Talk:Sobibor extermination camp

Chain of Command subtitles

Under Sobibor extermination camp#Chain of Command, the first five sub-titles are of the form "job, Germans and Austrians" (e.g. "Commandant, Germans and Austrians"). This is ambiguous, and could mean a list of three things, or that the job was done by Germans and Austrians (which is what I suspect is meant). I'd like to change the format to "job (Germans and Austrians)". Comments, objections? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

For some reason, the trial of John Demjanjuk has been repeated twice here. Valleyspring (talk) 05:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Libodenko Wartownick? I doubt the surname is real - Wartownik is a Polish word meaning "sentry" or "guard", "watchman". Treating this word as a surname sounds odd.

Requested move (2014)

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:15, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

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Sobibor extermination camp → Sobibór extermination camp – Is the name of this camp Sobibor or Sobibór? Shouldn't we try to be uniform about it? --Relisted. EdJohnston (talk) 01:19, 1 April 2014 (UTC) Hoops gza (talk) 20:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support Comment (see below). The current name comes from the German Vernichtungslager Sobibor, but the actual placename was and still is Sobibór; that's how we find it on a map of Poland. Auschwitz is an exception, because it was a complex of camps spanning dozens of nearby locations, as oppose to Chełmno extermination camp for example (note the Polish spelling, in German it was called Kulmhof). Poeticbent talk 20:48, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

We can also go the other way around and keep the German spelling of all camps in Poland: i.e. Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec (not Bełżec), but then it would only make sense to rename the camps in other languages as well, for example the Sajmište concentration camp on the outskirts of Belgrade, renamed to Semlin concentration camp from the German Judenlager Semlin (officially), etc. Poeticbent talk 21:16, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The second sentence in this article's lead states that "the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibór" (unsourced).Hoops gza (talk) 21:22, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Comment The move request isn't really a request. Once the correct title has been established, then this should be moved, if applicable. Both the German and Polish article are spelt Sobibor not Sobibór.Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 12:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

In the German Wiki we have "Vernichtungslager Belzec" and in the Polish Wiki "death camp (obóz zagłady) in Bełżec" so they are not spelt consistently there. Poeticbent talk 13:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Other languages have no direct bearing on the article name. The only relevant question is how the name is most commonly spelled in English. While Google Ngrams aren't always perfect, the evidence here says that it isn't even close [1]. Moving would be an error. 172.9.22.150 (talk) 15:42, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the results are quite compelling: about 49,100 results for "Sobibor", and about 2,840 results for "Sobibór". Perhaps we should run a similar test on all of the above names, what do you think? Poeticbent talk 18:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

No, since the Google Book Search OCR doesn't recognize diacritical marks, that approach in not useful. If you click through to the book hits for Sobibor, you find one with accent out of the first few. There are a few in the ngram with accents, because not all data comes via OCR. Dicklyon (talk) 02:23, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Per Dicklyon, and also Poeticbent I don't understand your search above. Surely we need to search in English books which can/do have full fonts for Polish names, like Wikipedia can and does, and then see if they drop the u (I assume everyone realises that ó indicates a u-sound in Polish not an accented o), only then can we claim that reliable sources are giving the camp a special "English" name. But as it stands a look through Google Books shows that full-font English books are all spelling the camp as it is pronounced in Polish. e.g. Heberer Children During the Holocaust Page 172, Niewyk The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust Page 208 and so on. Not a single reliable-for-spelling source seems to be spelling the camp differently from the village. So why should we? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:36, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Re: search from above. Please click on the link.[2] You will see the two lines; at the end of the first one is "sobibor" (hotlinked), and at the end of the second line is "sobibór". Open them in separate tabs if you want. The trick is that the "sobibór" link (with diacritic) displays the results in Google transliterated as "sobib%C3%B3r" so no other results could show up. Poeticbent talk 04:51, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Poeticbent, how does this relate to my comment? So some English books are equipped with full fonts and some aren't. So what exactly? Wikipedia is equipped with full fonts and uses them. I repeat the question, why should we deliberately misspell (or underspell) a Polish place name? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

In the opening line you said you don't understand that search, which btw wasn't mine. I explained its unique nature, that's all. But we also have a WP: Common name policy/guideline here which says (quote): "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources..." that's why I remain undecided. Poeticbent talk 00:35, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the policy; we're not calling it Sobibór in anyway because it's an "official name", but because it's wikipedia's policies & guidelines to use diacritics in such cases. ^walk victor falk ^talk 00:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Exactly as Victor says. The guideline Poeticbent you are citing specifically gives a French president with a cedilla as an example that common name does not relate to fonts/MOS issues. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, I hear you. I changed my vote back to support, but we need to deal with Bełżec as well, if this is going to fly. Poeticbent talk 12:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Let's forestall that. I have restored that to 2009-2012 title per WP:AT Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles and WP:COMMONNAME in English sources such as Dan Stone. You're correct that there's no reason why it should be different. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support - per WP:AT Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. the fact that it is Sobibór "extermination camp" (small 'e', small 'c') shows that this is simply a descriptive title. We therefore do not have to worry about the German names, nor try and create an "English" name for a Polish village. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support per In ictu oculi. Wikipedia articles commonly include diacritics in such cases, pergeographical naming conventions. ^walk victor falk ^talk 07:17, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - If this page is renamed, then its category tree should be nominated for speedy renaming, which is perfectly fine. But what about the navbox for this camp? Is there a bot that can change the text on each page on which the navbox appears?Hoops gza (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Semion Rozenfeld

Semion Rozenfeld was one of the Russian-Jewish soldiers who escaped. He rejoined the Russian army and took Berlin, defeating Germany and ending that countries involvement in World War II. Will someone please add him to this article?

http://www.pbs.org/program/escape-nazi-death-camp/ http://www.longshadowofsobibor.com/interview/semion-rozenfeld

-Teetotaler 21 May, 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.62.129.34 (talk) 18:28, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Article Update

I have updated the article with new information about the location of the gas chambers. But clearly this article should be arranged with perhaps a separate "Archaeological" section. See this article to get a better idea of the rather extensive work that is presently taking place. Also, evidence is suggesting that more than 250,000 were killed there - the finding of the gas chamber could clarify this further. Furthermore, this article could describe the "road to heaven" better, especially in light of this new evidence that has been found. Nodekeeper (talk) 12:13, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

For more a more detailed Archaeological (earlier ca. 2008) survey before the last link, This has quite detailed information. (Scroll Down) The place where they found the chambers is not far from where the large 60's era monument was erected. In this picture ca. 2007 it would be in the small (paved) clearing to the left of the larger field. What the paper/article mentions is that the green shading of grass belies the location mass graves outside of the central circular mound. I invite other editors to keep watch for a more recent similar overhead picture esp. one that could be used in the article. Nodekeeper (talk) 13:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Commanders and Chain of command

The 2 sections on commanders (previously "Aftermath") and "Chain of command" should be merged somehow. Not sure how though :) Peteruetz (talk) 18:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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Ngram Viewer

Ngram Search in Google Books reveals that between 1940 and 2008 the use of placename Sobibor in English literature (without the Polish diacritic) which peaked in 1986 has declined considerably in the last decade. In the same timeframe the use of Sobibór (with the diacritic) remained low by comparison nevertheless. There's no comparative data of anykind after 2008 in Ngram Viewer.[3]

Blatt as source of over 40 citations

Much emphasis is put in this article on the first-person account of Thomas Toivi Blatt born in 1927. Blatt was chopping off women's hair at the Camp II Vorlager at the age of 15, and escaped during the uprising of October 1943, whilst supposedly possessing intricate knowledge of the Alexander Pechersky's thoughts and ideas. After the Soviet takeover of Poland, Blatt was wearing the uniform of a functionary either of the dreaded Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (NKVD-UB) or the political propaganda division of the communist army – as the collar-patch in his portrait featured at Blatt's biography indicates. It is a known fact that both formations engaged in extrajudicial killings of the cursed soldiers. However, there's nothing in his biography about this decade.

Blatt left Poland immediately after the anti-Stalinist Polish October of 1956–57. Over twenty years later he flew from Los Angeles to Rostov and met Pechersky in person. Pechersky was in his seventies in 1980 and spoke Russian. They didn't use translators during their interviews; and no tapes of the Pechersky's recollections were made on a tape-recorder either. Nevertheless, their meeting in the Soviet Union resulted in two nonfiction books: The Forgotten Revolt and From The Ashes of Sobibor (with French, German, and Polish translations), along with feature film Escape From Sobibor of 1987 with landslide revenues. The problems with our article trying to state things about Sobibor as facts in Wikipedia's editorial voice go even deeper. The presence of the Soviet POWs at Sobibor drew considerable interest from the Soviet NKVD after World War Two, and greatly impacted on the western court proceedings. Pechersky was prevented by the Soviet government from testifying in multiple international trials related to Sobibor and repeatedly refused the permission to exit the country. Due to his absence at the trials, no independent testimony from Pechersky exists. All information was filtered by the Soviet political apparatus.

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For all intents, Thomas Blatt is a primary source, not a secondary one. There are over 40 citations from Blatt featured in this article, originating from Sobibor - The Forgotten Revolt. Among the more recommended and readily available third-party sources there is also Sobibor: A History of a Nazi Death Camp by Jules Schelvis released in 2014, and the Escape from Sobibor: Revised and Updated Edition by Richard Rashke from 2012. Rashke interviewed 18 Sobibor survivors, including Blatt, and structured his book around those recolections. In his Introduction Rashke wrote: "there were some contradictions because survivors either embellished details over the years, and then accepted the exaggerations as facts, or confused rumors with reality." Poeticbent talk 19:27, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Concur with the sentiment expressed. The citations should be attributed to Blatt, and where available secondary sources would be preferred. If you'd be willing to review and update, that would be great. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:39, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks K.e.coffman, I will get down to it without further ado. Poeticbent talk 05:38, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

POWs in the lead

Come on, people, the article talks about the Soviet prisoners of war in the uprising section. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 19:10, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

The article as it is now, indicating that this was an extermination camp for Jews (and that some of those Jews were Soviet POWs), is fine. What I objected to was the previous attempt to deceptively present this as a camp for Jews AND Soviet POws. Compare and contrast : "Jews from Poland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (including Soviet POWs)" [current], vs. "Jews from Poland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, as well as Soviet POWs," [previous deception]. Firkin Flying Fox (talk) 13:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Not quite, No Cal or whoever. You have a couple of hundred edits, quite a few specializing in reverting my work, and turned up here where you have never edited to revert a quite uncontroversial adjustment I made. You even reverted out a second edit I made to meet possible objections, and now state that you think what you cancelled is 'fine'. In now underwriting the reformulation I made, you are tacitly admitting you were reverting at sight because of the handle of the editor who did it, not on the merits of the edit itself. Duly noted.Nishidani (talk) 17:54, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Your original edit was deceptive, and I rightly reverted it. Your second one is acceptable, and I originally reverted it only because I was misled by your edit summary which stated "Undid revision 734928417 by Firkin Flying Fox (talk) That some of the Soviet Jews were Red Army POWs is a common knowledge" , when you in fact did not revert me, but changed your original misleading edit. Firkin Flying Fox (talk) 20:47, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

And, this tactic of trying to silence people who disagree with you by alleging they are sock-puppets of the evil No Cal or whatever is getting old. It was checked twice already, so give it a rest. Firkin Flying Fox (talk) 20:50, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Digging yourself a deeper hole. If you have so few edits, and consistently pop up on pages just after I edit them again, to revert, that's one signal, loud and clear, that there's something odd going on. One doesn't revert on the basis of an edit summary - you should revert after you examine the merits of the content edited. I'm not trying to silence you. I've made no complaint. I know more or less you are a throwaway account by a banned user, probably No Cal, but I don't really care. It doesn't worry me. I generally don't allow what I quietly note to disturb my editing. Nishidani (talk) 21:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Still trying to deflect attention from your deceptive editing, I see. Firkin Flying Fox (talk) 22:27, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Nishidani—"Comment on content, not on the contributor." (WP:TPYES). Bus stop (talk) 23:49, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Sure, so give me your informed view of the merits of the content FFF tried to cancel.Nishidani (talk) 06:25, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

faulty & "dangerous" external links

code 404 (does not exist): http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/resources/sobibor.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/institute/sobibor_excavations.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki

blocked by firefox & panda anti-virus pro: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.net/ar/sobibor.html

The problems identified have now been fixed. Uglemat (talk) 17:20, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Apologies for the rollback, now corrected. The difference in the .NET and .ORG TLDs slipped by me. Thanks for thinking to check up on the difference!

Cadar (talk) 20:35, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

No worries! :) Uglemat (talk) 20:38, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 14 March 2019

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 section.

The result of the move request was: Moved as proposed. No sources were found or put forward to contradict the claims of WP:COMMONNAME (non-admin closure) Red Slash 01:12, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

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Sobibór extermination camp → Sobibor extermination camp – Please see Google nGram, showing a clear trend in recent decades to use "death camp" qualifier: [4]. I don't think that diacritic is needed either, as this was not a Polish death camp, and most Holocaust literature appears to use the name without. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:44, 14 March 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Bradv🍁 04:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Updated to Sobibor extermination camp, per discussion below. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose both the deliberate misspelling of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship, and the change of Book source name to death camp In ictu oculi (talk) 11:04, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: But how did the Germans spell it? This is their camp. Auschwitz is not a misspelling of Oświęcim. The German Wiki distinguishes between the village and the camp this way. Srnec (talk) 00:23, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

We don't have a policy of Germanizing all the places the Nazis committed atrocities; Auschwitz is evidently an exception and has a very different spelling. Wheras Sobibór is a the same name in German where Germanizing by removing the accent serves no distinct purpose. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:00, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

The place name is not being Germanized and Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship is not being proposed for renaming. As the article points out, "During World War II, the Nazi German Sobibor extermination camp was built outside the village", not in the village itself. Thus, what is being Germanized is the name of the German death camp, as it is listed in German Wikipedia. The removal of the diacritic [Polish language does not use accents, only diacritical marks] does serve the distinct purpose of clarifying the "Polish death camp" controversy which centered upon misleading terminology that did not make it clear that the camps were German, not Polish. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:03, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support death camp - three of the sources used in the article itself use "death camp" including Arad's work (which has been updated to a new edition, by the way). Note on the diacritic that the USHMM uses the non-diacritic version, as does Arad's work on the three Reinhard camps. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:50, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

See WP:RS. Neither of these are reliable sources for the spelling of Polish names. Yitzhak Arad's book does not use full fonts, and USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.) website like wise is a not full font source which simplifies all European place and person names down into non-Unicode equivalents. English Books which doe have full fonts spell the place name correctly. We should also remember that not all American and Israeli sources are capable of writing Polish accents or know what they mean and how they change the pronunciation. But here on Wikipedia our editors do. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:31, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

The premise of this RM is that the WP:COMMONNAME is "Sobibor [death camp]" (without the diacritic). In any case, this was not a Polish camp, so the name of the nearby Polish place name is not really relevant to the name of the article on the camp. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:51, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Then premise of your RM is wrong if you understand that WP:COMMONNAME means removing fonts. We don't do this on en.wp. And to claim that Sobibór extermination camp and Sobibór itself should be written differently flies in the face of normal WP:CONSISTENCY In ictu oculi (talk) 08:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

In this case WP:COMMONNAME does indeed mean removing fonts. The German extermination camp Sobibor was not located in the Polish village of Sobibór, but outside the village, thus maintaining WP:CONSISTENCY for both the German entity and the Polish entity. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:03, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support the form "Sobibor", rather than "Sobibór", per nomination. This nomination is attempting to establish a consensus that is different from the inconclusive consensus that resulted in the move of the main header five years ago, in April 2014, at "Requested move" above. Since this is an article about the German camp Sobibor and not about the Polish village Sobibór, the main title header should be the same as the one in German Wikipedia. The English-speaking world has been using German names for the camps and Polish names for the localities where the camps were situated. Thus "Auschwitz" for the camp and "Oświęcim" for the town, "Kulmhof" for the camp and "Chełmno" for the village, "Belzec" for the camp and "Bełżec" for the village, etc. As for the term "death camp", the entries in Category:German extermination camps in Poland, are using either "extermination camp" or "concentration camp". —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:03, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
• Nom's comment: I'm somewhat neutral on "death camp" vs "extermination camp". However, I feel that "Sobibor" should be changed, as this was not a "Polish" death camp. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:58, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support removing the accent so long as that conforms to German usage (as it appears to), but Oppose a move to "death camp" because no other death camp is under such a name. Why should some death camps be called death camps and some called extermination camps? Without a rationale for inconsistency, we should be consistent. Srnec (talk) 00:21, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

If we're reopening the diacritic war to Germanize all East European locations affected by German genocide against Jews, gypsies and Slavs we need to have a consistent Germanization (note I did not type "Aryanization") policy for titles List of survivors of Sobibór etc. will need to change too and many others. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:50, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Not German names for the places, but for the camps. That said, I see now that we do not do this (save for Auschwitz) and so have struck my support. If this move goes through, the Sobibór trial, List of survivors of Sobibór and List of survivors of Sobibór would have to be moved. But no evidence has been provided for treating Sobibór differently from Chełmno. Srnec (talk) 12:43, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

The Sobibor, Kulmhof and Belzec German extermination camps should not, in fact, be treated differently from Auschwitz and should appear in their German forms. Those article titles will be submitted for renaming while associated titles such as Sobibór trial, List of survivors of Sobibór and similarly styled main title headers of articles for other camps will be handled by mass renaming submissions. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:04, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

A triple nomination, which may be combined with this nomination, has been submitted at Talk:Sobibór trial#Requested move 21 March 2019. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:51, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

• @BrownHairedGirl: the proposed move to German spelling of this place name is a reversal of previous RM 2014 which you closed. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:56, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• @In ictu oculi: Thanks for the ping. AS you noted, I closed the 2014 RM on the basis of the consensus of the small turnout then. I have not tried to form a substantive view of my own. Consensus can change, so a more widely-attended discussion five years later created a clear consensus to overturn that outcome, so be it. However, I the discussion so far does not seem to be significantly more widely attended, and I also don't see any attempt to notify the participants in the 2014 RM.

However, reading the current discussion I am struck by your comment on whether to Germanize the spelling of entities in Nazi-occuppied Poland which are known for their association with Germany — or, as in this case, created by Germany.

It seems to me that point needs a wider consensus, rather than being decided on a solely ad hoc basis. A wider consensus may involve some hard rules or some general principles with scope for exceptions. But either way, it seems to me to be something which needs a group nomination of all related pages, or preferably at an RFC. The subsequent opening by @Roman Spinner of Talk:Sobibór trial#Requested_move_21_March_2019 in parallel with this one creates a split discussion on the same point of principle, which is very unhelpful to consensus formation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:19, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I commented on this point at Talk:Sobibór trial. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:03, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Strong support of English language source naming in line with WP:COMMONNAME. This is not the same as Germanization; whereas forcing Wikipedia to change the practice of English sources to use Slavonic naming and spelling is Slavonicisation. We are not a foreign language tutorial and the foreign names can be put in brackets in the lede anyway if they are also used in some English sources. Bermicourt (talk) 09:00, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Three problems with this !Vote. (a) English sources use Sobibór. (b) Can't mix and pick between 1942 Sobibór and 1960, 2019 Sobibór on the same page. See the example on the RFC, opened under the other RM. (c) WP:IDON'TLIKEIT, en.wp is massively, omnipresently, totally, full font. Wail as much as anyone wants that it it shouldn't be, and all those foreign people and places should be written in Daily Mail ASCII-24, but it's too late, the encylopedia went with full fonts a decade ago. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:10, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is not GermanificationPedia (and Germanizing something like this in particular would be remarkably inappropriate). WP does not censor out diacritics we know belong there, even if older, and some modern but lower-end, sources have a tendency to do so (for expediency or outright jingoism). Proposals also appears to fail WP:COMMONNAME since the diacritics are in fact commonly used in English-language sources anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:44, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  No one is proposing to censor out diacritics we know belong there, which means in the name of the Polish village of Sobibór. Where diacritics do not belong is in the name of the German death camp, which has no diacritics. What is, in fact, remarkably inappropriate is Polonization of the names of German death camps located on Polish territory. The entire "Polish death camp" controversy centers around the misleading terminology which does not make it clear that the camps were German, not Polish. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:57, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  Let's not be silly, and let's do actually follow WP:USEENGLISH. The title of this article is not a German proper name; it an English-language descriptive phrase of WP's own invention, for the extermination camp at/near Sobibór. It's exactly the same as "[Placename] station" cases, and other descriptively named micro-locations. If the rail station stops at Brélès, and we have an article on it, it's going to be at "Brélès station", not "Breles station" even if we can find signage or other sources that drop the diacritics, and not at the French phrase Gare de Brélès. It's become conventional in contemporary English (since the rise of digital typography in the 1980s onward, and in carefully typeset material – like an encyclopedia! – long before then) to preserve diacritics when using the native name of a place. Sobibór has no centuries-old traditional English name (like Munich for München). We would not switch to German, using a Germanized loan-name from Polish, without the diacritic, back in the 1940s, just because the camp was set up by Germans. I'll repeat that I find it troublingly inappropriate to side with the victimizers and temporary invaders rather than the victims and natives on this or anything like it. All things being equal (neither Polish Sobibór nor Germanized Polish Sobibor being English), go with the real name of the place, which is Sobibór.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:57, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

To repeat, Wikipedia already has an article entitled Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship [with the diacritic], which delineates the Polish village. Since it is the sole "Sobibór" in Wikipedia, the main title header of the village's article should actually indicate simply Sobibór (no need for ", Lublin Voivodeship") — however, as of this writing, both Sobibor and Sobibór redirect to Sobibór extermination camp.

If Sobibór [containing the diacritic] were to serve as the main header of the article about the Polish village, Sobibor [without the diacritic] should be the WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT to Sobibor extermination camp. The WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the Sobibor (disambiguation) page is Sobibor extermination camp, while Sobibór extermination camp [with the diacritic] should redirect to it. The two dab page subsidiary entries are Sobibór the Polish village and Sobibor (film).

Under dab page section header "See also" there are entries for Sobibor trial, Sobibór Museum, Sobibór Landscape Park, Escape from Sobibor, Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m., List of victims of Sobibor and List of survivors of Sobibor. The two Polish entities under "See also" — Sobibór Museum and Sobibór Landscape Park — have diacritics, while the other "See also" entries, which refer to the German death camp, do not have diacritics.

As for siding with the victims, instead of the victimizers and invaders, the central standard is set by the use of "Auschwitz" for the death camp and "Oświęcim" for the Polish town. By not following the same Auschwitz standard for Sobibor, we would be in fact siding with the victimizers and invaders by covering up their name for the death camp and thus abetting the victimizers' evasion of responsibility for the death camps.

No one is proposing to "strip diacritics from the name of every single celebrity with one in their name" and such contention is immaterial to this discussion. If the German camp administration had appended umlauts to the camp names, then such diacritics should have of course remained. This discussion has nothing to do with removing diacritics from legitimate Polish entities, but the death camps were not Polish entities, but German entities and should be indicated with German names. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 08:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support in the case of the extermination camp. The camp was set up by the Germans, and they used the spelling "Sobibor" as German does not use the letter "ó". JIP | Talk 15:10, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Already addressed this in detail just above. "Sobibór extermination camp" is not a German proper name, it's an English-language descriptive phrase for the extermination camp near Sobibór, so your rationale is inapplicable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:03, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
• Weak support. From my search, it seems to me that Sobibor is the COMMONNAME over Sobibór in this context in English. Yes, some sources use ó in English, but more don't. I'll note that there's no particular reason to follow the Polish (over German, Yiddish, or Hebrew) here - but what really matters for us (as this is widely referenced in English) - is the COMMONNAME. Icewhiz (talk) 15:46, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

  @Icewhiz: how did you conduct the search? Did you search sources which can show accents or sources which cannot show any accents? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:59, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  Google books and google scholar (both of which can show accents). I searched both for Sobibór camp and for Sobibor camp (even though google seems to partially ignore the accent (you get hits for ó with o and vice versa) - it does seem to affect ranking/ordering)). I then ran down the results, and with my mark-I eyeball looked at the results in the results preview (and in some cases titles of the work) - and per my impression (I ran down quite a few pages of these, did not run an exact count - but estimated) there were more results (say, off the top of my head, 65%-85%) for Sobibor over Sobibór (in all 4 versions of the search - gScholar/gBooks o/ó). Icewhiz (talk) 07:11, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  I'm a stickler for common name in this (and most) case. I will note that the Hebrew Wikipedia (which is well developed in this topic area) doesn't even display the Polish name - it has the Hebrew name with the foreign German in parenthesis, and I would assume many secondary sources follow the German - however - for our purposes a language jurisdiction fight isn't what's relevant but rather the common form of this in English. Icewhiz (talk) 07:16, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  Also - Ukrainian Wiki, Ruwiki, Lithuanian Wiki, which are regionally relevant and whose localized form is different (Cyrillic, different Lithuanian spelling (due to inflections (which affects the Polish name as well - the full Polish name here is "Obóz zagłady w Sobiborze" (without the accent))). If some English sources can't (or won't) use the accent, then that affects the COMMONNAME in English. Icewhiz (talk) 07:29, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  No, per WP:RS the limitations of Tabloid/Low MOS sources does not influence en.Wikipedia. If it did no footballer article would have French, Croatian etc accents, but 100% do, because COMMONNAME does not apply to fonts. This is a fact, we may not like it, some editors clearly don't and want to find a few local consensus articles to reverse it, but it remains en.Wikipedia does not follow tabloid/Low MOS fonts. So the question is have you found any WP:RS English sources which use Unicode fonts (as en.Wikipedia does) and yet drops them for this particular place name? Or are you simply saying Wikipedia shouldn't have accents. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:33, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  I don't see that in WP:RS - please point to a particular place where that is policy for COMMONNAME. Furthermore, your assumption that Polish is the common source of this camp in the 40s - is on rather poor factual footing. The vast majority of the sources that use Sobibor in google-books/scholar are able to use accents (journal articles and books from the past 30 years at least are all able to do this if the authors do so - authors often don't - as it is a pain to add these accents when your keyboard doesn't support it) - so I stand behind my search regardless of this point. Icewhiz (talk) 08:48, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. for example as applied to Lech Wałęsa, which was one of the fulcrum battle points in the diacritics wars the "English names for Poles" side argued that in Daily Mail English Lech Wałęsa had a COMMONNAME "Lech Walesa", and that that the article should be stripped of Unicode fonts. Much of it then was based on subtly or unsubtly coded racism, Little Britain or Little America xenophobia. The diacritics wars ended with most of the main anti-Unicode editors pulling stunts like socking etc which got them c-banned. And as a result Unicode reigns supreme. We don't follow non-Unicode sources for names that require Unicode. That is the peaceful status quo over 100,000s of articles across the entire encyclopedia. 11:56, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  I'm fairly certain almost all academic journals are technically able to print diacritics - google scholar results should be mostly Unicode sources. Furthermore, the context here is different. For most biographies (and definitely BLPs) the source language is clear (and it is clear Wałęsa/Walesa is derived from the Polish). For periodic place names from the Holocaust - it is not clear. In fact - as evident by our editor colleagues on the Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian Wikipedias - the German name is often the origin. In other cases - Yiddish, Lithuanian, Belorussian, Russian, or Ukrainian may be relevant (e.g. see Kresy#Interwar population for pre-war language demographics near Sobibor). Icewhiz (talk) 12:17, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

  COMMONNAME is not a style policy; never has been, never will be. It is not used for determining diacritics matters. What we do is determine whether RS demonstrate that the placename (in this case – might be something else in another case) properly has a diacritic in it, and that various RS in English use the diacritic. If they do, then we do as well. Otherwise we'd strip diacritics from the name of every single celebrity with one in their name, since the number of low-end entertainment journalisms sources (especially online ones) that are too jingoistic and lazy to bother with diacritics, combined with old books from before diacritics were easy, will always outnumber more precise writers and publishers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:03, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

  The precise context here, unlike modern Polish celebrities, is not Polish. The victims mostly didn't speak Polish. The perpetrators didn't speak Polish. And generally - many sources follow the German or (the usually similar) Yiddish names in this field of study. In this particular case - the German is the same spelling as the Polish - minus the diacritic.Icewhiz (talk) 06:01, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support - Nom's version (and other versions) are all attested without the accent, and not attested with it in grams (which has a min-threshold for inclusion). The contention that The title of this article is... an English-language descriptive phrase of WP's own invention is not supported by the data, which shows it in use half a century before WP came about: ngram wild-card search; note the accented version doesn't have enough data to beat ngrams' low bar and show up on the plot, for 'extermination', 'death', or any other word in that slot. This is en-wiki; what the Germans, Poles, or anybody else calls it, is irrelevant. What do English sources call it? That seems to be settled. Mathglot (talk) 04:52, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support as proposed. There is no consensus for dropping diacritics more generally as some have proposed elsewhere, but nor is there any consensus or case for retaining them when English sources do not use them. That's the issue here. The purists on both sides just need to accept that this is English Wikipedia and we follow English usage. Andrewa (talk) 18:33, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The survivors photo...

Is carried at the USHMM here, and it appears to trace to the Ghetto Fighters House museum site here - which can be used to actually discuss the best caption rather than edit warring over it. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:40, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

There's someone in a Soviet uniform in the picture. The description on the image in the Commons says:

Sobibór Nazi German extermination camp survivors with Sonderkommando prisoner Leon Feldhendler (back row, extreme right), and the Soviet NKVD security officer wearing uniform of a Junior Sershant (compare uniform) and/or but more likely lower rank (green cap for NKVD Border Troops and blue cap for NKVD Service officer), as well as Meier Ziss (standing, far left) Yehuda Lerner (sitting on the right), Esther Raab (sitting, 2nd from right) and Zelda Metz (sitting, 3rd from left).

I'm not sure why User:Jack90s15 keeps removing the information. Jayjg ^(talk) 13:00, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

The picture says surviving members of the revolt in 1944 and when you go to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sobib%C3%B3r_extermination_camp_(05).JPG were the pic is from its from the sign that is there at Sobibor

https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Sobib%C3%B3r_extermination_camp_%2805%29.JPG when you zoom in it says surviving members and it does not single out the NKVD officer

Jack90s15 (talk) 15:43, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes Jack90s15, but there is an individual in the picture wearing an NKVD uniform, and the picture description on the Commons describes him as an NKVD officer. Can you explain why you keep removing this information? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

The picture is from the the sign at sobibor,so I put it to match what the sign says. like I posted the picture to it didn't single out the nkvd officer

that's why I put it in my description when I changed it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack90s15 (talk • contribs)

Understood, but that doesn't explain why you keep deleting the information. An individual in the picture wearing an NKVD uniform, and the picture description on the Commons describes him as an NKVD officer. Jack90s15 why do you keep removing that fact? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Because the sign where the picture was from didn't single out the nkvd officer.So I just put it to say all survivors because that's what they wereJack90s15 (talk) 22:22, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

OK Jack90s15, but do we have to put exactly what is on the picture caption into our description? Do you object to mentioning the NKVD officer for some other reason? Jayjg ^(talk) 13:22, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

The article needs a source clean-up

This article needs more academic sources asap. One of the main sources used (cympm.com/sobibor.html) does not have any author or any references, misspells German word, and more critically, half the claims in this article said to be supported by this very source are not in the link given. Plus this other source does not link any page in the book, and surely more to discover. I'm ready to help, can't understand how the article was able to survive source-checking until now Azerty82 (talk) 16:02, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

My ongoing edits

I'm going to be doing some edits on this article over the next few months, trying to restructure some of the excellent information and prose to make it a more accessible introduction to the topic, so that a random person stumbling on the article can understand everything and see why it's important. Today I redid the lede, to make it shorter and clearer. I'm personally satisfied with its current state except that it will need more references.

In future edits, I am planning to add two additional sections: (1) on the recent archeology and perhaps more generally the postwar history of the site and (2) about life in the camp for those who weren't killed immediately. If anybody watching this page has comments or wants to assist, I'd welcome that! Botterweg14 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:36, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

You deserve commendation for the extensive and detailed work and research, and for ensuring this history never slips from human consciousness.

I did attempt to edit a minor typo, but I found the edit function was (prudently) licked for editing; so I would like to pass my observation to you. In one of the later paragraphs (where you mention that the guard tower had disintegrated and nothing remained of it), the word “nearly” is repeated twice. A very minor edit, I realise, but I would be happy to contribute in any small way I can. With gratitude, Francis Neary Dublin, Ireland 14th October, 2020 Francis Neary (talk) 01:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Botterweg14 (talk) 10:47, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Help drafting a new section?

I'm drafting a new section for this article in my userspace sandbox. If anybody wants to help, or just have a look, you can find it here. Botterweg14 (talk) 14:37, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

In that link, I've cloned the whole article-- the only new part is the "life in the camp" section. Botterweg14 (talk) 14:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Nice work! Congratulations Azerty82 (talk) 16:02, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm (very slowly) working on expanding the section about the revolt. I've been doing it offline, but I just put it here in case you or anyone else wants to add or change anything. Botterweg14 (talk) 16:19, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to help you in the coming days. I just need to check which sources have not been used yet in the article. Azerty82 (talk) 18:20, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I've been relying as much as possible on the books by Schelvis and Bem since they're both the most recent and the most meticulous. Botterweg14 (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Problems with the lead

• "Nazi German extermination camp" should be avoided as it is redundant and not a term used in reliable sources: at Google Scholar, there are 2,000 results for "Nazi extermination camps"[5] and only 2 for "Nazi German extermination camps"[6]. See also recent discussion at WP Germany. There cannot be any ambiguity who is running the camp because later in the sentence it is attributed to the SS.
• "semi-colonial territory" is not cited anywhere in the article failing WP:V, and it's unclear why this is relevant or due weight to include in the lead. What does "semi colonial" even mean?
• Sobibor was not a Nazi concentration camp and the lead should clearly point this out.
• "Sobibor is notable for the prisoner revolt which occurred on 14 October 1943, an event which is often described as the most successful revolt ever to have taken place in a Nazi extermination camp." Several problems with this sentence: is Sobibor really more known for the revolt, or for the people who were murdered there? Who says it was most successful? (Successful is a vague and subjective statement that should be avoided being in Wikipedia voice unless it's clearly defined what it means.) Neither of these is cited anywhere in the article. buidhe 00:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to bullets 1, 2, and 4 above and support them.

• As to "semi-colonial" (first added six years ago), the word exists (usu. sans hyphen) but is obscure imho, and I agree it should be removed or recast, unless the originator of that edit (inactive since October) would like to clarify. Wiktionary's definition is inadequate; M-W's is better; there is no Wikipedia article on semicolonialism.
• Regarding point 3, I'm assuming that User:Buidhe is referring here to the academic distinction that scholars make between the death camps and the concentration camps, as described for example in the last paragraph of the lead at Nazi concentration camps. I agree, but I think this distinction is lost on the average reader, and would only ask that this be made clearer; a link is merely a first step; perhaps an explanatory footnote would be in order as well.

Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey, I'm so glad this article is finally getting some attention! I really like User:K.e.coffman’s current trimmed version of the first paragraph and I actually agree with User:buidhe's first two bullet points despite having reverted his edits (sorry!).

Where I start to disagree is in the fourth bullet point. I share User:buidhe's unease about how the revolt often overshadows the murders in popular portrayals, but I'd suggest that instead of deleting that sentence, instead reword it to something like "Sobibor is notable amongst the extermination camps for the revolt…". I'd like to keep at least the bones of that sentence since I think it's absolutely crucial that the lede (1) explicitly introduces the fact that a revolt happened and (2) points out that this was an unusual and extraordinary event. The current text does neither.

As for the concern about saying that the Sobibor revolt was the most successful, the previous text actually just said that the revolt "…is often described as the most successful". And you can see that it is indeed often described as such by Googling the phrase "most successful" along with "Sobibor". You'll find the phrase in Toivi Blatt's memoir, Joseph Bialowitz's introduction to his dad's memoir, this scholarly book, this movie review, this obituary, and so on and so on. Botterweg14 (talk) 04:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not gonna touch the lede until there's consensus. But I am gonna remove the phrase "through which Jews were driven on the way to the gas chambers" from the caption on the main photo. Feel free to revert if you think I'm making a mistake, but the Fotos Aus Sobibor book identifies this as the front gate, i.e. not the gate you'd normally pass through on the way to the gas chambers. Botterweg14 (talk) 04:52, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Of these sources the only one I would use is the book, and even that isn't a great source because it isn't focused on Sobibor. Keep in mind the article sourcing requirements. buidhe 12:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

For a source to use in the article, this might be the best bet. Both scholarly and focused on Sobibor. Would you have any qualms about me adding the following?

Sobibor is notable amongst the extermination camps for the prisoner revolt which occurred on 14 October 1943, an event which has been described as one of the most successful act of resistance by Jews against the Nazis.(plus references)

I'd like to have multiple references so it's clear it's not just one person's claim. But I'd favor deleting all or all but one of the refs from the lede if we can add some high quality sourced discussion to the section of the article about the revolt. Botterweg14 (talk) 16:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I also reworded the "concentration camp" bit in an attempt to address both User:Buidhe and User: Mathglot's concerns. I think you'll both like it, but lemme know if you don't! Botterweg14 (talk) 17:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

That's good for the body but I'm not sure it's due weight to include in the lead. Neither of these sources elaborate on the "successful" label and explain why it is more successful than, say, the Treblinka uprising. buidhe 17:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi User:Buidhe, is part of your concern that this phrasing is disrespectful or gives short-shrift to other acts of resistance like the Treblinka uprising? If so, I can explore ways of wording around that. But I disagree with your concerns about sourcing and undue weight. If the "ranking" of the Sobibor uprising were presented as an objective fact I would agree that we'd need better sources. But the text I'm proposing just presents it as a view that's attested among researchers. I think that's clear from the phrasing, but if you disagree, I might suggest using a direct quotation from Leydesdorff as a fix. But I'd prefer to not directly quote, since it's more of a common cliché than Leydesdorff's personal opinion.

I think something along these lines is essential to contextualize the revolt, i.e. to make it clear that it was an extremely unusual event and that it constitutes a large part of how Sobibor is remembered both in popular and scholarly accounts. And there's precedent for doing things this way in the ledes of other articles. For instance, the lede in Mozart quotes Haydn as saying that a better composer wouldn't come along for at least 100 years. The lede in Einstein quotes somebody raving that he was even more creative than John von Neumann, and the Neumann article quotes someone calling him the last of the great mathematicians. I think these quotes provide essential context, even though I personally disagree with all of them. Botterweg14 (talk) 19:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Botterweg14, What I'm concerned about is "one of the most successful act [sic] of resistance by Jews against the Nazis". This is a very strong statement, especially considering the many forms that resistance took beyond armed insurrection, eg Working Group (resistance organization) negotiations, attempts by individuals and groups of Jews to hide and save themselves, etc.

Since it is a strong statement it needs strong sourcing and I think only the first source actually backs it up; the second one says "uprising of its kind" which is much more restricted in scope. You're correct that we use sources rather than a person's opinion but the key point is the sources have to support the statement and be WP:DUE.

For "notable amongst the extermination camps", I think that's difficult to support. There were six death camps, there were three uprisings (Sobibor, Treblinka, and Birkenau). The sources cited don't support that part of the sentence, either.

I did find two sources comparing Treblinka and Sobibor uprisings, one says it's debated[7] and the other says Sobibor was more successful.[8] buidhe 19:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

My intent is definitely not for the text to make the strong claim that Sobibor was actually the most successful revolt. My intent was for the text to contextualize the revolt by reporting that reputable people have held that view. Do you disagree with that in principle or just my strategy for doing it? What I ultimately want is just for that paragraph to begin by stating that a revolt occurred and providing some context to help the reader understand why it was important. I'm not wedded to the "most successful revolt" way of doing that if you had other suggestions. Botterweg14 (talk) 21:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Your proposal is in wikivoice—it's not an attributed opinion or quote. If it's in wikivoice it certainly has to be the consensus opinion among historians, which it really should be anyway because of WP:DUE. I do think you could find a different wording that could be supported by sources, and of course I welcome all suggestions that meet that criteria. buidhe 21:20, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Here are slightly adjusted version of my two proposals so far.

• Sobibor is widely known for the prisoner revolt which occurred on 14 October 1943, an event which has been described as one of the most successful acts of resistance by Jews against the Nazis.

• Sobibor is widely known for the extermination camps for the prisoner revolt which occurred on 14 October 1943, an event which Selma Leydesdorff described as "the most successful instance of the resistance of Jews to their annihilation."

Please note that neither of these state in wikivoice that it was the most successful revolt. I'd also like to pre-emptively state that I don't think "widely known" would be read exhaustively by most readers. Amsterdam is widely known for its weed, but so is San Fransisco. And Amsterdam is also widely known for other things. Botterweg14 (talk) 02:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

This suffers from wp:weasel, i.e. which has been described as...; is widely known for.... Attributed opinions are generally unneeded in the lead. The current version of the lead appears fine to me. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Point taken about weasel words. I still disagree about the attributed quote for reasons I mentioned above, but that's not ultimately what's important to me. Do you have any objections to the following revision of that paragraph? It's essentially the same except for the first sentence.

• The camp ceased operations after the prisoner revolt which took place on 14 October 1943. The plan for this revolt involved two phases. In the first phase, teams of prisoners were to assassinate all of the on-duty SS officers in discrete locations. In the second phase, all 600 prisoners would assemble for roll call and walk to freedom out the front gate. However, the plan was disrupted after only 12 of the SS officers had been killed, and prisoners ended up having to escape by climbing over barbed wire fences and running through a mine field under heavy machine gun fire. Even so, about 300 prisoners made it out of the camp, of whom roughly 60 survived to the end of the war. Botterweg14 (talk) 03:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
•  Done with minor changes. buidhe 13:06, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, looks great! Botterweg14 (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Nazi Germany vs Nazi

"See also recent discussion at WP Germany". Why wasn't WP:POLAND notified? I am sorry, but this is not related to Germany only. The issue of Polish concentration camps is serious ones, and no, saying they were run by SS or such is not enough. Many people outside Western civ don't know much about WWII or The Holocaust, and they can much more easily assume that SS was Polish, or that a camp in Poland was built and operated byu Poles. I strongly oppose any simplification of Nazi Germany to Nazi. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:32, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I definitely agree that the text should be clear that Sobibor wasn't run by Poles. But I don't quite see the worry about the current text. Is your concern that "Nazi" could be understood as referring to anyone with that ideology rather than Hitler's government? And that the term "SS" might just be unfamiliar to some readers? Botterweg14 (talk) 05:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes and yes. Remember that our readers include kids and people from countries that know very little about Nazi or SS. See Nazi chic#Asia, for example - some people in Asia wear Nazi stuff not because they endorse the Nazi ideology, they do so because all they know is that it was a "characteristic/cool historical European military force" or such. I mean, just look at this. I like anime, I like WWII, and I find this game uncomfortable. But for most people in Asia, there is no problem. Nazi chic is "cool". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here}

I agree that not all readers have the same level of understanding, but that doesn't mean that we should add emphases that are almost absent in the secondary literature or pick phrases that are barely attested. I think there is a better way to clarify than to use the phrase "Nazi German" which is barely used in English. buidhe 12:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Is what's crucial for you, User:Piotrus, that the word "German" appears somewhere? Botterweg14 (talk) 16:11, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Pretty much, as it clearly answers "who were the Nazis". Also, I don't understand what metric is used to argue that the term "Nazi German" is not widely used I see plenty of reliable sources using this term on Google Books or Scholar. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The phrase "Nazi German" sounds a tiny bit unnatural to me, but only a tiny bit. At any rate, are you happy with the current version?

@Piotrus: Please compare 199 Google Scholar results for "Nazi German concentration camp(s)"[9] to 28,400 for "Nazi concentration camp(s)"[10] We should follow the sources unless there is a very good reason. (There are more hits for "Polish concentration camp(s)",[11] than Nazi German, doesn't mean that we should selectively follow those sources while ignoring the rest) buidhe 13:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME is one issue, but WP:PRECISION is IMHO a superior guideline to consider. We should be prcesise in areas where confusion is possible, and avoid using imprecise, confusing terminology even if it is common. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The terminology is not imprecise or confusing to anyone who knows the slightest thing about the subject, e.g. that there were no such thing as "Polish Nazis" during WWII. buidhe 14:33, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Article sourcing

The Bem book is probably OK for non-controversial details, but the organization that published it is a small one and it barely passes article sourcing requirements. This book is much better and probably what the article should be based on: Webb, Chris (2017). Sobibor Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-3-8382-6966-5., review You can probably get chapters from WP:RX. buidhe 21:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the Chris Webb book is absolutely amazing and incredible and I'd support using it as one of our sources. My only caution is to double check who Webb is citing for a particular claim before you cite him. Because this literature is so small and inbred, it's really easy to accidentally create citation loops. I kept catching myself doing it a few months ago, citing Arad when he's just citing Rashke. I'm mention this because Webb sometimes straddles the line between secondary and tertiary source. Parts of the book are independent synthesis, but in many places he's just reporting conclusions from other books including Bem's. Botterweg14 (talk) 02:00, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

While we're talking about sourcing, though, I wanted to mention that I can't find a good source for the number of gas chambers (in the infobox) or for the oft-repeated idea that the site was deliberately planted over with trees. I don't have any reason to doubt these facts, but I'm a little stumped at why I can't find them plainly stated in any good source. Botterweg14 (talk) 02:28, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Spelling

The article consistently uses dmy dates but no consistent spelling (American vs. British), which one should we systematize to? buidhe 20:07, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I personally have no preference, as long as it's consistent. I think we should also aim for consistency in renderings of names and terminology, though that's quite a project. (By the way, I've been tinkering with the "perpetrators" and "life in the camp" sections in my userspace sandbox and you're welcome to have a look or to contribute there!) Botterweg14 (talk) 21:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Which edition?

I was trying to fix this citation

• Rashke, Richard (1982). Escape from Sobibor. Retrieved September 16, 2019. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

However, the link is to a 2013 edition and there were multiple English editions published in 1982 according to Worldcat (US edition/ British edition). Does anyone know which edition the page numbers correspond to? buidhe 21:47, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Any citation I've added should be from the 2013 "revised and updated" edition, the one linked to there. Botterweg14 (talk) 00:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Maps

I'm planning to commission two new maps from an editor who is absurdly good at making them. However, since I'm asking someone else to do the labor, I wanted to ask first to see if people would agree with the general concept for what I'd be requesting.

• A map whose purpose would be to help casual readers understand the general location of Sobibor. It would show roughly the same area as the map currently in the Background section of the article. However, to help naive readers orient themselves it would show modern borders and only include a few major sites. For major sites, I was thinking modern capital cities, the other Reinhard camps plus Auschwitz, Chelmno, Dachau, Westerbork, Theresienstadt, and Bergen-Belsen. Lublin District (or the General Government) would be shaded and the city of Lublin would be marked. Sobibor itself would be marked in a way that draws attention to it as the subject of the map.

• Another more detailed map which focuses on the area around Sobibor, intended for readers with more background knowledge or for those who want to locate places mentioned in the article's text. I was thinking that this would be an adapted version of this map, but with Belzec as the southernmost landmark, Pulawy as the westernmost landmark, and Sobibor as the easternmost landmark. Other marked locations would include Chelm, Wlodawa, Lublin, and Zamosc. Ideally, it would include all the Sobibor area labor camps, plus ghettoes and transit camps from which people were deported to Sobibor. However, I think it would be better to omit some such places than to end up with something illegible. Botterweg14 (talk) 15:48, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Sobibor extermination camp

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Sobibor extermination camp's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Mildt":

• From Heinrich Barbl: Dick de Mildt, In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Reflection of Their Post-War Prosecution in West Germany. The "Euthanasia" and "Aktion Reinhard" Trial Cases, p. 394, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996. Google Books.
• From Erich Bauer: Dick de Mildt. In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide, p. 381-383. Brill, 1996.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 13:46, 10 July 2020 (UTC)