Talk:Exile of Jews in the Soviet interior during World War II

Anti-Soviet bias

This article has a clear anti-Soviet bias and contradicts its own source. According to the Wikipedia author, "after the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, between 150,000 and 300,000 Polish Jews entered in the Soviet Union in order to flee the Nazis." The original source says that between "157,000 and no more than 375,000" (note how the figures were altered) fled German-occupied territory. In addition to that, "approximately 1.3 million Polish Jews [...] had become Stalin’s subjects after their home region had been occupied by the Red Army." It's most surprising that no mention is made of that small figure. One can also note how that article defines the "exile" of Jews as "mass deportation and internment". At some point in the article, a Wikipedia author writes: "Due to its knowledge of how Nazis treated Jews, the Soviet government moved Jews from areas such as the Crimean Peninsula into areas further away from the front-lines." Is that how one would define a "deportation"?. --Lamarque2017 (talk) 20:44, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by Narutolovehinata5 (talk) 14:13, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that large numbers of Jewish refugees from Poland actually benefited to some degree from being interned by the Soviet Union during World War 2, since that saved them from the Nazi Holocaust? Source: that Polish citizens who were interned by the Soviet Union at the start of World War 2 underwent a major status change when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, since they were now on the same side as the Soviets?
  • Reviewed:

Created by Sm8900 (talk). Self-nominated at 19:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Internment of refugees in Soviet labor camps during World War II; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Nomination seems to have been messed up, ALT Hook as source, and the hook doesn't even link to the article? Article is only barely past the minimum entry requirements. Also, what's up with the six references on the lead? It's a notable topic, surely they could be dispersed a bit with some more info added. The empty sections and sparsity of the overview sections needs fixing too. I think fix the article then resubmit. Frzzl talk · contribs 20:45, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
  • @Sm8900: to add on, while the article is new enough and long enough, I'll second what Frzzl has said above about incompleteness. The article has a "This section is empty" tag, which at the very least needs to be resolved in order for this nomination to proceed. Actually, the second paragraph of "Jewish internees" has no sources at all; per the DYK rules, each paragraph in the body must have at least one citation. This nomination can still be promoted if you continue working on the article to resolve these issues within the next few days. Otherwise, if this nomination is failed or withdrawn, you'd have to expand the article fivefold or improve it to Good Article status for this article to become DYK-eligible again. Epicgenius (talk) 16:27, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

@Epicgenius and Frzzl: I greatly appreciate your feedback above. i have tried to revise and improve the article as per your suggestions and feedback. could you please let me know what you think of the current version, and revisions? thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 19:48, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

The article is better than before, but it still feels a bit incomplete at parts and would benefit from copyediting. For instance, I just picked a random sentence in the article, and it has two grammar errors: "As the war progressed and the NAzi invaders fgot further into the Soviet Union". There are also some places where it will be beneficial to add details, e.g. the "Life in the camps" section, which seems to be a list of facts rather than a coherent narrative. While these are not DYK eligibility criteria, fleshing out the text would benefit the article greatly. What is a DYK criterion is the issue that the hook fact does not appear to be mentioned in the article, let alone have a source. At the very least, you need to state the hook fact explicitly in the article and include a source at the end of the sentence where that fact is mentioned. I hope this feedback is helpful for you as you continue to improve the article. Epicgenius (talk) 22:32, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: hi. yes those are very helpful points. i'll try to get on top of those. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Sm8900, Epicgenius, where does this nomination stand? It's been over a month since the last post here, and a status report would be welcome. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset and Epicgenius:, thanks for your helpful notes. i think I'd like to withdraw this nomination. I was hoping to highlight the lesser-known aspects of this historical topic; but then i found out that there was a signficant part of this refugee process which was totally brutal in nature, so I wanted to focus more on getting the historical details right. so i sort of focused on that part of this topic, rather than improving the article itself. so I'm fine if this proposal is withdrawn. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 17:04, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

reply to comments above

I appreciate your views above. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 13:13, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

@Epicgenius, @Frzzl, those are all helpful points. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 13:14, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

question, can you folks please help to glean additional data , especially from the articles which are pdf files of the book published by Wayne State University? that would be helpful just to get this article started with some initial ideas and helpful approach. i'll be glad to go through all souces at length later, and really do the research. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 13:15, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Subject

I am afraid you are confused: they were interned in various settlements; Gulag labor camps were only for violators and "enemies of the people" (refugees were thoroughly sorted). But there were other kinds of involuntary settlements. Please cite the sources carefully and say it here exactly, what kind of settlement the source was talking about. You may also want to read "Forced settlements in the Soviet Union" and Population transfer in the Soviet Union to get some general context of what was going on. Lokys dar Vienas (talk) 04:54, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

ok, there are all helpful points. I appreciate the points and ideas from everyone here. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 13:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

@Lokys dar Vienas, i could use some help going through the pdf chapters from the book from wayne state university. this is just for the initial period, while we try to get this to DYK. if you could please help. i really appreciate it. whatever works is fine. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 13:31, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I consider getting to DYK to be a misguided motivation. In the first place you have to write a decent piece of text. But whatever... As for helping with going thru chapters, sorry, I am very old an it is hard for me to focus on such fundamental topics. It requires lots of brain energy not only to read, but to properly summarize the info into wikipedoa. Lokys dar Vienas (talk) 20:29, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Scope

The scope of this article is uncler. It talks about refugees, but it also discussed victims of forced deportation ("The deportation of Polish nationals and Jews to the camps"). It heavily focuses on Jews only, but there were non-Jewish refugees too. It also makes weird errors like the above quote referring to "Polish nationals and Jews ". Polish Jews were Polish nationals too. The article lacks hyperlinks to other articles, which further makes it hard to figure out if it is a WP:POVFORK or just a poorly defined attempt at writing something useful. Ping User:Buidhe in case they are aware of a possible merge target. At minimum, renaming this to Internment of Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union during World War II might help clarify the scope (assuming "internment" is the right word here?). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:03, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources that focus on the experience of specifically Jewish refugees / forcibly displaced people in the Soviet interior, for example:

At least three books: [1][2][3]

Journal articles: [4][5][6]

an entire issue of East European Jewish Affairs, etc.

This is a notable topic, not a povfork. There may be other sources, likely different ones, about non-Jewish experiences. If sources generally treat them separately, I don't see why they need to be combined, but the article should probably be moved to clearly indicate its scope. I suggest Exile of Jews in the Soviet interior during World War II to follow sources. (t · c) buidhe 05:28, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

@Buidhe, thanks indeed for your very helpful reply on this. cheers!! Sm8900 (talk) 14:33, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@Buidhe, the sources and the article and the accounts ALL clearly state that it was NOT just Jews who were deported and then interned by the Soviet Union during this effort! there were huge numbers of Polish people interned, who were not Jewish! can we please change the article's title back, to include Jews, and non-Jews?! Sm8900 (talk) 17:30, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

from the article:

The operation to “clear” the Polish refugees from the former Polish territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, at first occupied and more recently annexed by the Soviets, began slowly in the spring of 1940. Not only Jews were targeted, but a considerably larger number of ethnic Poles had also moved from German- into Soviet-controlled areas after September 1939. The arrests and deportations reached their peak on the “night of June 29 when hundreds of thousands of people were arrested, most of whom were Jewish and the rest [ethnic] Poles.” They were taken from their homes or sometimes straight off the street. Even some refugees who had taken up Soviet-sponsored jobs, and some who had accepted Soviet citizenship were caught up in the swift and efficient roundup operations and summarily deported on the trains with the rest.

The suddenness of their arrest by Soviet authorities and the rapid events that followed— being herded into overcrowded railcars for a lengthy train journey eastward, often lasting weeks and into parts unknown—is described in detail and sometimes at considerable length in a number of the memoirs. Fela Steinbock tells of being arrested while pregnant and, together with her husband (who was not even one of the “refugees” but a permanent resident of Soviet- occupied Poland), being deported by train to a remote barracks camp in the general vicinity of Krasnoyarsk in central Siberia.

All the firsthand reports are consistent in mentioning the severe discomforts experienced during the journey, in particular the extreme overcrowding in the locked “ cattle cars,” the appalling sanitary conditions, and the minimal food and water available. All travelled for lengthy periods, but Anna Bruell’s journey of five weeks on the train before arriving at Tynda, located in the far east of the USSR, seems especially grueling.

--Sm8900 (talk) 17:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC) Sm8900 (talk) 17:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I know that, however, the topic of deportation of Jews specifically is independently notable from the deportation of other (former) Polish citizens. (t · c) buidhe 18:38, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

@Buidhe, ok, fair enough, but one goal for this article was to cover all of those topical areas. I would rather have a title that is wider in scope, to allow for that topical coverage as well. Sm8900 (talk) 20:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Whose goal? If you want to start an article with a different scope, go ahead. (t · c) buidhe 22:28, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

@Buidhe, why can't this article include that topical scope? Sm8900 (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be easier to start another article, since the sources and content of this article are just focused on Jews. (t · c) buidhe 03:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

References