Six Million a true figure?

[morse1001]

Originally Posted by Owen D

Shall we start a new thread?
Bulgaria in WW2
This is nothing to do with my original question.
I had locked the thread but have reopened it.

I was thinking about opening up a bulgarian home front section but the even now the thread has opened a different track.

[sapper]

That anyone could deny what crimes the Germans got up to in the concentration camps, is absolutely stupid.
There many Veterans around that witnessed and recorded the scenes. My old friend Alan Westermen did just that. And I did posted that paper here much earlier for all to see.

There was a minor camp at Breendonck? in Holland. We heard about it while we were battling to get the lads out of Arnhem. The battles to get to Arnhem took us in a different direction, so I have never seen the place. Though a friend in Holland knew all about it.
As to the discussioin that has taken place here? My answer to that is: "Why not for heavens sake? It happened" To deny a free discussion on something as horrific as this, is just sweeping it under the carpet.

We have enough idiots saying it never took place without a honest discussion being barred, or cut short. Free speech is above all.... the most vital ingredient of Freedom.
Sapper

[BulgarianSoldier]

Even for 1 min i didn't denied the holocoust and the death of milions jews, i wont speak with numbers like sapper usualy do because i balive the numbers are no matter here the matter is that a lot of jews died in the camps, PeterG didn't understand me correctly, i didn't denied the holocoust and i didn't denied the gas chambers, there are many methods for killing that the germans also used in the camps.I will say it again im not a holocoust denier and im not a nazi not only because my half family died fighting the nazis in Bulgaria during ww2 but because im lived in years when a nazi was a dirty word usualy used to swere some one so i take it really offensive.I was born in a coutry that every home has amost one portreit of Stalin and every one studied Russian in school because we were like brothers with the russians.
Sapper your even starting to insult me more but im not agresive man i dont insult people in the forums by telling them words like idiots,stuped people, maybe i insult people without me wanting as you did in one of your post by insulting most of the east europens and foregniers who come and work in England.

Im sorry Owen for broking your thread with just another of mine "damn" posts that i questioned the number of the dead jews.As you could see i stoped to answer and post but most of the people here just cant stop, but after the last post of sapper and most of the guys who just join in the thread and didn't read the posts and said 'oh my god this guy is denier he is even simpatise the nazis'.

When sapper sees that he had not effect insulting me he start insulting my motherland by saing that we were nazis we are so bad as them and so on and so on.. Im not good in numbers and maybe i will be wrong in the number but around 31 000 Bulgarian soldiers died fighting agaist the nazis in Macedonia,Serbia,Hungary, parts of Slovakia,and parts of Austria, Bulgarian soldiers were fighting not only in Waffen SS devisions but in Russians,Ukrainians devisions also.
So sapper i ask you polite, i know it is your choise where to write but i will ask you please i will not replay to your posts anymore so please dont replay to mine.Im just asking you polite..

[Owen]

I suppose this thread proves that 62 years on we can still get agitated about the subject.

We are all agreed that it happened, we all think it was a terrible event.

It's just the numbers game that divides us.

I know my thread title may have been unsubtle but why beat around the bush.
I had a query, it needed answering. In doing so I created a monster.

Just goes to show that two things lead to heated debate here,
The Cold War and The Holocaust.

I have done a lot of research into the number of deaths over the past 7 or 8 years, never been able to come up with anything I would rest my hat on, I doubt if even the Germans could. There attention to detail fell by the way side early on when they knew the fate of those in the camps, as one German official who was supposed to be managing camp numbers once said "why count them in when they will never be counted out?"

The more time goes on the more or less the numbers will be depending on what else is found, nobody can deny the events regardless of the numbers.

Many years ago I interviewed 3 people locally who were in the camps, I rarely re-read their personal and intimate accounts of the camp. When I was last there I buried something beside the block each of them were in.

[spidge]

I am sure that I have read that a balance was struck between the amount of Jews known to be in Europe post 1930 and subsequent census post war.

These were then correlated with German files and the movements of Jews worldwide including those that went to Israel etc.

[BulgarianSoldier]

I think the germans killed more jews then 6milion, but they bured there bodys outside the camps somewhere.
I was reading about a method that the germans used to kill jews, it was named manmashine or something like that.The germans forced thousends of jews to step on a iron bars who are 1 meter under the water, when the jews where in the water the germans put electricity in the water of course every jew was dead,i dont know where the bodys were going next but the bodys were put in a mashine that smash the bodys leaving nothing.
Germans were master in killing and even beter in hiding of just making the bodys disapear.

Owen the idea of opening Bulgaria Home front isn't bad ,because there i will leave facts that will show everybody that during the war bulgaria never fightalongside the germans only agaist partisans,but never agaist outher coutrys.And the thousends of Bulgarians killed fighting agaist the german army.

Dani, I don't think burying that many corpses would work mate. They'd have been easily found in the post war investigations.
Crematoria are the only way. Yes, crematoria could be built then to withstand the great heat from bricks. They already were. And blast furnaces were. So why not concentration camp crematoria? And skeletal remains are turned to ash in a crematoria oven. Only a few pieces are left which are easily disposed off.
As to near the end of the war when fuel was scarce, that was when bodes were either dumped in mass graves, or just piled up to rot within the camp boundaries.
It was possible to dispose of 6 million bodies without leaving evidence for more than a few hundred thousand at most.

[PeterG]

Originally Posted by Kitty

I don't think burying that many corpses would work ... . They'd have been easily found in the post war investigations.
Crematoria are the only way. ... As to near the end of the war when fuel was scarce, that was when bodes were either dumped in mass graves, or just piled up to rot within the camp boundaries.

There is precise primary evidence for this gruesome subject. We have Rudolf Hoess' authentic autobiography written in a Polish prison. As a matter of fact initially, being sure that they would win the war, the Germans were not concerned about future 'evidence'. To begin with their victims were buried in mass graves, it was only later that cremation was used. It was only as the tide began to turn that it dawned on the Germans that they just might have to get rid of the evidence. Inmates were forced to open the mass graves and hasty experiments were made on how to dispose of the corpses in an advanced state of putrification. Let me give you Hoess' own words:

During the summer of 1941 the bodies were still being placed in the mass graves. Towards the end of summer, however, we started to burn them; at first on wood pyres bearing some 2,000 corpses, and later in pits together with bodies previously buried. In the early days oil refuse was poured on the bodies, but later methanol was used. Bodies were burnt in pits, day and night, continuously. By the end of November all the mass graves had been emptied.

This was for the first batch of mass graves, there were others. Hoess continues:

Shortly after the visit [made in the summer of 1942] of the Reichsführer SS [Himmler], Standartenführer Blobel arrived from Eichman's office with an order from the Reichsführer SS stating that [all] the mass graves were to be opened and the corpses burnt. In addition the ashes were to be disposed of in such a way that it would be impossible at some future time to calculate the number of corpses burnt.

Blobel had already experimented with different methods of cremation in Culenhof and Eichman had authorised him to show me the apparatus he used.

Hössler and I went to Culenhof on a tour of inspection. Blobel had had various makeshift ovens constructed, which were fired with wood and petrol refuse. He had also attempted to dispose of the bodies with explosives, but their destruction had been incomplete.
...
It became apparent during the first cremations in the open air that in the long run it would not be possible to continue in that manner. During bad weather or when the wind was blowing, the stench of burning flesh was carried for many miles and caused the whole neighbourhood to talk about the burning of Jews, despite official counter-propaganda. ... Moreover the air defence services protested against the fires which could be seen from a great distance at night.[!] Nevertheless, burnings had to go on, even at night, unless further transports were to be refused.
...
The two large crematoria I and II were built in the winter of 1942-43 and brought into use in the spring of 1943. They had five three-retort ovens and could cremate about 2,000 bodies in less than twenty-four hours. Technical difficulties made it impossible to increase their capacity. Attempts to do this put them out of action altogether.
...
The two smaller crematoria III and IV were capable, according to calculations made by the construction firm of Topf of Erfurt, of burning about 1,500 bodies in twenty-four hours. Owing to war-time shortage of materials the builders were compelled to economise during the construction of crematoria III and IV and they were therefore built above ground and the ovens were of less solid construction. It soon became apparent, however, that the flimsy build of these two four-retort ovens did not come up to requirements. Number III failed completely after a short time and later ceased to be used altogether. Number IV had to be repeatedly shut down , since after its fires had been burning for from four to six weeks, the ovens or chimneys burnt out. The gassed bodies were mostly burnt in pits behind crematorium IV.
...
Crematorium II , later designated bunker V, was used up to the last and was also kept as a stand-by when breakdowns occurred in crematoria I to IV.

Leaves you kind'a stunned reading that, doesn't it.

[sapper]

Remembering the SS. It does not surprise me at all. What sort of human? being could countenance such behaviour. It is not then surprising that I retain the loathing I felt for the SS then, and still do today.
Sapper