WARNING: ACTIVE ARBITRATION REMEDIESWikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland#Article sourcing expectations (9 May 2021):
The Arbitration Committee advises that administrators may impose "reliable-source consensus required" as a discretionary sanction on all articles on the topic of Polish history during World War II (1933-45), including the Holocaust in Poland. On articles where "reliable-source consensus required" is in effect, when a source that is not a high quality source (an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journals, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution) is added and subsequently challenged by reversion, no editor may reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.
The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to Eastern Europe or the Balkans, which has been designated as a contentious topic.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Poland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Poland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PolandWikipedia:WikiProject PolandTemplate:WikiProject PolandPoland articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ukraine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Ukraine on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.UkraineWikipedia:WikiProject UkraineTemplate:WikiProject UkraineUkraine articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Soviet Union, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Soviet UnionWikipedia:WikiProject Soviet UnionTemplate:WikiProject Soviet UnionSoviet Union articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Disaster management, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Disaster management on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Disaster managementWikipedia:WikiProject Disaster managementTemplate:WikiProject Disaster managementDisaster management articles
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Law Enforcement. Please Join, Create, and Assess.Law EnforcementWikipedia:WikiProject Law EnforcementTemplate:WikiProject Law EnforcementLaw enforcement articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sociology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sociology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SociologyWikipedia:WikiProject SociologyTemplate:WikiProject Sociologysociology articles
Latest comment: 1 year ago11 comments3 people in discussion
@Reaper1945: Please provide a substantive reason for your reversion. There's a range with a citation. It's not in the spirit of collaborative editing to just change a number without any reason, without a source, and without a discussion.
|I’m not sure why that request is addressed to me Daniel Quinlan. Also Reaper1945’s edit seems to me correct as it gives the number range in the fully referenced body, which the info box should summarise, rather than arbitrarily picking one source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
I pinged you because of your edit here. I don't have access to that source, but that's the one you left next to the estimate you used. And if there are other sources being used for the Infobox fatality numbers then they should also be cited there. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 04:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Bobfrombrockley, @Daniel Quinlan; please don't confuse genocide in Volhynia, which indeed consumed c. 50-60k people, with the entire OUN-UPA "anti-Polish action" which resulted in the death of c. 100k people. It's well explained in the lead and the body Marcelus (talk) 05:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
I don't have access to that source, which relates solely to Czech deaths and was already there when I edited. My edit was to remove Motyka and his 100,000 in favour of the range of numbers which are given, with sources, in our relevant section, as there is no reason to pick Motyka over the other sources and the infobox should reflect the body.
Motyka, unlike most other historians mentioned on that page, focused his academic work on the Polish-Lithuanian conflict and UPA massacres, reaserching this subject for decades. His calculations are based on extensive read of sources and are by far the most recent ones. Marcelus (talk) 12:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
So you're saying we should use Motyka in the infobox but not Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe and Per Anders Rudling, for example, who have also been researching this subject for decades? And also Motyka gives slightly different figures in different publications - which source do you want to be the single one cited by the infobox? BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Neither Rossoliński nor Rudling were researching the "anti-Polish" action of UPA or making any kind of their own calculations. Motyka's 2011 Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji Wisła is the most recent of Motyka's calculations. Marcelus (talk) 14:57, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Is there any way you could give a more detailed summary of what he actually said, perhaps a translation of a direct quotation that we could include in a footnote? I believe it was published in English last year. It would be verify that scholars agree it is definitive compared to other texts. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:30, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Sure; in my translation:
It is not easy to give the number of people who were victims of all these events. This is not the place to discuss the rich literature on the subject and the interesting discussion accompanying the disputes on the subject. Let us point out that the largest number of Poles suffered death in Volhynia. According to the findings of Władysław and Ewa Siemaszko, in 1943 at least at least 33,000 Poles, of whom about 19,000 are known by name. The total number of those killed at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists there may be in the range of 40 to as many as 60 thousand people. In Eastern Galicia, estimates of of 30-40 thousand Polish victims, while in the lands of present-day Poland 6-8 thousand Poles perished.
In light of the numbers cited, it seems that Polish losses as a result of the UPA's actions probably amounted to about 100 thousand dead (with which is more likely to be slightly less, rather than more than 100 thousand). Any higher numbers quoted - 150 or even 200 thousand victims - are not are confirmed by any serious scientific studies, and their frequent appearance in the media can probably only be explained by a the desire to create a sensation.
Let us note that the vast majority of Polish victims fell before the conclusion of the AK-WiN and UPA agreements in the spring of 1945 (from the meeting in the vicinity of Ruda Różaniecka until the end of 1947 died at the hands of the Ukrainian underground in Poland about 3,000 people, in large part soldiers of the Polish Army, WOP and KBW). This shows how important for the Polish historical memory is the first stage of the conflict.
Much controversy surrounds the assessment of Ukrainian losses. Ten years ago, probably as the first Polish historian, I tried to estimate them. To the best of my knowledge at the time, I concluded that 15,000-20,000 Ukrainians were killed as a result of Polish actions. Today, in light of the latest data, I would be inclined to lower the number of Ukrainian victims somewhat. Probably 2,000 to 3,000 Ukrainians were killed at the Polish hand in Volhynia (not counting those killed by auxiliary police). In Eastern Galicia, 1-2 thousand Ukrainians were killed. The situation was completely different in the lands of present-day Poland. More Ukrainians than Poles were killed there in 1943-1947, probably 8-10 thousand (3-4 thousand by the summer of 1944 and 5-6 thousand in the period 1944-1947). The total would give a figure of 10-11 thousand to 15 thousand killed. Again, giving higher numbers is not supported by any scientific research. Let's emphasize it clearly - the numbers of 30, 50 or even 70 thousand killed Ukrainians found in Ukrainian textbooks are simply taken "from the ceiling."Marcelus (talk) 16:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In the section "Second World War", there is some very obfuscatory language used. "There were acts of diversion" is an evasive way of referring to deadly attacks. "The Polish side responded with pacifications, in which probably several hundred people were killed": This is a misuse of the word "pacification".
These terms are euphemisms for illegal killings, and I propose to delete the subsection "Ukrainian diversion in September 1939". Perhaps someone familiar with the subject-matter could rewrite the subsection using more direct language. MrDemeanour (talk) 09:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply