Is Kitty Hart-Moxon a plagiarist?

[Sergey Romanov]

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/zywulska-krystyna

"In the same year she published her war memoirs, Przezylam Oswiecim (I Survived Auschwitz), in which she does not mention her Jewish origin at all and presents herself as a Christian Pole (for example, she mentions receiving parcels and celebrating Christmas), although in several places she expresses sympathy for the plight of Jewish prisoners and victims."

[Sheldrake]

Sorry but this is nonsense.

Plagiarim in practice means copying someone else's work. It does not mean writing about a common experience using your own words. Nor does it meant that the first author has sole rights to specific events, otherwise no one could otherwise. The standards being applied to Kitty Hart are much higher than to military memoirs from the word wars. Many veterans consulted other works before writing their own memoirs/ I spoke at some length to Ken Tout https://www.amazon.co.ukKen-Tout/e/B001HOPQU2

None of the examples of "plagiarism stand up, and can be explained by the null hypothesis. Kitty Hart hasn't exactly cut and pasted anything, which she could have got away with in the pre-internet era.

Since Moxon clearly used Zywulska's work (rephrasing it in her works) unattributed, it is hard to understand why you dismiss anything here as nonsense.

Whether it is plagiarism is something to discuss, but systematically taking someone's ideas and rephrasing them without a proper attribution absolutely can count as plagiarism, so your counter-argument doesn't work. Plagiarism is not limited to copying and pasting. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the definition.

I really don't think these examples prove plagarism. Attribution of sources is fine for an academic work but is rarely applied to old memoirs. It seems to me that too many people on this thread are 1. Dismissing the null hypothesis out of hand. 2 Are applying a more rigorous standard than they would than to other WW2 veterans.

People cut living WW2 veterans some slack regarding their memories and performance. This smell's like an attempt to discredit a witness to the holocaust.

[Brumbar]

on what could become a very controversial matter.

Really? Where?

[Sergey Romanov]

Sorry but this is nonsense.

Plagiarim in practice means copying someone else's work. It does not mean writing about a common experience using your own words. Nor does it meant that the first author has sole rights to specific events, otherwise no one could otherwise. The standards being applied to Kitty Hart are much higher than to military memoirs from the word wars. Many veterans consulted other works before writing their own memoirs/ I spoke at some length to Ken Tout https://www.amazon.co.ukKen-Tout/e/B001HOPQU2

None of the examples of "plagiarism stand up, and can be explained by the null hypothesis. Kitty Hart hasn't exactly cut and pasted anything, which she could have got away with in the pre-internet era.

Since Moxon clearly used Zywulska's work (rephrasing it in her works) unattributed, it is hard to understand why you dismiss anything here as nonsense.

Whether it is plagiarism is something to discuss, but systematically taking someone's ideas and rephrasing them without a proper attribution absolutely can count as plagiarism, so your counter-argument doesn't work. Plagiarism is not limited to copying and pasting. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the definition.

I really don't think these examples prove plagarism. Attribution of sources is fine for an academic work but is rarely applied to old memoirs. It seems to me that too many people on this thread are 1. Dismissing the null hypothesis out of hand. 2 Are applying a more rigorous standard than they would than to other WW2 veterans.

People cut living WW2 veterans some slack regarding their memories and performance. This smell's like an attempt to discredit a witness to the holocaust.

Your interest seems to be a purely apologetic one rather than academic, which is why your comments are not helpful.

[David Green]

It would also be interesting to see each element *dated*, as far as possible, using the books' internal chronologies.

Zywulska was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. Hart was deported in April 1943.

I think you hit the wrong key, Zywulska also entered Auschwitz in 1943.

[history1]

It would also be interesting to see each element *dated*, as far as possible, using the books' internal chronologies.

Zywulska was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. Hart was deported in April 1943.

I think you hit the wrong key, Zywulska also entered Auschwitz in 1943.

To be exactly on August 25th 1943, David.

[David Green]

Quite correct.

55908

http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/auschwitz-prisoners/

[David Green]

There is no record of Kitty Hart on the Auschwitz State Museum's online database. However, she gives her date of entry into Auschwitz as 6th April 1943 in the video below at 2:15:02.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL7FjsNk90Q

Hart's date of departure from Auschwitz is given as 11th November 1944 in the video below at 1:04:54.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwmlbi3V7MU

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

I have never previously heard of her.

So what is the conclusion?

Was her experience real but she plagiarised a more literate peron's text to express what were presumably common experiences for tens of thousands?

Was she a fantasist who was never in Aushchwitz in the first place?

Are they the same person?

Are there wider implications for the credibility of the so-called "Holocaust"?

Cheers,

Sid.

[history1]

There is no record of Kitty Hart on the Auschwitz State Museum's online database.[...]

Not uncommon. I have many Holocaust survivor testimonies from books published by them and they don´t appear in the database, yet.
What is more questionable is how one can not know the DOB of his/her father @7:25: " I THINK he was born in 1888."
I wonder if she really was born as "Kitty Felix"? Or maybe the Polish variant "Feliks" fits better? Especially since her father was "Karol" and not "Karl".
And why does the German wikipedia mention as her birth name "Leokadia Dobrzynska"?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hart-Moxon#Jugend

[wm]

Zywulska was a committed Communist and her husband Leon Andrzejewski was apparently a senior member of the Communist Secret Police if online sources are to be believed. She had two sons one of whom was not Andrzejewski's.

Pre-war she was a naive communist sympathizer, after the war an opportunist communist party member.
Her second husband Leon was a pre-war Jewish communist, later a NKVDist, and in Poland an officer of the dreaded Ministry of Public Security.
They lived a lavish life in their own large house, with servants, and own car (in time when the rest at best owned bicycles). But she was a damn good writer and songwriter (with numerous hits) so maybe nothing wrong with that. I to this day regret reading her Empty Water, that book is simply too good for your own comfort.
Her young sons left Poland for greener pastures, and she followed them later because she was afraid the communists wouldn't allow her visit them in the West. They weren't really threatened by the anti-Zionist campaign and intra-party purges.

With Thomas Harlan, among the more natural "things", she was writing a book The Fourth Reich, a book intended to prove the post-war Germany benefited enormously from crimes committed by Nazi Germany, especially from slave labor.

[David Green]

The buildings comprising "Kanada" were close to Crematorium IV. The question is whether there was a clear line of sight from "Kanada" to the crematorium, or whether the latter was screened off by a fence and trees.

A description and photo of Crematorium IV is here:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Bi ... au03B.html

Zywulska tells us the Krema buildings were hidden from view.

We occupied four huts in the village of Brzezinki. Three of them were filled with bales of clothes; the fourth served as our office. Now all the entrants were to come to Brzezinki and from there, after changing their clothes and washing in the local Sauna, they were to be quarantined in the camp.

Our huts were separated from the men's barracks by the width of the camp-street. Simply a street. Only instead of houses―barracks, instead of vehicles―carts piled high with sacks and pulled by prisoners.

On the next street stood our residential block. The other blocks on this street belonged to 'Canada'. This name stood for the fabulous wealth. It was given by the prisoners to the huts containing Jewish possessions.

A small piece of land stretched on the other side of our residential block. That was where our latrines stood. Just opposite was a crematory. We were separated from it by a wire fence. From behind this crematory towered the chimney of the second crematory. And from the side of the barrack where our office was located, we could distinctly see the fourth crematory.

All the crematories looked alike from the outside. Wide, two story buildings made of red brick with two jutting chimneys. All were surrounded by a wire fence. Branches were woven through the wire to screen the buildings from sight. We could see only the chimneys.

I Came Back, Krystyna Zywulska, p.111

[David Green]

There is no record of Kitty Hart on the Auschwitz State Museum's online database.[...]

Not uncommon. I have many Holocaust survivor testimonies from books published by them and they don´t appear in the database, yet.
What is more questionable is how one can not know the DOB of his/her father @7:25: " I THINK he was born in 1888."
I wonder if she really was born as "Kitty Felix"? Or maybe the Polish variant "Feliks" fits better? Especially since her father was "Karol" and not "Karl".
And why does the German wikipedia mention as her birth name "Leokadia Dobrzynska"?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hart-Moxon#Jugend

The museum website said the records were incomplete, that's not a problem for me.

At 3:53 in the Kitty - Return to Auschwitz documentary the camera shows Kitty's last school report, on it her name is given as Kitty Felixśwna. Leokadia Dobrzynska is a false identity Kitty assumed before sneaking into Germany with her mother.

[David Green]

Especially since her father was "Karol" and not "Karl".

Where did you get Karol from?

[history1]

Especially since her father was "Karol" and not "Karl".

Where did you get Karol from?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hart-Moxon
I know wiki, it might be wrong, though it´s more plausible in Poland than Karl.