Talk:Working Group (resistance organization)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Vami IV (talk · contribs) 17:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Opening statement
I am reviewing this article because a request for its review was posted to WikiProject Germany's Assessment Request page. As Coordinator of WikiProject Germany, it is the interest of the WikiProject that the reviewed article makes it to Good Article. – Vami _IV✠  17:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

For replying to Reviewer comment, please use ✅,, , ❌, , or , followed by any comment you'd like to make. I will be crossing out my comments as they are redressed, and only mine. A detailed, section-by-section review will follow after this and my first comment (Referencing). – Vami _IV✠  17:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Referencing
As of time of writing, there are 102 citations on the article. They are mostly consistent; sfnref (Harvard) short-form references. The exceptions are citations 3, 8, 14, 17, 34, and 67 aren't totally short-form, but I think I can look past that. However, citations 71 and 73 are broken; there is no reference handle for "Braham 2010."


 * —the correct date for Braham was 2000.

"Bibliography" should probably be shrunk down with Template:Refbegin. More glaring is that Braham 2000, Büchler 1991, and Fuchs 1986 are not used in the article. You can delete these or, in compliance with WP:MOS, remove the unused reference tags and create a new "Further reading" section underneath "Bibliography."

Background

 * Fleischmann had founded the Slovakian chapter of the Women's International Zionist Organization, while her cousin, Michael Dov Weissmandl, who joined in the summer of 1942 and took over while Fleischmann was traveling or under arrest, was an Orthodox rabbi and staunch anti-Zionist. Pretty long - can you reduce this? Maybe something like: Fleischmann founded the Slovakian chapter of the Women's International Zionist Organization while her cousin Michael Dov Weissmandl, an Orthodox rabbi and staunch anti-Zionist, took over while Fleischmann was traveling or under arrest.


 * Footnote c would be better in the prose text.


 * Footnote d: More than 99% perished. Wouldn't this be 100%?
 * I didn't want to imply that every one of them died. According to the source there were about 300 survivors; would saying that be an improvement? Catrìona (talk) 23:42, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes; it's much more specific than a percentage, which also has no given figure to draw from (ex: "Of 3957 colonists sent, 45% were killed by an outbreak of smallpox.") – Vami _IV✠  03:10, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Slovakia Plan
This section feels incomplete, like a book to be bound that has no strings to hold the signatures in. It never tells me what the Slovakia plan is, or how it was prepared. If anything, I as the reader feel immediately thrown into the action, as it were.


 * Weissmandl forged letters from a fictional Swiss official named "Ferdinand Roth" in order that the money would seem to be coming from outside Slovakia [...] What money?
 * I had accidentally omitted the fact that the first $25,000 was paid by a Slovak businessman.
 * What currency is it? Are those figures converted into USD? – Vami _IV✠  17:43, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Actual hard dollars, not a conversion. Catrìona (talk) 17:57, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Add that to the prose. – Vami _IV✠  00:26, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * [...] the remaining $20,000 [...] Are you referring to the US dollar or the Swiss franc? I made this edit because I was confused and assumed you meant the franc.
 * I've rewritten this section, it should make more sense now.


 * his Orthodox contacts in Hungary. Orthodox Jewish or Eastern Orthodox contacts?
 * —Orthodox Jewish


 * Also, it is probable that Hochberg embezzled much of the money that had supposedly been paid to Wisliceny. Looks like WP:OR and could be begun better.
 * This is based off of a passage from Bauer 1994, p. 98: "We have already hinted that what happened is probably (1) that Hochberg pocketed the difference between the $50,000 and the $20,000; (2) that about $55,000 was paid, as Weissmandel remembered—$20,000 of which was paid by Hochberg in October and $35,000 by Steiner later on; or (3) that Wisliceny was the person who pocketed the difference. The most likely of these scenarios is the first."


 * [...] the evacuation of Slovak Jewish children deported to Lublin to Switzerland or Palestine. Confusing. Deported from Lublin...?

Europe Plan

 * The Working Group then embarked on negotiations for the more ambitious Europa Plan [...] Give me a date to work with here. The section also doesn't make an attempt to explain what the Europa Plan was, so I can't fully comprehend the series of events or the weight of the Working Group's activities.
 * Mayer's superiors believed that the negotiations were a trick. Mayer disobeyed and funneled money to the Working Group for this project, but his assistance was vastly insufficient. He also tried to convince the Red Cross to send a representative to the Slovak Jews. This should be one sentence, and shorter. Like: Mayer's superiors believed that the negotiations were a trick, but he funneled money to the Working Group anyway. His assistance was vastly insufficient, and he tried to convince the Red Cross to send a representative for the Slovak Jews.
 * I've tweaked this section so it should be a bit clearer. I thought that it would be somewhat self-evident that the Slovakia Plan would apply to the Slovak Jews only, and the Europa Plan to all the Jews in Europe, but I can see now that I needed to be more explicit. Thanks! Catrìona (talk) 02:38, 8 August 2018 (UTC)