Richard Harwood

by S. G.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - fall 2000)

The Holocaust has gone down in history as the greatest crime against humanity in the history of the world. Between five and six million Jews were ruthlessly murdered by the Nazi Germany war machine. This number, while certainly not exact, is the best possible estimate that historians have been able to come up with so far. The exact number of Jewish victims will never be know because it is impossible to account for every single body when five to six million Jews were murdered. However, the first estimate on the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust that was made at the Nuremberg trials in 1945, 5.7 million Jewish victims, has proved through censuses and statistical analyses to be extremely accurate (Dawidowicz, 402). This number has stood the test of time, over fifty years now, as an accurate estimate of the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Despite this remarkably accurate estimate at Nuremberg, there are still Holocaust deniers, who use illogical evidence to try and decrease the number of Jewish victims. One of these deniers is the author of the pamphlet, "Did Six Million Really Die?", Richard E. Harwood. The title alone tells you that the author is trying to cast doubt over whether six million people really died in the holocaust.

That is his goal. Although that is a legitimate goal, the methods that Harwood uses to try and achieve his goal are not legitimate. Harwood uses many dubious methods to support his claim that the traditional number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust, which is used by all legitimate historians, is a lie. For example, he uses sources in "Did Six Million Really Die?" when they say something that suits his needs. He then turns around and says that these sources are not reliable when they say something that will expose his false claims. His extreme bias against the six million figure is also apparent very early in "Did Six Million Really Die?". On the first page he states that, "Gruesome paperback books with lurid covers continue to roll from the presses, adding continuously to a growing mythology of the concentration camps and especially to the story that no less than Six Million Jews were exterminated in them" (Harwood, 01). In saying this, Harwood compromises his role as a neutral party searching for the truth about the Holocaust. Also any evidence that contradicts his arguments is overlooked and disregarded as garbage. If he even acknowledges this evidence, he claims that it comes from Jewish sources and therefore cannot be true. An accurate historical recount must include and acknowledge all pieces of historical evidence. It is not sufficient or accurate to manipulate historical fact as a basis for analysis. This is precisely how Richard Harwood attempts to depict the history of the Holocaust.

He also claims to be a, "…specialist in political and diplomatic aspects of the Second World War" (Harwood, 41), but in reality lacks any credentials at all to justify this claim. If he has to, Harwood will even resort to outright lying. He writes that when talking about the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, noted Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, "refers to the lower estimate of 896,892" (Harwood, 41). The truth is that Hilberg has testified in court that he had never given this estimate, and his real estimate was that there were over 5 million casualties. This lying demonstrates that Harwood is willing to go to any means, even if he is knowingly wrong, to try and prove that six million Jews were not murdered in the Holocaust. Some of Harwood’s specific claims on why the six million figure are as follows.

One of Harwood’s biggest claims is that the pre-World War II estimates of the number of Jews living in Europe can prove that it is impossible for six million Jews to have been murdered in the Holocaust. Harwood writes that, "According to Chambers Encyclopedia the total number of Jews living in pre-war (World War II) Europe was 6,500,000. Quite clearly, this would mean that almost the entire number (of Jews) were exterminated"(Harwood,06). Here he is attempting to demonstrate that if there were only 6.5 million Jews in pre-war Europe, than there is no possible way that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. That would leave only 500,000 Jews alive after World War II. Since there was definitely more than 500,000 Jews, Harwood’s claim is that there is something very wrong with the math in these numbers. It seems that Harwood has a good point here. Following Harwood’s logic this it is definitely true, the numbers do not add up. Harwood also claims that the Nazi policy towards Jews was strictly one of emigration and not extermination. The Nazi’s, Harwood claims, were interested in getting the Jews out of Germany, not in killing off the Jews. He writes that, "By 1939, the great majority of German Jews had emigrated, all of them with a sizable proportion of their assets. Never at any time had the Nazi leadership even contemplated a policy of genocide towards them. It is very significant, however, that certain Jews were quick to interpret these policies of internal discrimination as equivalent to extermination itself" (Harwood, 2-3). Harwood is explaining here that the Jews were confused, and thought they were being killed, when they were really only being kicked out of Germany. Harwood also claims that everything that Kurt Gerstein said about witnessing Nazi atrocities against Jews at Nazi death camps is a lie. Gerstein is a Christian civilian who was curious to know what was happening at these Nazi camps. Gerstein heard rumors about atrocities being committed at these camps.

Gerstein proceeded to take matters into his own hands and snuck into several death camps including Treblinka and Belzec. Yehuda Bauer explains in his book A History of the Holocaust, that Gerstein, "managed to get himself sent to Belzec and Treblinks as a gas specialist to find out what was going on" (Bauer, 209). Historians have used his written account of what he saw as evidence that gas chambers existed for murdering Jews. They also use him for evidence proving how many Jews the Nazis were capable of killing in a small amount of time. Harwood doesn’t believe that it was possible to kill six million people so fast. Harwood also thinks that Gerstein was exaggerating his claims that he made about witnessing atrocities. Harwood writes that, "Gerstein’s fantastic exaggerations have done little but discredit the whole notion of mass extermination" (Harwood, 09). He says this despite the fact that in his account, Gerstein details the whole extermination process. All of the claims that Harwood makes that there were not six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust have inconsistencies that can be debunked. It is fairly easy to do since information regarding the number of victims can be found in any legitimate literature on the Holocaust. A demonstration of where Harwood is wrong is necessary to show how truly outlandish his claims are.

I mentioned earlier that Harwood claims that, "According to Chambers Encyclopedia the total number of Jews living in pre-war Europe was 6,500,000.

Quite clearly, this would mean that almost the entire number (of Jews) were exterminated" (Harwood, 06). Harwood is trying to twist the facts here to accomplish his goal. The truth is that Harwood is not including the number of Jews that lived in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in his figures. Lucy S. Dawidowicz does include the pre-war population of Jews in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in her estimates. She estimates differently than Harwood does, and her estimate is the correct estimate. Dawidowicz’s estimate correctly combines the Soviet and eastern European Jews with the pre-war Jewish population of the rest of Europe to come up with a pre-war Jewish population of 8,861,800(Dawidowicz, 403). This leaves over two million Jews that Harwood has mysteriously failed to account for. The Jews in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe need to be counted as well because large percentages of the Jewish populations in these countries were also murdered in the Holocaust.

Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941 and several Eastern European countries as well. The Einsatzgruppen ruthlessly murdered 1.4 million Jews in these areas. If we take Dawidowicz’s figure of 8,861,800 pre-war Jews and subtract 6 million from it, we are left with a post war Jewish population of 2,861,800. Even with 6 million murdered Jews there were close to 3 million Jewish survivors after the war. This clearly does not show, despite what Harwood claims, that almost the whole Jewish population was exterminated. There are also problems with Harwood’s argument that the Nazi policy towards the Jews was emigration not extermination. Harwood states that, "By 1939, the great majority of German Jews had emigrated…"(Harwood, 2-3). Maybe not the great majority of Jews had emigrated but certainly over half of the Jewish population had emigrated. There were approximately 530,000 Jews in Germany when the Nazi policy towards Jewish emigration started in Germany in 1933(Bauer, 123). By 1939 there were only about 200,000 Jews left in Germany (Bauer, 131). This shows that between 1933 and 1939 there was a Nazi policy of emigration towards the Jews; however, this certainly doesn’t mean that there were no Jews in Germany. There were 200,000 Jews left, but by using the wording, "the great majority of German Jews had emigrated…", Harwood is intentionally misleading the reader into believing that there were virtually no Jews in Germany in 1939. He wants the reader to believe this so they begin to wonder if maybe what he is saying has some validity to it. If there were no Jews in Germany, than no German Jews could have been murdered in the Holocaust. This is what Harwood wants the reader to believe, but he is wrong. The truth is that the Nazi’s did not discuss the "Final Solution" to the Jewish question until the Wannsee Conference in January 1942(Bauer, 201). The "Final Solution" is a term the Nazi’s used to mean the total extermination of European Jewry. S.S. Captain Dieter Wisliceny, an aid to Eichmann confirmed this in his testimony at the Nuremberg trials. Wisliceny testified that: Eichmann then went on to explain to me what the final solution meant. He said that it was a euphemism for the planned biological annihilation of the Jewish race in the Eastern territories. He also told me that within the RSHA he was personally entrusted with the execution of the order and had received full authority from the Chief of Security Police to carry it out. It was perfectly clear to me that this meant the deaths for millions of people…the order remained in place until October 1944 when Himmler issued a counter-order forbidding the further annihilation of the Jews (Russell, 38).

The "Final Solution" to the Jewish question did not start until 1942. This does not mean that no Jews were murdered by the Nazi’s until 1942 because certainly some were; however, the majority of deaths in the Holocaust took place between 1942 and 1944. Harwood doesn’t want the reader to know about the "Final Solution" years, so again he misleads the reader when he says that, "…Jews were quick to interpret these policies of internal discrimination as equivalent to extermination itself" (Harwood 2-3). The reality is that there were two different time periods in Nazi policy towards the Jews. The first period, the one Harwood claims the Jews were mixed up in, was during the years from 1933 to 1939.

These were the years that Nazi policy towards the Jews was characterized by emigration and discrimination. The second period, the one Harwood doesn’t mention, was during the years 1942-1944. During these years of the "Final Solution", the Nazi policy towards the Jews was extermination. It was these years that the attempt to liquidate the remaining 200,000 Jews in Germany was made by the Nazi’s. According to Dawidowicz 90% or 180,000 of these Jews remaining in Germany were murdered in the Holocaust (Dawidoicz, 403). These 180,000 Jews make up a relatively small percentage of the six million murdered Jews, but they represent an example of how Harwood is constantly trying to lessen the number of victims in the Holocaust. Harwood also attempts to portray Kurt Gerstein as a liar, but he has no evidence to do so.

Gerstein is one of the few neutral individuals who was able to give a first hand account of the killing capabilities of the Nazi war machine. After he snuck into Belzec, he described the killing process of Jews there: A few minutes later a train did in fact arrive from Lemberg, with 45 wagons holding more than 6,000 people.

Of these 1,450 were already dead on arrival…As the train drew in, 200 Ukrainians detailed for the task tore open the doors and, laying about them with their leather whips, drove the Jews out of the cars…They drew nearer to where Wirth and I were standing in front of the death chambers. Men, women, young girls, children, babies, cripples, all stark naked, filed by…Most of them knew the truth. The odor told them what their fate was to be. They walked up a small flight of steps and into the death chambers…(Bauer, 211).

Gerstein is able to detail the whole killing process at Belzec; yet, Harwood makes baseless accusations against Gerstein that he is prone to exaggeration and that he is mentally insane. Harwood uses no evidence to support these accusations, although he thinks he does. On the topic of Gerstein’s alleged insanity Harwood writes, "Gerstein’s sister was congenitally insane and died by euthanasia, which may well suggest a streak of mental instability in Gerstein himself" (Harwood, 08). Unlike legitimate historians, Harwood resorts to vulgar tactics to convey his message. An example of this is Harwood’s suggestion that because Gerstein’s sister had a mental disorder he must have had one aa well. Accusations such as these, demonstrate how desperate Harwood was to find a method to discredit Gerstein. Gerstein successfully demonstrated the monumental killing capabilities of Nazi Germany. Harwood had no other way to discredit Gerstein than to hurl out absolutely baseless accusations concerning his credibility.

One piece of evidence that Harwood rarely mentions in "Did Six Million Really Die?" is the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann is a convicted Nazi war criminal who was sentenced to death in Jerusalem in 1961. He was also very high up in the Nazi hierarchy. Bauer explains he was, "…in charge of a sub-department of the Reich Central Security Office (RSHA), which was headed by Heydrich. RSHA controlled all SS police and terror actions, excluding concentration camps but including death camps" (Bauer 206-207). His trial represents a major piece of evidence that Holocaust deniers like Harwood cannot account for, so they just skip it over like it never happened. At the trial, in response to a question about if he felt responsible for the murder of millions of Jews, Eichmann testified, "Yes…" (Russell, 259). This reaffirms, from a high ranking Nazi official, that millions of Jews were murdered. Harwood does have a response to this when he writes that, "the prosecution at the Eichmann trial deliberately avoided mentioning the figure (six million)" (Harwood, 35). This trial was in 1961, only fifteen years after the end of World War II. The prosecutor was most likely being cautious and that is why he did not mention exactly six million, but rather he used the amiguous phrase of just millions. However, it is thirty years later now and we can unequivocally state that this number is correct. Theoretically, if for some reason thirty years in the future this figure was to be challenged by historians once again, this ought not to be considered any less of an atrocity or misrepresentation of fact. It is necessary for the true and accurate number of victims to be preserved for years to come. In opposition to this, Harwood seems to think that a portrayal of the number of victims was reduced to just millions, rather than six million, this would lessen the severity of the crimes. Not only is it absurd to consider that a vague reference to millions of individuals murdered is acceptible in any context, it is a disgrace to those who lost their lives and to their future generations. Harwood writes pamphlets like, "Did Six Million Really Die?", to try and portray himself as a neutral, legitimate historian that is searching for the "real truth" on the Holocaust. In actuality, Harwood and his fellow Holocaust deniers’ have an ulterior motivation in conveying their rewritten version of the Holocaust. It is not to accurately depict the historical events and search out truth; rather, these historians attempt and succeed in convincing ignorant individuals of their racist and anti-Semitic ideologies. These self-proclaimed revisionists have recently encountered legal difficulties in their ability to spout their version of the truth. David Irving, a colleague of Harwood, lost a court battle earlier this year in which he sued Holocaust historian Deborah Lippstadt for libel. Irving was proven to have distorted the truth in his research and publications, and he was condemned by the court as an anti-semite and Holocaust denier. This court ruling is a significant hindrance for holocaust deniers such as Harwood and casts a cloud of illegitimacy over their future endeavors to spread their false truth regarding the victims of the Holocaust.

Most substantially, the presence of holocaust deniers threatens the legacies of the victims that Harwood and his colleagues attempt to disclaim. Their legacy is a legacy of a unique and successful culture that dates back thousands of years, but it is also a legacy of tragedy. Millions of people around the world have family members who were victims of the Holocaust. It is unjust to minimize the number of Holocaust victims because every attempt to do so, robs future generations of their ability to understand the full magnitude of this historic event. As long as future generations continue to question the legitimacy of Harwood and his fellow deniers, the legacy of the Holocaust victims will never be forgotten.

Works Cited

Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust, Franklin Watts, New York, 1982

Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975

Harwood, Richard E. "Did six Million Really Die?", The Institute of Historical Review,
<www.ihr.org/books/harwood/dsmrd01.html>

Lord Russell of Liverpool. The Record; The Trial of Adolf Eichmann For His Crimes Against the Jewish People and Against Humanity, Alfred A. Knoff Publishers, New York, 1963.