binsztein, 26 years old, both with babies on their arms, saw what was happening, they went to the pond in order to drown themselves and their children, rather than fall into the murderers hands. They threw the children into the water and drowned them with their own hands. Binsztein jumped in and immediately sunk to the bottom, while Kubrzanska still struggled for several hours. The thugs that gathered around the pond behaved as if it were a spectacle. They told her to lie with her face in the water to make her drown faster. When she saw that the children were dead, she threw herself into the water and died. - before the "main event" on 10 July in Jedwabne. This was also the case in Szczuczyn pogrom (small scale on 25 June - large scale on 28 June).Icewhiz (talk) 10:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This Hebrew source (Jewish-Polish heritage center) is more detailed than Yad Vashem (describing the pogrom is greater detail) - but is not specific in terms of dates - saying first week of July.Icewhiz (talk) 12:00, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The yizkor book Chaim Wilamowski, yizkor Yehuda Chiwicho - calls it "the bloody Wednesday" - and one of them says the first Wednesday in the month July 1941 (which would be 2 July). However this is probably PRIMARY (depends on the editing process of the yizkor book - it does vary).Icewhiz (talk) 12:05, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Shared History, Divided Memory: Jews and Others in Soviet-occupied Poland - first days of July, after the Germans set the synagogue aflame - but citing an account for this.Icewhiz (talk) 12:11, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Per Bender, Sara. "Not Only in Jedwabne: Accounts of the Annihilation of the Jewish Shtetlach in North-eastern Poland in the Summer of 1941." Holocaust Studies 19.1 (2013): 1-38. - On 4 July, armed Poles from nearby villages arrived in town, broke into Jewish houses and ordered their inhabitants to go to work .... That night, a mob of Poles from nearby villages again flocked into town, and started another pogrom near midnight. All night long, dead and severely injured Jews were loaded on carts that had been prepared in advance, while the Germans stood by and photographed. That night Poles murdered 360 of the town’s Jews. In the history of the Stawiski Jewish community, 4 July 1941 is remembered as ‘the Day of Blood’. This is actually a pretty good source.Icewhiz (talk) 12:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * However in terms of dates - my conclusion looking at all of this is to place the "day of blood" in the beginning of July and not even try to set a specific date.Icewhiz (talk) 12:18, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Until we see what's in the IPN book, I guess the best we can say is early July, per sources discussed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The IPN has various reputation issues, and regardless (even if this were a high quality source) unless they have a strong supporting evidence - it probably won't swing it - as we have some RSes here given a date (e.g. Bender) and others giving a range - the sources themselves do not agree.Icewhiz (talk) 06:52, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, until we see what's in the article (in the book) it's hard to say what we should say. It may address the date issue sufficiently - or not. And please leave IPN aside - take it to RNS, if you want, but until then it is a perfectly acceptable academic outlet in this topic arena.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:00, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The burden of proof is the other way around - but I probably won't contest Wokól Jedwabnego - as the reputation in 2002 was quite different and this is a proper report. In some other articles a mass market bulletin distributed in post offices and press releases are used as sources - which are decidedly not academic - but that's better discussed elsewhere.Icewhiz (talk) 12:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your conclusion, but there exists the official book "Wokól Jedwabnego".Xx236 (talk) 12:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Source...
I strongly suggest that everyone download the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos volumes that are available free from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here. Volume 2 covers the General Government and much of Eastern Europe. It handily gathers together what is known about most camps/ghettos/etc including a section of sources for each location. Stawiski is detailed in Volume 2 Part A pages 961-963. It is a much better source than jewishgen or primary sources, because it uses the primary sources but evaluates them. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * As an aside, it's a very useful resource in English that deals with much of the non-English literature ... and it's free and easily accessible. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:34, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've downloaded it a couple of months ago - but forgot to look at it. It is over all detailed (e.g. the 1939 account) - except that it only has a general description for June-July - it says With the return of the Germans, violence against the Jews again reached a peak. The Germans, along with Polish collaborators, plundered and destroyed Jewish property, set the Jews to forced labor, and beat and often murdered them. - but doesn't seen who/when/how much - it becomes specific again on August.Icewhiz (talk) 11:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Wokół Jedwabnego
Stawiski pogrom was desc4ribed in the book, probably in the paper by Żbikowski from the Jewish Historical Institute. I don't have the book to verify. According to a Kaczkowski article thre pogrom was organized by Polish survivors of the NKVD prisoner massacres.Xx236 (talk) 12:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What Kaczkowski? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 06:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Andrzej Kaczyński .Xx236 (talk) 11:14, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, feel free to add this to the article. Through we should link to the non-pirated version of the article. I got but it pretty badly malformatted... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  12:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Abstracts vol 1., Xx236 (talk) 08:08, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * vol. 2.,  Xx236 (talk) 08:11, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Modifications + identity of German extermination units in August
I made a number of modifications - most additions sourced to the USHMM camp and ghetto encyclopedia - I left a clear quote of what each use of the USHMM source was used for. I also fixed some OR and SYNTH issues (for the most part - leaving most in most of the contribution, but resolving the issue). I want to point out that the identity of the exterminating German units in two different locations starting August 17 (which someone edited in as "Gestapo", not clear to me per what source) is not clear cut. Per USHMM (page 961) - "Postwar Polish investigators initially held German Gendarmes assigned to the Stawiski and Kolno regions responsible for the execution of the Jewish communities there.6 Most Polish historians now believe the Stawiski executions were the work of an SS unit from the Płock (Schröttersburg) substation of the Zichenau Gestapo, under the command of SS- Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper.7 - so there is disagreement here among researchers - we could edit this in (either in text or in a footnote), I chose to leave this as "the Germans".Icewhiz (talk) 07:50, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I think this would be good to add, also considering we have an article on Hermann Schaper (which probably should link back here, it currently doesn't mention Stawiski, but it does mention nearby villages), but what is the source? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:23, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CAMPS AND GHETTOS, 1933–1945, Geoffrey P. Megargee, Martin Dean, and Mel Hecker, Volume II, part A, page 961. Icewhiz (talk) 12:29, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE/WP:SUMMARY issues
I think the section on the Jewish pogrom(s) of 1941 is getting too long and should be split off into a dedicated article. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:21, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, considering this is a modern day day of some 2,442 people - that had a significant Jewish history and in 1941 numbered some 2,000 Jews - this is a significant part of the history of this town - I daresay that in WP:RSes a significant chunk, possibly the majority, of coverage is devoted in 1939-1944 (Stawiski also being a family name does however complicate checking this). If you want to do a spinoff article you could - I don't think that this article is at the length I would do it - but it is possible (e.g. - Holocaust in Stawiski - as this includes events from 1939 to 1944).Icewhiz (talk) 12:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Bender - cite
- refs as equally valid as cites - but I don't contest conversions. However, I do suggest you retain the quote you removed here - not because a quote is required (in general, they are not) - however since this source is beyond a paywall and is not accessible to all editors, the quote allows editors to verify that the text matches the sources.Icewhiz (talk) 12:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no objections if you want to restore it (code is |quote=cite goes here ), but WP:QUOTATION does discourage excessive cites. Is this one justified? I abstain, for now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:04, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:QUOTATION is for in-article quotes - in this case it was a quote in a citation which is covered in - Citing sources.Icewhiz (talk) 13:08, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Icewhiz, do you have the Bender source? It's behind a paywall? Can you provide it to the rest of the editors somehow? Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:51, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It is beyond a paywall (I pulled it from the publisher, might be elsewhere off. Most academic journals still are paywalled). I do have the pdf (but not where I am typing this - send me an email - and I will respond tomorrow off-wiki). I did quote in the ref, see removed diff, all the text I based my edit on - which might be useful to return to the article.Icewhiz (talk) 17:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm interested in the overall context of the article and the quote is not sufficient. Is she just quoting uncritically post war testimonies? You can use Wikipedia's email system (on the left under "email this user") to send me the pdf. Thank you.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:12, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Send me an email - using the wiki system - and I will respond tomorrow. She covers multiple towns. It is about a page and a half IIRC for Stawiski. Most of it it (specifically what I used) is not in quotations and is in her own voice as a stmt of fact. From her citations it does seem this is mainly based on survivor testimonies (as are many works in this field) - which she synthesized and analyzed - which is what secondary sources do.Icewhiz (talk) 18:34, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Did the Poles kill 70+300 or 300? Xx236 (talk) 09:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * were murdered by local Poles - the source says reportedly.Xx236 (talk) 09:03, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Jewish life in Stawiski had been separate from that of the rest of the town's inhabitants
had been or rather the Jews separated themselves? Kopstein and Wittenberg describe the Polish-Jewish conflicts in pre-war Poland. More and more writers invent accusations of the type "Polish ghettos". If there were Jewish neighborhoods before 1839, they were created by the Jews, not by Polish administration.Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that Stawiski was a Jewish majority town pre-war - 2,000 Jews lived in the town - while the Poles were the vast majority in the surrounding countryside (and this is often a typical situation in these towns (throughout Central and Eastern Europe) - often the source being the local nobles keeping the non-Jews out in the country as serfs, and the Jews in the town as urban professions (but limited in various ways) - divide and conquer if you may). As for the circumstances of separate lives, this indeed a complex issue. Some separation was self-imposed (by Poles and Jews) - who maintained separate cultural / religion / linguistic identities. However self-imposed separation is not the whole story, per William W. Hagen Hagen, William W. "Before the" final solution": Toward a comparative analysis of political anti-Semitism in interwar Germany and Poland." The Journal of Modern History 68.2 (1996): 351-381. "Even though in various ways the Polish regime in fact fell short of fascism, the cumulative effects on the Polish Jews of its hostile policies, as well as of Endek aggression and the consequences of demographic growth amid still widespread economic depression, were threatening them by 1939 with conditions comparable to those to which the German Jews had been reduced.".Icewhiz (talk) 09:08, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you find strange that former serfs hated former middlemen, who didn't welcome the serfs in towns and cities of pre-war Poland?
 * Which Western European state accepted "linguistic identities"? Modern states prepared unified soldiers and workers, Poland accepted the "identities".
 * Really poor were Poleshuks and Hutsuls, later Galicja peasants (including Jews) selling their doughters to South American brothels (Zwi Migdal). Jews didn't starve because they were supported by Joint. Your Journal describes obsessions rather than history. Please describe how the governmnet of Poland robbed the Jews and made Poles rich.  Xx236 (talk) 09:41, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Toward a comparative analysis of political anti-Semitism in interwar Germany and Poland. - exactly, the next step will be Toward a comparative analysis of helping Jews in NSDAP and Home Army by Icewhiz.Xx236 (talk) 09:56, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * In both countries, it was the modernizing Christian middle-class elements, striving for advancement in the emergent industrial-capitalist order at the expense of Jews, who promoted political antisemitism. - extremally idiotic. How to compare developed Germany with small assimilated Jewish community and agricultural Poland, where, as you have admitted, former middlemen lived in towns and former serfs in villages. How to migrate from villages to towns and cities without a conflict with the Jews? There was no such problem in Germany nor in Austria. Some Polish antisemites were imprisoned in Bereza Kartuska. What a "regime".Xx236 (talk) 10:02, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * While I do dabble on-Wiki on the subject, this is not a research topic I do outside of Wikipedia - so I won't be publishing anything on the matter. I merely quoted a well cited journal paper by William W. Hagen. However - how is all of this relevant to the article?
 * If you do want to add something relevant - then perhaps sourced demographic figures for the town and gamina pre-1939? That would illustrate things. Also documenting pre-existing tensions between Poles and Jews (which were probably present) - might be relevant - per Kopstein & Wittenberg pogroms mainly occurred in those localities where the pre-existing conditions were "right".Icewhiz (talk) 10:17, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

A Stawiski priest blamed - one more legend
Germans murdered both priests. A new one arrived on October the 6th, but the Germans had already left. Xx236 (talk) 12:53, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CAMPS AND GHETTOS seems state this as fact (on page 961), and this is a pretty high quality source.Icewhiz (talk) 13:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * http://parafia.stawiski.pl/proboszczowie Xx236 (talk) 06:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * After a Stawiski priest blamed the Jews for the murder of some German soldiers - an arrested priest.Xx236 (talk) 06:36, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting, but a church homepage has problems with WP:OR/WP:RS. Is there any reliable source by historians etc. that discusses the story of either of those two priests? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:21, 24 June 2019 (UTC)