Free Holocaust Stickers - hurry and get yours before the supply runs out!

Question

It has been a (too) long time coming, but the Holocaust Project is ELATED to announce that the stickers now work perfectly and - still better news - they have easy to understand and use parameters with clear and customizable wording.

Even more great news - the Holocaust project box has been updated to match the stickers for parameters and wording.

If there are any profiles on your watchlist for people whose lives were impacted by the Holocaust or - for future profiles you add - we're begging for your help to do the following:

1. If you want to continue to manage the profile then please make sure that the Holocaust Sticker is on it and the Holocaust Project Box is not on it.
2. If you want the project to manage the profile then please put the Holocaust Project Box on it, make wikitreeholocaust @ googlegroups.com (without the spaces) the manager, and do not put the Holocaust Sticker on it.

See these links for how to use the Holocaust Project Box and the Holocaust Sticker.

If you don't manage any Holocaust profiles, we absolutely do not want you to feel left out - the project has a very big job to get all the profiles now in Holocaust categories and/or with the old project box updated to the new standards - if you are willing to help, here's what you can do:

1. Use this announcement as a clearinghouse to prevent everybody trying to work on the same profiles.  Select a group of profiles (see list below) that has not already been claimed and post that in an answer here.
2. If any profiles in your group are not open then put a comment on them requesting what needs to be done to them.
3. For open profiles:
   • read the biography to make sure that the correct categories are on the profile. NOTE - THE TEMPLATES WILL NOT ADD ANY CATEGORIES SO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS.
   • If the profile is an orphan then adopt it so that you can add the project as manager, after which you can remove yourself
   • If the project is a profile manager then make sure the project box is on the profile with the correct parameters.
   • If the project is not a profile manager then make sure the sticker is on the profile with the correct parameters.

Who knows - maybe you'll get hooked on the Holocaust and join the project - we can't promise a fun time because working on these profiles can be emotionally exhausting but we can promise that you will feel that you are making an important contribution, not only to WikiTree, but to all of humanity.

Profile Groups that need YOU:

Holocaust Heroes
Holocaust Survivors names starting A to F
Holocaust Survivors names starting G and H
Holocaust Survivors names starting I to K
Holocaust Survivors names starting L and M
Holocaust Survivors names starting N to R
Holocaust Survivors names starting S and T
Holocaust Survivors names starting U to Z
Holocaust Victims (claim any of the camps and ghettos)

 

Comments

This photo is priceless.

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So I found at least a profile with several camp categories on it. I had assumed that the only camp or ghetto category was the place of death. Is this correct?

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For persons who were moved around to several ghettos/camps, the original plan was to include all appropriate categories.  I didn't have any real understanding of anything - not projects, not categories, in fact not even genealogy - at the time my arm was twisted to become project coordinator when the Holocaust project was first formed.  Maybe only one category - for the place of death - should be used for victims … I still don't know enough about the ways in which categories are useful to genealogists to have an opinion.  I'll post a G2G question about that so we can gather opinions and find out the best way.  THANX for raising this issue - I never would have thought about it!

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Some of my ancestors were in more than one camp. Often, at the end of the war, they were transferred to Auschwitz or Treblinka. I have put separate stickers in for each camp, but I'm happy to go with one sticker for place of death.

Debbie

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It would be interesting to be able to use categories for all the camps they were in. With the current categories, their name seems to imply that they're for victims who died in that camp. Many victims were in several camps. Survivors too may have been in one or several camps.

Grouping by train (convoy) could be an idea too.

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I am so sorry to be dense like this, but want to make sure I have this right before editing about 50 profiles.

If someone perished in a camp, do I use the text parameter to enter the name of the camp free-form? And then a corresponding category?

Thanks,

Debbie

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Debbie, the Holocaust project does not automatically connect categories to the stickers, so you do have to manually enter whatever stickers and whatever categories you choose as appropriate.

As I've said before, this project is unique because all project profiles are for people who died later than 1937.  Thus, profile managers are much closer relatives than for profiles in most other projects, so we need to allow the same creativity leeway that WikiTree does for profiles of close family members.

It's not a question of making sure you have this right … it's more a case of YOU having the option to choose how you want to do it.  For whatever it's worth (which is not necessarily anything), I will share my feelings on how I make category/sticker decisions, but please remember that this is my personal preference - you are expected to do your family in accordance with your preference.

I put categories for all camps a victim spent time in, but would only use one sticker (too many look gaudy to me) and not use the {{Holocaust Sticker|fate=victim}} that results in the default statement of "-- -- -- died as a result of persecution during the Holocaust."  Instead, I would use the {{Holocaust Sticker|text=was killed at the xxxx concentration camp during the Holocaust}}.  Of course, you can write a whole story in there if you want - you could certainly mention all the camp names in there if you choose.

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IR, I love the way you're thinking and I think we need to do a major category restructuring because what you're saying makes much more sense than what the categories can handle the way they are now.  This is a result of me not knowing what I was doing when the project started out and I had to define a category structure.  We started with Victims, Survivors, and Fate Unknown.  Anticipating that there are far more victims than anything else, we subdivided based on what camp they were in.  When we found some people who were in multiple camps, we just used multiple categories for them.

Now, 3 years down the road, we have survivors who escaped from a camp (maybe even more than 1 camp) or were found alive in a camp when it was liberated at the end of the war, yet we can't put them in the camp category because that's only for victims.  You're right - when we put victims in multiple camp categories, it does look like they died multiple times … that did not occur to me before.

The Survivors category is another problem.  I remember how excited I was the first time I found a survivor, but now we have a lot of survivors - so many that it makes sense to divide them into subcategories.

It's time to address all the category problems that have evolved and I am going to start a new question to do this.  I will quote comments about Holocaust categories from this and other recent questions in the new question to get it started.  Please hold any more comments on Holocaust categories until I get that question posted.

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Got it, Gaile - see you in this new thread!

Isabelle

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I am working on a profile for someone who perished but where is unknown. So, I used {{Holocaust Sticker|fate=victim}}   But the text that shows up then says "... was impacted by the Holocaust" still.  I thought it should now say "... died as a result of persecution during the Holocaust." So, what's going on?

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sichel-68

Also, I clicked on the various lists of profiles, but they all point to A-K.

Thanks, Debbie

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I will take Treblinka

d

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Debbie, you have found a definite problem!!!  I looked at the profile you linked and experimented - you used "Victim" and when I changed it to "victim" the right wording is displayed.

This should definitely be case insensitive - I will ask the new template project (of which I'm supposed to be part, but have not yet been given the badge) to fix that.

A big thank you for finding and reporting this!

About the lists of profiles I put links for - I can't link to the right page for the letters - I can only link to the category page that shows the first 200 - you'll have to click the "next 200" link to get to the rest of the alphabet - sorry.

Edited - oops, my bad.  I could have linked to the separate pages for each set of 200, but didn't do it - not going to change it now because it's not a big deal to page through them to find the ones you're looking for.

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Hey, I went into some other profiles, came back to it, and now the correct text is there "died as a result of..." :)

But I believe the links to the lists of victims may still not be working.

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It's correct now because I changed "V" to "v" there.  It should still do it correctly if you use a capital "V" - I need to get them to fix that!!!

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I completed TREBLINKA, and will start on STUTTHOF.

Debbie

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Stutthof and Šilalė are complete.

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Šiauliai Lithuania is complete.

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Hey Gaile!  I have a question for you, may be a stupid question but this is unknown territory for me.  Now that more people are aware of the Arolsen Archives online for free and Ancestry has been indexing them ... is the "Holocaust" only for Jewish people?

There were reportedly around 11 million Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians who also perished in the concentration camps.  I would assume "Holocaust" to include all people who died at the hands of these horrible atrocities, but then again ... I may be wrong.  If this group of Slavs, etc is to not be included in the "Holocaust", can a sticker be made for them?

Thanks!!!!

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Hi Skye,

No, the Holocaust project was never intended to be limited to Jewish people, please see Gaile's answer in this thread.

Answer 1

Gaile,

Great idea!

Once I am done with upgrading the ~80 profiles with the Holocaust Sticker to the new version of that sticker  I will work on:

Holocaust Victims at Sobibór

Answer 2

I like that the only real difference between the project box and the sticker, is the word "sticker." It will be very easy to transfer my watchlisted profiles to the project once I do a little more work on them. Very easy to use and versatile.

Comments

That's great to hear, Lucy - many THANX for doing that!  You may want to add one of the newly available parameters to the stickers while you're at it, plus please make sure that the correct Holocaust categories are on the profile while you're in there.

Answer 3

Gaile, Jan,

Thank you for working so hard to ensure Holocaust profiles are represented.

I saw that several of the Holocaust profile pages I maintain were updated with the new sticker format. I want to ensure that, as I continue to add and update those impacted by the Holocaust, I leverage both the categories and stickers correctly.

Let's use this profile of my cousin as an example: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ejzman-13

Here are my two questions.

Question 1:

When you updated Feige's profile, you added the sticker, {{Holocaust Sticker|fate=victim|text=died from starvation in the Łódź Ghetto}}. This makes sense based on the new instructions. The category on the profile, [[Category: Holocaust Victims at Łódź]], was left with your update. What’s not clear to me is whether or not it should have been removed.

My first question is: for the profiles that I continue to actively manage, should there be any categories at all related to the Holocaust, or should they all be replaced by stickers?

Question 2:

Previously, I have been placing the Holocaust sticker above the header:

== Biography ==

It seems with the updates, you both placed the sticker below the Biography header. Can you please confirm that below == Biography == is the appropriate location going forward?

Thank you,

Myles

Comments

Myles, Thank you for being so receptive to the changes (I was the one who made them).  Jan and I (and any others who volunteer to help with this huge task) are systematically going through all Holocaust project profiles to make sure they are properly displaying the project box or sticker, as appropriate.

You have some excellent questions.  The WikiTree policy is that project boxes go above the Biography header and stickers go below it.  My personal preference is to use some judgement about where to place the sticker - I like to put some stickers (not project ones, for the most part) at the start of the paragraph in the biography that they relate to, for example those about immigration or military service.  In the case of the Holocaust project sticker, I would like to see it at the top - above the Biography - because I think of this as a way to honor those persecuted during the Holocaust.  Also, this would be in keeping with the rule that the project box is to be replaced by the sticker for profiles not managed by the project.  It would be good (in my opinion) for the sticker to occupy the same position as the project box it replaces.  Despite how I feel about it, this is not the prescribed way to do it - I don't understand why the decision was made that it is supposed to go below the Biography header, but that's the way it is.

About categories - neither the project box nor the sticker will automatically add any categories (like some other projects do) so it is still necessary for you to have to determine the correct categories for the profile and put them on it.  Stickers and categories are two completely different things.  Stickers and project boxes are essentially nothing more than decoration for the profile.  They indicate to whoever sees it that this profile is part of the Holocaust project, but that's all they do.  Categories are the way the project can keep track of all the profiles that are in it.

The reason the Holocaust project did not want to have categories automatically assigned is that it is too difficult to determine which ones to assign.  In the case of Survivors and Fate Unknown, it wouldn't be difficult provided the "fate=" is used, but that might not happen because you have the option of inserting whatever text you want to appear on the sticker or project box instead of the default sentence that would go with the "fate=" value.  In the case of Victims, it would lead to many errors because the names of the camps need to be specified precisely as spelled in the categories for each one, plus we may not have categories for all the ghettos and camps already there, which means that a new one has to be added.  Also, people got moved around from 1 place to another a lot and need multiple categories for all the camps/ghettos they were in.  As a result, we decided to ask people to continue to manually add the proper categories instead of trying to automatically assign them.

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Gaile,

Thank you for responding so quickly.  You answers provide clear guidance.

Myles

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Gaile,

An additional question.  This is minor, but I figured I'd ask for full consistency in profile population.

When I review the text= examples here:  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Holocaust_Sticker

Some of the text ends with a period before the }} and others do not end in punctuation.  For example, "went in hiding during the Holocaust}}" versus "famished in the Holocaust.}}"

Is there a style guide preference?

If one has not been selected, and the goal is to have one, I would vote not to have ending punctuation.

Thanks,

Myles

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Actually, there is no specific style guide item that covers this.  The inconsistency in the examples is something that slipped past me when I was reviewing the sticker page, or I would have made them consistent.  My personal preference would be to have the period at the end because the way it appears is a full sentence, since whatever text you enter is preceded by the person's name.

Of course, those are only examples and the text that can be entered is completely open to whatever you want to say there.

In the absence of any official guidance, I'd say to do it however *YOU* prefer!

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I see this now, how when adding the sticker you do have a complete sentence if you add a period.  Thanks for this additional guidance; even if it's not official, I'll adopt it.

Answer 4

Thanks for all this, Gaile.

Now that I fixed the profiles on my watchlist (got to like the text parameter - I did use an uncompromising text in French for the profiles with a biography in French), I'll be happy to help with: Category:Holocaust Victims at Auschwitz-Birkenau

(As an aside - if we have Righteous Among the Nations profiles, we can use the sticker with fate=hero parameter on them, right?).

Comments

THANX, I, for your wonderful offer to do the sticker/project box work on that group of profiles.

The Righteous Among the Nations category was originally created by the Holocaust project as a subcategory of Holocaust Heroes, but while working on the new sticker, I discovered that it appears to have been hijacked and now belongs to the categorization and World War II projects (there are many, many other problems I found with the Holocaust categories that will all be addressed very soon).

We defined default text to go on the sticker (or project box - they both work identically now) for the specific values of "fate=" of "unknown", "survivor", and "hero" so that you don't have to use the "text=" parameter.

When you use "text=" and write your own description, it does not matter if you entered anything for "fate=" - the "text=" value will override that.

For Righteous Among the Nations, I don't think "fate=hero" is as good as "text=was honored as Righteous Among the Nations" or something like it.  If "fate=hero" is used without any "text=" then it will say "Despite mortal risk, ... ... ... helped persecuted persons during the Holocaust."

Answer 5

Didn't realize this was four years old, but just changed from Holocaust Sticker to the Holocaust Box and added the project as manager to a bunch of profiles that I created but am not able to manage.  I did update the bios using the bio generator as best I could though.