Talk:House of Dolls

Aryan or Jewish women?

There seems to be some disagreement on whether Joy Division refers to Aryan or Jewish women. -- v 05:49, November 18, 2002

I'm sure it was the latter- some of the women from the concentration camps were kept by and used as prostitutes for the camp guards- these were known as the Joy Division- there was alot of controversy over Joy Division's choice of a name in the music press at the time quercus robur 06:00, November 18, 2002

Interesting. I had always thought it was a reference to Jewish women, but then the 24 Hour Party People film and reviews claimed it was "Aryan women." Maybe the filmmakers were indulging in some revisionism so their movie wouldn't be as controversial as its subject? --Anon. 12:20, December 15, 2002

Pretty sure it was Jewish women Kabads 12:21, December 15, 2002

I'm sure it was aryan women. Its very possible that Jewish women were also abused in a similar way. I suppose it varied from country to country and camp to camp.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.45.160.165 (talk • contribs) 22:17, February 5, 2004

Definitely Jewish women. 24 Hour Party People got it wrong, whether intentionally or not, though I would suspect the former. Just try finding a reference, apart from that movie and various reviews of it, that says anything about so-called "Aryan" women being forced into sexual slavery for German soldiers. You won't find one. Buck Mulligan 00:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

And Japanese War Crimes? There is a tag at the bottom of the page, but no reference to Japanese at all in the text. It is not self evident. (Dewobroto (talk) 16:55, 13 March 2010 (UTC))

Accuracy dispute

I've just discovered that the main body of this article was replaced with a wholesale rewrite by 213.48.83.6 on January 13, and nobody seems to have paid it much notice. I came across it only because of one of possibly many mistakes in the article, the assertion that "Karol Cetinsky" wrote the book The House of Dolls. I don't know whether Cetinsky is a real person or not, but I have verified (via Bookfinder) that the book really was written by Ka-Tzetnik 135633 (pen name). So I am particularly nervous about the other "facts" in this rewritten article, especially since no new references were included. —LarryGilbert 21:46, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)

Could "Karol Cetinsky" just be another pen-name for DeNur (Ka-Tzetnik 135633), perhaps? Maybe his stuff was published under that name in certain editions or certain countries. I don't really know, but searching Google for "Karol Cetinsky" brings up quite a lot of pages claiming that somebody of that name wrote The House of Dolls, so I wouldn't be too concerned this was a concerted effort to inject incorrect info into the article. The article looks OK to me - there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong in it, anyway. --Camembert

I did that revision ages ago when I wasnt registered and so it was logged as a number rather than my username. Regarding the Karol Cetinsky thing, I changed it because everything Ive ever read about Joy Division, mainly from music encyclopedia's and band biographies, was that it was written by Karol Cetinsky. So I just assumed that it was the english translation of Ka-Tzetnik 135633 and changed it. The rest of the article is correct according to everything that I have read. Sorry about the confusion all of this has caused.Motown Junkie 16:31, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that--I've removed the factual dispute notice from the article. And thanks also for your edits :) --Camembert

Query the source

"The House of Dolls" is usually described as a novel. Is there a serious history book that supports this article? --Zero 14:04, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I believe that William Shirer, who wrote a history of the Third Reich mentioned that the Nazis used some concentration women to form a brothel. This is mentioned, in passing, in the chapter on Nazi medical experiments. 145.253.108.22 10:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Detail of the book

There is the claim, that "Some suffered horrid "medical" experiments on their bodies.". Is this written in the Book? I can not remeber. Or is it just something someone added?

Yes, it is written in the book. The most significant section is in Chapter 12, which describes the Surgical Experiment Department. TitusD 12:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Disturbing inaccurancies in the Article

I made some changes which got immediatly overturned by somebody, since I have a fairly good knowledge of German history, also I am Iranian / Austrian.( German Allgemeine Hochschulreife (~BA) Double Mayor History(mostly 3rd Reich) and Mathematics; Italian BA in Economics; Currently 1st year PhD in Belgium)). I think that commenting the change will solve the problem.

I changed Nazi Soldiers, against German soldier. For anybody litterate in German history, it is known that Solders of the German Wehrmacht where not necessay members od the Nazi part. In fact, olthough the Wehrmachts leadership, was in favour of the war, it big parts of it where decisivly against the National Socialists. Further SA and SS, which could be considered as "Solder like Verbaende" where not part of the Wehrmacht. Therefore using Nazi Solders, makes no sense. There is no Groupe commonly refered by that term.

I changed the Structure of the first sentence, because I belive, that when there is an Article about a book, the first thing mentioned should be the Book; as opposed to something appearing in the book, than a summary sentence.

I removed the "Some suffered horrid "medical" experiments on their bodies." sence, since to my knowledge it does not come out of the book(at least I can not remember). Antaeus Feldspar, when you have read the book, tell me where it is mentioned. I can not remember.

Experiments are in the book, see my comment in the section above 'Detail of the book'. TitusD 12:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Since in wiky the Joy deivision, becomes its own living and because the Joy division, was for some time (in Wiki, and only in Wiki; not in the science literature) described as real. I think it is very important to point out that there is no historical evidence for its existance. It is described only in the fictional novel. So who ever deletes the " There is no historical evidence of the existance organiyed of Sexual slavery in concentration camps." sentence, should be either able to give some historical evidence: first or secondary sources. Or give a good reason, why the warning is not useful.

Why I changed the page name. Since the Joy division never existed, again, try to find scientific evidence. I thing it makes much more sence to have it under the titel of the Novel in which it appears. If you do not know the historical literature well, (despide that you should not edit this article anyway) why don't you go to [1] and try to find papers on sexual slavery in the third reich. You will find some hits, but checking them, will reveal you that there is nothing on this topic, besides Lebensborn. But Lebensborn is a compleatly different issue.

Please in future, be more careful, wether you realy now, what you are editing.

--Taghawi-Nejad 19:17, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC) please feel free to contact me you will experience a warmer tone, but I become increasingly bitter, how people ignore the need for evidence and a fictional part of a book gets into a encyclopedia as a really existing group. davoudhp1@taghawi-nejad.de

That is one possibility, that the Joy Division never existed, that it was entirely a fictional creation, and that there was never any sexual slavery in the Third Reich. Another possibility is that it didn't, it wasn't, and there was. Now, what is the appropriate way to handle such a conflict of views on Wikipedia? It is not to do as you did and change everything to reflect your view on what is real and what isn't and to erase the fact that some people believe otherwise. What did you think, that the moment you submitted your opinion that it is "a viky born Hoaxd" [sic], that everyone would throw up their hands and say "Oh, that settles it! You know, I wasn't sure whether it was real or a hoax, but this is clearly the definitive answer on the subject!"? If you want to edit the article to note that the existence of the Joy Divisions is disputed, do that. If you try to edit the article to ignore the fact that there is dispute and reflect only your side of the dispute, your changes will get reverted; if not by me, by another Wikipedian who understands NPOV as you do not appear to. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:32, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On the discussion there have been coments that the joy division is only from the book, for one month now. Outside vickythere is no dispute that the joy division never existed, it only appeared her as a fact. When I would cal it disputed wicky would get selve referened. Tha absolute non existance of the Joy diision in the scientific literature, should be a convincing fact. Which is easy to check and would when wrong be easy to chalange. <not sientific, but interesting> When you search the web for the Joy division constrained to dates before the first entry in viky pedia you do not find entries describing the Joy div as non fictional. After this you find only articles referenying viky. Thanks to viky a fictional thing transited to reality, Thatm I belive, is dangerous. I think the NPOV concept, makes sense, but in my trade we believe in something like scientific evidece. When there are facts in the article that just reflect to other sids point of view, but they lake any evidence, they should get correced, Sir, you are saying: Another possibility is that it didn't, it wasn't, and there was. In a scientific working this is the point where you have to put forward evidence. When you look on the discussion in here you see that when somebody put forward that it is fictional, there was no discussion, because nobody contradicted. Setteling it: well if my attemps to settle the subject, would have been chalanged only by people how have a back ground in European history, It would have been setteled for a while. Meaning that my thing was not the definite anwer, but some informed step towards it. I undestand the reason to erase my changes, but it should have been done by somebody who knows about the subject matter.

--Taghawi-Nejad 12:12, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The problem is, you see, that I happen to know that the Joy Divisions were believed by some to be historically real long before the World Wide Web existed, let alone the first wikis, let alone Wikipedia. So when you claim the Joy Divisions are a hoax that started on Wikipedia, I know that you are wrong about that -- the Joy Divisions may still be a hoax, but I can hardly assume you know for sure that it is when you are wrong about where it started. If you go to Talk:Vampire watermelon you will see that people continued to claim that that was a hoax, that people were just stupidly mistaking something Terry Pratchett invented in a fictional novel for reality -- after it was established that Terry Pratchett himself said that no, it wasn't his invention.

And frankly, you've called it "Wiki", "wiky", "wicky, "viky", "vicky", and the closest you've come to calling it by its correct name (the one which distinguishes between an entire category of websites, and one specific website in that category) is "viky pedia". Can you see why this would raise some doubts about the accuracy and precision of your "scientific evidence"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:37, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fact or Fiction

I think the article needs to state that there is no direct evidence or confirmation of the claims made in the novel. And it was a novel.

Another important fact not mentioned is that technically it was illegal for soldiers or any "pure" German to have sex with Jews? It's hard to see how this could have been allowed with such a law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

At the very least, something to the effect of "Whether or not such groups really existed is up for debate" should be added to the definition. The current article is confusing at best. Was about to edit it myself, but noticed the existing debate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Absolutely agreed. You can't have the article directly contradicting itself! I guess we could somehow state the two rival viewpoints as being equally valid (if they are both equally valid, that is, for I do not know very much on this subject). Cheers, Hauser 09:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Added unsigned notices (above). Although the following is interesting and may prove useful if this article is split (as suggested by me below) it contradicts the article as it is now. It has therefore been removed.

In reality, in some concentration camps, prisoner women were kept to reward some inmate workers, but there is no hard evidence that Jewish women were ever kept for Nazi soldiers. This would have violated the racial policy of Nazi Germany, specifically the Nuremberg Laws, in particular the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor".

jareha 05:03, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Considering that this IS an article about a novel, it's somewhat surprising that there is absolutely no plot summary included in the article.222.254.176.221 (talk) 14:26, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Split suggested

It seems that this article should be split into two articles. One article for the novel (The House of Dolls) and another about the historical women called "Joy Divisions" — this, of course, if such an article can be properly cited. I imagine such a split would go a long ways to seperate fact from fiction. Thoughts? jareha 05:03, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

They used to be separate and were combined because no reference to "Joy Divisions" outside the book were found. --Zero 06:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I found plenty of references to "Joy Divisions" and Nazi Germany with just a simple Google search. I'd say that's a better judge of the worthiness of a topic than internal wikilinks. jareha 07:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, all these references are traceable back to the book. To show that there is anything to the story that doesn't come ultimately from the book, we need something like a reference in a history book or an independent testimony. Preferably we need a reference to somewhere that a competent historian has investigated the claim and found that it is true. Can you find anything like that? --Zero 08:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll do my best to try. jareha 19:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Sources

This story is highly dubious, rapings may have happened. But organized brothels with jewish women for German soldiers in concentration camps? That would've been a serious offense of the Nuremberg Laws and would've been punished with prison. Literature about German warcrimes is abundant. Isnt it possible to find other sources then a novel?--Tresckow 21:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

A novel is not a source, it is fiction. Sources here should be to the literary significance, critical comment and verifiable comments made in the article about the novel. What the "fiction" includes is what is in the novel, period. The facts of the events during the period, place and time being covered it for another forum. This is to discuss the construction and merits of this wikipedia article. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 17:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

but pepople keep insisting it would be fact. thus linking it to warcrimes. the internet has no real entriy whatsoever on "Deutsches Soldatenhaus", Yad Vashems Database doesn´t either. No history books are cited as reference. Still some people think this dubious book represents facts. if so why is nobody able to cite a history book?--Tresckow 16:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Please state your point clearly. What is your suggestion related to the improvement of the article? `'mikka 20:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

take out the categories about warcrimes. either it is a novel or it is fact. if it is fact, as somebody could think, there should be sources. other than literature sources.--Tresckow 14:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

A search of a large public library for "concentration camp prostitution" turned up "Sexuality and German Fascism" which references primary oral and documentary sources for Jewish inmates being forced to provide sexual services to German guards. See footnote 64. 150.101.30.44 (talk) 06:29, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Literary hoaxes

I have removed Category:Literary hoaxes, because there is no clear argument in the text that this is a literary hoax. If some reliable source could be cited (and an argument summarized), then please do so and add the category back.

I believe the documentary "Stalags: Holocaust and Pornography in Israel" by Ari Libsker is clear enough in classifing the book as fiction. The fact that it may not always be correctly identified as fiction, and definately was not identified as such right after it was published, could qualify it as a literary hoax. 76.29.111.57 (talk) 18:11, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

"The novella describes "Joy Divisions", which were groups of Jewish women in the concentration camps during World War II who were kept for the sexual pleasure of Nazi soldiers."

While there certainly were reports of guards at Auschwitz and other concentration camps sexually abusing female Jewish inmates, the Freudenabteilungen did not use Jewish inmates or serve German guards; this would have been a direct violation of the Nuremberg Race Laws. Although the book may describe such a scenario, I have made explicit that this is fiction, since the intro makes it sound otherwise. Of course, it's impossible to prove that no German soldier ever used the brothels, but that was not the purpose for which they were set up. I have included a citation which states that there was a brothel for the use of German soldiers outside of Auschwitz, staffed by German civilian women. FatPie123 (talk) 07:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)