This Holocaust Author's Auschwitz Blog

The Official Wannsee Conference Figures!!

A.

The General Government 2,284,000 Jews.
Unoccupied France 700,000 Jews.
The Eastern Territories 420,000 Jews.
Bialystok 400,000 Jews.
Occupied France 165,000 Jews.
Holland 160,800 Jews.
Germany 131,800 Jews.
Bohemia & Moravia 74,200 Jews.
Greece 69,600 Jews.
Austria 43,700 Jews.
Belgium 43,000 Jews.
Lithuania 34,000 Jews.
Denmark 5,600 Jews.
Latvia 3,500 Jews.
Norway 1,300 Jews.
Estonia Free of Jews. (1,000 Jews)

The Official Wannsee Conference Figures!!

B.

Russia 5,000,000 Jews.
(with Ukraine and Byelorussia)
Hungary 742,800 Jews.
Rumania 342,000 Jews.
England 330,000 Jews.
Slovakia 88,000 Jews.
Italy 58,000 Jews.
Turkey 55,500 Jews.
Bulgaria 48,000 Jews.
Croatia 40,000 Jews.
Switzerland 18,000 Jews.
Serbia 10,000 Jews.
Sweden 8,000 Jews.
Spain 6,000 Jews.
Ireland 4,000 Jews.
Portugal 3,000 Jews.
Finland 2,300 Jews.
Albania 200 Jews.

TOTAL 11,293,300 Jews to be Murdered!

Statistical Analysis does play an inordinate part in the telling of The Holocaust. I would rather err of the side of Simon Wiesenthal when he suggests we Remember, these are People, not merely a Statistic! Caught up in the figure at The Wannsee Conference is a direct threat to more than 11,000,000 Jews living within Hitler’s grasp. It is a Fact that while 6,000,000 Jews of Europe were Destroyed, 5,000,000 of those targeted at Wannsee did not!

The Murder of 6,000,000 Jews must never be reduced to a statistic.” Simon Wiesenthal.

Most statistical breakdowns I have seen list the number of Jews killed in The Holocaust, and there are estimates which vary around 4,100,000 to the original 6,000,000, I use as a measure of the original perception and concern related to those Murdered. There are even those who would suggest that an even higher figure might well represent the True Catastrophe. Raul Hilberg’s eponymous work on the Destruction Of The European Jews has a very detailed analysis of these Jewish Murders. Outside that remit, we term The Holocaust, there are a further 6 Million others, from Gypsies, those of the Lalleri, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Homosexuals, Prisoners of War from all Nations, but more especially Russian POW’s, in the early stage of Barbarossa, June 22nd. 1941 onward who were Murdered, left to Starve to death.

So statistical analysis can never be an exact science! For example. Prior to Hitler’s Invasion of Poland September 1st. 1939 there were some 16,600,000 Men, Women and Their Children of The Jewish Faith in the World! By the time War had ended the Jewish Population had diminished to around 11,000,000 Jews Worldwide. While this seemingly represents some 5,600,000 Missing Jews, we also must bring into that equation that the Jewish Population would have risen, in line with a 1/11 Birth rate, which would have brought the World figure to 18,200,000 during the 5.5 yearsof WWII in Europe. This would present the World with a Catastrophe in the region of 7,200,000 Jews missing.

It must be noted that whilst der Einsatzgruppe shot to Death more than 1,250,000 Jews, they Murdered countless others. Whilst the Death Camps and even the Concentration Camps delivered toward the Final Accounting, many Jews were so deprived of Basic essentials, Food, Water, Housing, they were Systematically driven toward their own Destruction! It is clear that from within the Ghettoes established by Hitler, countless tens of thousands lost their Battle to Survive.

Historians, Academics and Researchers as far back as 1948 have been able to agree on the number of those Jews who were Murdered during the period of The Holocaust. There is, of course, a margin for error, and the accepted norm is between a divergence of 8 – 10% of the overall Total. So while we might accept that there were 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, as an abbreviated focus for attention, that figure could be reduced to some 5,520,000 or upward toward 6,600,000 Murdered Jews. When adequate Testimony of those who compiled the figures, Mueller, Himmler and Eichmann proves elusive to say the least, there are the almost exacting records kept by The Death Camps, and the OSR’s, these Operational Situation Report’s compiled by der Einsatgruppe. All these tally, with a good degree of certainty that our approximation is indeed very accurate and we have no reason to discount the very effort that went into obtaining these figured for us.

But here are some of the figures relating to those Jews Murdered in various camps and by varying means.

1. Belzec 600,000, Belsen, 50,000, 2. Birkenau (Auschwitz) 1,100,000, Buchenwald, 56,500, 3. Chelmno 152,000, Dachau, 35,000, der Einsatzgruppe 1,250,000, 4. Majdanek, 200,000, 5. Sobibor 250,000, Stutthof 65,000 and 6. Treblinka 900,000 Jews Murdered.

We should always remember too that at Babi Yar where the Killing Reached a crescendo unsurpassed, even by Auschwitz’s standard, and where

“..Sonderkommando 4a in collaboration with Einsatzgruppe HQ and two Kommandos of police regiment South, executed 33,771 Jews in Kiev on September 29 and 30, 1941.”

There will never be an exact toll of those who were Murdered at Auschwitz, as records vary in depth and description. Many documents too were destroyed by the Nazi’s seeking to conceal their fixed solution to a Jewish Question. An immediate count of those records, though sparse, with additions from Witness sources, from Survivors and the Testimony gained during The Nuremberg Trials, all provided a view of the Calamity which could not be corroborated. Both Eichmann and the Camp Kommandant Rusolf Hoess were in some form of agreement. Eichmann believed some 2,000,000 had been Murdered in Auschwitz, while Hoess gave a more liberal assessment of between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 Murdered. While the Russian estimate of some 4 Million gained a public acceptance, and a monument was placed to endorse this figure, it was somewhat frowned upon as mere Soviet propaganda, and less than an accurate assessment.

“..first and foremost perpetrator was Adpolf Hitler. ..without him it would have been inconceivable.” Raul Hilberg.

In 1961 Raul Hilberg himself in his Book The Destruction of European Jews, used German railway timetable records to total the number of Nazi departures. These Transports were assessed rather than accounting for the arrivals of these ‘resettlement’ trains at the various Death Camps. For Auschwitz, Hilberg arrived at a figure of some 1,000,000 Jews having been Murdered within the Camp. This has been as accurate an assessment as has ever been, and was established by Hilberg before technology and further records were available. This accounting, which is as close as we are ever likely to get to that Final assessment, still satnds solidly today.

It is highly unlikely, unless some tiiemly intervention appears, courtesy of new found records compiled by Nazi officials, that we will ever know how many Jews, or others were Murdered. For me, however, I would rather stick to the composite estimate of 6,000,000 Jews Murdered in The Holocaust, as defining Hitler’s assault upon the integrity of The Jewish People of Europe, as a lasting Monument Always to Remember, Never to forget.

“..Arrived ..Auschwitz ..July 2nd. or 3rd. 1944. ..about 200 men. ..women 70 or 80 seventy or eighty. ..rest I saw ..getting into ..a number of trucks. ..also a closed vehicle with ..sign of ..Red Cross. I saw them all go off. ..to ..gas chambers.” Georges Wellers.

As late as 1983, research into the Murder rate at Auschwitz, gathering information from Nazi ‘transport’ data, was established. Provided by the French Historian Georges Wellers, the account had demonstrated that approximately 1,613,000 people Died there. These were People who were Murdered by various means including Gassing, we know from Testimony elsewhere this was done by Zyklon ‘B’. Many too were ritually Tortured and Hanged and those others who were left to Starve did so or succumbed to the many Diseases prevalent when such abuses and excesses were endorsed.

Of those Murdered, garnered from the Research, 1,350,000 were the Jewish victims, 83,000 were Polish, some 20,000 were Gypsies and over 12,000 were Russian POW’s. Figures for those Jehovah’s Witnesses and Homosexuals have not been verified. We know too from this source that well over 150,000 Poles had been imprisoned within Auschwitz over the duration of the Camps existence.

Franciszek Piper, Director of Research at the Auschwitz Museum, published his own findings in 1989. Using captured Camp records, the register of prisoners, train time table of arrivals, and combining that with those lists existing of Nazi deprtations, Piper was able to establish that 90% of all those Murdered at Auschwitz were Jews. This represented some 1,100,000 Jewish Murdered, a figure recognised still to this day. His account also suggests that there were between 140,000 and 150,000 Poles who were victims and some 23,000 Gypsies.

For Tokele, aged 4 years old, Murdered in Sokoly on February 17th. 1945.

Day 1: A Month to Go.

In a month’s time I will make a journey that I have been anticipating, perhaps even dreading, but I am still looking forward to the venture in equal measure? For some years now I have written and spoken of the terrible Catastrophe which faced the Jews of Europe, secreted beneath a devastating 2nd. World War which consumed between 50 and 70 Million lives! What should not be lost within this Conflicting particular tragedy is the cold, calculated and ruthless isolation, segregation, selection and resolve of Hitler to Destroy an entire People, those 6,000,000 Jewish People Slaughtered in The Holocaust. War ravages People, yet the systematic Genocide of 6,000,000 Jews denigrates the very Humanity we espouse toward!

I guess, with the measure of any such Catastrophe, I will see for myself now, the close proximity of that Destructive process to the approximately 1,100,000 Jewish Men, Women and Their Children, all Gassed and Murdered at Auschwitz/Birkenau! I will be standing upon the graves of these Innocent People and reflecting further on those words I have used to capture some semblance of a comprehension beyond imagining. For those of us who choose to, but cannot know, we seek to understand and take from those who do know what it was like for those Jews who Encountered or even Survived Hitler’s intention for them. In that way, through choice, we can perhaps know of a little of what Terror was and maybe even a measure of the Horror the Jews of Europe faced back then!

Today is August 10th. but this is 2014! The Cattle Cars no longer roll with their Jewish Cargo! The Jews today have another fight for their very existence! But much of the World is no longer Indifferent to the plight of a People under direct threat of extinction? Much of the World knows the debt of Conscience that is owed to the Jewish People of Europe? For those who emerged from the terms of The Final Solution, and especially for those who remain confined within the selection process that has delivered to the World, the terms of The Holocaust, I am here, I hope, with those reading this, expressing the essential need to Remember and acting in accordance with the lessons learned!

1938 August 10th. the Great Synagogue in Nuremberg is destroyed.

The right to profess one’s Faith is sacrosanct. It is given by God and can only be taken away by that same God who has gifted this Belief system to Us. For those of a fundamentalist bent, God does not command anyone to enforce a belief, that is not belief, that is subjugation! The Freedom to choose is a God given right which Human Laws must enshrine if Ethics and Morality are to be protected and Protect!

1940 August 10th. Romania enacts anti-­Jewish Laws amidst anti-Jewish riots which erupt in the Country.

Nation upon nation of those who sought the swirl of all that Hitler proposed, used the very same racist elements in antisemitism to cower before a system which would otherwise have devoured it! Hitler and his Nazis spread fear and hatred. Those who stood against this were Imprisoned, Incarcerated in Camps and Murdered. Though the Jews of Europe were a benign force, Hitler saw fit to designate them, enemies, ‘Untermenschen’ and set forth for them a Destructive path which led to Death in Camps and Killing Sites throughout Poland, Russia and too many Countries to mention! Their Tragedy is the work I have chosen to add my voice to!

1942 August 10th. the first Deportations of Jews from Lvov to Belzec.

A Total of some 50,000 Jews of Lvov were murdered during the term of The Holocaust. A place of distinction amongst Jews and those who resided peaceably alongside Jews. But Hitler had other ideas for the Jews of 1,000’s of Cities, Towns, Villages and Shtetls, wherever Jews came to rest!

1942 August 10th. Camp Kommandant SS Standartenfuhrer Christian Wirth adopts Diesel engine for gassing.

“..As soon as the ramp had been erected in the castle, people started arriving in Kulmhof from Lizmannstadt in lorries. The people were told that they had to take a bath, that their clothes had to be disinfected and that they could hand in any valuable items beforehand to be registered. When they had undressed they were sent to the cellar of the castle and then along a passageway on to the ramp and from there into the gas-van. In the castle there were signs marked “to the baths”. The gas vans were large vans, about 4-5 meters long, 2.2 meter wide and 2 meter high. The interior walls were lined with sheet metal. On the floor there was a wooden grille. The floor of the van had an opening which could be connected to the exhaust by means of a removable metalpipe. When the lorries were full of people the double doors at the back were closed and the exhaust connected to the interior of the van.” Walter Burmeister.

The indisputable truth, that through the learning process for the Destruction of the Jewish people, methods were adapted, adopted which suited the environment for Killing! With the move from T4, the Euthanasia Programme, to the usage of cellars for ‘Gassing’, to the Gassing Vans and onto the Industrialised nature of the Slaughter in The Death Camps, much was learned and advanced in the killing process, as with Wirth at Belzec! When der Einsatzgruppe proved costly in terms of bullets, it became expedient for Hitler to have his best minds think up the unthinkable, the Mass Murder of Millions!

1942 August 10th. 1,000 Theresienstadt Jews were transported toward Minsk and were murdered in gassing vans at the nearby killing site of Maly Trostinets.

More than 35,000 Jews were murdered here at Maly Trostinets to all add weight to the Statistical analysis of the Slaughter which confounds us. Elsewhere the killing progressed and at Brzozow 1942 August 10th. 800 Jews were murdered.

A Book a Day, or so of suggested reading!

1. Adelsberger, Lucie Auschwitz, A Doctor’s Story.

2. Czech, Danuta Auschwitz Chronicle.

3. Klarsfeld, Serge French Children of The Holocaust.

Two of these Books will define a particular need in Remembering the Jews of The Holocaust. Danuta Czech’s Book, in Chronicling the arrival and ‘resettlement’ of those Transports at Auschwitz Birkenau, and Serge Klarsfeld’s monumental and significant study of the French Deportation of The Jewish Children to Auschwitz, from within France! Each Book has a poignancy in relation to the overall Catastrophe for the Jews of Europe. Read them all and know the depth of despair reached and the humbling Survivor’s search for Peace and Justice, none tinged with any hint of vengeful retribution!