Talk:Mauthausen concentration camp

"Melk concentration camp" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Melk concentration camp. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 10#Melk concentration camp until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. buidhe 11:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Mauthausen

This was German camp 85.255.234.39 (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I believe the following should be added for BRUTAL context; from the book "The 186 steps": "Those who visit the Mauthausen quarry today, don't see the same thing, for since then, the steps have been redone - a real stairway, cemented, and regular. At that time, they were simply cut with a pick into the clay and rock, held in place by logs, unequal in height and tread, and therefore extremely difficult, not only for climbing but also for the descent. Stones rolled under our wooden-soled sandals, and we were forced to keep moving at a very rapid pace.

The work consisted of carrying up a stone of considerable size and weight, along the 186 steps, after which there was still a considerable distance to cover. The man who chose a stone found to be too small was out of luck. And all of this went on at the rate of eight to ten trips per day. The pace was infernal, without a second's rest."

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/01/the-infamous-mauthausen-stairs-of-death.html -NotBond007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by NotBond007 (talk • contribs) 01:18, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Revert

@Loew Galitz: I point out that per WP:ONUS, just being verifiable is not sufficient reason to keep material in the lead. Your preferred version puts excessive weight on the official grade of the camp. However, this grade was only on paper and in practice, the grade of a camp does not correlate well with the actual conditions or death rate (Auschwitz was consistently deadlier despite being rated a grade II camp). The prominent position in the lead can mislead the reader into thinking that this is an important and accurate measure of the camp's severity. Furthermore, the entire Mauthausen system cannot be described as "extermination through labor", as it included camps with a low death rate or even where no deaths occurred. The entire concept of extermination through labor is controversial for a variety of reasons and should not be given excessive weight or presented in a decontextualized manner. (t · c) buidhe 17:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Colleague, I see your logic, but these issues must come from reliable sources. In particular the controversy over "Extermination through labour" is not covered in this article. Therefore these substantial changes must be supported by reliable sources or as a minimum by other Wikipedia articles, otherwise they are not easily verifiable.

Second, I know only well that scholarly sources may err and may be superceded by more recent research, but you cannot dismiss cited referenced by wikipedian's opinion. If you think that some sources err or obsolete or fringe, etc., you have to provide other sources, not just an "alphabet soup". By the way WP:ONUS is inapplicable, because I am not seeking to include some text. Instead, you are seeking to delete a piece which was present in the article for a long time. Therefofre the onus is on you to prove that all previous wikipedians were wrong. Loew Galitz (talk) 18:09, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

P.S. I am not an expert on this issue, I merely noticed major changes in pages on my watchlist. Therefore I will not engage further in this discussion, let us see what other wikipedians will say. Unfortunately with a sorrow I notice that the participation of active contributors in Wikipedia dwindled greatly and 90% of changes in my watchlist are from wikignomes, with only cosmetic changes which do not contribute to knowledge. Therefore I anticipate you changes will stay regardless. Good luck. Loew Galitz (talk) 18:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Regardless of concerns about accuracy, I do not see why the removed content is WP:DUE in the lead. The lead must be a summary of the body and neither the official grade of the camp, nor the concept of "extermination through labor", are discussed in the body, so they should not be in the lead.

The claim that "Unlike many other concentration camps, which were intended for all categories of prisoners, Mauthausen was mostly used for extermination through labour of the intelligentsia – educated people and members of the higher social classes in countries subjugated by the Nazi regime during World War II." does not even seem to be factually accurate. I cannot access the cited sources but based on the ones I have access to, Mauthausen also held all classes of prisoners, including many Soviet POWs who would not have been any more educated than the average Red Army soldier, and homosexual prisoners who were disproportionately from the lower classes. (t · c) buidhe 18:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

After a brief reading, I figured out the issue with "grade III". The reason of our misunderstanding about its inclusion in the lede is that over time the functionality of the camp changed somewhere in 1942. Before that it was indeed a "tough" camp for political enemies hence assigned grade III. But gradually it was turned into a "regular" (if I may say so) labor camp, for which workforce was important. But the classification did not change. (The brutality towards emaciated Muselmänner (and to others) did not change, but there was no longer intentional starvation.) That's my summary. I think this is an important consideration to be added, but I do not intend to work on the article. Loew Galitz (talk) 19:23, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

20 years later sentence

I'm not sure what this sentence is trying to say:

Mauthausen was a concentration camp that first appeared in 1938, and the original Mauthausen camp was not situated precisely on the same spot as the latter more commonly known Mauthausen opened 20 years later.

It seems to imply there was one Mauthausen concentration camp in 1938, and then another in 1958 or possibly one in 1918 and one in 1938, I'm pretty sure neither meaning is the intended one, so it would be good if someone knowledge-able could clean this sentence up. 173.71.95.77 (talk) 15:07, 16 January 2024 (UTC)