Talk:Rudolf Vrba/archive1

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Contents

Sources

(Hit again by the page uploading while I was still typing into the edit summary. I guess this is better here anyway:) The sentence "The Vrba-Wetzler report was in the hands of the Hungarian Jewish leadership in late April or early May, 1944..." is a summary of Bauer's conclusions in his book cited on the page and is heavily documented by him. --Zerotalk 09:45, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I replaced this sentence by what was there before: "Although its release to the Hungarian leadership was delayed until after the mass transport of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz had begun, the report — which became known as the Auschwitz Protocols or the Vrba-Wetzler report — is nevertheless credited with having saved 100,000 lives." This is not correct. The Hungarian leadership had the report quite early, definitely before the mass deportation of the Hungarian Jews. This is very well documented in many places, of which the book of Bauer is a good example and the academic article of Linn in Journal of Genocide Research agrees. I can easily bring extra impeccable sources. That is what the controversy surrounding Kasztner is all about. Furthermore, it was the effect of the report on stopping the deportation while it was incomplete that is the source of the most credible argument that the report saved a lot of lives. This was mostly achieved by pressure on thhe Hungarian government from many directions. --Zerotalk 09:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Explanation of edits

Explanation of edits:

1) V&W did not themselves save these lives, but they certainly helped, if only unwittingly. They did not know about the impenidng Hungarian deportations.

2) That they didn't know follows from the fact that they didn't mention them in their reports, even though they did mention the rumors about some impending Greek transports.

3) "Because it was the first report to attempt to estimate the numbers being murdered in Auschwitz, it is regarded as one of the most important documents of the 20th century." This is non sequitur. Besides, the estimates were not correct.

4) Conway's quote is wrong, because about 400,000+ were deported, not "nearly half a million". Of them about 3/4 were gassed (320,000).

5) 437,000 were deported out of Hungary, but about 15,000 of them arrived at Strasshof, not at Auschwitz.

--Polyphem 12:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on these points. --Zerotalk 12:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Polyphem, please don't delete sourced material, although you may of course find another source and add to it. Conway is a professor of history and was a personal friend of Vrba's. He's not giving an exact figure and 400,000 is "nearly half a million." You also can't add your own opinion of Vrba's claim to have overhead the guards discussing other arrivals (though if you have a source casting doubt on this, by all means cite it), and you can't delete that a named source has called it "one of the most important documents of the 20th century," just because you disagree with the figures (unless you find a source saying "it's sometimes called one of the most important documents of the 20th century, but this is nonsense because ..." I'm also not sure what you mean by "non sequitur" in this context. Please see WP:V and WP:NOR.
I haven't finished the edits I started to make. In particular, the Auschwitz Protocols is a mixture of two reports: one from Vrba and another from two other escapees. I have a source and I'll be adding the information over the weekend. I'll also be tidying up the references, making it clearer which bits come from which source. Also, what is meant by "original copies" of the report, as opposed to "copies"? SlimVirgin (talk) 12:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Lots of libraries have copies of the report and the contents have been published repeatedly. What those libraries have are original typescripts from 1944 when the report was first being disseminated. I don't know the ideal wording, but "copies" seems too vague. --Zerotalk 12:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Zero, I wish you'd stop this. It's really tiresome. If you mean original typescripts, say so; don't say copies. Please explain the other changes you want to make. SlimVirgin (talk) 12:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
You wrote "copies" first, not me. All the changes I have made, including correcting all the errors that you introduced, are explained above. Have you read any of the serious literature on this subject? --Zerotalk 12:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't try to patronize me, Zero. You have no qualifications or professional experience in this area. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
And there is hardly anyone who reverts without discussion more than you do. --Zerotalk 12:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Please stop this destructive behavior. I came to this article last night to expand it because I know something about it. I stopped, but intended, and still intend, to continue. I come back to it to see material deleted for no reason and personal opinions of Wikipedians added, and you, as usual, with your revert, revert, revert tactics, so that editing becomes impossible.
I KNOW that the report was published in the UK and U.S. I'm going to add something about that, just not in the intro, and it will be properly sourced, unlike your additions. Please discuss the issues on talk before deleting material. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, I will certainly delete _incorrect_ information, sourced or not, if I wish to.

"Conway is a professor of history and was a personal friend of Vrba's. He's not giving an exact figure and 400,000 is "nearly half a million.""

320,000 is not "nearly half a million".

"You also can't add your own opinion of Vrba's claim to have overhead the guards discussing other arrivals (though if you have a source casting doubt on this, by all means cite it)"

OK.

"and you can't delete that a named source has called it "one of the most important documents of the 20th century,"

I can delete whatever is incorrect. That a statement is sourced does not mean it is correct, otherwise Holocaust deniers will be able to add their information, which will be sourced. Should I add "Vrba is regarded as a liar", and add links to "revisionist" articles?

"just because you disagree with the figures (unless you find a source saying "it's sometimes called one of the most important documents of the 20th century, but this is nonsense because ..." I'm also not sure what you mean by "non sequitur" in this context."

This is easy. That the report was allegedly the first to make estimates (this is incorrect, of course) does not make it one of the most important documents of 20th century, especially when these estimates were far off.

You simply don't seem to know much about the topic of the Holocaust, and you seem to lack critical thinking skills. --Polyphem 13:18, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

More reverting. What this means is that I won't be able to expand the material within the next 24 hours because of 3RR, so you and Zero have succesfully scuppered the page's development. Before you get too critical of me, you might want to look at the mess it was in before I started editing it. [1]
You may NOT delete relevant, sourced material just because you personally disagree with it. You have made 28 edits to the encyclopedia, and so now you should go and read our content policies (WP:V and WP:V particularly) before continuing, because you can't simply turn up and edit in your own opinions. I will be restoring your deletions as soon as the 24 hours is up. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
You seem to have missed the third rule: "The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it." It's up to you to prove that sources you used (Hume, etc.) are reputable for this topic. Hume is a journalist, nothing more. Also, you made factually incorrect claims - that Vrba and Wetzler are widely regarded as saviours of 100,000 lives (they're not; at most, they're regarded so by some, including you), that "Because it was the first report to attempt to estimate the numbers being murdered in Auschwitz, it is regarded as one of the most important documents of the 20th century" (it may be regarded so by SOME, including you; the claim that it was the first such report is incorrect - and thus the source making such a claim is not reputable.)
You've misunderstood what you're calling "the third rule". It is NOT for individual editors to pick and choose between reliable sources. Material published in a mainstream newspaper is regarded as citable, end of story, and it's not for you to decide otherwise. We have no idea who you are. Readers arriving at Wikipedia don't want read material from Polyphempedia. Your opinions, with respect, are irrelevant, as are mine. We publish what reliable sources have published, with "reliable" being more or less defined as "mainstream" or "appropriate," and the definitions of those terms are left to the commonsense of the editors on the page. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:34, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
As for us "scuppered" part - I have removed or amended incorrect claims which you either made or simply ignored. The article is certainly better now than it was before. And it will stay that way. Don't try to introduce irrelevancies or try to present someone's incorrect opinions as facts (rather than opinions). --Polyphem 14:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
"And it will stay that way"? Are you threatening to disrupt editing on this page? SlimVirgin (talk) 01:34, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Sources

  • I'm writing this without having looked at Polyphem's recent changes, so I don't know whether or not I will support them. When you (Slim) came to this article a few days ago, everything in the article except the date of death was derived from the academic sources listed at the bottom of the page. There was one incorrect datum (the number "5" of Jews who escaped from Auschwitz; actually it was at least 12), but otherwise it matched the best available sources. Then you arrived armed with some newspaper story and proceeded to make changes that included replacing proven historical facts by incorrect claims. You did this without explaining it or even noting it in your edit summaries ("expanding" doesn't cover it). You should have at least asked where that material came from before replacing it since the the presence of the sources including a book by the foremost Holocaust historian alive today should have alerted you to the possibility that the material here came from good sources. I would have been happy to oblige and even to send you scans of articles you can't obtain, as other editors can testify.
  • I'm not claiming that none of your additions were any good; some were obviously fine.
  • Your statements above about "reliable sources" are hard to take seriously. Please look at WP:RS#History for a discussion of what constitutes a reliable source in History. Yes, we are supposed to evaluate the reliability of our sources; that's why the major part of WP:RS is devoted to giving advice on how to make that evaluation. It is not the same as evaluating the information, which I agree we generally shouldn't do. Newspapers are a good source for contemporary history, like what happened yesterday, but when ordinary journalists write articles on older events they don't have any special claim to reliability and they often make mistakes. When an expert source and a non-expert source disagree on something, we should go with the expert source. That's not only common sense but the clear message of WP:RS. --Zerotalk 03:15, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
The main newspaper source that I arrived "armed with," as you put it, was written by a journalist who interviewed Vrba, so it's an excellent source. In future, Zero, please cite your sources throughout the text. If you only add them to the references section at the end, it's impossible to know what's sourced and what isn't. As for your interpretation of RS, I'm not going to argue with you about it here. All I can say is that I started to make a series of edits, which would have taken several hours, but I was stopped by reverting and deleting, even though I made clear on the talk page that I had only just started. It would have made more sense for you to wait until I had finished, then you could have judged the end result. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:34, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments on the Auschwitz Report (Wetzler and Vrba Report)

The following NOTEs were made by 85.130.149.42 (LPfeffer) in the article. I'm moving them here. --Zerotalk 03:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Worth studying how the report got to be called the "Vrba-Wetzler report", since Wetzler was the senior member of the escape team and was the planner. Perhaps this change in emphasis occured since after the war Vrba (nee Rosenberg) was in the free West and was thus able to express himself much more freely in writing, talks and the media. The report is generally called the Auschwitz Report and at times Auschwitz Protocol and not the Wetzler-Vrba Report (in part because although they supplied information for it they did not author it).

It is unfortunate that Vrba was also given prominance in Prof. Linn's book (Haifa University, where Vrba received an honorary PhD), without at least equal recognition for Wetzler's role. Slovak born Jewish historians are uneasy about this.

This is meta-history: showing how historical perceptions are shaped.

After debriefing Wetzler and Vrba the Auschwitz Report was written by members of the legendary Bratislava "Working Group", which immediately disseminated the report to major Jewish organizations in the free world. The recipients received and "filed" the report, and chose not to act on it. Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl's (Working Group co-leader with Gizi Fleischmann) version of the Report (probably in Yiddish - to be verified wity Dr. David Kranzler, who discovered this) finally reached George Mantello (Mandel Gyuri) in Switzerland via Moshe Krausz in Budapest (brought to Switerland by a Romanian diplomat at great risk). Mantello was a Hungarian-Romanian born Jew who managed to escape to Switzerland, where he had extensive contacts and was with the El Salvador Embassy, where he issued many valuable protection papers smuggled into Nazi occupied countries. Within a day after receipt in late Spring 1944 he publicized the Report's content. This triggered a major grass roots protest movement in Switzerland (including press, churches, demonstrations) which, in turn, led to the stopping of the transports from Hungary and set the stage for the Wallenberg rescue mission tio Budapest. Earlier in 1944 President Roosevelt finally agreed to act after incessant and inspired pressure by major Jewish rescuer Hillel Kook (also known as Peter Bergson) and his team. This resulted in setting up the War Refugee Board in January 1944, which supported the Wallenberg mission.

Dr. David Kranzler's book on Mantello extensively documents these series of events. Major Holocaust centers fail to adequately publicize these and related strategic rescue activities. Interestingly, much of this part of Holocaust history was already researched and written about by Jenő Lévai in 1948 in Hungary, thus ignoring these events and the impoortant network relationships was/is a conscious choice.

It is also telling that on this Web page Dr. Bauer's name is associated with this story. There are other historians, like Dr. David Kranzler, who researched, interviewed, published and lectured extensively on the Auschwitz Report, on its dissemination, on George Mantello, and on the Swiss grass roots protest and its important effects - especially for Hungary's Jews. It is to be noted that unlike Dr. David Kranzler, Dr. Abraham Fuchs and many other historians in his writings and talks Dr. Bauer de-emphasizes Rabbi Weissmandl's role.

Although the Report was widely disseminated by the Working Group, surprisingly it is not easy to find originals of the Report in two major Jerusalem archives.

References:

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ber_Weissmandl (especially "Discussion")

Dr. Abraham Fuchs, The Unheeded Cry (also in Hebrew as "Karati ve ein oneh")

Prof. David Kranzler, Thy Brother's Blood

Prof. David Kranzler, The Man who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: George Mantello, El Salvador's and Switzerland's finest hour

Jenö Lévai, Zsidósors Európában (published in 1948 in Hungarian, about George Mantello and the major Swiss grass roots protests against the Holocaust)

Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, Min HaMetzar (From the Straights), in Hebrew

VERAfilm, Among Blind Fools (documentary video frk Prague)


LPfeffer Original comments early April 2006 - edited on April 22, 2006

The minimisation of Wetzler's role originated with Vrba himself and he was often criticised for it. Wetzler wrote a book on it but it is very hard to obtain and not translated I think. --Zerotalk 03:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
True. Yet ... many historains know the facts. The interesting fact is that it is very difficult to dislodge historiacal biases, changes in emphasis, etc. LPfeffer April 22, 2006

Anon edits

Jay, I've removed the anon's recent edits, because the way you wrote the controversy section was very balanced and complete without them. I feel the new edits made it too long, and were about Eichmann rather than Vrba. Perhaps the Life quote could go in a footnote? Otherwise, the section is looking really good. You've done excellent work on it. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The Life quotes were from an unreliable source, too much about Eichmann, and repeated other information in the article. I'll try to incorporate the point it is making. Jayjg (talk) 20:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Bauer

I'm just about to go overseas (should be packing) so I have no time to edit. I just want to note that Bauer's 2002 book "rethinking the holocaust" (all lowercase on the book!) has a chapter on the V-W report and there he revises some of the opinions he gave earlier in "Jews for Sale" on the basis of things he learnt since 1997. --Zerotalk 03:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Zero. I'll have a look for it. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

(Barely) not the first escapees

The first Jewish escapee was two days before them (on April 5, 1944), a Jew named Siegfried Lederer, together with --- and assisted by --- an SS NCO named Viktor Pestek who had fallen in love with one of the prisoners. (Lederer was disguised in an SS uniform.) He got to Theresienstadt, and tried to get the inmates to listen to him, without success.

See, e.g., http://www.holocaustcenterpgh.net/4-4.html

(I was in a lecture by Ruth Linn some days ago, which is how I know of Lederer at all.)

Also, I do not think Rudolf Vrba was ever at Weizmann --- but rather at the Israel Institute for Biological Research, in Nes Ziona (just north of the Weizmann Institute) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.77.4.43 (talk • contribs)

Thanks, 132. I'll take a look at the link later. It's not letting me in for some reason. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Although info arived in tome? or unfortunetly it didn't?

In reference to the passage:

"Although Vrba's information arrived in time to save the 437,000 Hungarian Jews who were deported to Auschwitz, that period was one of intense political turmoil in Hungary"

I think this was originally a typo since it seems like the rest of the article was saying it was too late for the ones already deported. Am I wrong here?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Moshe, thanks for noticing this. I had just written it badly. I meant to say that the report had arrived before the deportations began i.e. in time to save the Jews who were deported, but unfortunately it didn't (save them), perhaps because it wasn't distributed early enough, although some historians argue it would have made no difference if it had been distributed, because people would not have believed it anyway. I've rephrased. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Where Vrba told his story

First, allow me to say that I've been following the contents of this page even before Vrba died (when it just had one paragraph) and I must say that I am extremely impressed by the effort, accuracy, and dedication of everyone who has edited this page. This goes especially to the most active members SlimVirgin, Jayjg, Zero, and LPfeffer (my apologies if I've missed someone).

Rudolf Vrba was a great man, larger than life. I am proud and humbled to be able to say that I knew him personally. I also know Dr. Ruth Linn personally. More on this later, perhaps. But for now, just on the minor edit that I just made: The comment that Dromi claimed that Vrba told his story on the miniseries "Holocaust" in 1978 that was shown on Israeli TV is incorrect. Dromi does not say this in the article, nor did Vrba tell his story in that miniseries. Dromi simply is pointing out that not all information received by the Israeli public comes from textbooks. Vrba actually told his story in Claude Lanzman's film, "Shoah", in 1987, or about a decade later than the showing of the miniseries "Holocaust" on Israeli TV.

OK, that's it for now. Please keep on doing the great work that you've been doing so far, and I'll jump in once in a while to contribute too.

User_talk:Escamoso 11:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

One more thing: I went again to the translation of Dromi's article in English and it appears that in the English translation it does claim that Vrba told his story in the miniseries. I am pretty sure that this is an error in translation since I don't recall that this claim appeared in the original Hebrew article. I'll try to dig up the Hebrew article and verify this. However, in any case, Vrba did not tell his story in the miniseries "Holocaust", which is a fictionalized series anyway and not a documentary. See the following link from wikipedia itself: Holocaust_(miniseries)

So if Dromi infact did make the claim in the original Hebrew article, then it is wrong and the error should not be propagated to this page.

User_talk:Escamoso 11:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I was right! It is an error in translation. You can see that the claim does not appear in the original Hebrew version of Dromi's article, see here: http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=531825&contrassID=2

I'll add this link to "Further reading" too, for good measure.

User_talk:Escamoso 11:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Escamoso. Thanks for spotting that. I'd assumed that when it said his story was told on Israeli tv when it broadcast Holocaust, that he was interviewed before or after it, because as you say, it was a drama. When you say it's a mistranslation, is there some reference in the Hebrew that this has been mistaken for, or is it simply not there? If the latter, the author may have added it later to the English version. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Slimvirgin - thanks again for your many contributions to this page. In the original Hebrew article Dromi cites the miniseries "Holocaust" as an example of how non-textbook material reaches the Israeli public, hence countering Linn's assertion that the most important way to reach Israelis is through textbooks. At no point in the Hebrew article does Dromi say that Vrba told his story in the miniseries. I assume that the translator thought that Dromi was referring to Claude Lanzman's "Shoah" (which translates into "Holocaust", the same name as the series) and hence the confusion in the translation. When the Hebrew and English versions of Dromi's article are compared you can see that the error in translation is very subtle and I can understand how the translator could make such a mistake, especially since Claude Lanzman's "Shoah" is mentioned elsewhere in that article.
User_talk:Escamoso 10:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I see. Thank you. That is very helpful. :-) There is more work to be done on the story. His early life needs to be filled in, and I want to add more details about the alleged suppression of his name from the history books. I'm just waiting for some books I ordered to arrive, and they're taking a very long time, but as soon as I have them, I'll be adding some more. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

First detailed information?

The article states that The 32-page Vrba-Wetzler Report [2] [3] was the first detailed information about Auschwitz to reach the Allies. Yet, through Witold Pilecki the Allies had already since 1941 detailed information from inside Auschwitz. His written report describing the genocide taking place in Auschwitz (Witold's report) was sent in 1943 to the Allies who didn't do anything with it.

We should probably add that it was the most detailed and the first to be believed. As I understand it, the Polish report was not regarded as credible for whatever reason. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)