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NorthernGent -> RE: The Holocaust... did it, or didn't it?? (12/15/2006 2:11:57 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
Ummm...not really. Yes, six million was a quick estimate, but it's been confirmed time and time again. Do you know of any credible historian whose estimate is significantly lower than six million? The lowest serious number I know of is 5.1 million, which comes from Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews.
So, yeah, the number of deaths can't ever be known precisely, but it's also very misleading to say that there is any serious dispute (among historians, at any rate) over the magnitude.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
However, UR stated that the 6 million figure is disputed and it is disputed by serious historians (not just the right-wing lunatics), his statement is fact. You have to remember that the 6 million figure is one that was quickly assembled before the necessary research could be conducted. A few of the Eastern European countries actually had less Jews living there on the eve of WW2 than the figures murdered that are stated in the 6 million total.
As an example, the below figures are from all sorts of sources including historians and it's fair to say there is much disagreement on the number of people murdered (Jews and non-Jews) - these relate to Auschwitz. It is more than understandable that the initial estimate and future estimates will be wrong for a couple of reasons a) lack of necessary research b) the revisionism surrounding the event - you know, the great liberators (who weren't particularly helpful prior to WW2). This is a recurring theme in the study all historical events.
In my opinion, the figures do not detract from the moral enormity of what happened but what strikes me here is that the root of the holocaust was plain racism/bigotry. If people are so outraged over the holocaust then the best service they could give to the murdered Jews is to drop the racism and bigotry (towards all - including the so-called Islamofascists) that can be found on these boards on a daily basis.
9,000,000 Cited by the French documentary, Night and Fog, which has been shown to millions of school students worldwide.
8,000,000 The French War Crime Research Office, Doc. 31, 1945.
7,000,000 Also cited by the French War Crime Research Office.
5,000,000 to 5,500,000 Cited in 1945 at the trial of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess.
5,000,000 Cited on April 20, 1978 by the French daily, Le Monde. Also cited on January 23, 1995 by the German daily Die Welt. By September 1, 1989, Le Monde reduced the figure to 1,433,000.
4,500,000 In 1945 this figure was cited by another witness at the aforementioned Hoess trial.
4,000,000 Cited by a Soviet document of May 6, 1945 and officially acknowledged by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. This figure was also reported in The New York Times on April 18, 1945, although 50 years later on January 26, 1995 (see below), The New York Times and The Washington Post slashed the figure to 1,500,000 citing new findings by the Auschwitz Museum officials. In fact, the figure of 4,000,000 was later repudiated by the Auschwitz museum officials in 1990 (see below) but the figure of 1,500,000 victims was not formally announced by Polish President Lech Walesa until five years after the Auschwitz historians had first announced their discovery.
3,500,000 Cited in the 1991 edition of the Dictionary of the French Language and by Claude Lanzmann in 1980 in his introduction to Filip Muller's book, “Three Years in an Auschwitz Gas Chamber.”
3,000,000 Cited in a confession by Rudolf Hoess, the Auschwitz commander who said this was the number of those who had died at Auschwitz prior to Dec. 1, 1943. Later cited in the June 7, 1993 issue of Heritage, the most widely read Jewish newspaper in California, even though three years previously the authorities at the Auschwitz museum had scaled down the figure to a minimum of 1,100,000 and a maximum of 1,500,000. (see below).
2,500,000 Cited by a famous witness to the Holocaust, Rudolf Vrba, when he testified on July 16, 1981 for the Israeli government's war crimes trial of former SS official Adolf Eichmann.
2,000,000 Cited by three famous Holocaust historians, including Leon Poliakov (1951) writing in “Harvest of Hate”; Georges Wellers, writing in 1973 in “The Yellow Star at the Time of Vichy”; and Lucy Dawidowicz, writing in 1975 in “The War Against the Jews.”
2,000,000 to 4,000,000 Cited by Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer in 1982 in his book, “A History of the Holocaust.” However, by 1989 Bauer revised his figures and determined that the actual number was lower: 1,600,000.
1,600,000 This is a 1989 revision by Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer of his earlier figure in 1982 of 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, Bauer cited this new figure on September 22, 1989 in The Jerusalem Post.
1,500,000 In 1995 this was the “official" number of Auschwitz deaths announced by Polish President Lech Walesa as determined by the historians at the Auschwitz museum. This number was inscribed on the monument at the Auschwitz camp at that time, thereby "replacing" the earlier 4,000,000 figure that had been formally repudiated (and withdrawn from the monument) five years earlier in 1990. At that time, on July 17, 1990 The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The London Daily Telegraph citing the "new" figure of 1,500,000 that had been determined by the authorities at the Auschwitz museum. This new figure was reported two years later in a UPI report published in the New York Post on March 26, 1992. On January 26, 1995 both The Washington Post and The New York Times cited this 1,500,000 figure as the new "official" figure (citing the Auschwitz Museum authorities).
1,471,595 This is a 1983 figure cited by historian Georges Wellers who (as noted previously) had determined, writing in 1973, that some 2,000,000 had died. In his later calculation, Wellers decided that of the 1,471,595 who had died at Auschwitz, 1,352,980 were Jews.
1,433,000 This figure was cited on September 1, 1989 by the French daily, Le Monde, which earlier, on April 20, 1978, had cited the figure at 4,000,000.
1,250,000 In 1985, historian Raul Hilberg arrived at this figure in his book, “The Destruction of the European Jews.” According to Hilberg, of those dead, some 1,000,000 were Jews.
1,100,000 to 1,500,000 Sources for this estimate are historians Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (later of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) in their 1984 book, “Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp”; also Dr. Franciszek Piper, the curator of the Auschwitz Museum, writing a chapter in that book. This estimate was later also cited by Walter Reich, former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, writing in The Washington Post on September 8, 1998. The upper figure of 1,500,000 thus remains the "official" figure as now inscribed at Auschwitz, with the earlier figure of 4,000,000 having been removed from the memorial at the site of the former concentration camp.
1,000,000 Jean-Claude Pressac, writing in his 1989 book “Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers.” This is interesting since he wrote his book to repudiate Holocaust deniers who were called that precisely because they had questioned the numbers of those who had died at Auschwitz.
900,000 Reported on August 3, 1990 11, by Aufbau, a Jewish newspaper in New York.
800,000 to 900,000 Reported by Gerald Reitlinger in his 1953 book, “The Final Solution.”
775,000 to 800,000 Jean-Claude Pressac's revised figure, put forth in his 1993 book, “The Crematoria of Auschwitz: The Mass Murder's Machinery”, scaling down the figure from Pressac's 1989 claim of 1,000,000 dead. At this juncture, Pressac said that of the new number, 630,000 were Jews.
630,000 to 710,000 In 1994 Pressac scaled his figure down somewhat further; this is the figure cited in the German language translation of Pressac's 1993 book originally published in French. Again, this is substantially less than Pressac's 1989 figure of 1,000,000.
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