The total number of Jews in Europe prior to WW2 is here not so relevant, and we rather need the total number in countries that came under German control.
Lohengrin might want to develop his valuable post here (on page 3) and have it published in some Revisionist journal eg the Barnes Review. He here cites 4.5 million as an upper limit (of Jews who ever lived in countries 'controlled by Hitler'), and is this maybe a bit high? Here are three sources that suggest just over three million:
1 Walter Sanning in
The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry, 1983 quoted 3.5 million, p.181.
2 SS General Reinhard Heydricht wrote to Foreign Secretary Ribbentrop about the ‘endlosung der Judenfrage,’ June 24, 1940 ‘The very size of the problem – and we have to consider that there are about three and a quarter million Jews in the territories now under German control – can no longer be solved by emigration; a territorial final solution will have to be found...’ Quoted in Staeglich, Auschwitz, p.30.
3 Estimate by J.P. Ney: ‘within Hitler’s sphere of influence during WW2 there had lived somewhere between 2.5 - 3 million Jews in total’ - 'The Wannsee Conference Protocol: Anatomy of a Fabrication’ by J.P. Ney in
Dissecting the Holocaust, Ed Rudolf, 2003.*
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Then, the total number of Jews who have received ‘compensation’ from Germany’s Finance Ministry is of great interest. Wilhelm Staeglich’s book
Auchwitz, a Judge Looks at the Evidence (1986) said the Bonn Government had received ‘3,375,000 applications for restitution.’ (p.30)Then in 2008 in his court hearing Mr Kevin Kathner said:
During my readings, I happened to come across the number of reparation suits filed by alleged victims of ‘Holocaust.’ According to the Finance Ministry, this number comes to 5,360,710.’
He asked the Court: ‘By paying these 5,360,710 claims for idemnity, didn’t the Finance Ministry deny its own official version of ‘Holocaust?’’ (The Growing Self-Accusation Movement in Germany’ by Kevin Kather, Smith’s Report (online), January 2009; court hearing of November, 2008).
Both of these figures concern applications, and there is the Question, how can one infer the number of ‘Holo-survivors’ from them? Lohengrin found out that:
numbers from the German Bundesminister der Finanzen, given in a letter to mr. Wermer Laska on September 10th 1985, ("mindestens 6 bis 7 Millionen") regards to Leistungen an Israel, meaning of course, for Jewish survivors only! Indeed, not the German authorities decide who are "Jews", but the Israelian authorities do.
So he reckoned there had been 6 or 7 million, and they were mainly Jewish, to get compensation. ‘Hektor’ has made the reasonable inference that the applications equate to around four million persons, being accepted:
I think it is reasonable to assume that 80% of the applications are one-offs by one person or household. The other 20% would then be repeated applicants. Of course it may also be 50%. But still I think 60% of that number equates applicants, putting this at 4 million. Each applicant may represent a single person or a household.
Logically, this elusive number, of persons who have received cash from the German Finance Ministry as ‘compensation’ should be equate to the number of ‘Holocaust survivors’ (
http://jppi.org.il/uploads/Jewish_Demog ... licies.pdf Jewish demographic policies, population Trends and options in israel and in the diaspora, Sergio DellaPergola 2011) This is defined as a threefold category, as (a) persons who were in the camps, (b) who fled or went into exile, eg those who left Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and (c) those who ‘suffered under the Nazis’ - the latter seems a bit of a catch-all term. (Thanks to ‘Kladderatach’ for explaining this vitally important concept.)
For the year 2001 this report gives 1092,000 still-alive total, with 213,200 in the first category. I would have thought this does not permit less than five million to have been still alive at the end of the War in 1945. (Dr Terry gets a smaller figure, ‘indeed nearly 4 million Jews surviving in Europe in 1945') You could argue that not all ‘Holo-survivors’ have claimed compensation, however the reverse could be more likely: if each Holo-survivor gets around twenty grand (a hundred billion DM paid out by Germany to five million people...) then that will be enough to stimulate bogus claims. So given the vast sums of the handouts, we are probably in a situation where everyone who could apply has done so, and careful documentary checking by the German Finance Ministry has been required to ensure the claims are ‘valid’ i.e falling within the threefold criteria.
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Whatever the number, the difference between it and the number of Jews ever living in Nazi-occupied territory is not great, indeed we seem to be getting a negative value! One would like to ask Kevin Kathner for possibly clarification here as he first put forward this rather decisive argument. (He went to jail for 8 months after making his statement in court).
Thus Dr Terry's argument cannot stand, Q.E.D.
* The References which Mr Ney gave for his figure of 2.5-3 million are: Hans Wahls, Zur Authentizität des 'Wannsee-Protokolls', Ingolstadt: Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungsstelle, 1987; Udo Walendy, "Die Wannsee-Konferenz vom 20.1.1942", in Historische Tatsachen no. 35, Vlotho: Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, 1988Queries:
Dr Terry’s has commented, that this one-million Holo-survivor figure ‘includes North African Jews,’ could someone explain this? Surely the German Government is not still paying out compensation to any Africans who were inconvenienced by Rommel’s desert campaign? Or, is it for any Jews who fled to Africa?
Did anyone get Dr T.’s point about ‘do not think that a 4:1 ratio is justified for Jewish KZ inmates in 1945 since they skewed extremely young. Overall, for Jews and non-Jews, 4:1 is probably right. For Jewish KZ inmates it would be 3:1 or lower. There was a very large number of teenaged Hungarian Jewish KZ inmates...??
