The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Deceit & Misrepresentation
The Techniques of Holocaust Denial

Appendix 2
Historical sources and the Auschwitz death toll estimates


Auschwitz Death Tolls in Western Sources

Research: Brian Harmon

Further Research: John Drobnicki

"Auschwitz." The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book, 1980.

(2.5 million)

Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. New York: F. Watts. 1982. p. 215.

(1.5 to 3.5 million.)

______. "Danger of Distortion, Poles and Jews alike are supplying those who deny the Holocaust with the best possible arguments," Jerusalem Post, 30 Sep 1989.

(1.6 million)

______. "Foreword," in Müller, Filip. Eyewitness Auschwitz. New York: Stein and Day, 1979, p. xi.

(exact figure unknown, but estimated 3.5 million)

Billig, Joseph. Les camps de concentration dans l'economie du Reich hitlerien. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1973. pp. 101-102.

(2 million)

Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews. New York: Bantam Books, 1979, p. 191.

(1.1 million)

Encyclopedia Judaica, Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1974. p. 855.

(1 to 2.5 million)

Friedman, Filip. This Was Oswiecim: The Story of a Murder Camp. Translated from the Yiddish original by Joseph Leftwich. London: The United Jewish Relief Appeal, 1946, p. 14.

(4 to 5 million)

Gilbert, Martin. Atlas of the Holocaust. New York: Pergamon Press, 1988.

(Total Polish dead 3 million)

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961, p. 572.

(1 million)

Höss, Rudolf. Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant of Auschwitz. ed. by Steven J. Palusky, trans. by Andrew Pollinger. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1992, p. 391.

(1.13 million)

Kamenetksy, Ihor. Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe. New Haven: College and University Press, 1961, p. 174.

(About 2.5 million)

Lane, Arthur Bliss. Saw Poland Betrayed: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948, p. 39

(Over 3 million)

Kogon, Eugen. Der SS Staat. Berlin, 1974, p. 157.

(3.5 to 4.5 million)

Piper, Franciszek. "The Number of Victims" in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Washington D.C and Bloomington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 68-72.

(1.1 million)

Polaikov, Leon. Harvest of Hate Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1956, p. 202.

(2.3 million)

Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. South Brunswick: T. Yoseloff, 1968, p. 500.

(0.8 to 0.9 million)

Sofsky, Wolfgang. The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp. Trans. William Templer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 43 in Galleys.

(1.1 million)

Sweibocka, Teresa. Auschwitz: A History in Photographs. Bloomington and Warsaw: Indiana University Press and Ksiazka I Wiedza, 1993, pp. 287-288.

(1.1 to 1.5 million)

Weiss, A. "Categories of Camps, Their character and Role in the Execution of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question," in The Nazi Concentration Camps, Jerusalem: Yad Veshem, 1984, pp. 132.

(1.2 to 2.5 million)

Wellers, Georges. "Essai de determination du nombre de morts au camp d'Auschwitz" Le Monde Juif, Oct-Dec 1983, pp. 127-159.

(1.6 million)

Studies from Poland, former East Germany, and former Czechoslovakia

These generally cite the findings of the Soviet Commission (4 million), the Supreme National Tribunal in Poland (2.8 to 4 million) or the testimony of Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Höss (3 million).

"Brestrafung der Verbrecher von Auschwitz," in Auschwitz: Geschichte und Wirklichkeit des Vernichtungslagers. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowolt, 1980, p. 211.

(2.5 to 4 million)

Czech, D. "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz: Abriss der Geschichte," in Auschwitz: Geschichte und Wirklichkeit des Konzentrationslagers. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowolt, 1980, p. 42.

(2.5 to 4 million)

Dunin-Wasowicz, Krzysztof. Resistance in the Nazi concentration camps, 1933-1945. Warsaw: PWN-Polish Scientific Publishers, 1982, p. 44.

(2.5 to 4 million)

Madajczyk, Czeslaw. Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce; okupacja Polski, 1939-1945. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawn Naukowe, 1970, pp. 293-94.

(2.8 to 4 million)

Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich 1939-1945: informator encyklopedyczny. Warsaw: Panst. Wydaw. Naukowe DSP, 1979, p. 369.

(2.5 to 4 million.)

Click here for a breakdown of estimated deaths and their causes.


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