Talk:Raul Hilberg

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Contents

[edit] Zundel trials

I have removed section on Zundel trials as it's a mess. It had the POV of a holocaust denier with a little rant against open-source editing by an anti-holocaust-denier stuck in the middle of it. I don't know enough about the subject to sort the mess out, so I've cut it out entirely.

But surely if Hilberg said under oath that he had never personally witnessed any actual gassings/cremations, and had never personally verified any of his sources that should be of note? You say here that anything that can not be verified/sourced should not be taken as absolute truth(and I agree with that), yet the entire "seminal" 3-volume work had no attempts by Hilberg to check up on any facts or cross-reference anything. I will find the relevant sources with regards to the Zundel trial and Hilberg's under oath admissions of forgery and lazy research and post them here. Although it's a safe bet that someone will call it vandalism..........


Why call it vandalism, wikipedia is an honest aspiring project, isn't it. The search for truth isn't political, is it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) 11:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


I just stumbled across some number that seem odd. In Hilberg's famous work ( revised edition ) he says that the populationafter WW2 of Jews ( world or just Europe I am not sure was 17,583,057. He gives the nnumber who died during WW2 as 1,593,292. How has this number gone unchallanged by believers in the holocaust, or why hasn't it been used endlessly by deniers. This is the largest historical revision I have seen yet - the book is quite old so this must be known by most of the combatants from both sides. The numbers he gives are not far off of a natural eath rate from an acturay's table - zippo comment from the believers, I thought he would be crucified. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.63 (talk • contribs).

159.105.80.63, you make the same claim on the Criticism to Holocaust Denial Talk page. Could you please give the page reference, please? I would be glad to check the revised edition for you. But these numbers are quite unlikely.--Ninarosa 20:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


No I didn't get into Hilberg on the denial page - but I am impressed at how fast you sprang to action. Must be your shift on the watchlist, or whatever they call it. I was chasing down some other stuff and found a site that gave these numbers and some floated by the World Centre of Contemporary Jewish Documnetation out of TelAviv in 1960ish. The WCCJD had about the same numbers, on second thought they seem very close to Hilberg's earlier edition. The article I surfed thought the numbers were in toto for all of Europe ( I jumped the gun, I knew they couldn't be right but Hilberg ,ie Zundel trial, may have gotten flustered but now I think these were actually just for Auschwitz and the site I surfed got it all wrong. I believe Hilberg was in the 1,000,000 range in 1960 for Auschwitz and then bumped it to 1.5. PS I have heard about a watchlist to see if any article you check has been changed - probably good to know about, but how does your particular watchlist work. Is it a polling software from Wiki Central or just pure hard work or luck or do you just have a few articles given to oversee? But good job - ask for a raise. PSPS Do you follow me everwhere - I have seen some get mad, I think it is amusing. Would you rather have to go to math, computer, etc? Are you reading this as I type? Do you get pais, if you do, by commission - I can be busier if it would help. Do you only do holocaust/jewish stuff - is anyother thing "watched", I bet not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.63 (talk • contribs).

Sorry, but no, 159.105.80.63, I don't follow you everywhere. I came to the Hilberg page exactly to confirm if I could find the quoted numbers by you (or any number at all)here AFTER I saw what you wrote in the Criticism of Holocaust Denial talk page. I saw the same claim here and checked who had written it (two different and idependent wikieditors saying the same thing that I believe to be mistaken would drive me faster to my books than just one). Since it was the same person, well, I wanted to make sure you would read ONE of the requests for sources. Sorry if you felt harassed or anything, it was not my intention. Everytime I change something in one page, it is authomatically added to my watchlist--doesn't it happen with you as well? I don't understand what you mean about getting paid--I thought wikipedia was volunteer work. And yes, I have other stuff that I also monitor among my interests, as a matter of fact. But usually I don't find so many unquoted figures there as in the holocaust/holocaust denial pages.
Back to the subject, could you please give me the website with these numbers from the World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation? Or wherever Hilberg quote the two different figures for Auschwitz? I wonder if there was any methodological change or if it is only a larger window for his estimates.--Ninarosa 22:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


What discussion page did you say I was at talking about Hilberg? I searched the Holocaust Denial page and couldn't find that anyone had mentioned Hilberg at all, the archives only a few times. I would like to go check the page. Thanks. A search for "World Centre of Contempoary Jewish Documentation" will give you all the sites I say - mostly repeats of each other. What I originally said is what the sites say about the 1960 WCCJD - the nnmbers were for the entire war, not just Auschwitz. If you know or know anyone who could find out, what/who is the WCCJD and what happened to them. The Jewish Congress site was listed by my search engine but when I popped up the Jewish Congress site I couldn't find WCCJD mentione. Maybe they morphed into the Jewish Congress - however, in the 1960s they appeared to operate in Paris and Tel Aviv. A link to WCCJD would be appreciated or some information on their archives or successor, thanks. PS Hilberg in the Zundel trial seemed to not have heard of this group, but then he was under pressure and seemed to not remember a lot of things (XXXXX he has heard of a group called the Center for the Documentaion of Contemporary Jewry - which noone else seems to remember and can't find - or I only was directed by web search to MYJEWISHLEARNIG where it didn't have seem to have any CDCJ info. XXXXX-added later) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.63 (talk • contribs).

Sorry I found the page myself - it was the discussion page of the main Holocaust article. The holocaust denial site was locked - sort of. Nonmembers ( I don't know the term but I for one ) couldn't edit the discussion page for some time, but I noticed that some others seemed to be able to ( by the dates ). It appears we are both trying to find thee "real" WCCJD - the Jewish Congress may be the best bet. As far as I can see they appear to have disappeared - if they were a real group ( it seems they must have been ) they certainly weren't helping the cause.PSPS Another odd number - one source on the web says that Hilberg many years ago used the number 896,892 as the total deaths. Now he uses 5.1 million ( rounded number only ). 6,000,000 minus 896,892 = 5,103,108. Was the 896,892 the number who survived? The number 5.1 stays firm through all kinds of editions - I wonder how 5.1 is the most reliable number ( not withstanding explanations as to shuffling numbers between camps etc ). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.63 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Writing in haste is a harsh mistress

Removed IHR link, oops, I mistook the title to mean that it was Hilberg writing on Faurisson, not Faurisson writing on Hilberg (!). El_C

  • Sorry, was going to finish this tonight, I intended to, at minium give this enough basis as I did for tDotEJ, but a discussion at another (unrelated) article has drained all the energy out of me. Oh well, after a couple of years of never having been written, it can wait a little while. The DoTEJ can certainly be vastly expanded, so I ugre other editors to contribute to it. Ditto for this one, too.El_C

[edit] Bogdangiusca

Bogdangiusca, standrdization of the ext. links following the bib. or vice versa isn't a rule, it is just a standard practice. There is room for exception and in this article I believe it is warranted. Please cease reverting until we can arrive at a consensus. Also, note that the article is not finished yet. El_C

[edit] Nicely done

Nicely done, Buffyg! El_C 11:24, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link leads to the wrong person?

"..completing military service in World War II, writing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Franz Neumann." This is supposedly around the mid 20th-century but the link leads to someone who died in 1895. I don't know enough about either Neumann to fix it.

[edit] Sources

I did a bit of a copy edit. There seems to have been confusion about the references section. Books by him come under Bibliography or Works. References (called Sources by some editors) should list books or articles used as sources of information in the article, even if they repeat some of the material in Bibliography. Further reading should list any books or articles of further interest, which are not in either of the other two sections. I can't fix it, because I don't know which books were used as sources. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Functionalist/intentionalist: thanks, Viz, I missed those ones. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


[Re: Revisionist websites]

The first link points to a revisionist webiste (http://www.vho.org), and the Jerusalem Indymedia link contains material which is copied from a revisionist website (http://www.fpp.co.uk) as well.

PS: I do not know how to properly edit the discussion page, but someone might want to consider removing the above links (it does reflect rather badly on Wikipedia to have these "references" as external sources).


These may be excellent sources if one wants a complete picture of his work - of course they may be terrible sources if not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) 11:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish-Romanian?

I added a <citation needed> tag to that statement, as there is no source to support that and no other reference within the article itself or the article's discussion page. Hilberg is obviously a Germanic name, so at least one of his ancestors must have had Germanic roots and a reverse migration from Romania is not supported by historical facts. I would like to see some sources to support that fact. There is a reference to this in a Haaretz article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/907398.html), but while Haaretz is an excellent newspaper, it too needs to have its sources cited and cannot be independently cited as evidence, especially since I could not find any other reference. It could as well be that Haaretz copied from the Wikipedia article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sufitul (talk • contribs) 17:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I have eliminated your request for a source for the Polish-Romanian ancestry once more. I wrote most of the article, and got that information from Yehuda Bauer's article in Ha'aretz. You may footnote the source from the Ha'aretz article if you think it requires one, but Yehuda Bauer is a great historian, was a personal friend of Hilberg's, and made his remark in a reliable source. Ha'aretz did not get the information from wiki, wiki, via my edit, got it from Ha'aretz. Your questioning the veracity of what Bauer states is legitimate as a personal suspicion: but Wiki does not require 'the truth' it requires simply Reliable Sources for textual edits, and both Bauer and Ha'aretz fit those requirements. If you independently do come up with detail that contradicts Bauer's testimony, by all means revise the text. Nishidani (talk) 09:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The preeminent scholar

The page had previously stated that Hillberg is "the world's preeminent scholar" of the Nazi Holocaust, but no information was given to support this very debatable claim. I changed the wording to "a preeminent scholar" only to have my change undone by an unregistered user. I remedied this situation, but would like to hear opposing views in this forum. Thanks! Jules1236 (talk) 06:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The definite article ensues from the 'preeminent' which means 'excelling others'. Technically, in English, you cannot be called 'preeminent' in your field when several others are also 'preeminent' in the same field, as if they 'excelled each other'. It is thus a question of correct usage. Hilberg is dead, so 'is' = 'was'. I prefer 'doyen'. His book was pathfinding, bracketed for some decades in Germany as unpublishable, though influencing two generations of holocaust researchers profoundly. To question his historical eminence in the field, that he indeed opened up, and dominated that field, preeminently, requires citing figures who, over the period 1960-1990 acquired the repute he had among his peers. German sources I am familiar with constantly use the word 'Doyen'. I see nothing POV is giving the great man the credit his peers around the world accorded him.Nishidani (talk) 11:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed the word "preeminent" because you're right about the wording of that. When we have some kind of citation that he was the greatest Holocaust scholars of all time (I can't imagine what that citation would look like) then the article can say so. While Hilberg was an undeniably brilliant man, it seems a bit of a stretch to insinuate that the genocide of 6 million people in the middle of the 20th Century in the middle of Western Europe would go undiscussed were it not for this one man. Keep in mind that the Adolph Eichman trials and the publication of the Diary of Anne Frank were occuring around this same time, raising consciousness about the Holocaust in the minds of millions of people. Jules1236 (talk) 06:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Please don't make caricatures. Hilberg wrote the seminal early post-war account of the Holocaust. He was regarded as the doyen in his field for many decades (easy to document). Later, Israel Gutman and Yehuda Bauer earned on their merits a similar title, as Hilberg aged, and published less. No one is insinuating anything. If you read his record, he had immense difficulties in publishing his work on the Holocaust at that early period. I don't care in this context what millions of people think. I care what scholars thought of Raul Hilberg, and even those who equal him in learning, like Bauer, bow their heads to the power and unique intelligence of his pathfinding work, and we lesser mortals should not niggle at a word that justly marks his achievement. I have fixed the introductory words that puzzle you on the analogy of a phrase I read a few days ago about another great scholar. I.e. Gordon Craig whom Geoff Eley in his The Goldhagen Effect: History, Memory, Nazism--Facing the German Past, writes of as 'doyen of the older generation of American historians of Germany’ (University of Michigan Press 2000 pp.154-5)Nishidani (talk) 10:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why have you removed this book from further reading?

Austerlitz -- 88.72.27.216 (talk) 17:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Because you gave no reason for its inclusion. Nishidani (talk) 18:10, 14 March 2008 (UTC)