Talk:Rumbula massacre

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Cleanup and single source problem[edit]

There were three problems I wanted to fix here. First, the overall tone was unencyclopedic at best. I realize this is an emotional topic, but there's no need to convey information that way if it can be done neutrally and objectively. The impact of what happened in Rumbula is not diminished by that. Second, I suspect that the tone was picked up from the single major source of information. If that's the case, then the article needed copyediting anyway because of possible plagiarism issues. And third, although a purely cosmetic issue, there were far too many individual sections in the body, so I merged a few of them and I think it looks far better now. I did leave a tag regarding the single source problem, which I think should be fixed. §FreeRangeFrog 08:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

it is difficult to track so many edits. Suggest combining edits to make it easier for other editors to track changes.Mtsmallwood (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about using the sandbox approach, with a massive SHAZAM! commit at the end, but given the amount of changes I wanted to make it would have been no better, I think. With multiple per-section changes it's still a pain but at least individual modifications can be tracked if needed. I was very careful not to remove any information, except when duplicated or obviated, but the entire article was very unencyclopedic in tone, probably because it was transcribed from the single source. In any case, sorry if I overwhelmed there, if you have concerns or questions please let me know. I don't want to step on anyone's toes :) §FreeRangeFrog 01:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edit problems[edit]

All the recent edits were coded minor. Many were substantive, and deleted or altered significant historical information. A few examples (note that it would take hours and hours to work through all the edits, and I have only examined the first five or six).

Sample edit problem #1 Edits to location description[edit]

  • Deleted entirely the sentence: The view of the killing site was block by vegetation, but the sounds of the massacre were readily audible from the station grounds. Concern: this is fully sourced and shows the open nature of the killings. No good reason shown for removal.
  • Replaced sentence: The rail line and highway made it easy to move the victims in from Riga to be murdered, as well as transport the killers and their arms with ... and the rail line and highway made it easy to transport the victims and the perpetrators and their equipment from Riga. Concerns:
    • The word "transport" is completely wrong and misstates the historical evidence by implying that killers planned to take the victims to the killing site by rail or road transport. In fact, they were force-marched along the highway, that is why the site was only 8 km from Riga. (A few sick people may have been loaded onto trucks to be taken to the murder site, but that is not the same as transporting all 24,000 of the victims.)

Sample edit problem # 2: Edit to "Selection of the site"[edit]

  • Replaced sentences The site also had to be on the north side of the Daugava River, because the ghetto was on the north side. It also had to be within walking distance of the ghetto with ... The site also had to be within walking distance of the ghetto and on the north side of the Daugava River This leaves out the reason why the site had to be on the north side of the river, which was because the ghetto was on the north side of the river. This was an important consideration for the killers, and there is no good reason shown while is should have been deleted.Mtsmallwood (talk) 21:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored the article to the state it was before I started working on it. Quite frankly your objections seem rather petty, but what do I know. Have fun turning this into a viable encyclopedic resource. §FreeRangeFrog 23:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Second rewrite of page[edit]

I rewrote the page again, and tried to take into account the issues identified above.Mtsmallwood (talk) 06:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

April 24, 2009 edits[edit]

I moved two sections to the main article on The Holocaust in Latvia, where they have a more general application. Possibly a summary of the historiography section should be restored t this article.Mtsmallwood (talk) 03:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Photos[edit]

I understand that photos make an article visually more effective, and as an historian, acknowledge that pictures can indeed be used as an historical source for comparative purposes, but it strikes me that almost every picture included in the article at present actually deals with something else other than the Rumbula Massacre. At least the pictures of Šķēde refer to the Holocaust in Latvia at around the same time as the Rumbula Massacre; the picture of the execution at Ivangorod, no matter how famous and emotive, is not. Furthermore, the caption for this latter photo could easily be removed as WP:SYNTH, which would thereby also make keeping the picture in this particular article largely untenable. As for the picture of Kampfgruppe Jeckeln at the Leningrad Front, it is completely irrelevant, since, if one knows anything about the composition of this unit and its participation in the Leningrad Blockade (I have cited the Kriegstagebuch for this unit held by the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in some of my recent research) it is obvious that KG Jeckeln in 1942 is not connected with the Rumbula Massacre—except in that it was also commanded by Jeckeln. Neither was the 1944 KG Jeckeln, for that matter, although that one was at least operating on the territory of Latvia. Thus, to make a long story short, in the name of making the article more accurate (albeit perhaps less visually appealing), I'd strongly suggest avoiding potential breaches of WP:SYNTH by taking out some of the photos that have only a distant relation to the topic at hand. However, if other editors feel that there is a good reason for keeping all and sundry photos for comparative purposes, I'm willing to listen and discuss the reasoning offered. —Zalktis (talk) 11:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I realize you know the timing and distances for the Skede massacres, but I'll recap here for editors who might not.
Šķēde is a beach near the Latvia port city of Liepāja, about 200 km west of Riga. While the Liepāja massacres occurred over several months, the largest one, the so-called "Big Action" occurred on December 15-17, 1941, in which about 2,500 Jews, mostly women and children, were murdered by shooting on the beach. The December shootings at Šķēde were well documented photographically, apparently by some of the participants in the crime. These photographs are widely known. They appear to show a very similar method of killing to that applied at Rumbula, which would be not surprising considering that Jeckeln was apparently still in charge in Latvia on December 15--17, 1941 and the Arajs Kommando participated in both, although the extent of that participation, particularly at Rumbula, is not entirely clear.
I have made a thorough search of numerous sources online and otherwise, and I have been unable to find any photograph of Rumbula. One witness, I believe one of the Wehrmacht engineers who stopped when they heard the shooting from the highway, stated that photographs were being taken by some of the personnel at the scene, but it this occurred, none of these images have survived.
For these reasons, I would agree that the Šķēde photos, if appropriately identified, are appropriate for this article. Beyond that, I think images of Lohse, Jeckeln, etc. are appropriate, but the rest of the images are insufficiently related.
It would be nice to have a map, but the creation of such is beyond my capability.Mtsmallwood (talk) 02:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks[edit]

I've jsut discovered that my father's uncle http://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/en919622 was one of those murdered at Rumbula. He was a chess player and had once played Capablanca, he was also an enthusiastic Esperantist. I am enormously grateful for the work you have all done on this page, which now enables us to find out what happened to our family members.

Many many thanks. Telaviv1 (talk) 10:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence of numbers[edit]

Have we expert evidence on how deep wide and long these trenches were, hmmm, I have some misgivings over the facts here. They call me Mister Tibbs (talk) 15:56, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Negationist vandal in action[edit]

Data have been changed by citing David Irving, the "active Holocaust denier, antisemite, and racist,". Carlotm (talk) 03:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Irving's citation had been removed and the figure restored to its original value (25,000) on that same day (16 February). So, no harm if somebody want to delete this section. Carlotm (talk) 04:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

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Crimes against humanity category removal[edit]

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

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