Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Polish culture during World War II/Archive 1


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


 * Closed as Not Promoted. Cam (Chat) 20:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Polish culture during World War II
I believe this article is close to a Featured standard. Although it deals mostly with social, not military aspects, comments of MILHIST experts would be much appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments-need to be fixed before passing.
 * The 'Underground culture' section should be broken up. It is extraordinarily long.


 * Also, the amount of redlinks in the section mentioned above is overwhelming. Something should be done about them.

Ṝ ed  M arkV iolinist Drop me a line 19:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The section is long, but not overly so: can you point me to MoS about lenght of the section so I can compare it to our guidelines? Per WP:RED, red links are ok. They simply illustrate the scope of our bias on non-Western centered topics, and amount of work we have to put in being truly comprehensive. All red links are notable.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 13:25, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment
 * The "was brutally suppressed" in the lead should not be linked. "Country's occupiers" should be dab'd.
 * Can you specify which Nazi administrator made the comment about shooting the intelligent people?
 * Almost every single image is sandwiched on my laptop monitor.
 * Would you mind if I took a crack at rearranging them? – Joe Nu  tter  23:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * "Many treasures of Polish culture, such as memorials, plaques, monuments to Polish national heroes" Awkward. Missing an and.
 * Can the temporary border map be translated into English?
 * "proceeded to arrest large numbers of Polish intelligentsia, politicians, civil servants and academics, but also ordinary people suspected of posing a threat to Soviet rule" Kind of awkward, could use rephrasing.
 * "underground treaters were created," Erm...typo?
 * Don't link to Karol Wojtyła and Pope John Paul II.
 * " performed in restaurants, cafes, private homes, with the most daring signing patriotic ballades on the streets, evading German patrols." Rather hard to read, can it be rephrased?
 * It could use a copyedit for style and flow - nothing major, just a quick going over by someone better at it than I.
 * Please fix these and I'll support it, it appears to be well on its way. – Joe Nu  tter  01:19, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Minor issues addressed. I am not sure how to fix the image issue, they look fine on my article. Regarding a quote, I was able to backtrack to get a name of the likely non-notable (low-level?) Nazi official (District Commissar [Kreisleiter Becher]), but nothing more; I don't think its worth including. I have asked some native speakers for a copyedit, as I am not one, I cannot help myself in this regard.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose it isn't necessary to include it, but as it is it seems rather strange to mention the person and not say who it is. Besides that everything looks good but the map and images, since you're working on a copyedit. – Joe Nu  tter  23:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The map has a very simple description (title): "line of meet-up of German-Soviet troops". I am sure an image editor can adjust it quickly.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment
 * Please remove the many red links. It's OK if a name isn't linked. I question whether these long lists are really necessary. I would prefer if you mention the profession with few most important names and provide notes with hcref for the interested reader. Otherwise the mind shuts off because of the long lists of unknown names.
 * The German occupation generally followed the rule that the longer they occupied a country, the stricter it became. That means, it's necessary to date all the different measures to discriminate the Poles in order to show whether this started 1939 or during the course to 1944.
 * The images you show have all German captions. Were they adressed to the occupants or was there a connection to the German underground?
 * I would prefer if more Polish material could be added instead of the German material. This makes it rather look like all Poles spoke German.
 * It should be expanded how the Germans responded to violations of their laws. Did people always end up dead or in concentration camps for any offence?
 * You mention Soviet gulags and concentration camps. Could you please clarify what structure there was in the Soviet union that could be called a concentration camp, but not a gulag.
 * If you occupy a country and have to fight an underground government you need informers. The Germans were capable of fighting the underground to some degree according to the statements in the article, so it should be mentioned how collaboration with the Germans worked and how it did affect the underground culture. Likely the reason why classes were kept small is because not every Pole was trustworthy. It would be informative if numbers could be compared with preoccupation conditions.
 * You mention that the receivers of education and government funds were members of the underground, however, you don't state what fraction of the whole of the Poles was part of that underground.
 * Leading to the next question, what was it like for people not being part of the underground?
 * You mention that cinemas and cafes were made for Germans only, does this mean they were still run by Poles and how were they able to cope with that because there weren't that many Germans compared to the Poles.
 * There are still people with mixed Polish and German roots (Many of them had to leave the country after 1945), what role did they play? That's a rather important issue because they were the ones in between the German and the Polish culture and made up a significant fraction of the population.
 * If you have solved these issues I'm going to support it for A-class. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)


 * All red links are about notable topics, and I strongly believe should stay, per WP:RED. They would raise no objections if they would be blue...
 * I am not sure if I undertand your comment regarding Polish/German material, could you clarify? Please note that, as I tried to explain in the captions, some German language works are Polish propaganda/satire of Action N.
 * I gave dates where I was able to find them.
 * I passed on the question on Soviet concentration camps to an expert.
 * While I have written on Collaboration_in_WWII, and read material in preparation for this article, I don't recall any studies on collaboration and culture, other then (what I think article already mentions), items on how the underground opposed and fought the German-sponsored propagandist/primitive "culture".
 * I don't recall I found such a statistic in my research.
 * What was what like? Life in general? That's a bit outside the scope of that article. But note that a person attending an underground theater wasn't an active member of the underground, and most studies mean members of the underground as activists. I was able to expand on some of the "allowed" art and culture.
 * Cafes and cinemas: I don't recall that I run into those details in my research. But I caught one error: there were cinemas for Polish population, under control of German propaganda machine; one of the actions of the Polish underground was to destroy/damage/discredit such cinemas and to scare the people not to go into them. I've added the info on this to the article and correct his inaccuracy.
 * See collaboration; Volksdeutsche and German minority in Poland. I don't recall running into a study discussing their culture in WWII. Most were treated either like Germans or Poles, depending on their declarations and actions, as far as I know.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * They make the text unreadable. Cut it. Use summary style. It doesn't help the reader to be hit by a massive amount of names.
 * I did read that it was Polish propaganda, however, adressed to Poles speaking German and Germans. That's rather untypical for propaganda. What was it supposed to do? This merits a broader discussion why the Poles commited to German instead of Polish propaganda and what their scope was.
 * Then you have to do more research and find more dates. Don't be lazy.
 * You make the claim that there were Soviet gulags and concentration camps. Verify that. The burden is on you and not some expert. And I can tell you, there isn't such a thing, there were only gulags, but you can call a gulag a kind of concentration camp.
 * It's still not clear how the Germans responded to violations of the law. Was there only death and concentration camps or were there also other measures.
 * There it is, 3 million Poles called themselves German after the invasion, while before it were only 800,000. German culture isn't Polish culture. This is from the collaboration article. follow this lead and find out why these Poles wanted to be German instead of sticking to the Polish ID. It should be worthwile pointing out that collaboration with the Poles was very low, a reason why the underground actually could work.
 * Then simply try to find out how many schoolchildren there were in 1939 or 1946. Poland does have statistical data collections, so this information is retrieveable. You just need to research it.
 * That's good that you expanded this, but it doesn't help the central problem. Many Poles weren't in the underground. What was it like for them? That's a problem of historiography focussing on a heroic past.
 * Useful to know that people did want to use alternatives to the underground services. Were there more such measures to direct the population into resistance run entertainment? However, you could research whether the Poles lost property (cafes, cinemas, else) due to German laws. If this isn't the case you have them still as owners.
 * It's worth discussing their dillema because they were one of the biggest minorities in Poland. That would also help to possibly understand why the Poles reacted so hostile against their fellow citizens after the war. And it would also explain better how modern Poland is so ethnically cleaned compared to their former multicultural structure. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:RED: "Good red links help Wikipedia".
 * You misunderstand what is already explained in the article and in the captions. I have clarified it in the captions that images in German were directed at the Germans.
 * Please avoid personal attacks.
 * This not an article about collaboration. I don't see the relevance here.
 * A lot of information doesn't exist. I couldn't find it (and I have spend many hours collecting data for this article).
 * I don't agree: the article describes how it was for people not in the underground.
 * As many witnesses stated, there were not many options for cultural entertainment; people took what they could, either risking German or the underground wrath (although there were some that none persecuted). This is explained in the article; I have clarified it more. Property takeover by the Germans is an interesting, but separate topic. Not very relevant here.
 * I don't see this as relevant to the article, there are separate articles on that subject. None of this is highly relevant to the article's subject (there are such things as subarticles...). You'll also note that this article is about Polish cultire, not the culture in occupied Poland (although I tried to include all relevant information I could find). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but this way you won't get it to A-class. The article needs to be improved a lot and you take the stance:"I did my work, it's very good, accept that and give me class I'm destined to receive." Wandalstouring (talk) 16:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I am just saying that reviewers are not always perfect :) For example, you don't like WP:RED policy. That's not an uncommon attitude, but I will stick with respecting it. PS. I am stubbing one red link from that article every few days; remember: all red links there are notable, and most have article on pl wiki.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.