Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
At 03:54 AM 9/9/02 +0800, Hekga wrote:
On wiki [[Berlin]] page I added "text". Vicki, you objected.
Around 1933, some 160,000 Jews were living in Berlin, a third of all German Jews. They constituted four percent of the population. A third of them were poor immigrants from Eastern Europe, who lived mainly in Scheunenviertel near Alexanderplatz?. The Jews were persecuted from the beginning of the Nazi regime. In March all Jewish doctors had to leave the Charité hospital. "As apparent counter-measure a worldwide Jewish boycott was called on March 24, 1933 with a Daily Express, London newspaper article stating: Judea Declares War On Germany (complete text:[[2]]). The many economic boycott actions were answered in the first week of April, when Nazi officials ordered the German population not to buy at Jewish shops." -- [[2]] = Shofar Nizcor website. -- Vicki, would you object if I changed the last sentence to read:
"In the first week of April, Nazi officials ordered the German population not to buy at Jewish shops".
instead of:
"The many economic boycott actions were answered in the first week of April, when Nazi officials ordered the German population not to buy at Jewish shops".
Yes, I would. It puts far too much emphasis on a newspaper article that (a) almost certainly had no effect on future events, (b) was not published in Berlin, and (c) was not about Berlin.
-- Vicki Rosenzweig vr@redbird.org http://www.redbird.org
Ms. Rosenzweig has captured some of my initial concern when I read the proposed change as well.
The proposed sentence appears to me such that it would be an excellent NPOV compliant factual summary of a paragraph, phase or article regarding the rising tensions in the period if a list of typical boycott actions or announcements (perhaps including the specific article headline in question) were to precede it.
Particularly useful, in my view, would be whether other parties were pursuing these economic actions as well. Did the German government eventually respond to most or everyone or only selectively: first to some of the Jewish activity, later to other opposing interests as targets of opportunity.
Divide and conquer is an old strategy that the German government seemed (to me) to abandon later in the War. Were they employing it initially in the economic arena of the pre War era?
Were others (besides some Jewish interests) likewise engaged against German interests? Perhaps we can usefully expand "The many economic boycott actions" in the article above the proposed new sentence. This might help provide the reader with sufficient information to ask themselves useful questions for further reading or research.
Regards, Mike Irwin