Five Million Others? Part II
Ralph Zuljan

Claims to systematic extermination most often seem to be justified on the basis of a group's presence in the Nazi concentration camp system or claims to mass executions by the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile death squads the Nazis employed. Of all the groups discussed here, only the disabled would not be expected to have been killed in the camps or mass shootings. Therefore, finding a reasonable estimate of the numbers killed in the camps combined with those murdered by the Einsatzgruppen should account for the number of people systematically exterminated by the Nazis. A number of sources provide estimates of the number of persons killed in the camps and by the Einsatzgruppen.

There seems to be general agreement that the Einsatzgruppen killed about 1.25 million people in the period 1941-42, during which this mobile killing units were active.(6) They operated in Nazi occupied Poland and the USSR. Only one source claims a higher figure of 1.5 million. (9)

There is less clarity about the numbers of persons killed in the camps. A low estimate of deaths in the extermination camps is 3.5 million. Specific estimates for the number killed in extermination camps range between 4.8 million (7) and 4.9 million. There are problems with all the estimates available. They are not completely consistent and disputable weight is attached to certain camps. The Majdanek death camp claim, for example, varies from 360,000 to 1.38 million. Claims for those killed at Auschwitz range from 1.5 million to 2.5 million; the only breakdown of the groups killed at Auschwitz tallies to only 1.2 million.(7) It is noteworthy that at the core dispute seems to some 1 million deaths that is attached to Majdanek in one source and Auschwitz in another. Otherwise, there is fairly solid agreement on the numbers killed in the extermination camps. A further 1.1 million deaths may be attributed to the concentration camps.(8)

Based on the information available, between 5.85 and 7.5 million people were systematically exterminated by Einsatzgruppen and in the extermination camps and concentration camps. Notice that this range would be expected to account Jews killed as well as almost all of the others who were systematically exterminated by the Nazis. Including the disabled claim of 250,000 deaths, which has been explicitly excluded up to this point because these deaths took place in hospitals, the number of people systematically exterminated ranges between 6.1 million and 7.75 million. That figure is well short of the 11 million expected.

There is a final issue to raise, that is, determining the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust accounted for with the information on deaths presented here. The reason for considering this question is that if it can be shown that there are many unaccounted Jewish deaths within this analysis, then it may be reasonable to claim a comparable number of unaccounted other deaths. The total number of Jewish victims is fairly well established so this presents a reasonable cross check for the data available.

It is unclear what percentage of Einsatzgruppen victims were Jews versus others. It is known that the killed total is not exclusively Jewish lives. Soviet commissars would have probably been among the victims and possibly other groups singled out by the Nazis for systematic extermination. From what is known about this mobile killing squads, however, it is likely that a great many of the victims were Jews.

It is also clear, that the estimated 1.1 million concentration camp deaths claimed include everyone, not only Jews killed. Specific information about the groups systematically exterminated cannot be established with the data available. Jews were not the only group that were singled out, on some objective basis, in the concentration camps and all these groups have a legitimate claim to having been systematically exterminated by the Nazis.

However, the only available source that breaks down the deaths in a given camp by group, Auschwitz to be specific, does not support such a low percentage of Jews killed and so many others.(7) Of those "gassed on arrival," 98% were Jews. Of "total deaths" recorded, 81% were Jews. The latter percentage may be consider minimal since all of the weight of unaccounted for deaths is allotted to the claim of others. The Auschwitz analysis supports a claim to roughly 1 million Jewish deaths, but it provides no basis for a claim to 1 million others. This analysis does not support a low claim to the percentage of Jews killed. It would seem conservative to say that 80% of death camp victims were Jews if the percentages at Auschwitz holds true.

Oddly enough, if it is assumed that 80% of Holocaust victims were Jewish, and a range of 6.1 to 7.8 million is accepted for the total number systematically exterminated, then Jewish deaths account for 4.9 to 6.2 million killed which correlates with known estimates of the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Others account for 1.2 to 1.6 million killed. Adjusting the various values to account for variations between death camps and concentration camps and details like the disabled does not significantly alter these conclusions. Perhaps equally important is that this analysis of death statistics seems to correlate rather well with the analysis of groups targeted for systematic extermination presented earlier and the numbers estimated to have been killed.

This exercise then begs the question: Where are the roughly 3 or 4 million others? Perhaps the obvious answer is that they were never targeted for systematic extermination in the manner that Jews and some other groups were. Most of these others were simply casualties of one of the most destructive wars in history. They were not victims of Nazism's policies of systematic extermination, but the brutal warfare unleashed by the Nazi German state. They were victims of war. Attempting to broaden the definition of the Holocaust to include them as victims only serves to muddle the meaning of the Holocaust.

SOURCES

(1) SINTI AND ROMA ("GYPSIES"): VICTIMS OF THE NAZI ERA
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/sinti.htm

(2) Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust
http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/history/cahr/holocaust.htm

(3) CONDITIONS FOR THE JEWS IN POLAND DURING WORLD WAR TWO
http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Makuch/conditionsp.html

(4) HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM AND UKRAINIANS
http://www.artukraine.com/historical/will.htm

(5) Directive No. 46 Instructions for Intensified Action Against Banditry in the East
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1084/hitler_directives/dir46.htm

(6) EINSATZGRUPPEN
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t020/t02044.html

(7) THE CAMPS
http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holocamp.html

(8) The Holocaust Frequent Asked Questions
http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/General/FaqEng.html

(9) The Camps
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/camps.htm