AUSCHWITZ
The Shrinking Numbers

 

 

IN THE BEGINNING, it was proclaimed that 4 million of the celebrated "Six Million" died at this famous wartime campsite.

Then, in the face of growing skepticism, that figure was quietly reduced by 2.5 million to 1.5 million.

Now, a final tally by the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross estimates reliably that the total number of deaths were less than 140,000—including those who died of old age over a five-year period in a place comparable in size to a city of a quarter million, where obituary pages would normally be replete with the names of thousands who had died during a similar time span!

Others at the internment center died of wartime conditions, aggravated by the outbreak of typhoid and Allied bombing, which caused disruption to the delivery of food, medicine, and other vital supplies.

There were, however, no gassings—or gas-chamber facilities, for that matter.

Less than half of those who died were Jews. Their names are carefully recorded in the 46-volume death books held in the Soviet archives and released to the Red Cross in 1989. Besides the person's full name, these volumes document his or her profession, religion, date and place of birth, pre-Auschwitz residence, parents' names, time of death, and cause of death, as determined by a camp physician. Mass murderers do not keep such meticulous records!