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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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Among these camps, that of Auschwitz is by far the
most gigantic (three large camps and thirty-nine auxiliaries scattered about a
vast territory) and the most studied. It is possible to have a rather precise
idea of the proportion of "gassed" on arrival and of "workers" enrolled at the
camp of Auschwitz. In fact, the number of deportees to Auschwitz from France,
for example, is known from the archives of the Gestapo and the number of
"enrolled" among them is known from the archives of Auschwitz. The difference
between these two numbers corresponds to the number of "gassed" upon arrival.
Here are a few results of this calculation: out of 61,953 deportees from France
between August 3, 1942 (beginning of the systematic selections) and August 11,
1944 (last convoy), 41,696 persons, or 67.3%, were sent to the gas chambers on
arrival of the train (27, p. 13). The same
calculation made in respect to the Belgian deportees demonstrates that out of
25,437 deportees between August 4, 1942, and July 31, 1944, 17,543 were gassed
on arrival, or 68.9% (26). In the case of
the Jews deported from Greece, the same method shows that 76.6% were gassed
immediately. On the other hand, on December 16, 1942, the SS-Gruppenführer
Müller, Chief of the Gestapo in the RSHA, wrote to Himmler that in the
month of January 1943 Auschwitz would receive 45,000 Jews coming from the
region of Bialystok, from the ghetto of Theresienstadt, from Holland and from
Berlin among whom, "once the sorting out has been done, at least 10 to 15,000
workers (underlined) will be available after the assignment of the Jews arrived
at Auschwitz" (32, p. 117). The proportion
of "non workers" is thus from 66.7 to 77.8% of the totality of deportees. The
average of all these percentages is 71.2%, and it varies between 69.9 and 72.6
according to whether one takes into account one or the other figures appearing
in Müller's letter. So much for the camp of Auschwitz.
In the case
of the extermination camps properly speaking, of the type Treblinka or Belzec,
similar calculations do not seem possible at the current moment because of the
lack of precise data. What is nevertheless certain is that the number of those
selected for the gas chambers was surely much greater in these camps than at
Auschwitz or Majdanek. If one thus admits for the entirety of the extermination
camps of both categories the figures of 80% of persons selected for the gas
chambers and 20% of "enrolled," one is very probably below the true figures for
the "gassed." Nevertheless, that means that out of 2,550,193 "evacuees,"
2,040,154 were killed in the gas chambers as soon as they arrived and 510,059
were enrolled as "workers."
An analagous[sic] fate was that of 297,914
persons counted by Korherr on December 31, 1942, in the ghettos: all of them
sooner or later ended up by being "evacuated" to the extermination camps of one
or the other category. It is therefore realistic in their case to admit the
same rate of selection upon arrival: 80% for the gas chambers and 20% admitted
to the camps. That means 238,331 "gassed" without being enrolled and 59,583
"enrolled workers."
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
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