The most reliable Holocaust statistics on WEB.

[Sergey]

Hi Nick!

Thank you for a detailed replay. I'm confused that it consumes your priceless time so my post would be as short as possible (to save your time for reading).

Initially I meant victims of the Holocaust that lived on a territiry of modern Russia, e.g. in RSFSR excluding Crimea. If you meant Jew killed on Russian territory but lived in other countries and other parts of Soviet Union then we speak about different matters.

I don't believe that there were so many (more than 100,000) victims of the Holocaust that lived in RSFSR (excluding Crimea) for many reasons. I'm Russian, I know our realities, I know Russian history. Jewish population in the central Russia outside Moscow and Leningrad was (and is now) insignificant. There was so called 'Черта оседлости' - 'Cherta Osedlosti' in Tsarist Russia. It meant that the Jews were prohibited to settle in many regions. After 1917 revolution many Jews settled in Moscow and Leningrad and too few in other areas of cental Russia.

Attitude of the Germans to all Soviet POWs was inhuman. And I agree that attitude to Jewish POWs was the worst possible. But it is not the theme of our discussion.

Sergey, I urge you to buy Ilya Al'tman's Zhertvy nenavisti - it will tell you a lot about the whole of the Soviet Union, the ghettos, the actions, the resistance, the reactions, and more. And it will save me answering some of your questions!

According to mr. Altamn

http://www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/137/n2.htm

Альтману удалось установить и еще одну цифру. На территории СССР погибли более двух миллионов восьмисот тысяч евреев.

Altman established another number. More than 2,800,000 of Jews died on a territory of USSR

Comment this number please. Maybe you agree with it? Is number of the Holocaus victims in Soviet Union so huge? If not then is the book by mr.Altman worth to read it?

[Sergey]

No. Soviet Jews as a whole were told nothing about Hitler's antisemitic policies. Many Jews in Belorussia expected the Germans to be as well-behaved as in WWI, while in Russia they simply didn't know at first.

It appears that mr.Altman (you recommended me his book) disagrees with you

http://www.polit.ru/research/2004/09/29/holocaust.html

Среди 2 491 713 человек, чья национальность на начало декабря 1941 г. была установлена Советом по делам эвакуации, евреи составили 669 229 человек (26, 86%).
...
Бросается в глаза значительно больший процент евреев среди эвакуированных, чем их доля в населении страны. Так как специальных мер по их спасению не принималось, то объяснение лежит в достаточной информированности о грозящей угрозе.

Among 2.491.713 persons whose ethnicity was established on December 1941 by the Council for evacuation, there were 669.229 Jews (26.86%).
...
It is obvious that the percent of the Jews among all evacuated was much higher than percentage of the Jews in country's population. As there were no special measures for their salvation, then the explanation is an awareness of the Jews about the threat.

[nickterry]

Hi Sergey,

you would be correct to say that there were probably fewer citizens of the RSFSR who died in the Holocaust, as long as you remember the Russian Jewish servicemen who were captured and were 'selected' by the SD, who might have died as far afield as Germany in a POW camp.

Yes, the attitude of the Germans to all POWs was inhumane, but only Jews and commissars were singled out for immediate execution. There is therefore a qualitative difference.

"Initially I meant victims of the Holocaust that lived on a territiry of modern Russia, e.g. in RSFSR excluding Crimea. If you meant Jew killed on Russian territory but lived in other countries and other parts of Soviet Union then we speak about different matters."

Yes, sure, these are two different things. But then it becomes complex to calculate precisely how many were Belorussian or Ukrainian, who died on Russian soil. IMO, very many.

Altman's book is worth reading because it presents the detailed evidence for each district and town. Because the number of towns which were affected is so large, this means a 'maximum' death toll can be very large. In this aspect Altman is not critical enough, but if someone wants to come up with a better number, then they will have to read Altman's book.

I personally (as you can see in the reference thread) do not think more than 2.6 million Soviet Jews died in the Holocaust, of whom just over 1 million died in the pre-1939 borders. Of the Jews *resident* in the pre-1939 borders, then the number is surely under 900,000, since very many refugees from Moldavia, western Belorussia and western Ukraine escaped but were later caught in eastern Belorussia and eastern Ukraine.

Anyway, thank you for highlighting this question - I will try and incorporate this perspective into my future work.

[michael mills]

nickterry wrote:
No. Soviet Jews as a whole were told nothing about Hitler's antisemitic policies. Many Jews in Belorussia expected the Germans to be as well-behaved as in WWI, while in Russia they simply didn't know at first.


It appears that mr.Altman (you recommended me his book) disagrees with you

I would agree that the above statement is greatly exaggerated.

At most, it could be true to a certain extent of the territories that the Soviet Union occupied subsequent to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939, ie the Baltic States, Eastern Poland and Bukovyna/Bessarabia, since it is known that after the above pact the Soviet Government greatly toned down its anti-German propaganda, in which criticism of German racial anti-Semitism (termed "zoological hypernationalism") had played a major role.

However, it beggars belief that the Jews of the above regions, prior to their absorption into the Soviet Union, would have been so isolated that they would have heard absolutely nothing about the anti-Semitic policies of the German Government.

Furthermore, the statement is quite untrue in respect of the three million Jews of the Soviet Union in its pre-1939 boundaries. From 1933 to 1939, the entire population of the Soviet Union, including the Jewish component, had been exposed to a constant barrage of anti-German propaganda, in which, as stated, the anti-Semitism of the National Socialist regime was an important theme. It is extremely unlikely that Soviet Jews would have forgotten all that propaganda after 1939.

The concept that Soviet Jewry in June 1941 had no inkling that the invading Germans might be violently anti-Jewish rests on a few untested anecdotes, eg a handful of Jewish survivors tell stories about how aged relatives said that there was nothing to worry about, the Germans are good guys, I remember them from the last war, etc etc. But as a general proposition it is untenable, and the claim that Soviet Jews were told nothing about German anti-Jewish policies by the Soviet Government, even in the period 1933-39, is quite untrue.

[nickterry]

The statistics quoted by Altman's online article - which come from an article by his former student Vadim Dubson - are misleading, since it was precisely the urban population which was given preference for evacuation, in those cities along the main rail lines and highways. Jews formed a very large proportion indeed of the urban population in the Ukraine and Belarus. I do not think that in a city such as Borisov, which was overrun within a fortnight of the outbreak of war, there was a disproportionate flight to the east compared to the general flight. Moreover, many Jews did exactly the same thing as Russians and Belorussians - they fled to the surrounding countryside and small towns. As combat neared, this became a near-general flight, which is why account after account in the German reports indicate that cities were practically empty when taken, but soon refilled - including with Jews.

Refugees from western Poland were relatively rigidly excluded from pre-1939 Soviet territory. However, it was clear to many in eastern Poland (western Belorussia and western Ukraine) what to expect in the event of an invasion, even as Soviet news sources soft-pedalled or ignored German antisemitic policies in the era of the Nazi-Soviet Pact from 1939 to 1941. After the invasion began, flight attempts from eastern Poland were considerable, and most failed because the German advance was so fast. Hersh Smolar made it from Bialystok to Minsk, for example. A large contingent of Vilno Jews made it as far as Ozmiana, which is to say not very far at all, because Ozmiana was in the pre-1939 Wilno province of Poland.

As these refugees, who were prevented in the first days of the war from fleeing east, arrived in pre-1939 Soviet territory, they spread news of what was happening by word of mouth. This snowballed over the summer, which is the critical period in question. This is testified to in the German reports, at least one Einsatzgruppe used this to excuse why it was not achieving as high a kill-rate as previously.

There is *no* evidence of Soviet news sources warning Jews during the summer of 1941 that their lives were in especial danger. This only changed when the first - whitewashed - reports started appearing in the press, in the autumn.

This was my essential point, which was snipped in Sergey's response, allowing Mills to create a strawman. Moreover, there is a massive difference in hearing about German antisemitism before 1939, which would lead *some* to flee, and hearing about massacres, which would cause *as many as were able* to flee. If pre-1939 Soviet propaganda about Hitlerite fascism was a comprehension exam, then evidently a very high proportion of Soviet Jews flunked it, because they were found in their home towns when the Germans arrived. None of which alters the other essential point, that a significant proportion *couldn't* flee for one reason or another, not restricted solely to infirmity.

[michael mills]

In Poland, in the last months of 1939, about 300,000 Jews fled from the German-occupied zone into the Soviet-occupied zone.

That is about 10% of the Jewish population of Poland, and an even larger proportion of the Jewish population of the German-occupied zone (which contained originally about two-thirds of the pre-war Jewish population).

The scale of the flight indicates that Polish Jews were well aware that life would be tough for them under the Germans, and that Soviet rule was a better alternative for Jews, despite its drawbacks. The presence of the refugees in the Soviet-occupied zone, and the mere fact that they had fled from the Germans, must have created among the Jews of that zone, now under Soviet rule, the strong impression that it would not be good for them if the Germans moved east.

News of the Germans' violent anti-Jewish sentiments, and of the "wild" atrocities committed by German police units during the invasion of Poland, passed by word of mouth from one Jew to another, must have had more influence than whatever the Soviet propaganda apparatus did or did not do.

Hitler himself was well aware that Soviet Jews were fleeing eastward before the German advance, and he regarded that as a good thing, since it left so much territory "Jew-free" before the German forces even arrived. On 24 October, he commented, "Es ist gut, wenn uns der Schrecken vorausgeht, daß wir das Judentum ausrotten". In other words, the news of the mass-killings of Jews had quickly spread to areas not yet captured by the Germans, and was causing the Jews to flee across the Urals.

[nickterry]

"News of the Germans' violent anti-Jewish sentiments, and of the "wild" atrocities committed by German police units during the invasion of Poland, passed by word of mouth from one Jew to another, must have had more influence than whatever the Soviet propaganda apparatus did or did not do."

That's what I said. Why don't we have an emoticon for someone banging their head against a brick wall?

[Boby]

That's what I said. Why don't we have an emoticon for someone banging their head against a brick wall?

[Sergey]

http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar01.html

The Anglo-American committee who studied the issue estimated the number of Jewish victims at 5.7 million. This was based on population statistics. Here is the exact breakdown, country by country:

Germany............. 195,000
Austria.................. 53,000
Czechoslovakia.... 255,000
Denmark................. 1,500
France................ 140,000
Belgium................ 57,000
Luxemburg............. 3,000
Norway................... 1,000
Holland............... 120,000
Italy...................... 20,000
Yugoslavia............. 64,000
Greece.................. 64,000
Bulgaria.................. 5,000
Rumania.............. 530,000
Hungary............... 200,000
Poland............... 3,271,000
USSR............... 1,050,000
Less dispersed refugees (308,000)
Total number of Jews killed 5,721,500

So numbers are absurd. So why does NIZKOR use them? Is it a good answer to revisionists? I doubt. These data are compared with more realistic estimates.

http://holocaust-info.dk/statistics/reit_stats.htm

Probably it is indeed the most reliable source. According to it a number of victims of the Holocaust is 4,204,400 - 4,575,400.

[Sergey]

http://www.holocaust-education.dk/lejre ... elseslejre

There is a list of extermination camps and numbers of Jewish victims.

Chelmno/Kulmhof......152,00
Auschwitz-Birkenau...over 1 million
Belzec..................... over 600,000
Sobibor.................... 250,000
Treblinka.................. 900,000
Majdanek(-Lublin)...... 60,000-80,000

About 3 millions Jews were murdered but nazi henchmen in these 3 camps.

How reliable are these numbers?

[Sergey]

http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/camps.htm

Auschwitz continued to operate through the summer of 1944; its final death total was about 1 million Jews and 1 million non-Jews.

Compare it with

http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/new/index.p ... ale&id=395

The overall number of victims of Auschwitz in the years 1940-1945 is estimated at between 1,100,000 and 1,500,000 people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4210841.stm

Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi camps, where 1.1 million people died, was liberated by the advancing Soviet army on 27 January 1945.

Look, BBC uses a word 'died' so 1.1 million includes those who died from natural causes.

http://www.remember.org/educate/auschwitz.html

Jews comprised the largest number of victims, and Auschwitz has become the prime symbol of what became known as the Holocaust of European Jewry; at least one-third of the estimated 5 million to 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II died there.

So according to this source 1.6 - 2 millions of Jews were killed in Auschwitz.

[Earldor]

Just a suggestion, Sergey. Do some research on the subject, then present your hypothesis and evidence. There is plenty of material on the subject on this and other websites, not to mention numerous books plus of course the primary sources.

Your line of questioning has been addressed over and over again in "revisionist" vs. anti-revisionist discussions.

[Sergey]

Just a suggestion, Sergey. Do some research on the subject, then present your hypothesis and evidence. There is plenty of material on the subject on this and other websites, not to mention numerous books plus of course the primary sources.

Your line of questioning has been addressed over and over again in "revisionist" vs. anti-revisionist discussions.

Thank you for a replay Earldor. Our dear moderator mr.Thompson recenly kindy pointed out that opinions are not welcomed here, moreover thay are strongly prohibited. As I would like to obey the rules then I will not presents my opinions, hypothesis and so on. In other words I dare not to express anything that looks as an opinion.

I'm not a professional historian so a collecting of material, evidences is not my work. I ... how to express it ... rather an end-user, a consumer, that estimates a qaulity of historical investigations. As it (the estimate of the quality) is an opinion too, then I prefer not to write about my estimates.

My quotes (I hope you agree) are from serious suorces. As for so called revisionists then from this point I don't want even to hear about them. I'm interesting only in serious investigations.

As for a 'line of my questions' then are they unimportant or not reasonable? If they are important and reasonable then they could be asked in any order.

Sincerely yours, Sergey Poleshchuk

[Slava]

On the Treblinka figures:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Treblink ... 91000.html


Please do not attack the source. I am personally not aware of any effective counter-info on this. If someone wants to show it -- please you are more than welcome.

[Sergey]

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

Anyone could look at the table. I would to highlight the estimate of the Jewish Holocaust victims in Hungary - 200,000

Other estimates give much bigger number.