The following quotes are from an essay by Franciszek Piper in _Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp_, Gutman et al., Indiana University Press, 1994. Dr. Piper has been employed in the Department of Historical Research at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum since 1965, and now heads the department. p. 61: In _The Final Solution_, one of the first books to deal with the Holocaust, published in 1953, the figure of four million was radically reevaluated. English historian Gerald Reitlinger estimated the number of victims of Auschwitz to be roughly 800,000 to 900,000, based on an analysis of the losses of Jews reported by specific countries as well as his study of extermination records. Since then, other estimates lower than the figures quoted by the Soviet and Polish commissions have been advanced, especially in Western publications. These estimates have ranged upward from one million. This fellow asks "who lowered the numbers"? Obviously the real figures were known as early as 1953, long before so-called "revisionists" hit the scene. Furthermore, as we're about to see, Dr. Piper himself began a study in 1980 (which I believe is shortly after he became head of the Historical Research department) to determine the number of victims. His conclusions were obviously not based on the four million figure, and just as obviously (note the date) had nothing to do with the prattlings of the "revisionists." p. 68: This author undertook the study of the number of Auschwitz victims in 1980, as part of a broader research project planned and carried out by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The study's conclusions were presented in an extensive document, of which this essay is an abridged version, containing only the main theses, premises, and conclusions. pp. 71-2: Based on these calculations (1,300,000 deportees minus 200,000 survivors), at least 1,100,000 persons were killed or died in the camp. But if this number is regarded as a minimum estimate, what figure can we accept as a hypothetical ceiling? [...] ...a hypothetical increase in the number of Jews killed at Auschwitz can occur only if one lowers the estimates of losses in other camps and extermination sites and adjusts the Auschwitz tally accordingly. [...] If Auschwitz is "credited" with this difference, the number of Jewish victims killed in the camp would rise to about 1.35 million, with the total number of Auschwitz victims reaching about 1.5 million. Courtesy Jamie McCarthy http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/ jamie@voyager.net Co-Webmaster of http://www.almanac.bc.ca/
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