I would like to start this post by stating that I am not a holocaust denier. There is overwhelming evidence that it happened and to ignore that evidence, in my opinion, is delusional and illogical.

That being said, I have been trying to figure out just how many Jews were killed in the holocaust.

Why?

A friend of mine was linked this map. He found it interesting and wanted to pursue the sources but was shocked when he found non-credible links. One of the links are dead and the other leads to a site which does not cite a primary source (and the source it does cite is also suspect as it cites no source).

Puzzled I have also been trying to figure out how we have come to the estimate of 6-10 million Jews dying.

For the 6 million number I discovered that it is based off a book written by Lucy Dawidowicz titled The War Against the Jews. As the article says, she came to the 6 million figure by researching birth and death records and came up with the figure of 5,933,900.

When I research this to find out how sound her science is I find bias articles on both sides.

Personally, I am skeptical with how accurate the number is (though I may be less if I could figure out how she did it). How many of those Jews she is counting be displaced or dead in a non-holocaust related incident?

Basically my question is:

How many Jews were killed in the holocaust (approximately).

How do we know that?

How credible is Lucy Dawidowicz's number?

Thanks to all who read this giant amount of text. And to those who lost family/ancestors in the holocaust, I apologize if my question comes off as insensitive.