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built into a road tunnel located next to the camp. Davies describes how a procession - complete with a priest sprinkling holy water and two soldiers - hung a commemorative plaque to the alleged events at a church in the GrochĂłw neighbourhood of Warsaw. According to Davies, this theory fits within a
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Poster hanging near the tunnel, showing the schematics of the alleged gas chamber: gas was supposedly injected through a concrete vent on the roof of the building, and blown in by giant fans. The fans were only installed in the tunnel during the 1970's; one of the surviving motors is revered as a
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within the topic area may have also promoted indifference. Whatever the reason may be, the result is the same: a hoax in a major area of scholarship that should've raised alarms for multiple editors over its existence, remained in main space for 15 years - an unacceptable result by any standard.
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Biddle, Ian, and Beate Müller. "“… and all of a sudden, in the middle of it, they began singing…”: languages and commemoration in Arnold
Schoenberg’s cantata A Survivor from Warsaw (Op. 46)." Edinburgh German Yearbook: New Literary and Linguistic Perspectives on the German Language, National
356:, with 8,000-9,000 inmates, and by the end of the war some 4,000-5,000 deaths. The inmates in the camp were mainly foreign Jews (notably Greek in the first transports, and Hungarians in the May-June 1944 replacement transports, selected for their lack of Polish language skills) who were
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did exist, if only for a year), editors were not inclined to verify the many details that, while highly questionable to a reader with domain knowledge, are not entirely implausible in the eyes of a lay reader. The obscurity of the subject surely played a part as well: Knowledge has a
310:): Death camp for Polish extermination, gas chambers, and Communist cover-up all in WikiVoice; Trzcińska is treated as a bona-fide historian, and the sole item of dispute is the "enormous gas chamber in a railway tunnel" (other gas chambers are presented as accepted historical fact).
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Church of St Stanisław the Martyr at Józef Bem street, Warsaw. Plaque reads: "In
Tribute to the 200,000 Poles Murdered by the German Occupiers in the Death Camp KL Warschau, in the Years 1942-1944.". A tiny plaque bolted to the bottom right reads: "Based on the book by Maria
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412:; the initial revision refers to gas chambers as fact, noting a dispute on numbers, but otherwise treating the camp as an extermination camp for ethnic Poles. The article remained in "fringe territory" for several years - the peak conspiracy versions are probably
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As of
September, the page is present in 12 different Wikipedias, but is notably absent from the Hebrew Knowledge (which generally has good coverage of Holocaust-related subjects), which only mentions it (fairly accurately) in the
126:"...the more Trzcińska’s claims were challenged, the more determined her supporters became. Marches, demonstrations, public meetings and religious ceremonies were held, bogus maps circulated, false testimonies promoted,
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Camps were often arranged as systems with one main camp and multiple "satellite" camps; Majdanek had at least eight such satellites within a 130 km radius, and another one further away.
183:, the English Knowledge stated for a fact that the camp had 400,000 inmates, and whose existence was "debated secretly" under the post-war Communist regime that wished to inflate the
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A cross at the center of memorial. The sign reads: "Memorial 200 thousands victims of KL Warschau. German extermination camp for Poles 1942-1944". The memorial is complete with
116:"standard trope on the Polish nationalist right that Jews have exaggerated their victimhood in order to extort money from the Poles and obtain global power and influence"
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326:): At addition tunnel was considered fact; at removal camp is still described in WikiVoice as containing "killing facilities" for extermination of Poles in the capital.
342:). At addition, 40,000 inmates and 200,000 victims. At removal number of inmates went up to 400,000 but victims down to 20,000–35,000. In both false 1942 start date.
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Pedestrian tunnel at alleged site of the giant gas chamber, with graffiti of large fan, and commemorative posters on gas chambers and 200,000 murdered Poles.
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casualty numbers. This wasn't isolated - the entire article consisted of details advanced by conspiracy theorists and contradicted by reliable sources.
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One August eve, as I was catching up on recent pieces on Polish
Catholic-nationalist discourse, I came across an article by Christian Davies titled
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the page was completely rewritten, complete with a mention of Trzcińska's claims ("not scientifically serious and criticized by historians").
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The article has always been in "conspiracy theory" turf, despite hundreds of edits by dozens of editors. Back when it was created on
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Reputable sources in
English, all describe a much smaller facility, and none mention the conspiracy theory. According to the
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130:. Worst of all, plaques and monuments bearing false witness to the secret genocide started to appear around the city."
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196:"Among those grouped in Warsaw the majority was either shot to death or gassed in a provisional gas chambers"
468:"the existence of the Warschau concentration camp is hardly mentioned in standard accounts of the Holocaust"
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428:, removing the fringe content. Rejection of the fringe theory was further strengthened subsequently. (e.g.
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and was fairly accurate on creation. The hoax propagated to the German
Knowledge from the English one on
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62:. Wartime aerial photography shows that the tunnel was used for horse and car traffic throughout the war.
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of short articles on esoteric subjects, which uninvolved editors are reluctant to touch.
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the article was rewritten by
Dreamcatcher25 (mainly based on B. Kopka's 2007 book) and
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the camp only operated for one year (July 1943-July 1944), part of it as a sub-camp of
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which were that were ignored by other editors, this hoax was live in main space for
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Why were
English Knowledge editors indifferent to this hoax for so many years?
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Created as a hoax on 25 August 2004 and remained as a hoax until August 2019.
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Unofficial memorial for KL Warschau at Alojzy Pawełek square, near the
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Road tunnels on JĂłzef Bem street, under the railway leading to the
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Christian Davies is a Warsaw-based journalist writing for the
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The content was also present in several higher-tier articles:
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39:. Please leave your comments on the associated talk page.
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How
Knowledge promoted Holocaust distortion for 15 years
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Concentration Camps in Nazi
Germany: The New Histories
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and re-write the article based on mainstream sources.
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German camps in occupied Poland during World War II
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315:War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II
95:, stating that 200,000 Poles were killed in the
35:Note: the most recent version of the article is
269:"similar camps existed at Warsaw and Janowska"
525:, Christian Davies, Vol. 41 No. 9, 9 May 2019
630:Mass at chruch followed by march after cross
554:Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945
551:The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
349:Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945
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438:Created on
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366:death march
192:August 2004
181:K.e.coffman
139:Trzcińska".
103:gas chamber
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354:Majdanek
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47:, ed.
420:. On
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200:camps
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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