Template talk:The Holocaust

Untitled
The holocaust ended on the 8th april 1944 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.41.102 (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (sign ur posts)
 * Clearly not as Hungarian jews were being deported to Auschwitz in late 1944.1812ahill (talk) 17:57, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

title
I see there has been a small move-war over the title of this template.

The present name – chosen because the template goes at the end of the pages on which it's transcluded – Template:The Holocaust (end), is slightly misleading, as it implies the template is about the end of the Holocaust.

In fact the overwhelming majority of navboxes are "footer" navboxes, i.e., they go at the end of the page, so "footer" or "end" is redundant. Instead I propose that Template:The Holocaust be renamed as Template:The Holocaust sidebar and this one should be renamed as Template:The Holocaust. Only disadvantage I can see is that some work will be required to change the name of the sidebar template in all the pages on which it's transcluded before this one can be moved. Comments welcome.--NSH002 (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As there have been no objections, I will go ahead and make these changes. --NSH002 (talk) 06:20, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

East Asia
Is this template supposed to only focus on European aspects? Would it be wrong to include the Shanghai Ghetto? — Llywelyn II   03:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * From the article, that seems to have been an immigration matter - not part of a wider persecution engineered by Nazi Germany. So I'd say not. —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:29, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

proposed elimination of Resources section
I propose we eliminate the "Resources" section, which is currently a rather fat section of book titles, but even so only lists nineteen books. This section is out of place here and does not help the user navigate the site.

The purpose of a nav template is to help the reader quickly find and navigate to other topics related to the article page in which it appears, to place the article page in context of a wider constellation of related articles, and also sometimes to introduce the user to articles that she may not have been aware of, all in a relatively concise, efficient and (hopefully) logical nav box format.

In my view, the "Resources" section adds none of these benefits, and merely takes up valuable template real estate. For one thing, every nav template could have a "Resources" section, but they don't because it doesn't make sense. Users will find relevant resources in References, Further reading or Publications sections of the topics they click on that interest them. To try and have one "Resources" section in a nav template that somehow collects all the references (or even just the most important references--and who decides that?) for every link in the template is senseless, and it could never be kept up to date. That's why other templates don't have them. We shouldn't, either.

For another thing, the Resources list is arbitrary. Where is Paxton's "Vichy France and the Jews", which caused la revolution paxtonienne in Holocaust historiography in France? And why is Goldhagen's controversial book listed, given eminent Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg's assessment of it as "totally wrong about everything. Totally wrong. Exceptionally wrong."? I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying we could get into endless, pointless arguments about what belongs there. An arbitrary list of books like this is not appropriate for a nav template.

Furthermore, any such Resources list is doomed to be laughably inadequate. My local city holocaust library has 12,000 volumes. If I pick out just the "best" five hundred or a thousand of them, can I add them to the list? You get my point. If it would truly be helpful to the reader to have a long list of Holocaust resources, or Holocaust authors, or whatever, then a list-based article should be created. However, in my view, such a list would likely run into trouble with WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Lists of thousands of books about the Holocaust are available in databases and libraries, Wikipedia is not a repository or a mirror of collections like those, and we shouldn't encourage that kind of article.

If others disagree on this last point, then okay, spawn off "Resources" into its own stand-alone list if you must, but can we agree that the "Resources" group doesn't belong in the Template, and remove it? Mathglot (talk) 03:27, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that the criteria for inclusion is very arbitrary and the section should profitably be deleted. I disagree with your summary of the Goldhagen book, though - just because people disagree with its argument doesn't make it historiographically unimportant. —Brigade Piron (talk) 07:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with your last point, historiographically it is indeed important. Thanks for commenting. Mathglot (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I also agree that this section could be removed; always good if we get a chance to reduce template bloat. --NSH001 (talk) 18:14, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response. Do either of you think it's worth moving the book list from the template into a new "List of XYZ" main namespace article? How long is reasonable to wait while we gather more cmment, before acting on the section removal--a week or two?  More?  Mathglot (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it would be worth having a list. Limiting the list to works that have an existing Wikipedia article would deal with your (very valid) point about Wikipedia not being a directory. I see we already have a list of films: List of Holocaust films, which I've now added to the lists section. See Category:Works about the Holocaust as a starting point.
 * I think it would be OK to wait a couple of weeks, then go ahead if there are no objections. --NSH001 (talk) 08:52, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally I'd just go ahead and delete it. Anyone who objects can revert your edit and bring their argument here, per WP:BRD. —Brigade Piron (talk) 20:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Preparing for the delete, I've examined the items in the Resources section, and each of them is already listed under one (or more) of the following categories: Category:The Holocaust
 * Category:Holocaust historiography
 * Category:Works about the Holocaust
 * Category:Holocaust films
 * Category:Documentary films about the Holocaust
 * Category:Documentary films about children in the Holocaust
 * Category:Holocaust historical documents
 * Category:Holocaust books
 * Category:History books about the Holocaust‎
 * Category:Personal accounts of the Holocaust‎

as follows:
 * The Abandonment of the Jews (HBaH)
 * Auschwitz Protocols (HHD)
 * Bloodlands (WaG)
 * The Destruction of the European Jews (HBaH)
 * Eichmann in Jerusalem (HBH)
 * Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (HBH)
 * Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust (PAH)
 * Functionalism versus intentionalism (HH)
 * German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (DFaH)
 * Here My Home Once Stood (PAaH)
 * Hitler's Willing Executioners (HBH)
 * Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (DFaCH)
 * Man's Search for Meaning (PAH)
 * Six Million Crucifixions (HBH)
 * This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (WH) thus no information will be lost by excluding the Resources category and its contents from this template. Mathglot (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Hungary and Greece
Two big crimes aren't listed here, probably because they are described in sections of longer pages. Xx236 (talk) 11:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Remove Esterwegen concentration camp from this template
Esterwegen was used as a concentration camp from 1933-36 and then as a prison. I suppose it depends on how one defines "Holocaust", but it doesn't seem to have been involved in the physical destruction of supposed enemies of Nazism. Catrìona (talk) 15:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Country sort order
All countries should be sorted alphabetically by name of country shown in the link display name; so 'Belarus' under 'B', 'Ukraine' under 'U', and so on. Many readers (especially younger ones) won't know the pre-dissolution status of countries that used to belong to the Soviet Union, nor is it important to know that while using this template, which is not about conveying or representing historical knowledge, but exclusively about getting a user to related topics of interest as quickly and easily as possible. Plain, alphabetical order makes much more sense for this purpose, than historical groupings under entities that do not exist anymore. Please reinstate revision 1159969227‎ as the most logical way of presenting these links. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 05:54, 15 June 2023 (UTC)


 * This would be too much of a concession against historical accuracy. Anti-Jewish policies were not implemented according to present-day borders (or prewar ones for that matter) but rather along the lines of occupation zones, which are at least a closer match for the prewar rather than postwar borders. For example, the policy in western Belarus (Reichskommissariat Ostland) was significantly different from eastern Belarus (under military jurisdiction), to the point I'm not sure an article on "the Holocaust in Belarus" makes all that much sense. According to Polish writers, apparently western Belarus is still considered part of Poland throughout World War II even though it has never been under Polish rule since 1939. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that perspective, but I don't think nav templates have anything like historical accuracy as their raison d'etre; it's all about getting the user to the related page quickly. Once on the Belarus page, details of their membership in the Soviet Union, as well as any distinction about east and west Belarus could (and should) be explained there. But almost none of this is possible in a Nav template; there's simply no way to accommodate, nor would we want to. I can't see how any of this is superior to plain alpha order, where absolutely everyone can find Belarus under the 'B's, regardless if they are subject matter experts, or middle school students encountering the country name for the first time. I just cannot see any advantage to a historical grouping in a Nav template; leave that for the article, where it belongs. Mathglot (talk) 06:53, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I couldn't disagree more. I believe that all Wikipedia content should strive for historical accuracy as much as possible. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Disambig pages, for example, don't strive for historical accuracy; there isn't enough length for that, as DABENTRIES have just enough information to get you to your destination. To that extent, that's something they have in common with Nav templates. But at this point, I'd like to hear from other editors about sorting. Mathglot (talk) 07:07, 15 June 2023 (UTC)


 * This looks to me like a solution in search of a problem. The Holocaust took place by reference to the countries and territories which existed in 1939 (which continued to exist throughout the various occupations as a matter of international law) and the administrative divisions imposed on them by the Nazis - not modern-day countries. (I suspect Buidhe and I would disagree about the relevance of pre-war countries but this probably reflects differences between the historical context in Western/Eastern Europe). In my view, this should be the starting point for any serious consideration of the Holocaust. Otherwise vital context is lost and there will be endless WP:CF.
 * I would emphasise, in passing, that the "Belarus" in the title of The Holocaust in Belarus (as the article emphaises) refers to "the systematic extermination of Jews living in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic during its occupation by Nazi Germany ", e.g. not the territory of modern-day Belarus or the Belarusian regions which would be covered in our article on The Holocaust in Poland. This is directly contrary to the implication in Mathglot's suggestion.
 * The current layout is in my view the only way of establishing some kind of order where we are talking about national, sub-national, and regional geographic categories. In the case of the Soviet Union, we could legitimately have, say, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union, The Holocaust in Byelorussia, The Holocaust in Minsk Oblast, The Holocaust in Minsk (city) etc. Are they all to be presented on the same level in the table? —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:59, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I largely agree with this comment. Perhaps it's not on topic but in my opinion, "Living in the BSSR" would include the western areas because the territories commonly known as "western Belarus" in wwii historiography were annexed into the BSSR in 1939. It must be noted that Beorn's Marching into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus deals extensively with areas like Slonim that were in Poland before 1939. My source for differences between western and eastern Belarus is Pioneers and Partisans: An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  14:21, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Many people have no idea what was annexed to what, or that certain countries were part of the Soviet Union, or what the Soviet Union even was, much less when it was or what its subparts were.
 * Yes, it should. But the country list here isn't a serious consideration of the Holocaust, or any kind of consideration of the Holocaust. It's a simple list of links. It should be alphabetized, so people can find stuff. (The "in passing" comment about Belarus is a strawman, since I never defended the name "Belarus" in connection with that article, only that if that's what its name is, it should be listed among the B's. Your statement does raise a completely separate issue, namely, given the first sentence which you partly quote, why does it have that title at all? I could see supporting a name change of that article based on that. But that's irrelevant for the sort issue here.) Mathglot (talk) 16:27, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response. I think the crux of our disagrement is your suggestion that "people can find stuff" better simply because it is in alphabetical order. If we were dealing with a list of national articles, I'd entirely agree with you but we are not. The confusion about Belarus - modern nation or sub-national republic - illustrates precisely why alphabetical order makes no sense when articles have different scope and actively creates confusion. Putting them together creates the impression (correctly or not) that you mean the former.
 * On a separate note, you have not answered my question about whether you would support smaller and smaller sub-national units (province, city, perhaps even district) being categorised on the same basis.—Brigade Piron (talk) 09:48, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry, I missed that. Yes, I would, and for the same reason. In Template:Interesting UK places, I'd have:
 * 10 Downing Street · Bristol · England · Fleet Street · Great Britain · Greater London · Home Counties · Piccadilly Circus · Stonehenge · Wales · Yorkshire
 * and not attempt to nest it based on groupings and subgroupings; flat and alphabetized is far and away the easiest for users. Have you ever been faced with one of those long directory lists in the ground floor of a large medical building, say, with dozens of professional tenants where the directory is subdivided by numerous specialties? So first, you have to figure out if your Dr. Shmoe is an "Internal medicine" or "Family practice" guy, or in "General practice", or is under "Physicians", and then you have to look him up under that?  It's so much easier to just have one big list, and look him up under 'S'. Mathglot (talk) 17:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * and not attempt to nest it based on groupings and subgroupings; flat and alphabetized is far and away the easiest for users. Have you ever been faced with one of those long directory lists in the ground floor of a large medical building, say, with dozens of professional tenants where the directory is subdivided by numerous specialties? So first, you have to figure out if your Dr. Shmoe is an "Internal medicine" or "Family practice" guy, or in "General practice", or is under "Physicians", and then you have to look him up under that?  It's so much easier to just have one big list, and look him up under 'S'. Mathglot (talk) 17:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)