Talk:Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany

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German Version Gone

There used to be a link on this page to a German version. There is no more. I've yet to meet a German who even knows these things occurred. Germans need to know. Please bring back the German version page of this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffwinchell (talk • contribs) 15:58, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Himmler’s core points

This really needs to be cleaned up. Listed among Himmler’s core points: ‘In the territory of Poland, only four grade schools would remain, in which counting would be taught only till 500, writing one's name, and teaching that God commanded Poles to serve Germans.’

How could someone only know how to count to 500? It’s a number system; once you can count you can count to any number. This entire section should have a primary source (in english). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MONDARIZ (talk • contribs) 06:03, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cattle waggons

Germans expelled from the Sudetenland

Cattle wagons - they weren't real "Stock car (rail)" but rather Boxcars with small windows - see the picture Image:Vertreibung 1.jpg . Xx236 11:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

crime of genocide

Rather crime against humanity and/or war crime.Xx236 11:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dirk Moses.

From the Google Print link we have only a page refering to a statement of some sorts. Its not clearly if this statement is about the whole kidnapping or Hau Aktion. This needs to be clarified.--Molobo (talk) 20:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the relevant page and one page above that is where the footnote is pointing to. Please read it or is it suddenly not clear to you, either, whether these are letters or just black stripes? Come on! How about you find other meta-research about the number before undoing or questioning it? Nor is it particularly fair to put the word "claimed" in articles before parts you don't like, insinuating it was baseless, and put an attribution to a source in a biased way behind without any other statement being attributed to anything. Sciurinæ (talk) 21:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well its rather obvious that the reference has to point to something. The trouble is Googleprint offers limited view and the page with the sentence refered to is not seen to me. Is the sentence about the whole German theft of Polish children during the attempt to exterminate Polish people in WW2 or just the theft in Hau Aktion.--Molobo (talk) 00:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I said it was one page above because actually I was looking at page 247, some pages above. You should now be able to find the page. If not, well, I can only show you the door. I have also removed the attribution as biased. I told you - find other meta research on the number. If you can't, get over it. Imagine if I cluttered the article with similar ad hominem sentences like "Roman Zbigniew Hrabar, a Polish man in Communist Poland, claimed in 1960"? By the way, "at least 20,000" does not preclude "200,000". And maybe you should first achieve what he has achieved before becoming condescending. I have also written something about the Heu Aktion, for which you also used an overblown number. Sciurinæ (talk) 12:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can easly copy the sentence here-Google offers limit view and the page above is out of the available preview for me. To put one estimate over others is POV.--Molobo (talk) 14:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're not open-minded on this issue enough to read my comment before writing something as a reply, probably for the sake of replying, I don't think you'd be interested in the text of the source. Should you be, let me repeat myself: check page 247, not the page above. And yes, we all have the same view limit at Google books, which is only logical. And again, "at least 20,000" does not rule out "200,000". Sciurinæ (talk) 14:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Sciurinæ. While you are technically correct that "at least 20,000" does not rule out "200,000", neither does it rule out "2 million". Nonetheless, most readers who read "at least 20,000" will conclude that the real number is in the range of 20,000-40,000. If that is the academic consensus, then fine. Otherwise, we need a more accurate presentation of what the academic consensus is. --Richard (talk) 20:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Putting first just one estimate well above all others is pushing one version. What's wrong with thousands and then putting estimates belows. Furthermore the page you point to is a reference to something, but we don't know if it is towards Heu Aktion all the whole Aktion. Second-a book about Australian history is hardly the best scholary source for info about WW2 Poland. It can be given as secondary source showing minority view (if indeed it is, rather then number of Heu Aktion), but hardly as source in the first page of the article.--Molobo (talk) 16:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand the problem here. Let's assume that sources give varying estimates from 20,000 to 100,000 children kidnapped. Then the sentence should read "Estimates of the number of children kidnapped range from 20,000 to 100,000 with most estimates centering around 40,000". (I don't know what the sources say so I've just made up some numbers for the purposes of illustration. Then cite the relevant sources. Simple. Right? Or am I missing something? --Richard (talk) 17:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Molobo's suggestion of just mentioning "thousands" in the introduction seems sensible to me; the introduction should be concise. When more definite figures are given later in the article, I think it should be similar to Richard's suggestion, such as "Estimates of the number of children kidnapped range from 20,000¹ to 200,000²³ with most estimates leaning toward the larger numbers." If the sources provided are discussed in the article itself, it is important not to provide a judgement on the source. It should be up to the reader to determine if Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History is credible, not the editor. Olessi (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Richard the simple solution is just to mention the lead that it "was a programme in World War II in which thousands of Polish children were abducted from Poland to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanisation" The estimates can be given later. I hope you understand my reservations about using an history book about Australia as primary source in the article about WW2 Poland. It's not the best scholary source on that matter. It can be given, but as a sidenote rather then main source. --Molobo (talk) 17:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a history book about Australia is not the best source. Hopefully, better sources can be found and cited. "thousands" is not appropriate as it implies 3000-9000, tending towards higher numbers in this range rather than lower. "tens of thousands" implies 30,000-90,000, once again tending towards higher numbers in the range. If we mean "20,000 - 200,000", then "tens of thousands, possibly as many as 200,000" is the best way to present this, even in the lead. If we say "thousands", it could lead some to conclude that we are only talking about a few thousand children (e.g. 2000-4000). That is still a tragedy, yes, but nothing compared to the scale of 50,000 or 100,000 children. The lead MUST communicate to the reader the scale of what we are talking about. --Richard (talk) 20:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"A history book about Australia" is a most uncritical copy of Molobo's words. It's funny that none of you still hasn't noticed the title of this 2004-book is "Genocide and Settler Society - Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History", not "Australian History" or whatever. Dr Dirk Moses, lecturer in European History and comparative genocide studies, from whose publications you should be able to see that he is more than familiar with Nazi Germany's genocide ... did only include the relevant 17-page chapter titled "Until the Last Drop of Good Blood" - The Kidnapping of "Racially Valuable" Children and Nazi Racial Policy in Occupied Eastern Europe". Dr Isabel Heinemann, at University of Freiburg, wrote it and her name is in bold letters at the first page of the chapter and on every second page throughout the rest of it. Not ignorant of Nazi crimes she is, either, if you Google (or Google book) her name and see her publications - ewww, but German - I can already guess what the next original personal attribution attack is going to be. Honestly, I'm so pissed off by you guys. Some book about the History of Australia ... I'm especially kind of surprised to see the bias towards pop history as compared to the only that source that evidently had done research, even taking another estimate into account (even the popular 200,000) and publishing findings on what the number is (visible research on the number appears to be unique and is more than just the copying of another source, which doesn't give the copies a right to be called "estimates"). Also, "at least 20,000" doesn't factually imply anything except "20,000 or higher". Subjectively, one also concludes that "tens of thousands, possibly as many as 200,000" is higher than 20,000. And that the 200,000, which isn't borne out by the available figures, was still valid. Thanks for the bitter surprise by the way ... Sciurinæ (talk) 02:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Still this remains only a book about Australia. On the other hand we have a detailed study by Richard Lucas on the German kidnapping

Richard C. Lukas Richard C. Lukas is a noted American historian and author of numerous books and articles on Polish history and Polish-Jewish relations.

After earning a Ph.D. from Florida State University he served as a Research Consultant at the United States Air Force Historical Archives before joining Tennessee Technological University were he taught for 20 years. Until his retirement in 1995, he was adjunct professor of history at the University of South Florida, Ft. Myers Campus.

His book : DID THE CHILDREN CRY? : Hitler's War Against Jewish & Polish Children, 1939-1945 [Richard C Lukas] Based on eye-witness accounts, interviews, and prodigious research by the author, who is an expert in the field, this is a unique contribution to the literature of World War II, and a most compelling account of German inhumanity towards children in occupied Poland.

In this position I think that the book is the best source as it is a detailed analysis of the action by experienced historian.

We also have Piotrowski Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-194 with review such as: The first two chapters, titled 'Soviet Terror' and 'Nazi Terror,' provide a brief overview of Poland's subjugation. Zones of occupation and their ethnic composition are likewise discussed, as are Soviet and Nazi occupation policies and practices. Professor Piotrowski teaches Sociology of the Holocaust at the University of New Hampshire. Overall, this book makes a valuable contribution to several fields of study. Students of the Holocaust, of wartime collaboration, of Polish, Central European and Russian history will be well served by Piotrowski's volume. Now I am sure Moses book is valuable to students of Australia but this is not an article about Australia. Of course below I listed several other scholary sources concentrated on Nazi Germany and Genocide in Poland, none of them concentrated on Australia or New Zealand as far as can be seen. I am sure they also should be put before a book about Australia. After it only mentions German atrocities as a sidenote, while they concentrate on it. In fact one is a complete detailed study of the action by a history professor. Thus they should be treated as primary sources, especially the detailed study. Not to mentionm the fact that is clearly seen that overwhelming number estimated by historians is far above number put by Moses(for only Heu Aktion maybe ?) which isn't repeated anywhere else as far as it can be seen, --Molobo (talk) 02:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I thought you'd read my comments at least after I criticised you for having failed to do so. But seeing the renewed blind obsession on that "book about Australia" made me suspicious and seeing that you still think Moses was the writer has been telling enough. Sciurinæ (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Children kidnapped by Germans in other countries also deserved to be remembered

By making seperate articles. The start should be Nuremberg Archives which list several countries in which children were kidnapped by Germans.--Molobo (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Czech children kidapped[1] Yugoslav children kidnapped[2] --Molobo (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The question here is whether there is enough material for an article on each country from which Nazi Germany kidnapped children or whether there should be a single article Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany. --Richard (talk) 17:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There should probably be an overarching page for the whole program. If enough information accumulated, it could be split off.Goldfritha (talk) 00:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm renaming for accuracy.Goldfritha (talk) 17:54, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Estimates

I will gather here what I can find about estimates from scholary sources. From

  • Lukas, Richard C. Did the Children Cry? Hitler's War against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945. Hippocrene Books, New York, 2001. It's an extensive description of the campaign

[3] Gives There seems to be general agreement that 200,000 Polish children were deported for Germanization purposes. Not all were Germanized. But only 15-20 percent of the children kidnapped by the Germans were recovered at war's end.

  • Jewish Library gives:

[4] In 1946, it was estimated that more than 250,000 were kidnapped and sent by force to Germany. Only 25,000 were retrieved after the war and sent back to their family. It is known that several German families refused to give back the children they had received from the Lebensborn centers.

  • Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness - Page 165

Konnilyn G. Feig 1981 They were literally kidnapped off the streets. It is estimated that the Germans kidnapped 200000 Polish children.

  • "Poland's Holocaust" Tadeusz Piotrowski- Page 22 (an excellent detailed scholary overview and analysis of WW2 Poland and those issues like expulsions, genocide etc in my opinion)

about 200000 Polish children were kidnapped for this sinister program

  • "Genocide" - Page 84

W. D. Rubinstein About 200000 'Aryan'-looking Polish children were kidnapped

  • Germany and the Second World War: Volume V/II- Page 55

Bernhard R. Kroener, Rolf-Dieter Muller, Hans Umbreit

The Germans are estimated to have kidnapped between 100000 and 200000 children from Poland in the course of the war

  • Hitler: The Pathology of Evil - Page 167

George Victor most children were taken from Poland-more then 200.000

--Molobo (talk) 22:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Lost Children - pages 126-127

Tara Zahra "Meanwhile, East European officials heavily exaggerated the number of children reportedly kidnapped by the Nazis... It has been more credibly estimated that around 20,000 children were probably kidnapped from Poland and up to 50,000 from all of Europe." Buffalohead (talk) 17:31, 16 May 2019 (UTC) buffalohead[reply]

Sciurinea latest edit

Can be seen here:[5] There are several problems with his edit but let me focus on one first: Scinurea has added a sentence "Polish children from occupied Poland were abducted to Nazi Germany and assigned to German foster families for the purpose of Germanisation"

This change seems POV to me. The problems with the sentence are:

  • 1-It completely skips the part where children are sent to concentration camps and medical facilities. Instead it gives impression that children were just given to German families.
  • 2-It completely skips the fact that the children were subject to racial tests.
  • 3-It completely skips the fact that most remained in concentration camps where they were murdered or perished in medical experiments.
  • 4-It gives incorrect information as concentration camps and facilites for children were located in Occupied Poland not Nazi Germany.

I would fellow editors to comment if this is the best idea to give impression that kidnapped children were just sent to Germany and given to German families, while skippin the whole racial profiling, concentration camps and medical experiments issues.--Molobo (talk) 02:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, sorry, but I just added something that was missing in the WHOLE text (conveniently on the basis of the source), namely that some children were actually attempted to be 'Germanised', not killed but sent to families. Obviously you didn't forget to mention that some (few?, many?, most?) were successfully adopted, too - you simply glossed over that part. ... ... Oh ... my ... God! ... ... ... (I've got to sleep.) Sciurinæ (talk) 03:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to skip over the part that Polish children were sent to concentration camps and later stayed there dying or were murdered in medical experiments by Germans if they failed racist criteria is not acceptable to me for NPOV reasons. Right now it gives impression that children were just taken from Poland to Germany, while avoiding alltogether racial profiling, concentration camps, medical experiments and murder for those not fit racially. Also kidnapping and racist brainwashing about belonging to "Master Race" requires a differnt description then "adoption".--Molobo (talk) 03:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Scinurea edit went all the way to the end of the process. I propose to detail the process in full later, and give just essential "Polish children were abducted from Poland by Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanisation".

Below we can detail the process in full in seperate chapter. --Molobo (talk) 03:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm honestly not in the least interested in your opinions. You wrote a whole article about the terrors of the kidnapping and in no way mentioned that actually the children suitable for Germanisation, which had been the purpose, were adopted by German families (and yes, it is "adopted", just like for example it wouldn't be wrong to use the word "alive" when also referring to people with a bad life). Then you actually had the guts of accusing me of skipping over something when really the article is full of what happened to those found unsuitable, including the sentence below that, the paragraph thereafter and in each of the eight article sections. I've rephrased it hopefully more to your liking, replacing your original wording "forcefully Germanised", which I couldn't find anywhere on the net anyway. I can't see any sign of you having read my comments you reply to in your comment above, either, so please do give me a sign sometime. Sciurinæ (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"replacing your original wording "forcefully Germanised"

You are incorrect. They went to German families only after forceful indoctrination at the hands of Nazi in special facilites, per Lukas: Children selected for Germanization ended up in schools or institutions run by a number of Nazi organizations before they became available for adoption by German families. (...) The core of the Germanization process was to destroy the Polish identity of the boys and girls. Barbara Mikolajczyk was an adolescent when the Germans took her and her sisters to Bruczkow, where the Nazis forced them to learn German. "The Germans always said that we must forget about speaking in Polish and about Poland," Mikolajczyk said. They beat her and the other children when they spoke Polish. Mikolajczyk now became Baber Mickler. Placed in a German home, she had to address a German woman as "Mama." Like other Polish children doled out to German households, Mikolajczyk received a fraudulent birth certificate and genealogy which the Germans inventively composed for her.

Second-abducting children and convincing them they are Germans is forcefull, because force was used to take them away--Molobo (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is English Wikipedia

This is the English version of Wikipedia (not Polish Wikipedia); its readers are readers of English; English readers must be able to read and to verify the source citations. This article needs to follow English Wikipedia citation formats: e.g., see WP:CITE and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

Re: the above section's discussion, I've revised "forceful" and "forcefully", etc. to "forcible" and "forcibly"; e.g., diff. between an action being done by force and one being done with force) [e.g., "The commander removed the children forcibly." v. "The commander spoke to the children forcefully"; forcible v. forceful (Merriam-Webster.com).

(cont.) Some of the syntactical constructions throughout need clean up due to non-idiomatic English being used in them; I've done some clean up of idiomatic expression and syntax and grammar, but more such clean up probably remains to be done. Dates need to follow Wikipedia:MOS#Dates re: formatting of dates; it is not Wikipedia format to use "th" etc. after numbers of dates. In "show preview mode" one can see the editorial interpolations throughout. --NYScholar (talk) 03:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(cont.) Just stopped back in briefly to reverse the order of the examples that I gave above and to say also that one needs to follow Wikipedia:MOS#Quotations for punctuation of quotations; please do not use italics to punctuate quotations from sources (see related link there); use quotation marks; block quotations are used only for quotations of 4 or more lines. I corrected a few of such problems a couple of days ago. It is also not necessary to use both quotation marks and italics for foreign words; if one is not pointing to the use of the word as a word, it is sufficient just to use the foreign language and if that is a title of a book, one uses italics (not also quotation marks); if it is an article or a chapter in a book, one uses quotation marks. Please see the details of the section. I've left words which are being noted as words in italics in places; but the whole article needs clean up for consistency throughout as I may have missed some. I have not done a complete clean up. It would be best to convert all the source citations to template format (WP:CITE); right now, there is an inconsistent citation format used throughout. As some people introduced the templates, I've followed that in places, but I don't have time to convert all the citations. This is a controversial subject; one needs to give "full citations"--author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, pages and so on--see the templates for the parameters; if a URL is being used as a source link, the citation needs to identify the actual source of the link. E.g., if it is Google Books "Limited preview", that needs to be identified as the source, since the source used is not the printed book or article. --NYScholar (talk) 21:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kidnapped

Did the Polish authors even bother to consult a dictionary before naming this article, and using the term "kidnap" fourteen times in the article, not including the article title?

to steal, carry off, or abduct by force or fraud, esp. for use as a hostage or to extract ransom. take away to an undisclosed location against their will and usually in order to extract a ransom

abduction seems more appropriate, no?

second of all, "kidnapping of children" is a dubious phrase. Of course they are children.

I would propose "abducting of Polish children by Nazi Germany" as an article title.

--88.73.243.133 (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a valid point; abducting sounds better. Feel free to register, then you'll be able to move the article yourself. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:25, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree--Jacurek (talk) 01:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update

Moved back to original title-Kidnapping is a bit more widespread then abduction when describing those events. Also updated some missing references-most were already existing ones but not extended to all sentences where they were used.Still the article needs repair--Molobo (talk) 00:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Name

A short search on google books shows 25 to 16 in favour of Kidnapping of Polish children to abduction.--Molobo (talk) 15:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IPN figures

My Polish is only fair – Polish editors can confirm this by checking source

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimate 200,000 Polish children were kidnapped and only 15% (30,000) returned to Poland.

Source

Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami.Institute of National Remembrance(IPN) Warszawa 2009 ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6 Page 99

Also the book is a goldmine of information on Poland's losses in the war (thats a hint - get it) --Woogie10w (talk) 13:34, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

gas chambers

Any proof of those children were killed in a gas chamber--41.151.66.170 (talk) 11:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)?[reply]

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Bad Source

The use of the Ghitta Sereny interview, as the only source of the number 400,000, comes from an interview in Talk magazine, reprinted by Jewish Virtual Library.

1) It includes this introduction from Jewish Virtual Library: "As part of Hitler's plan to create "the master race," 250,000 Jewish children were kidnapped during the war and subjected to Nazi propaganda in an attempt to "cleanse" them of their Jewish heritage." The idea that the Nazis were trying to Germanize Jews is certainly a mistake; apparently whoever wrote the introduction didn't read the interview, or know much history.

2) Nowhere in the interview is the number 400,000 even mentioned! Sereny mentions 200,000 Poles "reported missing"- not necessarily kidnapped.

Buffalohead (talk) 17:55, 16 May 2019 (UTC)Buffalohead[reply]

Inconsistent number quoted in two related Wiki article

This article states that ~200,000 Polish children were kidnapped.

HOWEVER, a linked, related article reports a far lower number, 40,000 - 50,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuaktion

I am not capable of determining the correct number, but know that maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia requires that the numbers must agree.

If someone reading this can do the research, great.LarryWiki115 04:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Larry — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larry11565 (talk • contribs)

20,000 estimate is only in regards to children who successfully passed Germanization tests, not all kidnapped children

According to this article from Deutsche Welle[6], Isabell Heinemann clarified that the number of 20,000 children she confirmed in records refers to children who passed Germanization test and were classified as worthy of integration in Lebensborn program. Polish sources include children forcefully taken away from Polish women working as forced labour in Germany.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 02:57, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tara Zahra-manipulation of the source

I checked the source and Tara Zahra gives MUCH bigger figures, the source was manipulated because she states "an additional 20,000-50,000" children were deliberately kidnapped" and gives figures for other children that were taken from parents including the ones in HeuAktion.Who inserted this?----MyMoloboaccount (talk) 03:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's no manipulation. The first sentence of this article refers to "mostly Polish and Soviet children were abducted from their homes and forcibly moved to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanization, or indoctrination into becoming German". If they were not Germanized, or not abducted from Poland, then they are not counted in this statistic. The 200,000 figure is wildly exaggerated and includes many ethnic German children, as she states later. (t · c) buidhe 03:14, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So you entered this information? Tara Zahra gives much different estimates and clearly states theses figures are in addition to other number of children taken away.Do not blindly revert and delete numerous scholarly sources. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 03:19, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please allow me to work on the article for a moment and do not blindly revert. I am adding more information on this.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 03:27, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • How come a Polish source from 1960 or 1961 in RS? William Rubinstein is not an expert on Poland, I expect he just cites official statistics without double checking if they are accurate. (t · c) buidhe 03:29, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The topic of this article is forced germanization as stated in the first sentence. You shouldn't add content that isn't related to the topic. Other related topics are already discussed in related articles such as Heuaktion. It is misleading to bundle separate German policies, undertaken for different reasons, into one article. (t · c) buidhe 03:35, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The topic of this article is forced germanization Actually if you look at the title of the article(which I created btw) it is Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany not "Forced Germanization of Children by Nazi Germany".I expect he just cites official statistics without double checking if they are accurate. Your view, you got a source for that?--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You would have to look at the source and tell me how Rubinstein arrives at this estimate. In the meantime, I remain skeptical of dodgy tertiary sources whose authors don't appear to know what they are talking about.
I agree, it would make more sense to rename the article to "Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany". There are various policies that could be considered "Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany" (not least children in the Holocaust) so perhaps a dab would be appropriate. (t · c) buidhe 03:51, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree and don't believe it would make sense.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 04:04, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"How come a Polish source from 1960 or 1961 in RS?" While we have to be careful with communist-era sources, they are generally only unreliable in specific issues which the involved the party line. Just like more modern Russian or Chinese sources, and so on. Anyway, I think the article should clearly attribute the numbers, maybe a table would be helpful? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 29 November 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. None of the proposed names has enough consensus to move this article. (non-admin closure) Vpab15 (talk) 18:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany → Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany – see below (t · c) buidhe 04:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Support: By my count there are several instances of kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany:

As far as I know, there is no source that comprehensively discusses all of these topics, so it is not suitable for a broad-concept article. (Molobo has found some sources which give statistics on Polish children, but I doubt that they cover children in Germany or Soviet Union). Therefore, I suggest moving this page to Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany and setting up a dab page. (t · c) buidhe 04:17, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose The article is about kidnapping of children. Forced Germanization of children is much, much wider subject including the teaching of language and schools in Nazi Germany(Sorbs for example), annexed territories like Western Poland and in General Government itself.The current article only briefly touches on the subject. As to the claim Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany—what this article was originally about the article was created under the title Kidnapping of Polish children by Germany in 2007, so this is quite wrong.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 04:43, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, in any event the kidnapping is the obvious primary topic for forced Germanization by Nazi Germany. If you insist, perhaps "Kidnapping of children for forced Germanization", would be unambiguous.
  • "Kidnapping of Polish children by Germany" is an unsuitable title since none of your sources discuss Polish Jewish children, otherwise the numbers would be much higher.
  • And "Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany" is not a suitable topic for a broad-concept article for the reasons discussed above. (t · c) buidhe 04:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kidnapping of Polish children by Germany" is an unsuitable title since none of your sources discuss Polish Jewish children, otherwise the numbers would be much higher. As Nazi Germany used different racial criteria for ethnic Poles and for Jews and different policies historiography usually uses the term Jewish children or Jewish population when describing their treatment to distinguish them from ethnic Poles who were treated differently. We already have a separate article on them which you have linked to, titled Jewish children under Holocaust. Nothing stops you from adding on Jewish children if you believe it is justified.

I am afraid And "Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany" is not a suitable topic for a broad concept article. Forced Germanization of Children where? Nazi Germany in regards to Sorb and Danish population? Western Poland and local population? Hans's Franks Germanization policies regarding education of Polish children in General Government? Really too broad of a topic to put under one article, you would have to be more precise.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 05:03, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MyMoloboaccount, As stated above, I listed at least seven separate topics that all involve "kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany". If you can't find any source that covers them all, I doubt that the topic meets the criteria in WP:broad-concept article. (t · c) buidhe 05:13, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany—what this article was originally about Actually the article was created under the title Kidnapping of Polish children by Germany in 2007 so you are quite mistaken. Come to think of it there was never any vote to change its name, somebody did it on his own without a proper vote. I take it you won't mind if we change it back right? By the way feel free to create a seperate article about Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany if you wish. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 04:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, the text of the article focuses on Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany so the article history should be preserved there per content attribution policies. (t · c) buidhe 04:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually the text describes kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany at the moment. Feel free to create a seperate article. I of course don't mind a article about kidnapping of 200,000 Polish children by Nazi Germany as well, which this article was about in the first place--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 04:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And were children captured for other purposes than Germanization? Piotrus

Yes Piotrus, of course. Forced labour, medical experiments, extermination. Changing the title of this article would mean that somebody could use this as an excuse to delete a lot of the material which currently is in the article. Note that the recent publication by Jagiellonian University about the subject mentions extermination as one of the primary motives of Germans in kidnapping of Polish children ''Zbrodnia bez kary… : eksterminacja i cierpienie polskich dzieci pod okupacją niemiecką 1939-1945(Crime without penalty... : extermination and suffering of Polish children during the German occupation of 1939-1945) editor Kostkiewicz Janina, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, 2020, ISBN:978-83-958240-2-9[10]--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 03:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Let's see what User:Buidhe will reply to this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If Molobo wants to create an article based on the sources he has for ethnic Polish children, he is free to do so. However, as far as I can tell his sources do not cover children other than ethnic Poles who were kidnapped, so no broad-concept article covering all seven possibilites is possible according to Wikipedia guidelines.
Secondly as I pointed out, not just Polish but also Soviet and other nationalities of children were also kidnapped for Germanization. Before his recent edits,[11] the article discussed Germanization of children of all nationalities not just Polish children. So this article should be moved to the title suggested by Piotrus and other articles created as necessary. (t · c) buidhe 06:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article, "Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany", discusses Germany's World War II abduction, and forcible transportation to Germany, of children, "mostly Polish and Soviet... for purposes of forced labour, medical experiment, or Germanization."

The article's title should comprehensively, but succinctly, reflect this information.

Buidhe's proposed title, "Forced Germanization of children by Nazi Germany", is neither comprehensive nor succinct. It does not address the children's forced labor or subjection to medical experiment. And the proposed title could represent non-Polish and non-Soviet children, who are not the subjects of the article. The proposed title would thus be the worst of possible titles.

Nihil novi (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Given the article's contents, a better title might be "Kidnapping of Slavic children by Nazi Germany".
Nihil novi (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nihil novi, But are there any sources which discuss all of Polish, Soviet, Ukrainian, Czech, etc. children, or just Polish ones? I'm concerned that such an article would still be SYNTH. (t · c) buidhe 06:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was about to modify my last suggestion:
The article might be restored to its original title, "Kidnapping of Polish children by Germany";
or its content might be augmented to include more information about Soviet, and other non-Polish Slavic, children – while retaining the present title: "Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany".
Nihil novi (talk) 06:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Problematic move

I think this is far from best practices to move the article to a new title one one's proposal (just above) is closed as 'no consensus to move' (and no discussion about the new title or split or such has been even started to gauge a consensus for a such love). However, User:Buidhe just moved this article to a new title without any discussion, and also created what looks like an obvious fork with most content being clearly copypasted at Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany for Germanization (compare [12] and [13]), converted the old page to a disambig Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany (preventing non-admins from doing this), and moved this article to a title about "ethnic Polish children" while the lead clearly states "mostly Polish and Soviet children" (and this is referenced in the text). This is a mess. I'd ask User:Buidhe to undo all of those changes which were none with no consensus (or against it), and I'll ping User:El C as an admin in this topic area for an admin-level help of moving this article back to the old title. I have no objection against a new RM with a new title, perhaps Kidnapping of Polish and Soviet children by Nazi Germany, or Kidnapping of Slavic children by Nazi Germany, through I think the best solution is to keep the old title (which didn't specify the children's ethnicity/nationality in the lead), and the current disambig can be moved to Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany (disambiguation), though, frankly, considering the unwieldy title, this would probably be better in see also section of this article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:51, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that no sources have been produced that cover both Polish and Soviet, or Slavic in general. (Some sources cover a particular ethnicity (Polish children), others cover specific reasons for kidnapping, such as forced Germanization, but there is no source anyone was able to cite that deals with all types of kidnapping as a coherent overall topic).
The article as it was is original research, and I didn't feel that it should be just left as-is, so I went with the move suggested by Nihil novi, which no one seemed to strongly object to. If you doubt that it's original research, just look at the sourcing for the first sentence, "During World War II, between 20,000 and 200,000[1][5][6][7][8][9] mostly Polish and Soviet children were abducted from their homes and forcibly transported to Nazi Germany for purposes of forced labour, medical experiment, or Germanization." Some sources give the total number of (ethnic) Polish children kidnapped for various purposes (estimated 200,000 according to the cited sources), others give totals for things such as forced Germanization from various countries (estimated 20–50,000 in total). But none of them actually support the sentence; the total, including underage forced laborers from Ukraine and Soviet Union, would have been much higher, probably millions.[14] (Not to mention around a million Jewish children who were also kidnapped).
There doesn't seem to me to be any primary topic for this subject. (t · c) buidhe 06:06, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Buidhe, what is happening here? Kidnapping of ethnic Polish children by Nazi Germany goes with "between 20,000 and 200,000 mostly Polish and Soviet children," while Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany for Germanization goes with "20,000–50,000 mostly Polish and Soviet children." That is not right. Vital statistics should not vary that highly from article to article. Also, why would Soviet children even be mentioned in the opening sentence of an article about ethnic Polish children. More pressingly, I simply don't understand the purpose of these moves. What is up with all this duplication? I mean, it's fine to have some duplication. In fact, trying to make sense of all this reminded me of my own related duplication, which I just applied some minor correction to moments ago: [15][16]. But this duplication is excessive to a bizarre degree. Finally and most importantly, a month ago, you drafted a move request concerning this page, which failed, then today out of the blue somehow you boldly move it — what?(!) In what universe did you think that that would be okay? This is truly confounding. El_C 07:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The first article refers to kidnapping for any purpose. The majority of children were kidnapped for forced labor, not Germanization reasons, why the number is higher. And the 200,000 figure applies to Poland only it does not include Soviet children—check the sources. (As far as I know there are no statistics for all Polish + Soviet children kidnapped, or all children in general kidnapped—which is why I'm concerned about original research).
The move request was to a separate suggested target. If you actually read the discussion, the oppose !votes suggested that the article could be moved to focus on Polish children. I didn't think it would be controversial, since that's what the opposers suggested. (t · c) buidhe 07:38, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, Germanization versus otherwise. Sure. Still, quite confusing and so duplicaty. But regardless of that, you didn't think it was worth ironing out the details before going ahead with the move? You just decide to do so 30 days later? You had 30 days to test the waters by gauging the talk page first — and nothing? Sorry, but I'm just at a bit of a loss here. El_C 08:01, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There might have been different purposes of the kidnapping of children, though from what I saw in the sources, Germanization is the main reason. We can revisit them and discuss whether forced labor was instead the main cause, but regardless, all of this can be discussed in one article, as it was before, and under one title, "Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany", which does not imply the reason for kidnapping. I see no reason why we need to start splitting this. The article has been stable for years if not decade+. Please restore it to how it was before, then we can discuss here whether there is some undue weight given to Germanization vis-a-vis forced labor, or such. Ping User:MyMoloboaccount who I think wrote much of this article a while back. PS. I really don't think the previous article was too long or confusing. It can totally accommodate sections about different ethnicities or different reasons for kidnapping, and if any is excessive, then it can be split out, after a discussion if such a split would involve removing some significant content. Lastly, forking (duplicating) of content is almost never a good practice, and I don't see it as helpful here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:05, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like there is a WP:IDHT issue here. I understand that it can be inappropriate to make extensive changes without getting explicit consensus. But you can't have an article on "Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany" when there is no source which covers all aspects of that topic or even offers a total, combined estimate.
As I pointed out above, the first sentence of the article is pure OR and frankly ridiculous; there's literally no source which says only 20,000 or even 200,000 children were kidnapped for "for purposes of forced labour, medical experiment, or Germanization", from all countries. It actually minimizes the scale of Nazi atrocities, which in the case of deportation and forced labor were most harshly applied to Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and affected probably over a million non-Jewish children [17] (compared to Germanization which applied to 20–50,000 children).[18] Not to mention that many Jewish children were abducted also for forced labor and medical experiments (!) but not mentioned here or in the sources' estimates apparently. (t · c) buidhe 16:50, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I also feel that there's an IDHT problem here, Buidhe (therefore I'm partially repeating myself), but it has to do with you having launched a move request 30 days ago, having failed to see it pass, then out of the blue going through with a unilateral move, anyway. It doesn't matter if that move wasn't to the title that was originally proposed by that aforementioned RM, it was still a markedly bad idea. By all means, correct whatever vital statistics and data as you see fit, but as for the forking and duplication — how and why you thought that this would be uncontroversial is, frankly, beyond me. So, please don't do that again, pretty much for any article covered by the EE/APL regime. Dropping a talk page note prior to attempting anything of the sort is not at all a hindrance. Anyway, it's surprising to me that I need to spell any of this out for you. I won't log it as an outright sanction for you (unless you press me to, then I will), for now, but I really do expect for you to start doing better. On multiple fronts, in fact. Yes, you are a valued contributor to the topic area, I acknowledge that (including recently), but straining the limits of whatever leeway that affords you, is a recipe for trouble. Because that only holds to a very limited degree. You need to become cognizant that you are well on your way to where you may face the sort of intervention that will actually place not inconsiderable conditions and limitations on the scope and nature of your contributions to this topic area. Which would be a shame. El_C 19:29, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry that I made the move without getting consensus beforehand, and I recognize that it was inappropriate. Actually, I am much better at creating content unilaterally, not so good at collaborating with other editors, as you can see here. (t · c) buidhe 19:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, fair enough. And, indeed, that is something I've picked up on. Well, hopefully, lesson learned — so, onward and upward. Piotrus, if you wish for me to spare you from going to WP:RMT by restoring the status quo ante, please specify that in the form of: "move x to y" (sorry, I may have forgotten exactly what's what here). El_C 19:55, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@El C: I think the best solution is to rewind the changes from the 24h, restore everything to how it was before than. I will stress that I have no objections to immediately adding any fixes to this article if there are incorrect statistics, new sources, challenged sources, etc. as long as any significant removal or change is explained here. I also have no objection to starting a new RM or a discussion about split. With a stress of discussion first. So I think that this article should be moved back to Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany and the fork Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany for Germanization (which still is almost identical to the article here, hence very clearly meeting the problem as explained at Wikipedia:Content forking) should be redirected here (if any new content has been added there, it can presumably be easily merged here). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:30, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Done. El_C 13:11, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I invite Buidhe to expand this article with any new sources and discuss any new names/splits here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:06, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OR issues

I'm still waiting for a source that gives the total number of children kidnapped by Nazi Germany from all countries for any reason. If such a source does not exist, then the article absolutely needs to be moved or split; it is not one topic but a collection of topics. (t · c) buidhe 07:13, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand, Buidhe. What OR issues? How would a move and/or split resolve those? Anyway, you are the one advancing the idea of there being "probably millions" of these child abductions as opposed to the significantly lower amount of ~250,000 currently maintained by the article. You cite a conference paper, which is okayish (though I don't see it saying anything along those lines in its abstract, which is all I have access to) — but isn't it imperative for you, yourself, to work toward introducing additional sources that bolster your own position? In that sense, what is it that you are "still" waiting for? I'm confused. El_C 22:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It was Molobo, not me, who inserted this text (just look at the first paragraph)[19] giving an estimate of mostly Polish and Soviet children were abducted from their homes and forcibly moved to Nazi Germany for the purpose of, forced labour, medical experiments, Germanization, or indoctrination into becoming German—when none of the sources make such an estimate (some are discussing kidnapping for Germanization only, others give a total for non-Jewish children from one country (Poland)). Depending on how you look at it, that is misrepresenting sources and/or engaging in original research.
No one has yet provided the sources that would validate the existence of this article as a combined topic. Since the sources do not deal with all kidnapping as one topic, offering grand total estimates for instance, the article should be moved and/or split.
I do find it unproductive when some editors are more interested in criticizing other editors than actually improving article content. (t · c) buidhe 23:28, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, "probably millions" is me quoting you, not anyone else. Anyway, I just thought that addressing such a serious discrepancy would be paramount. But if not, then not.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Otherwise, you're welcome to launch another RM at a time of your choosing, though I do ask that you don't make it a monthly thing. El_C 00:02, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
First, User:MyMoloboaccount, whom I believe is the principal author of this, is not very active. Hopefully he will offer a comment soon. It is quite clear more than just ethnic Poles were affected by kidnapping, through whether any one source gives a total of all such cases, I am not sure (but even if it does not, I don't see why this merits splitting). We should simply report what sources say: x thousands of Polish, y thousands of Soviet, etc. Here's a source that discusses a bunch of non-Polish children being abducted (kidnapped/conscripted/etc.) by Nazi Germany: https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=pZfk4gYUOjAC&q=tens+of+thousands&pg=PR7&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=tens%20of%20thousands&f=false]. Note that the source even groups them under 'Eastern European children label, though I am not sure it is the best possible one to consider. (I wonder if any children were kidnapped for Germanization from the east/north/south of Europe?) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Names already germanized?

About the Lebensborn document it says that the names had been germanized, and indeed these are Gean names. However, I find it unlikely that the family names "Bartel" and "Piehl" are also German versions of previously Polish names. In Germany we do not readily change names. I assume that these boys have German ancestry in the male line, even though they may have been Polish. The German authorities would have found the boys particularly suitable in this case. Aecur (talk) 13:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

18 year old children?

The article talks about 18 year old children. I don’t think those are children under any definition… 82.36.70.45 (talk) 20:21, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Crimes against humanity category removal

Crimes against humanity is a specific legal concept. In order to be included in the category, the event (s) must have been prosecuted as a crime against humanity, or at a bare minimum be described as such by most reliable sources. Most of the articles that were formerly in this category did not mention crimes against humanity at all, and the inclusion of the category was purely original research. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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