How [many] Jews were killed for real?

[David Thompson]

UKPanzers -- I'll take your argument point by point. (1) You wrote:

OK, pre-WW2, there were roughly 500,000 Jews in the British Mandate of Palastine.

Now, post WW2, there were around 5.5 million Jews there.

I asked:

Let's start with your dates and sources. What are they? (by the way, the correct spelling is Palestine).

You replied:

I'm talking about 1945. I must admit I got the number off wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Ma ... _Palestine. The source they used was "A survey of Palestine": http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0887282113 Apparently it's on page 12-13.

Did you actually read the article? According to it, in 1945 the total population of Palestine was only 1.7 million people, of which only 533,000 -- less than a third -- were Jews. Let's take a look at what it says:

In 1945, a demographic study showed that the population had grown to 1,764,520, comprising 1,061,270 Muslims, 553,600 Jews, 135,550 Christians and 14,100 people of other groups.

Year Total Muslim Jewish Christian Other
1922 752,048 589,177(78%) 83,790(11%) 71,464(10%) 7,617(1%)
1931 1,036,339 761,922(74%) 175,138(17%) 89,134(9%) 10,145(1%)
1945 1,764,520 1,061,270(60%) 553,600(31%) 135,550(8%) 14,100(1%)

From your citation, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Ma ... _Palestine

Now let's go forward in time, another two years, to 1947. If you haven't read the 1949 UN Conciliation Commission report for Palestine, they reckoned that there were only 608,000 Jews in the Mandate in June of 1947.
http://www.mideastweb.org/palestine_population_un_1.htm

Here's another 1947 estimate -- Sergio DellaPergola, in 'Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects and Policy Implications' (2001) reckoned the Jewish population of Palestine in 1947 as only 630,000. It's cited in a different wikipedia article on the subject:

Palestine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Let's do the math here. These figures suggest that between 1931 and 1945, perhaps 475,00 Jews entered Palestine (discounting any natural births), and between 1945 and 1947, less than 100,000 Jews entered Palestine (discounting natural births). 575,00 Jews fall rather short of your 5.5 million estimate for the Jewish population of Palestine in 1945 -- or 1947, for that matter. In other words, your 1945 estimate is about 5 million Jews too high. It's about 4.9 million Jews too high even for 1947.

Since neither the source you gave, nor the other two sources I gave, have figures even remotely close to the 5.5 million Jews you claim to have been in Palestine in 1945, I suggest that you are grossly mistaken -- your Jewish population figures for Palestine in 1945 exceed the actual numbers by about 1,000%. The total combined population of Israel (Jews and everyone else) didn't reach 5.5 million until 1995 -- 50 years later:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel

See also the Statistical Abstract of Israeli population at http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/shnaton/t ... CYear=2006

(2) You wrote:

Surely this accounts for the common "if you don't believe the 6 million figure, where did all the missing Jews go?" argument used by proponants of the idea 6 million Jews were gassed.

This means only 1 million could possibly have been killed, surely?

I asked:

What makes you think that there were only 6 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe? Even the Nazis thought there were millions more than that.

You replied:

There would have to have been 11 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe for the figure of 6 million to stand up, as there were obviously at least 5 million "survivors" to move to Palestine. Plus you have to account for the "survivors" that chose not to move to Palestine. There's a couple of million Jews in Europe today, and given the Jews aren't exactly renown for breeding very quickly it's reasonable enough to suspect there were a couple of million who chose to stay in Europe as well. That brings us up to 13 million. I've yet to see anyone suggest the Nazis ever had 13 million Jews in the occupied territories at any time.

(a) You tried to subtract the 5.5 million Jews who had allegedly moved to Palestine in 1945 from the 6 million allegedly killed. That means that your starting premise was that there were only 6 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe to kill, and that 5.5 million of them moved to Palestine.

According to the Korherr Report, there were over 10 million Jews in Europe in 1937: viewtopic.php?t=397 . Other estimates for the pre-war Jewish population of Europe range up to 13 million. If you were aware of that, why play games by suggesting that there was only a population pool of 6 million to kill? If you weren't aware of that, why rush to post on a subject about which you know so little?

(b) Your further premise, that 5.5 million Jews moved to Palestine immediately after WWII, is demonstrably incorrect. As we have already seen, the number of Jewish settlers in Palestine only increased by about 100,000 between 1945 and 1947 (533,000 in 1945 to 630,000 in 1947).

(c) We also know that the Germans reckoned that 4 million or European Jews so had been "evacuated" (shot or gassed) by the beginning of 1943:

From 1937 to the beginning of 1943 the number of Jews, partially due to the excess mortality of the Jews in Central and Western Europe, partially due to the evacuations especially in the more strongly populated Eastern Territories which are here counted as off-going, should have diminished by an estimated 4 million.

viewtopic.php?t=397

So how could you be so wrong, UKPanzers? How did that happen?

[LWD]

Since this part wasn't addressed I'll take a stab at it. (any bolding is mine)

...
When the Nazi leaders started talking about the extermination of the Jews, what they really meant was the removal of Jews from Europe by sending them away to Madagascar.

When they started talking about it it was prewar and they weren't specific to the place. Wages of Destruction has some information on this phase (and perhaps the rest I'm not through reading it by any means). Indeed there was one semi official organization that helped some move to Palestine I believe. However also as noted that was pre war. The "Final Solution" was clearly sponsored by the Nazi hierarchy.

[David Thompson]

LWD wrote:

Since this part wasn't addressed I'll take a stab at it. (any bolding is mine)

Thanks, LWD. There are so many errors in UKPanzers' post, it will take a little time to point them all out. I figured to start with the gross population error first. After he/she answers that, I'll start a new thread for the rest of the issues raised by UKPanzers, which are off-topic in a thread about the number of Jewish victims of the holocaust.

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

Since I haven't read through this thread, this may have been mentioned before.

When considering the term 'Jewish', it would be relevant to consider the difference between the definition usually used (Jewish mother) and the definition used by the Third Reich (Jewish ancestry). Because of this difference in definitions, there would likely have been a significant number of people who were not counted as Jewish by the Jewish nation or census, but were still killed because they were considered Jewish. Whether these people should be included in the number of killed Jews can of course be discussed, but I can't think of any demographic category which would make more sense.

[Hawkwind]

There's another confounding factor when it comes to counting Jewish deaths during the Shoah that may or may not have been addressed already in this thread: Does being Jewish and dying in a camp or a ghetto under Nazi occupation automatically make you a victim?

When I discovered the Central Database of Shoah victims names maintained by Yad Vashem, I was curious to find out if I had any distant relatives who were killed by the Nazis. My great grandmother's maiden name was Goldfinger so I typed that in and got over nine hundred hits. So I narrowed it down by location to Bohemia and found three names that might be distant relatives. One of the victims was named Hanna Goldfinger and she is said to have "perished in the Shoah" in 1943 in Theresienstadt. The bio of her says she was born in 1840. That means she was 103 when she "perished in the Shoah" Did she really perish in the Shoah? Isn't it more likely that it was simply her time to go? Another Goldfinger who also "perished in the Shoah" in Theresienstadt was 71 years old. Maybe she died before her time but a 71 year old in the mid - twentieth century can hardly be said to have died tragically young.

Being gunned down by Einsatzgruppen is one thing but is it right to count people like Hanna as victims of Nazi anti-Jewish policy?

[Simon K]

As a general principal If they died of starvation or related deficiencies as a result of the Nazi "hunger policy" then yes.

Also suicides and mental disintegration as a result of stresses yes.

Any Jew who died as a DIRECT result of Nazi legal and racial policies laws, including rationing, lack of adequate shelter from Allied bombing, or lack of even basic protection in carrying out hazardous jobs, yes.

[David Thompson]

Hawkwind -- You wrote:

Being gunned down by Einsatzgruppen is one thing but is it right to count people like Hanna as victims of Nazi anti-Jewish policy?

No. However, it's easy enough to use regular mortality rates per thousand for earlier or comparable periods (say, death rates in Germany from 1900-1932, or in non-Nazi-occupied countries during the 1939-1945) to make any necessary adjustments for the extraordinarily elderly Jewish fatalities. I doubt that many 103 year-old women were shot into ditches, or survived the train ride to the death camps. They probably couldn't even survive the forced march to the execution pit or railway deportation area.

Also could you please give the "Hanna Goldfinger" search url reference on "the Central Database of Shoah victims names maintained by Yad Vashem" for our readers, so they can see it for themselves. I know they'd appreciate it, and so would I.

[Voice of Truth]

As a general principal If they died of starvation or related deficiencies as a result of the Nazi "hunger policy" then yes.

Also suicides and mental disintegration as a result of stresses yes.

Any Jew who died as a DIRECT result of Nazi legal and racial policies laws, including rationing, lack of adequate shelter from Allied bombing, or lack of even basic protection in carrying out hazardous jobs, yes.

But how can you quantify exactly the number of people who would otherwise have survived had it not been for direct Nazi actions against them? It's difficult in the extreme.

[Simon K]

I agree with that. Such revised figures based on a broader view of the definitions would be impossible to compile. But I would still argue such other reasons for death would fall within some "ideal" methodology for calculating Holocaust victim numbers.

[David Thompson]

The discussion of German holocaust anti-denial laws has been split off and moved to this thread:

Holocaust anti-denial laws
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=62509

[Hawkwind]

Hawkwind -- You wrote:

Being gunned down by Einsatzgruppen is one thing but is it right to count people like Hanna as victims of Nazi anti-Jewish policy?

Also could you please give the "Hanna Goldfinger" search url reference on "the Central Database of Shoah victims names maintained by Yad Vashem" for our readers, so they can see it for themselves. I know they'd appreciate it, and so would I.

Sorry, I've been away from the computer for a while. Here is the link you requested: http://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_FL/.cmd/acd/.ar/sa.portlet.VictimDetailsSubmitAction/.c/6_0_9D/.ce/7_0_V9/.p/5_0_P1/.d/0?victim_details_id=135574&victim_details_name=Goldfinger+Hanna&q1=fExDRI03wtU%3D&q2=D3HQGIP3ECyimwfR9VH16Ydw82GHqd3S&q3=qnQQl3Y3br8%3D&q4=qnQQl3Y3br8%3D&q5=TpzOMPQ8cMQ%3D&q6=nhPHA%2BdehsY%3D&q7=0Sy9CYmi4c1oYd6yZjfmgzPZ3Wx01Nts&frm1_npage=1

[Jonathan Harrison]

If she died in Theresienstadt, she's a Nazi victim, as she did not die a free woman. The idea that there could be any such thing as a 'natural death' in a Nazi camp is prima facie absurd. It doesn't matter if she would have only lived a few days, weeks or months longer had she been left unmolested in Berlin.

[Hawkwind]

If she died in Theresienstadt, she's a Nazi victim, as she did not die a free woman. The idea that there could be any such thing as a 'natural death' in a Nazi camp is prima facie absurd. It doesn't matter if she would have only lived a few days, weeks or months longer had she been left unmolested in Berlin.

I respectfully disagree with the idea that a natural death in a Nazi camp is absurd. If she were shot by a guard, the fact that she was 103 years old wouldn't matter and she could be considered a Nazi victim. If she had been transported to Treblinka, her age wouldn't be a factor and she could be considered a Nazi victim. But Theresienstadt wasn't a death camp where survival was accident.

A 103 year old American citizen of Japanese descent who died in the Minidoka internment camp wouldn't be considered to have been exterminated by the Americans even though she would not have been a free woman when she died and might've lived even longer if she hadn't been forced to abandon everything she couldn't carry in a suitcase on a few days notice and moved to an unfamiliar location nearly a thousand miles from her home for an indeterminate period of time for no other reason than because the United States decided her race made her an enemy of the state.

[Simon K]

With respect HW I think you are missing the point a bit.

Your linkage with the Japanese internment episode is unhelpful. The Roosevelt administration, to my knowledge, did not plan to exterminate the Japanese- American community.

[Jonathan Harrison]

Simon, thanks. My post did indeed say "Nazi camp". At the very least, HW would need to demonstrate that death rates in US internment camps in 1943 [the year of this lady's death] were comparable to those in Nazi camps.