Six Million a true figure?

[Owen]

We are told that 6 million Jews died in the camps.
Deniers say it was less if none at all.
Some Jewish historians agree on 2.5 million.
Where does the total figure of 6 million come from?
How was that figure arrived at?
Where acurate records kept or is it a "guesstimate"?
I found this but is just an estimate.
Estimated Number of Jews Killed in The Final Solution

Or is this a number that will never be agreed on by either side of the debate?
Please don't think I'm "trolling" just "thinking out loud" so to speak.

[morse1001]

Originally Posted by Owen D

We are told that 6 million Jews died in the camps.
Deniers say it was less if none at all.
Where does the total figure of 6 million come from?
How was that figure arrived at?
Where acurate records kept or is it a "guesstimate"?
I found this but is just an estimate.
Estimated Number of Jews Killed in The Final Solution

Or is this a number that will never be agreed on by either side of the debate?

Its a figure based upon the Jewish popluation but can never be more than an estimate at best.

We do have some figure produced by the Nazis but since they are incomplete then the true figure will never been known.

[Owen]

The Holocaust is an undeniable event agreed.
100 000 or Six Million it doesn't matter, people still died for one reason, their religion.

What I do find wrong is to quote figures and totals as truth if they cannot be verified.
So this figure of 6 Million will be quoted down through Human History but could be completely untrue.
What I didn't know was the figures for Aushwitz were wrong.So they changed the plaque.
I know this is from here Estimates of the number of Jews in Nazi Occupied Europe Differ Vastly
Which pains me to say but is what they say true?

[Harry Ree]

Originally Posted by Owen D

We are told that 6 million Jews died in the camps.
Deniers say it was less if none at all.
Some Jewish historians agree on 2.5 million.
Where does the total figure of 6 million come from?
How was that figure arrived at?
Where acurate records kept or is it a "guesstimate"?
I found this but is just an estimate.
Estimated Number of Jews Killed in The Final Solution

Or is this a number that will never be agreed on by either side of the debate?
Please don't think I'm "trolling" just "thinking out loud" so to speak.

One of the best sources of information is in the accounts of the International Tribunal at Nuremburg.But as the years have passed,deeper research has "hardened" those statistics.

The organisations responsible for the genocide act always kept accurate records of their deeds.It could be said that there was rivalry amongst those "in the field" to confirm to their superiors that they were carrying the ideology to perfection.

I would think that there was an attempt by the Nazis to destroy some of the recorded evidence as there was with the attempts to remove the physical evidence of the being of the murder sites.

Some were unrepenting then and it is astounding that some held the same view to natural death of the indoctrinated ideology.

[Kyt]

One of the problems that historians had between liberation and the fall of communism (i.e. 145 and 1989/90) was access to the Soviet archives, which was crucial as most of the killings occurred in the East. During that period, it was indeed the case that population discrepancies, along with information provided by the Soviets, and the few documents available in the West, were used to compile the stastics.

Another factor was the actual quality of research carried out. The interest in the Holocaust (other than in the general perception of the crimes of the Nazis) did not emerge until the 1980s as a serious academic discipline. Part of this was political and part of this was the sheer enormity of the subject. Most survivors did not want to talk about their experiences, and only started opening up once they reached old age. As attacks on people like Waldheim and Primo Levi show, a lot of people were resistant to hearing about the "past".

The Auschwitz plaque is an example of how further study "corrects" perceived knowledge. However, what the site that you cite, Owen, doesn't state is that the plaque is for the main camp, and it is only over the last couple of decades that intensive research has allowed us to understand how many subsidary camps were linked to it, but were run semi-independently. Gilbert's "Atlas of the Holocaust" shows this.

[Owen]

Kyt
I was loathe to use that site [Stormfront] but it raised a question I wanted answering.
Thanks.

[Kyt]

Re: Post 5 -

the 49 subcamps of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex.

• Auschwitz I (Stammlager / Oświęcim),
• Auschwitz II (Birkenau / Brzezinka),
• Auschwitz III (Monowitz / Monowice),
• Babice (Babitz),
• Bieruń (Berun),
• Blachownia Śląska (Blechhammer),
• Bobrek,
• Brno (Brünn),
• Bruntal (Freudenthal),
• Budy,
• Buna,
• Chełmek,
• Chorzów (Arbeitslager Bismarckshütte),
• Chrzanów,
• Czechowice,
• Czernica,
• Dziedzice,
• Jesenik (Freiwaldau),
• Friedenshütte,
• Gliwice (Gleiwitz),
• Goleszów (Golleschau),
• Hajduki I-II,
• Harmeze (Harmensee),
• Zabrze (Hindenburg),
• Jawiszowice (Jawischowitz),
• Jaworzno,
• Kobiór (Kobior),
• Lędziny (Arbeitslager Günthergrube),
• Lesslau,
• Libiaz Maty (Janinagrube),
• Lagiewniki Slaskie (Hohenlinde, Hubertushütte),
• Lagisza Cmentarna (Lagischa),
• Monowice (Monowitz),
• Prudnik (Neustadt),
• Pyskowice (Peiskretscham),
• Plawy (Plawy),
• Pszczyna (Pleβ),
• Radostowice,
• Rajsko,
• Rydultowy (Arbeitslager Charlottegrube),
• Siemianowice (Laurahütte),
• Sosnowiec (Sosnowitz),
• Stara Kuźnia (Althammer),
• Stara Wieś,
• Świętochłowice (Arbeitslager Eintrachtshütte),
• Trzebinia,
• Wesoła (Fürstengrube),
• Zittau,
• Żywiec

[Kyt]

Just to show how the statistics are being assessed and reassessed, some information that was available to the Allies was completely missed until recently:

Höfle Telegram
H& - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[PeterG]

Originally Posted by Owen D

We are told that 6 million Jews died in the camps.

There seems to me to be some confusion here. I have never heard any historian of repute claim that 6 million Jews died in the death camps. The six million figure includes those gassed in the extermination camps, it is not the number who died there.

Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill's biographer and author of The Holocaust - The Jewish Tragedy, is an excellent authority on this. He says

The onslaught upon Jewish life in Europe continued without respite for nearly four years. At its most intense moments, during the autumn of 1941, and again during the summer and autumn of 1942, many thousands of Jews were killed every day. By the time Nazi Germany had been defeated, as many as six million of Europe's eight million Jews had been slaughtered: if the killing had run its course, the horrific figure would have been even higher

The death camps, such as Auschwitz and Belzec, horrific and productive of mass-murder though they were, were only part of the Holocaust. The ghettos and the many punitive camps (Straflager) also contributed to the ghastly toll, as did the mobile Einsatzgruppen.

For example, there were Einsatzgruppen killing sites at Tallinn in Estonia; Riga and Liepaja in Latvia; Rokiskis, Kaunas, and Vilnius in Lithuania; and eleven main ones in occupied USSR, from Minsk to Vinnitsa. The Einsatzgruppen were police units and they kept meticulous records. Here is a typical Jäger report for a single location in a single week:

Date:12.9.41 Location: Vilnius shot: 993 Jews, 1,670 Jewesses, 771 Jewish children. Total: 3,334.
Date:17.9.41 Location: Vilnius shot: 337 Jews, 687 Jewesses, 247 Jewish children; and 4 Communists. Total: 1,271.

The death camps simply put these murders on a more efficient and industrial scale.

Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz, in his autobiography professed to be uncertain of the number killed in the Auschwitz gas chambers, but gave a reliable estimate:

During previous interrogations I have put the number of Jews who arrived at Auschwitz for extermination at two and a half million. This figure was supplied to me by Eichmann who gave it to my superior officer, Gruppenführer Glücks, when he was ordered to make a report to the Richsführer SS shortly before Berlin was surrounded. (Page 193)

Note, this figure refers exclusively to Auschwitz.

[morse1001]

We can argue all day but the final figure will never be known.