I’ve been searching on the internet lately and I’ve seen many people saying that “6 million jews died during the holocaust” is an overstatement and a manipulation of figures by the media and what not to to achieve a political aim... So yeaah shed some light it you know for sure :’)
Part 1
Newer scholarship estimates on the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust range somewhere in between 5.4 million people and 6.2 million people. This has to do with a problem in evidence. Despite the stereotype of the Nazis being super bureaucratic and writing everything down, they did in fact not keep an exact tally, especially where shootings and the extermination camps of Operation Reinhard as well as the non-Reinhard camp of Chelmno was concerned. Furthermore, the Nazis did indeed try to hide what they were doing, with which I deal here.
In order to arrive at the total figured, the methods historians' use is combining direct estimates, i.e. the number of victims in concentration camps, extermination camps, through killing squads plus all additional material about killed people, with methods of indirect statistical comparison, i.e. population statistics before and after the war. By combining the two methods and looking for a convergence of evidence on one range of figures versus another, we can estimate figures with a high degree of confidence. Given the lack of complete population statistics this number still has a margin of error (that's the reason for the range between 5.4 and 6.2 million) but not a margin of error so large that 6 million suddenly become 3 million or just hundred thousand.
Let me show you how this works:
One key source is the so-called Korherr Report. Richard Korherr was the head of the SS statistics bureau and in March 1943 he compiled a report about the decrease in Jewish population in Europe from 1932 to December 1942. He arrives at the conclusion that through normal decrease due to the death rate, due to emigration and due to German policy, the number of Jews in Europe has decreased about 4 million from 32 to 42. With regards to about 1.2 million Jews, he uses the phrase "Es wurden durchgeschleust durch die Lager im Generalgouvernement" (Guided through the camps in the General Government), which was what Himmler suggested he use instead of "Sonderbehandlung" (special treatment). This is Nazi code language for killed. So we know that by December 42, the head of the SS office for statistics gives a number of killed Jews that is 1.2 million.
However, several things need to be looked at in addition to the number Korherr gives here. First of all, the number of 1.2 million Korherr gives here seems to be correct in relation to the Operation Reinhard extermination camps. We can verify this number using the Höfle Telegram. The Höfle Telegram is an intercept from British intelligence. Sent originally on January 11, 1943 by Hermann Höfle, who was Odilo Globocnik's deputy in Operation Reinhard - the killing of the Jews of the General Government in the camps of Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec - it details the number of Jews that have arrived at the Operation Reinhard Camp by January 1943 and it also arrives at a total number of 1.2 million. So, using the Korherr Report with back up from the Höfle Telegram, we can assert with certainty that by January 1943, 1.2 million Jews had been killed in the Operation Reinhard Camps.
From the Korherr Report it is also possible to assert that Korherr did not have the Einsatzgruppen numbers. This comes from the Korherr Report itself where Korherr writes that he didn't count the Jews in Russia and on the frontline. The Einsatzgruppen reports are available to us. From June 1941 on, the Einsatzgruppen send detailed reports about their activities in the Soviet Union to Himmler and various other agencies. From those we can assert that by late 1941 the Einsatzgruppen killed at least 500.000 Jews in the Soviet Union. With the second round of killing that is less well documented, the total number of victims of the Einsatzgruppen by 43 comes through a variety of sources to about 1.5 million people. That combined with the numbers we have from Korherr shows that by mid-43 3 million Jews were already dead. And that does not account for the Jews killed in Auschwitz, the Jews killed in Poland during the operations in 1939, the Jews of Serbia being killed by the Wehrmacht and by gas van, the Aktion Harvest Festival in the Majdanek camp, the killing of the Hungarian Jews in 1944 and so on.
Now, talking about Auschwitz:
Here we take a look at Robert Jan van Pelt in his report for the Irving v. Lipstadt trial.
Starting with countries where the numbers can be established relatively straightforward through archival documentation, it starts as follows:
France: 71 transports between March 27, 1944 and August 22, 1944; transport lists total to a number of some 69,000 deportees.
The Netherlands: 68 transports between July 15, 1942 and September 3, 1944; transport lists total to a number of 60,000 deportees.
Greece: 22 transports between March 20, 1943 and August 16, 1944; railway tickets show the deportation of some 49,000 Jews from Saloniki to Auschwitz, and transport lists show the deportation of another 6,000 Jews from Athens and Corfu to Auschwitz.
Bohemia and Moravia: 24 transports between October 26, 1942 and October 1944; transport lists total a number of some 46,000 deportees.
Slovakia: 19 transports between March 26, 1942 and October 20, 1942; various other transports in the fall of 1944; transport lists total a number of some 27,000 deportees;
Belgium: 27 transports between August 4, 1942 and July 31, 1944; transport lists total a number of some 25,000 deportees;
Italy: 13 transports between October 18, 1943 and October 24, 1944; transport lists total a number of some 7,500 deportees;
Norway: 2 transports between December 1, 1942 and February 2, 1943; transport lists total a number of 700 deportees.
Which brings us to a sub-total of some 290,000 deportees based on relatively straightforward archival information. These deportees were either killed on arrival, and therefore not registered, or admitted to the camp, and registered.
In the case of Hungary it is a bit more tricky. While we do have a precise number of how many were deported not all of them were killed on arrival or registered and admitted to the camp. The so-called Durchgangs-Juden (transit Jews) were kept temporarily in transit, to be dispatched to concentration camps in the Reich. The numbers for Hungary present as follows:
This results in a revised sub-total of 728,000 deportees – all Jews – from nine countries, about 703,000 of which were brought to Auschwitz and either killed on arrival or registered as camp inmates.
The figures for Poland, Germany, and Yugoslavia are a bit less straightforward but the essence of it is that newest historical research shows that at least 300,000 and maybe as much as 350,000 Polish Jewish were deported to Auschwitz, some 23,000 German Jews were deported directly from Germany to Auschwitz (the total number of German Jews killed in Auschwitz is higher but that is the result from them being deported from France et. al. where they had fled before the war or from having been deported to Auschwitz from another camp such as Theresienstadt), and about 10,000 Jews were deported there from Yugoslavia.
That results in a revised sub-total of 1,061,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz.
Add to that, the about 34,000 Jews who arrived in Auschwitz from other concentration camps (e.g. Ravensbrück), that brings us to a final total of 1,095,000 (1.1 million) Jews deported to Auschwitz.
Since we have the number of registered prisoners in Auschwitz, we are able to reconstruct how many of them were killed on arrival:
General number system, given to gentiles and Jews (May 1940 and later): 202,499 men and 89,325 women. Total:291,824 inmates.
Jews, A series (May 1944 and later): 20,000 men and 29,354 women.
Total: 49,354 inmates.
Jews, B series (May 1944 and later): 14,897 men.
Re-education prisoners: 9,193 men and 1,993 women. Total 11,186 inmates
Soviet prisoners of war: 11,964. Total 11,964 inmates.
Romani: 10,094 men and 10,888 women. Total 20,982 inmates.
Total: 400,000 registered inmates.
The A and B series total 64,251 Jewish inmates. On the basis of calculations taking into account the fact that virtually no Jews were registered in the camp before March 1942, and that after that date all the transports sent by the Reich Security Main Office contained exclusively Jews, Polish historian Franciszek Piper came to the conclusion that slightly less than half of the 291,824 inmates registered under the general number system were Jews. This brings a total of some 205,000 (64,000 +141,000) registered Jews.
Given the fact that 1,095,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz, and 205,000 were registered as inmates in the camp, it follows that 890,000 Jews who arrived were not registered. Of these some 25,000 would have been Durchgangs-Juden, which leads to the conclusion that 865,000 Jews were killed on arrival.
Hi! As this question pertains to basic, underlying facts of the Holocaust, I hope you can appreciate that it can be a fraught subject to deal with. While we want people to get the answers they are looking for, we also remain very conscious that threads of this nature can attract the very wrong kind of response. As such, this message is not intended to provide you with all of the answers, but simply to address some of the basic facts, as well as Holocaust Denial, and provide a short list of introductory reading. There is always more than can be said, but we hope this is a good starting point for you.
##What Was the Holocaust?
The Holocaust refers the genocidal deaths of 5-6 million European Jews carried out systematically by Nazi Germany as part of targeted policies of persecution and extermination during World War II. Some historians will also include the deaths of the Roma, Communists, Mentally Disabled, and other groups targeted by Nazi policies, which brings the total number of deaths to 11-17 million. Debates about whether or not the Holocaust includes these deaths or not is a matter of definitions, but in no way a reflection on dispute that they occurred.
##But This Guy Says Otherwise!
Unfortunately, there is a small, but at times vocal, minority of persons who fall into the category of Holocaust Denial, attempting to minimize the deaths by orders of magnitude, impugn well proven facts, or even claim that the Holocaust is entirely a fabrication and never happened. Although they often self-style themselves as "Revisionists", they are not correctly described by the title. While revisionism is not inherently a dirty word, actual revision, to quote Michael Shermer, "entails refinement of detailed knowledge about events, rarely complete denial of the events themselves, and certainly not denial of the cumulation of events known as the Holocaust."
It is absolutely true that were you to read a book written in 1950 or so, you would find information which any decent scholar today might reject, and that is the result of good revisionism. But these changes, which even can be quite large, such as the reassessment of deaths at Auschwitz from ~4 million to ~1 million, are done within the bounds of respected, academic study, and reflect decades of work that builds upon the work of previous scholars, and certainly does not willfully disregard documented evidence and recollections. There are still plenty of questions within Holocaust Studies that are debated by scholars, and there may still be more out there for us to discover, and revise, but when it comes to the basic facts, there is simply no valid argument against them.
##So What Are the Basics?
Beginning with their rise to power in the 1930s, the Nazi Party, headed by Adolf Hitler, implemented a series of anti-Jewish policies within Germany, marginalizing Jews within society more and more, stripping them of their wealth, livelihoods, and their dignity. With the invasion of Poland in 1939, the number of Jews under Nazi control reached into the millions, and this number would again increase with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Shortly after the invasion of Poland, the Germans started to confine the Jewish population into squalid ghettos. After several plans on how to rid Europe of the Jews that all proved unfeasible, by the time of the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, ideological (Antisemitism) and pragmatic (Resources) considerations lead to mass-killings becoming the only viable option in the minds of the Nazi leadership. First only practiced in the USSR, it was influential groups such as the SS and the administration of the General Government that pushed to expand the killing operations to all of Europe and sometime at the end of 1941 met with Hitler’s approval.
The early killings were carried out foremost by the Einsatzgruppen, paramilitary groups organized under the aegis of the SS and tasked with carrying out the mass killings of Jews, Communists, and other 'undesirable elements' in the wake of the German military's advance. In what is often termed the 'Holocaust by Bullet', the Einsatzgruppen, with the assistance of the Wehrmacht, the SD, the Security Police, as well as local collaborators, would kill roughly two million persons, over half of them Jews. Most killings were carried out with mass shootings, but other methods such as gas vans - intended to spare the killers the trauma of shooting so many persons day after day - were utilized too.
By early 1942, the "Final Solution" to the so-called "Jewish Question" was essentially finalized at the Wannsee Conference under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich, where the plan to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe using a series of extermination camps set up in occupied Poland was presented and met with approval.
Construction of extermination camps had already begun the previous fall, and mass extermination, mostly as part of 'Operation Reinhard', had began operation by spring of 1942. Roughly 2 million persons, nearly all Jewish men, women, and children, were immediately gassed upon arrival at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka over the next two years, when these "Reinhard" camps were closed and razed. More victims would meet their fate in additional extermination camps such as Chełmno, but most infamously at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where slightly over 1 million persons, mostly Jews, died. Under the plan set forth at Wannsee, exterminations were hardly limited to the Jews of Poland, but rather Jews from all over Europe were rounded up and sent east by rail like cattle to the slaughter. Although the victims of the Reinhard Camps were originally buried, they would later be exhumed and cremated, and cremation of the victims was normal procedure at later camps such as Auschwitz.
##The Camps
There were two main types of camps run by Nazi Germany, which is sometimes a source of confusion. Concentration Camps were well known means of extrajudicial control implemented by the Nazis shortly after taking power, beginning with the construction of Dachau in 1933. Political opponents of all type, not just Jews, could find themselves imprisoned in these camps during the pre-war years, and while conditions were often brutal and squalid, and numerous deaths did occur from mistreatment, they were not usually a death sentence and the population fluctuated greatly. Although Concentration Camps were later made part of the 'Final Solution', their purpose was not as immediate extermination centers. Some were 'way stations', and others were work camps, where Germany intended to eke out every last bit of productivity from them through what was known as "extermination through labor". Jews and other undesirable elements, if deemed healthy enough to work, could find themselves spared for a time and "allowed" to toil away like slaves until their usefulness was at an end.
Although some Concentration Camps, such as Mauthausen, did include small gas chambers, mass gassing was not the primary purpose of the camp. Many camps, becoming extremely overcrowded, nevertheless resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of inhabitants due to the outbreak of diseases such as typhus, or starvation, all of which the camp administrations did little to prevent. Bergen-Belsen, which was not a work camp but rather served as something of a way station for prisoners of the camp systems being moved about, is perhaps one of the most infamous of camps on this count, saw some 50,000 deaths caused by the conditions. Often located in the Reich, camps liberated by the Western forces were exclusively Concentration Camps, and many survivor testimonies come from these camps.
The Concentration Camps are contrasted with the Extermination Camps, which were purpose built for mass killing, with large gas chambers and later on, crematoria, but little or no facilities for inmates. Often they were disguised with false facades to lull the new arrivals into a false sense of security, even though rumors were of course rife for the fate that awaited the deportees. Almost all arrivals were killed upon arrival at these camps, and in many cases the number of survivors numbered in the single digits, such as at Bełżec, where only seven Jews, forced to assist in operation of the camp, were alive after the war.
Several camps, however, were 'Hybrids' of both types, the most famous being Auschwitz, which was a vast complex of subcamps. The infamous 'selection' of prisoners, conducted by SS doctors upon arrival, meant life or death, with those deemed unsuited for labor immediately gassed and the more healthy and robust given at least temporary reprieve. The death count at Auschwitz numbered around 1 million, but it is also the source of many survivor testimonies.
##How Do We Know?
Running through the evidence piece by piece would take more space than we have here, but suffice to say, there is a lot of evidence, and not just the (mountains of) survivor testimony. We have testimonies and writings from many who participated, as well German documentation of the programs. This site catalogs some of the evidence we have for mass extermination as it relates to Auschwitz. I'll end this with a short list of excellent works that should help to introduce you to various aspects of Holocaust study.
##Further Reading
In addition to the fine answer above you can also take a look at a previous answer of mine dealing with the numbers.
Historians who deal with demographics of mass murder often don't give a single "neat" and round number but rather specify the range of uncertainty. In our case the most probable estimate lies somewhere between 5 and 6 million, with outliers getting progressively less probable as you go in either direction (below 5m or above 6m). The variation is due to the fragmentary documentation, especially in what concerns Poland and USSR, in which the bulk of the victims is confirmed but the numbers of the victims involved are so big that even mere error margins constitute hundreds of thousands - as is only to be expected.
Since you are talking about the Holocaust deniers, I will also mention that their various popular memes/canards in regard to the number 6 million have been debunked here, here, here and here.