Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 September 9

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 9

Cricket cages

The man on the right sells cricket cages

I was wondering, is there a wikipedia article on Chinese cricket cages or cricket houses - that is, cages for singing crickets? Could be hidden behind a native Chinese name, so I'm asking here. Cricket (insect) only mentions it. I've just heard a radio show with a guest from a museum speaking about their collection of cricket houses - most of these, she said, aren't really cages but rather solid lacquer boxes (pic of a "winter house")- curious subject. East of Borschov 02:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Cricket box doesn't go where I expected (instead being a version of Jockstrap#Protective cup), but this is the name I knew them by when my family purchased some ornately stamped brass ones while living in Pakistan in the early 1970s. I've no idea it they were presented as being authentic to the region. I'm surprised that we don't have an article on them. -- 114.128.215.195 (talk) 07:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

One was featured in the 1987 film The Last Emperor. A cricket in a small pierced cylinder was given to the boy-emperor at his coronation ceremony; 70 years later working as a tour guide in the Forbidden City he remembers where he hid it behind the throne. Alansplodge (talk) 08:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we have an article about it. This EL would help you. Oda Mari (talk) 08:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Gone digging. East of Borschov 09:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Some more information here and here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Already been there! And there's also a book precisely on Insect musicians & cricket champions. Oh well, I knew of cricket houses, but they also stock them with cricket beds and cricket dishes, not to mention acoustic treatments. East of Borschov 14:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Conversion rate for ancient French franc

Shall much appreciate a pointer to a source to assist in the measurement of worth from the XVI century French currency to modern currency.95.176.67.194 (talk) 09:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC)l'ancien

If you know the weight of a 1 Franc coin and the purity, you could figure out how much silver or gold they contained and compare with modern prices maybe? Googlemeister (talk) 15:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Due to the difference in buying power using hard currency in the 16th century as compared to modern times, any conversion into modern currency will be of questionable quality. The role of money in 16th century Europe was simply not the same as today. Most historians use relative comparisons from the historical period in question, for example the average daily wage of a workman vs that of a high official, the price of a specific amount of bread or grain at a specific date or similar examples to make effective comparisons between different amounts of money. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Saddhiyama, that is exactly the type of comparison I seek. I have found a site that is helpful for the US dollar and pound Sterling, but nothing (so far) for France. All advice gratefully received.Froggie34 (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The fr:Franc français article in French has some graphs for the amount of metal in francs of various periods. That might be a start. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This looks promising. The second last, Prices and wages in various French towns (non Paris), 1450-1789, looks like what you want. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Brecht Remark on War and Modernism

In a Guardian article, "A Handful of Dust", from 20 March 2006, JG Ballard wrote "Bertolt Brecht, no fan of modernism, remarked that the mud, blood and carnage of the first world war trenches left its survivors longing for a future that resembled a white-tiled bathroom." Can anyone give me the precise Brecht quote and a source? Thanks Mhicaoidh (talk) 09:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Poking around, I found this reference to a story about two war veterans. The passage appears in English:

There's nothing you can say to these sorts that will entice them out of their tiled bathrooms, after they've had to spend a few years of their lives lying around in muddy trenches.

The relevant footnote says "Bertolt Brecht, “Nordseekrabben,” in Gesammelte Werke: Prosa (Frankfurt am Main, 1967), 1:135. See also Klaus-Detlef Müller, Erecht-Kommentar zur erzdhlenden Prosa (Munich, 1980), 79 ff." (I don't know German and so may be misunderstanding, but that appears to be a Brecht collection.) --- OtherDave (talk) 11:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: That should be "Brecht-Kommentar zur erzählenden Prosa". Just pointing it out for research purposes. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Sluzzelin. It was a copy-and-paste (I wouldn't have tried to write "erzdhlenden") but I wonder if that left the ä behind. --- OtherDave (talk) 15:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, thats very useful. Mhicaoidh (talk) 10:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Does Prayers for Rain have any sequel info related to Gone Baby Gone

I saw the movie Gone Baby Gone and thought (and still think) it is the best movie story I have ever watched. I learned it was based on the novel of the same name from Dennis Lehane, so I bought the book and love it equally as much. I learned it is part of a detective series, but did not buy or read any of the other books in the series because I wasn't interested as much in the detectives as I am Amanda (the little girl). Now I read on wikipedia that a new book will be released in November called Moonlight Mile and that it is the sequel to Gone Baby Gone. I preordered it and am very excited about it. My question is, the book between the two is called Prayers for Rain, and I am wondering if it contains any info about the detectives that directly relates to Gone Baby Gone (maybe reflections on the case and how it has impacted them?) or is it just focused on the case of that book? I ask because I would like to know if reading Gone Baby Gone and then Moonlight Mile would contain the complete story - or if I have to read Prayers for Rain before Moonlight Mile to have the complete story? Thank You —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.174.137.73 (talk) 13:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"Prayers for Rain" is about Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie's reactions to the death of Amanda, it isn't about the girl, per se. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 04:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Theoretical economic system

I will preface this with saying I have never studied economics so I have no clue what I'm talking about.

Would the following system work?

1. All (or most) corporations, small businesses, banks etc. are to be run as capitalist entities, except the owners are the state, and the disbursements and usage of the collected funds are undertaken by government employees who are just as competitive, profit-motivated, and subject to accountability as those in private firms.

2. No income, estate or sales tax.

Is there a name for this type of system? Has it been implemented? If so, was it a success or failure? If not, what are the possible drawbacks of this system? Maybe there wouldn't be enough revenue to support social programs? Thanks. 173.33.12.81 (talk) 15:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like it's trying to be a variation of state socialism, but it has some logical flaws. for instance, capitalism is based on the competition between competing capitalists, but if all businesses are state-owned, there is (effectively) only one capitalist (the state) with no competitors. This is, in fact, one of the common dysfunctional forms of state socialism, where the state takes over ownership of everything and begins to exploit all citizens unmercifully. 'Competition among government employees' is an ambiguous phrase - competition for what? If I am running a factory owned by the state, thus technically a government employee, I might be in competition with other people for better jobs elsewhere in the system, yes. but that personal profit motive would not work the same way as where my success was determined by the success of the factory (because I owned the factory). you've made a shift from a concrete competition based in commodities to an abstract competition based in politics, and that's not entirely healthy for the system. --Ludwigs2 15:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the OP had it spot on in his/her opening sentence> 92.30.216.152 (talk) 18:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

IP:

• People who ask questions when they know the answer are arrogant.
• People who ask questions when they don't know the answer are smart.
• People who don't ask questions when they don't know the answer are ignorant.

I know which the OP is; which are you? --Ludwigs2 20:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This is an interesting question, but some specification is needed about exactly how to adapt it at the top. At lower levels it is clear that employees would be accountable to middle level managers and so forth like at any big company, so there'd be no difference. But at the highest level the typical capitalist enterprise has an overpaid CEO (I wonder how much of that money goes to bribes and paying criminals...) and a board of directors. Would your scenario replace them with a different means of high-level planning, or maintain them as is and only replace the stockholders? Wnt (talk) 22:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The system is theoretically possible, but without taxes the only way for the government to get enough money is to print it, which leads to inflation. It may be worth noting that we actually have a version of your item 1 at the highest level of banking, in the form of the Federal Reserve. Looie496 (talk) 23:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be unlikely that a government would be able to be as profit-seeking as shareholders. Government corporations frequently perform quite poorly because they consider many factors other than profit. They are often at the mercy of unions, unable to easily cut jobs or services and face electoral issues rather than simply business ones. Popular is rarely efficient.124.171.201.251 (talk) 14:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well this scenario did not mention that it was in a democracy, so perhaps many of those issues would not be applicable. I suspect that China is at least a little like this. Googlemeister (talk) 16:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

You're missing the bigger economic issue. given a 'Government as shareholder' structure, just who would the government be competing with? Apple competes with Microsoft, and the result (theoretically) is that both Apple and Microsoft will improve their products to try to secure customers and profit for themselves. but if both Apple and Microsoft were owned by the government, where's the incentive towards improvement? the government makes the same profit whether the two companies make good products or bad products, so everyone might as well kick back and relax.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of cut-throat capitalism. But capitalism functions the same way that baseball functions, by pitting one group of people against another. If everyone ultimately belongs to the same team, capitalism falls apart (picture MLB where every player was on the Yankees - how would that even work?). you'd need to find an entirely different mechanism for motivation in a system like this, because the capitalist presumptions no longer apply. --Ludwigs2 17:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Book and swearing

US President George W. Bush swearing an oath with his left hand upon a Bible. Bush is the person in the front row, on the left.

In certain types of swearing ceremony, the person swearing put his or her hand on a book because of what reason? What does this represent? And what is the kind of the book to be touched? It is also noted that somehow the person swearing does not touch the book, but this kind of book is exhibited before him or her or placed somewhere important.

182.52.100.239 (talk) 15:39, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It is to sanctify the oath. A Christian would 'swear upon the Bible' for instanceFroggie34 (talk) 16:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The fourth paragraph of our article Oath has a cited claim as to why the right hand is customarily raised in Western countries. Its third paragraph discusses the book of scripture or the sacred object. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a very ancient practice - here's Harold Godwinson (allegedly) swearing to allow William of Normandy take the throne of England[1] in 1063. He's swearing on the relics of saints. After the Reformation, these ceased to be sacred to Protestants and so the Bible came to be the usual thing to take oaths on. Alansplodge (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's been said that contracts were invented by Melqart of the Phoenicians, the "lord of the city" (baal zebul) of Tyre. Thus an oath or contract, as a matter of religion, is sworn between three parties, the third being Beelzebub... Wnt (talk) 22:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

A Christian would not swear upon The Bible if he/she is familiar with its content. They should not swear at all, Saint Matthew's Gospel says so, in the words of Jesus. Mat: Ch.5 v.33-37. - MacOfJesus (talk) 22:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

They should let their yes mean yes and their no mean no. schyler (talk) 00:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this is a matter of dispute; many of us understand Jesus' words in Matthew 26:63–64 as him taking an oath in a courtroom setting. Nyttend (talk) 00:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking at the text you linked: "But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. / Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Are you saying that Jesus took an oath because the high priest said "I adjure thee by the living God"? Wnt (talk) 06:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In the UK, Quakers and Moravians each have a special affirmation that allows them to avoid swearing an oath whilst not appearing to be atheists[2].

The US Constitution allows a Presdient to "affirm" instead of "swear". I believe Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to swear when they testify in court. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 04:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The article Oath of office of the President of the United States has some interesting minutae over the practice. Apparently, only one president Franklin Pierce, used the "affirmation" version of the oath; though his religion (Episcopalian), does not, as far as I know, specifically prohibit swearing oaths as a matter of doctrine. Perhaps it was a personal thing. Pierce also chose to use a law book rather than a Bible to take his oath, apparently repeating John Quincy Adams, who did the same thing. --Jayron32 04:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The reason why Jesus told us not to swear at all is that we, unlike Him, could not see the future or "turn a single hair white or black", unlike Him. So, also we were not to judge. But, He could, and did. When Jesus was demanded to speak the truth He did. And, if you remember this was the reason why they executed Him. So, the President should not swear but affirm. MacOfJesus (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well not white or black, but my mother said I gave her a lot of gray hair. Googlemeister (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In the Church of England, a priest being installed in a new parish is required to swear two oaths in front of the congregation, with the New Testament in his (or her) right hand; The Oath of Allegiance (to the Queen) and The Oath of Canonical Obedience (to his bishops)[3]. Alansplodge (talk) 17:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well he/she should be brave enough to say no. I had to, and explain to the judge (in the High Court) why. By the way; someone or another has given me a head-full of grey hair! MacOfJesus (talk) 23:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

e-mailing

I have friends around the world - real flesh and blood people - not facebook contacts - of many cultures, colours, religions, political and philosophical beliefs, living in vastly differing economic and political environments, and I like them all. Indeed, many of them have visited us in our UK home many times and we all get along famously. But why is it that since the advent of e-mail, many if not most of these people, who would previously write to me about simple, polite, and informative, enquiring matters about family, work etc., have assumed/presumed that I am remotely supportive of their religious, political, ecological, economic, justice and other opinions, and think nothing of bombarding my INBOX with such subject matter, including links to Newspapers, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc., etc., when all I would like to have from them is the odd "Hello, how are you"? How can I say exactly that to them in such a way that I don't hurt their feelings and lose their friendship? I did try that approach once and have not heard ANYTHING since. O tempora O more. 92.30.216.152 (talk) 18:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally I chalk this up to being an unfortunate consequence of the ease on the Internet of broadcasting a message to hundreds of people. Friends assume that you will be interested in things they are interested in, and it can be seen as offensive, as you've concluded, to tell them "Please don't ever send me information about things you are interested in." So, personally, I just hit the Delete key and move on, and accept that the Internet age wastes a bit of my time on this, daily. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Be aware that some of these emails may be automatic (perhaps something that got sent to every contact and was not intended for any one specific person) and that sometimes, these things are not from who they appear to be from. Vimescarrot (talk) 19:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Comet Tuttle is close to the truth, I'm sure. My husband deals with large public institutions in the course of his work, and is constantly gnashing his teeth about the number of emails he receives from people who automatically hit the "reply all" button when sending a personal response to a group email. Since these institutions are large, with tens of people copied into emailed announcements, the upshot is that he has to waste time wading through tens of emails a day which don't look sufficiently like spam to be deleted unread, but which prove to be 50 different people all telling the originator that yes, George, they can come to the meeting on the 10th. In the same way, your inbox gets cluttered up with irrelevances from people who see something that takes their fancy and can now, thanks the the wonders of technology, forward it to everyone in their address book at the touch of a key, with little or no thought about whether it is relevant to you personally. Short of hurting their feelings or cutting them dead, there is no easy way round this if you love them. You could try bombarding them with links to something you think will bore them rigid and see if they get the message, but this may backfire if, for example, they have always nursed a secret passion for Morris dancing, Goth culture, vintage lawnmowers or the plight of endangered shrews. I'd develop speed-reading skills, bite your tongue, and try to be grateful that so many people are thinking about you. Karenjc 20:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

You could use an automatic rule to deal with this. Something like: "if new mail arrives from 'Billy' and I am not the only recipient, then move it to the folder named 'Billy's spam'". An occasional whizz through the folder will let you sort the interesting/useful from the pointless crap. Astronaut (talk) 09:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Black Death bon fires

In 14th century Europe apparently they had bonfires in towns to keep away the bubonic plague. Were there certain people in charge of this (who, what title or position) and how often did they refuel the fire to keep it going? Who watched the fire at night? Was it a continous thing (to feed the bonfire) or were there various designated "time periods" when more fuel was put on the bonfire?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 19:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Sadly people seldom have big bonfires on Guy Fawkes Night like they used to. But when I was a child they did, and big bonfires would keep burning all night without needing any attendance or extra fuel. 92.29.121.183 (talk) 21:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

See needfire. Wait, no, the deletionists have been here already. Wnt (talk) 22:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you mean the article at need-fire, Wnt? The deleted article formerly at needfire was about some band. Now redirected. --KFP (contact | edits) 23:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that - leapt to the wrong conclusion. I see force-fire is even more useful. Wnt (talk) 00:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Plague fires in London. Here is a link to the edict issued by the mayor of London in 1665. Basically, everyone paid for keeping the fires burning for three days and nights. Need-fires etc. are something else entirely. The plague fires were to purify the air rather than to evoke any mystical mumbo-jumbo. Defoe's History of the Great Plague in London --Aspro (talk) 12:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

ID cards and the Holocaust

During their persecution, how did the Nazis identify who was a Jew and who was not? Did the identity documents of the time identify people as Jewish? I'm wondering that if there had been no identity cards, then there could have been no Holocaust and other persecution, at least not to the same extent.

The first stage seems to have been that Jews were forced to wear the Star Of David outdoors (thin end of the wedge). People were afraid to go about without wearing the Star Of David because when their ID cards were checked (according to Henry Wermuth's survivor memoir Breathe Deeply My Son), their Jewishness was revealed and they would be severely punished or worse for not wearing the Star. The next stage was that people wearing the Star Of David were persecuted, segegated, deported, and murdered. So were ID cards the first link in the chain that led to the Holocaust? 92.29.121.183 (talk) 21:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

In reply to a comment saying that people were rounded up from the "Jewish quarter", although the comment has now disapeared: I do not think there were any "Jewish quarters". The ghettoization was something that the Nazis themselves has deliberately created by force, not something that existed before the persecution started. 92.29.121.183 (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

If I recall, they performed a pretty comprehensive census not long before all of their Holocaust activities. See Edwin Black's (controversial) IBM and the Holocaust, which describes in some detail the Nazi's use of information technology to identify and round-up German Jews. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:01, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I remember reading before that the Germans did indeed mark this long before the Holocaust, but trying to search for it now I came up with an apparently opposite result [4] saying that they had to mark Jews' passports with a "J" so the Swiss could deny them entry in 1938. This is indeed an issue that is desperately underappreciated. The holocaust in Rwanda also relied on such cards - without them, not even the residents could tell the "races" apart. Wnt (talk) 22:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ghettos may not have been developed until later, but Jews were largely self-segregated: Jews and Christians across Europe frowned on intermarriage and Jews tended to congregate in Jewish quarters and maintain (as they do to this day) traditional Jewish names, and were thus fairly easy to locate and identify in a loose sense. There were likely reasonable numbers of Jews who had European names and lacked semitic traits who passed in German society, at least until the Nazi's began checking into parentage. --Ludwigs2 22:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The Wermuth book mentioned above makes no mention of any Jewish quarters. Jewish people just lived dispersed like anyone else. 92.15.0.50 (talk) 11:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

see the link I gave in the previous post. Ids it really your belief that you can conclude something doesn't exist because one person doesn't mention it? --Ludwigs2 14:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Did Freud, Einstein, or Anne Frank live in the 'Jewish quarter' then? The article, which is simply a list, does not distinquish between centuries ago, and the situation in the late 1930's. I've visited lots of European countries and read other memoirs from the time, and I've never come across any mention of them. I live in the UK, and there have never been any here. I think I recall mention of one several centuries ago in Venice, but that is not the 1930s, and may have been a compulsory ghetto. The Wermuth book goes into a lot of detail about the living accommodation of the author, his family, friends, and relations, and there is no mention of a 'Jewish quarter'. 92.28.252.63 (talk) 18:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your issue here is. it was the 1930's: they didn't have genetic testing or effective computers, prior to Hitler there was no systematic means of labeling or identifying Jews, and yet somehow they still managed to do a decent job of it. obviously all Jews did not live in Jewish quarters, but the suggestion that there were no ethnic enclaves or that Jews were fully integrated into European society (to the point where it would be difficult to identify them) is ridiculous on the face of it. Jews aren't even fully integrated today. You seem to be trying to make an argument that the Nazis needed to do something extraordinary to identify Jews, whereas I think it's fairly clear that Jews were for the most part identifiable through a combination of appearance, location and association. so what exactly are you trying to say? --Ludwigs2 21:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Jews were difficult to identify by sight, apart from the very orthodox ones in traditional clothing. In the famous photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stroop_Report_-_Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising_06b.jpg that I recall of a round-up, where a frightened small boy stands with his hands up, the Jews look just like anyone else. In other photos of Jews of the era they also look just like anyone else. Current actors and others in the limelight with a Jewish background also look like anyone else. Echos of Nazi propaganda about jewish people must still survive to this day. 92.29.119.29 (talk) 12:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I feel kind of like I'm invisible here. They used computerized genealogical records combined with extensive census records done before the Nazis came to power. There is a lot of scholarship on this. There is no need to speculate. They did not just go around and say, "hey you with the nose, into the ghetto." They esteemed themselves on their "scientific" and "impartial" methods. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

So how would that have worked where the census data was not so rigorously recorded? Remember that the Nazi's rounded up Jews (and other non-desirables like homosexuals, Romani, Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled, etc.) from all over Europe. Maybe using Dehomag/IBM to process census records was one of the ways used to identify people, but many others were simply denounced by their neighbours.

Solomon Perel famously avoided the holocaust by "passing" as a non-Jew. The film Europa Europa tells his story. --Jayron32 05:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I've read, the identity documents and ID checks would prevent people from doing that. 92.15.0.50 (talk) 11:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I once asked a northern Irish friend how, during The Troubles, were the men of violence able to tell catholic from protestant. He said it was as simple as the family name and a subtle variation in accent. Maybe the same happened prior to WWII in Germany. Astronaut (talk) 09:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Remember that the two groups in The Troubles were really two historically separate groups, with Catholic/Protestant just being the simplest, most obvious difference to use. The different names, accents, football teams, traditions, etc, are linked to them being different groups, not to their religion as such. As you say, the same goes for Jews in Nazi Germany, since anti-semitism wasn't about them being a different religion, but about them being a separate group. Otherwise, a Jew could have 'converted' and been safe, and the Grandparent laws wouldn't have come in. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 13:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Converted Jews were still sent to the concentration camps, as were the descendants of converted Jews. It was the "blood", not the religion, that the Nazis cared about. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 19:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I just want to again reiterate my suggestion at looking at the article on IBM and the Holocaust. It was not a matter of subtle things or identifying by sight or where they lived or other "individual judgment" situations (which would have made it more of a pogrom of old than a Holocaust). The Nazis made extensive use of census data and historical data combined with punch-card computer technology in order to identify people with "Jewish ancestry" (according to Nuremberg definitions) so that they could later be systematically rounded up. In this way as in many others it was a terribly modern genocide: using information technology in order to identify people who were thought to different by subtle genetic qualities in order that they could be segregated, shipped to camps, and exterminated. The information technology was essential for their operation. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

There is an article Kennkarte, but it is not very informative concerning the OP's question.--Saddhiyama (talk) 12:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The film "Inglourious Basterds" opens with the portrayal of a bureaucrat's attempt to patch-over a "loop-hole" in the system. There are many other stories of Jews escaping that system (or trying to), but the truth is that the bureaucracy was chillingly efficient, precise, and relentless. ID-cards were one of the means to that end, and were made possible in part by IBM. WikiDao (talk) 16:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

One of the painful ironies is that not only were state census records used to identify Jews, but also the record of marriages and births held by the synagogues themselves. See, for example, the Stadttempel, the main synagogue of Vienna and the only one not destroyed on Kristallnacht, which had been used as a repository of such information. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

You are forgetting that in order to identify a male jew in central and eastern Europe you only had to order him to take of his pants and underware as only the jews were practising circumcision in that area. Religious Jews only married other religious Jews so their physical apearance was different from the local European population. Also leave it the collaborators who out of fear of prosecution by the Germans (hiding Jews was punishable by death in eastern Europe) or for money denounced hidden jews (see szmalcownik). 87.207.53.174 (talk) 03:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe that their physical appearance was/is different - see the comments and linked photo above. 92.15.13.186 (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)