Archive/File: camps/auschwitz/victims total.victims 4.0 Compiling Estimates of the Numbers Exterminated When the extermination camps failed to achieve their objective, the total extermination of European Jewry, by the end of 1942, Heinrich Himmler commissioned a statistical report in order to determine what 'progress' had been made. In January of 1943, Dr. Richard Korherr, a noted statistician who was outside SS circles, working with Adolf Eichmann and camp commanders, began compiling reports and figures to present to Himmler. As Breitman relates, Korherr's job was complicated by the fact that, even in a report designed for Himmler, he was not supposed to spell out the facts in black and white. It was easier to state how many Jews were still alive than what had happened to the others. To be sure, Korherr could state that through various means the Jewish population in the Reich and the Government General had diminished by 3.1 million between 1933 and 1942. In spite of his generous use of the term "evacuation," however, which Himmler seconded, to mislead those who would read the document in later years, Himmler had to correct Korherr's wording in one place. Where Korherr had written of the "special treatment" of the Jews, Himmler had insisted on either the "transportation of the Jews from the Eastern provinces to the Russian East" or the "sifting of the Jews through the camps." These were among the officially approved terms to camouflage the realities of the Final Solution. (Korherr's reports in NA RG 238, NO-5193 and 5194, Himmler's correction of wording in Brandt to Korherr, 20 April 1943. NA RG 238, NO-5196. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews {Chicago, 1961}, 2nd expanded ed., 3 vols. {New York, 1985},I, 322-23, reviews the whole range of Nazi terms that veiled the realities.) (Breitman, 242) Note that Himmler was successful in his attempts to camouflage reality to the degree that present-day Holocaust denial insists that Jews were simply "relocated to the East," and not exterminated. Eichmann's interrogation regarding the total number of victims supports Fleming's figure of about five million killed (Request eichmann eichmann.005), while figures compiled by Yehuda Bauer, of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, are somewhat higher. Bauer's figures are in the right-most column: German Reich (boundaries of 1938) 130,000 125,000 Austria 58,000 65,000 Belgium 26,000 Belgium & Luxembourg 24,700 Bulgaria 7,000 Czechoslovakia (boundaries of 1938) 245,000 277,000 France 64,000 83,000 Greece 58,000 65,000 Hungary & Carpatho-Ukraine 300,000 402,000* Italy 8,000 7,500* Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia 200,000 Luxembourg 3,000 Netherlands 101,800 106,000 Norway 677 760 Poland (boundaries of 1939) 2,700,000 Polish-Soviet area 4,565,000 Romania (boundaries prior to 1940) 220,000 40,000 USSR (boundaries prior to 1939) 800,000 Yugoslavia 54,000 60,000* ----------------- 4,975,477 5,820,960 * May be underestimated Dawidowicz provides estimates of the numbers of Jews killed in the Final Solution as follows - her figures are marginally higher than those offered above: Country Estimated Pre-Final Estimate Jewish Solution Population Population Annihilated % ----------------------------------------------------------------- Poland 3,300,000 3,000,000 90 Baltics 253,000 228,000 90 Germany/Austria 240,000 210,000 90 Protectorate 90,000 80,000 89 Slovakia 90,000 75,000 83 Greece 70,000 54,000 77 The Netherlands 140,000 105,000 75 Hungary 650,000 450,000 70 SSR White Russia 375,000 245,000 65 SSR Ukraine* 1,500,000 900,000 60 Belgium 65,000 40,000 60 Yugoslavia 43,000 40,000 60 Romania 600,000 300,000 50 Norway 1,800 900 50 France 350,000 90,000 26 Bulgaria 64,000 14,000 22 Italy 40,000 8,000 20 Luxembourg 5,000 1,000 20 Russia (RSFSR)* 975,000 107,000 11 Denmark 8,000 --- -- Finland 2,000 --- -- ---------------------------------------------------- Total 8,861,800 5,933,900 67 * The Germans did not occupy all of this republic
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