It is an acknowledged fact that Holocaust historiography reached its peak in 2002 and has since begun a gradual and inexorable decline. Revisionist historiography, by contrast, has flourished in the last decade. As for myself, I have in this time published a dozen studies, the most recent being Auschwitz: assistenza sanitaria, “selezione” e “Sonderbehandlung” dei detenuti immatricolati (“Auschwitz: sanitary service, ‘selections’ and ‘special treatment’ of registered inmates, Effepi, Genoa 2010), in which I have dealt with all the basic aspects of the Auschwitz camp. The other two alleged “labor and extermination camps“ were carefully studied by Jürgen Graf and myself in the books Concentration Camp Majdanek. A Historical and Technical Study (Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2003) and Concentration Camp Stutthof and its Function in National Socialist Jewish Policy (Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2003). The alleged extermination camp Chełmno is the subject of my study Il campo di Chełmno tra storia e propaganda (“Camp Chełmno in History and Propaganda”, Effepi, Genoa 2009), while the alleged eastern extermination camps of Bełżec and Treblinka were treated by me in the book Bełżec in Propaganda, Testimonies, Archeological Research, and History (Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2004) and by J. Graf and myself in our work Treblinka. Extermination Camp or Transit Camp? (Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2004). There remained the last camp, that of Sobibór, which was the most difficult to treat due to the near lack of preserved documentation. Now finally this gap has been filled with the recent publication of the book Holocaust Propaganda and Reality (The Barnes Review, Washington D.C. 2010), written by J. Graf, Thomas Kues and myself. This work amounts to 434 pages, with 6 documents, 15 photographs and a comprehensive bibliography (pp. 414-429).

Regarding the contents I refer to the table of contents, which I reproduce below. I will here mention briefly some of the new key arguments presented.

Chapter V (Critical Analysis of Material Evidence) critically examines the fundamental “material evidence” presented by the Polish archeologist A. Kola in his almost impossible-to-find ”Report on the archeological investigation at the site of the former Jewish extermination camp of Sobibór”. The critique focuses on the mass graves and remains of barracks identified by Kola (who found no traces of the alleged gas chambers) and the problem of the outdoor cremation of the alleged gas chamber victims, demonstrating that the official historiographical narrative is untenable.

Chapter VIII (The Führerbefehl and the Origins of the “Extermination Camps” in the East) outlines the history of “Aktion Reinhardt” and explains its real significance within the framework of the “Generalplan Ost“, as well as shows the inconsistency of the exterminationist historiography on the construction of these alleged death camps.

Chapter X provides the most comprehensive study yet on the fate of the Jewish prisoners deported to the East. The thesis of the book is that Sobibór was in fact a transit camp (Durchgangslager), just as stated by Himmler in a letter from 5 July 1943 addressed to the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt and seven other SS instances. Related arguments are also set out in Chapter IX.

With this work the revisionist bibliography on the alleged extermination camps of Bełżec, Treblinka, Sobibór and Chełmno has reached 1,218 pages.

Holocaust historiography, gravely embarrassed as always, keeps silent. To compensate it flings accusations of “antisemitism” to the right and left. Being completely unable to counter anything it can react only with hysteric invectives or, possibly, a real debate.

Carlo Mattogno, 22 June 2010

Table of Contents

1. Introduction …………………………… 9
Measurement Conversions …………………………….. 14

2. The Sobibór Camp and its Historiographic Representation ……….. 15
2.1. Sobibór as Described in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust …….. 15
2.2. Sobibór as Described in Contemporary Documents ……………….. 20
2.2.1. Himmler’s Directive of 5 July 1943 and Pohl’s Reply ….. 21
2.2.2. Documents about the Sobibór Uprising ………………………. 21
2.2.3. The Höfle Radio Message ………………………………. 22
2.2.4. Provisional Summary ……………………………… 22
2.3. Sobibór in Official Historiography and “Holocaust” Literature …….. 23
2.3.1. N. Blumental’s Documents and Materials (1946) ………… 23
2.3.2. Report by the “Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland” (1947) ……… 24
2.3.3. Yuri Suhl (1967) ………… 25
2.3.4. Adam Rutkowski (1968) …………. 26
2.3.5. Stanisław Szmajzner (1968) …………… 28
2.3.6. Adalbert Rückerl (1977) ………… 31
2.3.7. E.A. Cohen (1979) ………… 31
2.3.8. Miriam Novitch (1980)……………. 31
2.3.9. Richard Rashke (1982) …………… 34
2.3.10. E. Kogon, H. Langbein, A. Rückerl et al. (1983) …………. 35
2.3.11. Yitzhak Arad (1987) …………………. 37
2.3.12. Witold Zbigniew Sulimierski (1993) …………39
2.3.13. Jules Schelvis (1993) ……………….. 40
2.3.14. Thomas (Toivi) Blatt (1996) ………………….. 41
2.3.15. Shaindy Perl (2004) ………………… 45
2.3.16. Michael Lev (2007) …………………… 46
2.3.17. Dov Freiberg (2007) ……………………. 46
2.3.18. Barbara Distel (2008) …………………….. 46
2.3.19. Jules Schelvis (2008) …………………….. 47
2.3.20. Conclusions ……………………….. 55
2.4. A Revisionist Article about Sobibór …………… 56
2.5. Heinrich Himmler’s Visit to Sobibór …………… 58
2.6. Sobibór’s Claimed Number of Vicitms …………… 60

3. Origins and Evolution of Claims about Sobibór ……………. 63

4. Critical Analysis of Eye Witness Testimonies ……………..77
4.1. Alleged Contacts with Inmates in camp III ……………….. 77
4.2. Alexander Pechersky, the Main Witness ………………… 84
4.3. “The Most Conclusive Evidence” …………………… 93
4.4. Miscellaneous Anomalies and Absurdities ………………… 98
4.5. Testimonies by Former Camp Personnel ………………. 102
4.6. The Value of Eye Witness Testimonies ……………… 105

5. Critical Analysis of Material Evidence ……………… 107
5.1. The State of Evidence ……………………. 107
5.1.1. Forensic Post War Survey by Polish Authorities ……….. 107
5.1.2. Photographic Evidence …………….. 108
5.1.3. Kola’s Archeological Research at Sobibór 2000-2001 ……. 109
5.2. Mass Graves…………….. 112
5.2.1. Mass Graves in Testimony, Verdicts, and Historiography…………….. 112
5.2.2. The Switch from Burial to Cremation ……………… 115
5.2.3. Mass Graves Identified by Kola ………………. 118
5.2.4. The Significance of Unincinerated Corpses ………………. 120
5.2.5. Area and Volume of the Graves …………………. 122
5.2.6. A Note on the Ground Water Level at Sobibór ………………. 125
5.3. Fuel Requirements ……………………. 130
5.3.1. The Percentage of Children among the Deportees ………….. 130
5.3.2. The Average Weight of the Children ……………….. 132
5.3.3. Fuel Requirements for the Cremation of One Body …………….. 133
5.3.4. Decomposed Bodies ……………….. 136
5.3.5. Emaciated Corpses ……………….. 138
5.3.6. Factors Influencing the Cremation ………………. 139
5.3.7. Wood Requirements for Corpse Cremation at Sobibór …………. 140
5.3.8. The Duration of the Cremation …………….. 145
5.3.9. The Ashes ……………. 148
5.4. Excavated Building Remains ……………. 149
5.4.1. The Alleged Second Phase Gas Chambers in Testimony, Verdicts and Historiography ………………. 149
5.4.2. Building Remains Excavated by Kola ……………… 152
5.5. Continued Archeological Research 2007-2008 …………………. 162
5.6. The Official “Memorial Map” of the Sobibór “Death Camp” …………….. 167
5.7. Estimate of the Sobibór Death Toll …………….. 168

6. The Sobibór Trials……………………. 171
6.1. Legal Proceedings as the Basis for Historiography ……………….. 171
6.2. The Trial of Erich Bauer in Berlin in 1950 ………………. 172
6.3. The Frankfurt Trial of Hubert Gomerski and Johann Klier (1950) …………… 178
6.4. The Sobibór Trial at Hagen (1965/1966) ……………….. 182
6.5. The Sobibór Trial that Never Took Place ………………… 189
6.6. The Three Sobibór Trials in the Soviet Union ………………… 190
6.7. The Brazilian Extradition Proceedings against F. Stangl and G. Wagner………….. 191

7. National-Socialist Policy of Jewish Emigration ……………. 193
7.1. Emigration …………………… 193
7.2. The Madagascar Plan ………………. 198
7.3. From Madagascar Plan to Deportation to the East ……………… 201
7.4. First Deportations to the East …………………. 213

8. The Führerbefehl and the Origins of the “Extermination Camps” in the East ……………. 219
8.1. The Führerbefehl and Holocaust Historiography ……………….. 219
8.2. Origins and Significance of “Aktion Reinhardt” ………………. 236
8.2.1. The “Generalplan Ost” ……………………. 236
8.2.2. “Aktion Reinhardt” …………………….. 243
8.3. Alleged Genesis and Organization of the Extermination Camps of Aktion Reinhardt ……………….. 251
8.3.1. Administration and Financing …………….. 251
8.3.2. Construction of the Camps ……………… 252
8.3.3. Construction of the Alleged Gas Chambers: General Problems……………….. 254
8.4. The Alleged First Gas Chamber Building at Sobibór ……………. 262
8.5. Euthanasia and Aktion Reinhardt ……………….. 269
8.6. Himmler’s Cremation Order …………………. 281

9. Sobibór: Propaganda and Reality ………………… 283
9.1. Fake “Baths” or Real Baths? Sobibór as a Transit Camp …………… 283
9.2. The Ostwanderung ……………………. 290
9.3. Jewish Transports into the Lublin District in 1942 ……………….. 296
9.4. Evacuations to the East: Höfle Telegram and Korherr Report ……………… 311
9.5. Registration of Deportees in the Aktion Reinhardt Camps ……………. 331
9.6. Prof. Kulischer on the Expulsion of Jews …………….. 333

10. The Fate of the Deportees…………………. 347
10.1. The Fate of Jews Deported Directly to the East ……………………. 347
10.2. Number of Jews Moved to the East ………………………. 349
10.2.1. Via the Aktion Reinhardt Camps ………………………. 349
10.2.2. Via Chełmno……………………. 351
10.2.3. Via Auschwitz …………………….. 352
10.2.4. Balance ………………….. 353
10.3. The Dissolution of Polish Jewry in the USSR………………… 354
10.4. Western Jews in the Eastern Territories ………………. 357
10.4.1. Steffen Werner’s White Ruthenia Hypothesis ………………. 357
10.4.2. American Jewish Yearbook …………………… 360
10.4.3. Judisk Krönika ………………… 361
10.4.4. Further Evidence for Western Jews in the East …………….. 363
10.4.5. The Diary of Herman Kruk ………………….. 366
10.5. The Fate of Western Jews – a Hypothesis ………………. 369

11. The Demjanjuk Case……………………. 375
11.1. Hunting Down Old Men …………………… 375
11.2. The OSI…………………….. 379
11.3. Demjanjuk’s Extradition to Israel and His Trial ……………… 380
11.4. Demjanjuk’s Extradition to Germany ………………….. 387
11.5. The Run-Up to the Munich Trial ………………… 389

12. Conclusions …………………. 391
12.1. The Moral Responsibility of the Camp Personnel ………………… 391
12.2. “I am a Portion of that Force…” …………………….. 393
12.3. The Emperor’s New Clothes ……………………. 394
12.4. The Moloch …………………….. 395

13. Appendix …………………… 401
13.1. Documents and Photographs ………………………. 401
13.2. SS Ranks and U.S. Army Equivalents ……………………….. 413
13.3. Bibliography …………………….. 414
Media Items ……………….. 414
Monographs, Anthologies, Published Document Collections ………………. 415
Documents …………………. 425
Internet Sources ……………….. 426
Judicial Documents ……………………. 429
13.4. Abbreviations ………………………… 429
13.5. Index of Names…………………………. 430

Click here to purchase Sobibór. Holocaust Propaganda and Reality from The Barnes Review Book Store

In a discussion of my study Special Treatment in Auschwitz. Origin and Meaning of a Term (Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2004), Holocaust blogger Sergey Romanov puts forth the following critique:

«Mattogno discusses lots of Auschwitz documents which contain the code words, and an unsuspecting reader might be duped into believing that Mattogno really did discuss (and rip to shreds) all the Auschwitz-related documentary evidence containing the code words. However, Mattogno deceptively omits the most crucial source on the use of the code word»

He concludes:

«Therefore, by omitting any mention of these prominent documents Carlo Mattogno has engaged in a gross and unforgivable deception. We hope to treat Mattogno’s other arguments from this and other books in the future, but it has already been established that one cannot rely on him to present the evidence fairly».[1]

If there is anyone who is “deceptive” here it is Sergey Romanov. In the abovementioned book I not only have never claimed to have considered «all the Auschwitz-related documentary evidence containing the code words», but I explicitly stated otherwise. In footnote 18 on pp. 11-12 I alert the reader:

«Likewise, a systematic treatment of all registered prisoners who were subjected to a “special treatment” would amount to an extensive analysis of the current claims of gassing as well as of the fates of various groups of prisoners, which would exceed the bounds of this investigation. [...]. In addition, a comprehensive study on this subject in preparation».

Therefore, by omitting any mention of this notification, Sergey Romanov has engaged in a gross and unforgivable deception, thus confirming once again his true nature, which has already been abundantly demonstrated in my book Olocausto: dilettanti nel web (Effepi, Genoa 2005).

The announced study, one of the most difficult I have undertaken, has now finally been published. Its title is Auschwitz: assistenza sanitaria, “selezione” e “Sonderbehandlung” dei detenuti immatricolati (Auschwitz: sanitary service, “selections” and “special treatment” of registered inmates) and it consists of 333 pages (sized 17 x 24) with 60 documents, many virtually unknown to specialists.

The table of contents below clearly shows the structure of study, so I will limit myself to presenting the conclusion. Here should only be noted that Chapter 4 contains detailed statistics on the number of prisoners unfit for work and unemployable, the stationary ill and invalids (!) who were constantly present in the hospitals of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were established in accordance with the directive of the SS-WVHA of June 24, 1942. In Chapter 7 I have further devoted 28 pages to analyzing the documents which, according to Sergey Romanov, I ”omitted” from my previous book.

Here follows the conclusion:

«The thesis that at the hospitals of the Auschwitz camp complex registered inmates who due to illness had become unfit for work were selected to be sent to the alleged gas chambers has no documentary basis. On the contrary, documents show that at Auschwitz the SS always tried to improve, wherever possible, the living conditions and health of the inmates by establishing hospitals for the sick in which, inter alia, thousands of surgeries were performed. Some sick detainees were even transferred to other camps in order to receive a more appropriate care.

The plans – fully documented but implemented only in part due to undetermined reasons – for a huge camp hospital in Birkenau Bauabschnitt III, originally revealed by Pressac, blatantly contradicts the claims of mass extermination and demonstrates that the SS policy toward inmates unfit for work was not one of killing, but of medical treatment.

An analysis of the alleged selections of registered inmates for the gas chambers as listed by Danuta Czech shows that none of them has any historical documentary basis; rather they are often flatly contradicted by the documents. In fact, they are all based on not only the mere speculation of witnesses, but above all on unheard-of manipulations which reveal the true nature of the Auschwitz “Kalendarium” as not an historical and historiographical instrument enabling us to understand the events, but a propaganda tool for their systematic distortion».

Table of Contents:

PART ONE – THE INMATES

CHAPTER 1 – THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF THE INMATES
1.1 Provisions related to the improvement of the inmate living conditions
1.2. The selection of prisoners upon arrival
1.3. Treatment of inmates according to concentration camp regulations
1.4. Punishments
1.5. Premiums for productivity
1.6. The postal service
1.7. Food
1.8. Releases and the “Arbeitserziehungslager Birkenau”

CHAPTER 2 – THE INMATE HOSPITAL (HÄFTLINGSKRANKENBAU)
2.1. Measures taken by the SS-Standortarzt and the SS-Lagerärzte for safeguarding the health of the inmates
2.2. Reports on the medical treatment of inmates
2.3. The medical registry of the Häftlingskrankenbau
2.4. The inmate hospital in the camp Auschwitz III-Monowitz
2.5. The projected circulating air delousing facilities (Umluft-Entwesungsanlagen) for the sick inmates of Birkenau Bauabschnitt II

CHAPTER 3 – THE HÄFTLINGSLAZARETT IN BIRKENAU BAUABSCHNITT III
3.1. The discovery of Jean-Claude Pressac
3.2. Origin and implementation of the project for a camp hospital in Birkenau Bauabschnitt III

CHAPTER 4 – THE FATE OF THE REGISTERED INMATES UNFIT FOR WORK
4.1. The treatment of registered inmates unfit for work
4.2. Statistics on the sick in the Quarantänelager
4.3. Registration and transfer of sick inmates

PART TWO – THE “SELECTIONS” OF SICK INMATES FOR THE “GAS CHAMBERS”: A HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS

CHAPTER 5 – THE “SELECTION” OF SICK INMATES FOR THE “GAS CHAMBERS” ACCORDING TO THE AUSCHWITZ “KALENDARIUM”: THE MINOR “SELECTIONS”
5.1. “Sonderbehandlung 14 f 13” and the origin of the “selections” at Auschwitz
5.2. The death certificates of the “selected”
5.3. “Sonderbehandlung 14 f 13” and the “phenol injections” at Auschwitz
5.4. THE “SELECTIONS” IN THE “KALENDARIUM” OF DANUTA CZECH
5.5. THE “SELECTIONS” IN 1941: THE “FIRST GASSING”
5.6. THE “SELECTIONS” IN 1942
5.6.1. The “selection” of 11 June 1942
5.6.2. The “selection” of 3 August 1942
5.6.3. The “selection” of 29 August 1942 in Auschwitz Block 20, Room 3
5.6.4. The “selection” of 5 September 1942
5.6.5. The “selection” of October 1942
5.6.6. The “selection” of 14 November 1942
5.6.7. The “selection” of 3 December 1942
5.6.8. The “selection” of 5 December 1942
5.6.9. The “selection” of 8 December 1942
5.7. THE “SELECTIONS” IN 1943
5.7.1. The “selection” of 17 January 1943
5.7.2. The “selection” of 28 February 1943
5.7.3. The “selection” of 21 August 1943
5.7.4. The “selection” of 29 August 1943
5.7.5. The “selection” of 8 October 1943
5.7.6. The “selection” of 22 October 1943
5.7.7. The “selection” of 19 November 1943
5.7.8. The “selection” of 10 December 1943
5.7.9. The “selection” of 12 December 1943
5.7.10. The “selection” of 19 December 1943
5.8. THE “SELECTIONS” IN 1944
5.8.1. General considerations
5.8.2. The “selection” of 23 January 1944
5.8.3. The “selection” of 3 February 1944
5.8.4. The “selection” of 3 April 1944
5.8.5. The “selections” of inmates in the women’s camp BIIc in October 1944: the deceptions of L. Langfus and D. Czech
5.9. THE “SELECTIONS” LISTED BY THE FORMER INMATE OTTO WOLKEN
5.9.1. The documentation of Otto Wolken
5.9.2. The “selection” of 29 August 1943
5.9.3. The “selection” of 2 October 1943
5.9.4. The “selection” of 10 October 1943
5.9.5. The “selection” of 14 November 1943
5.9.6. The “selection” of 1 January 1944
5.9.7. The “selection” of 14 January 1944
5.9.8. The “selection” of 22 January 1944
5.9.9. The “selection” of 14 April 1944
5.9.10. The “selection” of 18 April 1944

CHAPTER 6 – THE MAJOR “SELECTIONS” ACCORDING TO THE AUSCHWITZ “KALENDARIUM”: THE THERESIENSTADT FAMILY CAMP AND THE GIPSY FAMILY CAMP
6.1.1. The establishment of the “Family camp” BIIb and the alleged homicidal gassings
6.1.2. The sources
6.1.3. The inmate strength of camp BIIb
6.1.4. The transports in September and December 1943
6.1.5. The “gassing” of the Jews of the “Family camp”: a historically sound thesis?
6.1.6. The cremation of the corpses from the “gassing” on 8 March 1944
6.1.7. The transport to Heydebreck
6.1.8. The “liquidation” of the “Family camp” (July 1944)
6.1.9. Deaths and survivors
6.1.10. The transport of 7 October 1943
6.2.THE SELECTION AND GASSING OF THE GYPSIES AT AUSCHWITZ ON 2 AUGUST 1944
6.2.1. The historical reconstruction of Danuta Czech
6.2.2. The documents
6.2.3. Interpretation of the documents

CHAPTER 7 – DOCUMENTS ON “SONDERBEHANDLUNG”
7.1. Documents concerning the “Frauenlager”
7.2. The “Sonderkommando Zeppelin”
7.3. “S.B.” in the main registry of the Gypsy camp (Hauptbuch des Zigeunerlagers)
7.4. “S.B.” in the reports on inmate strength and employment in the Frauenlager (women’s camp)
7.5. “S.B.” in the Stärkemeldung of the Frauenlager
7.5.1. The Jewish inmates of the “Durchgangslager”
7.5.2. Changes in the inmate strength of the Frauenlager in October 1944
7.5.3. “S.B.” and the “Durchgangs-Juden”
7.5.4. The “S.B.” of 3 October 1944
7.5.5. The “S.B.” of 7 October 1944
7.5.6. Conclusions
7.6. The “selections” at the HKB of the camp Auschwitz III-Monowitz
7.7. The report of SS-Untersturmführer Kinna from 16 December 1942
7.8. The “selections” of Polish boys from Zamość and other locations in Poland
7.9. The letter from the head of SS-WVHA Amt DII dated 26 April 1944

CONCLUSION

[1] Mattogno’s special treatment of evidence, http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/03/mattognos-special-treatment-of.html. Bolds in original.

In November 1944, the ”Holocaust” was practically over. Himmer had supposed ordered the gassings stopped, the alleged ”gas chambers” of Auschwitz-Birkenau had ceased operating, Majdanek had been liberated and figured prominently in Soviet atrocity propaganda, the area containing the few remains of the Treblinka ”extermination camp” been occupied by the Red Army. By this point in time at least 95% of the mythical 6 million Shoah victims had (supposedly) already perished.

In this context it is interesting to take a look at what a Soviet mouthpiece published in the West, the American Communist monthly Soviet Russia Today (previously published under the title New World Review) had to say about the number of Jewish losses in its issue from November 1944. This publication regularly featured writings of Ilya Ehrenburg and Vassili Grossman as well as commentaries on the progress of the war from Soviet generals. Under the heading ”Rehabilitation of the Jews in the USSR” Theodore Bayer writes (p. 28):

”Almost four-fifths of the Jewish population of the USSR lived in the war area. Almost three million of the Soviet Jews lived in the Ukraine and Byelo-Russia which were occupied by the Germans and another million in the Baltic countries, Bessarabia and the Crimea and other parts of the RSFSR reached by the Germans.[...]
Realizing the special danger facing the Jews under the German yoke, Soviet authorities put the task of evacuating them second only to the evacuation of women and children. Thus, with super-human effort, the Red Army men and officers and civil authorities managed to evacuate about fifty per cent of Russian Jews as well as Jews who fled from Poland into Russian territory. Counting the Jews remaining in the liberated Soviet regions including Bessarabia, Bukovina and the Baltic countries, the present Soviet Jewish population may be estimated at between three and one-half to four million people.

Before the war the total Jewish population of the world was estimated to be about 15,500,000 people. About two-thirds were in Europe and the Asiatic part of Russia. The other one-third was mainly in the United States, with the rest scattered in Canada and Latin America and about 400,000 in Palestine. Subtracting the tragic figure of over 3,000,000 Jews exterminated by the Nazis, this would leave about 3,000,000 Jews in Europe outside of those in the USSR, England and the two or three neutral countries. The Soviet Union in liberating Romania and Hungary from the Nazi invaders is setting free areas with large Jewish populations.
Some estimates place the number of Jews surviving at a much lesser figure. However, according to the above calculations, the Jewish population of the world will amount to a little over 12,000,000 people – a loss of about 3,500,000 including deaths in the armed services, partisan armies and the underground of the United Nations.[?] According to these figures, a third of world Jewry will be citizens of the USSR.” (emphasis added)

Only a month after the above quoted article was published, the Soviet-Jewish chief atrocity propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg stated in the Soviet foreign-language press that the Jewish victim figure amounted to 6 million,[1] and the previous calculations referred to by Soviet Russia Today – which must have been recent ones, since Bessarabia was taken by the Red Army in late August 1944 and the Baltic offensive began on Steptember 14 – were thrown down the memory hole.

The figure of nearly 5 million Jews living in the USSR at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, whereof approximately in 4 million in the territories later occupied by the Germans, is partially backed up by the American Jewish Year Book. In volume 43 (1941-1942) we read on p. 663:

”On the date of the invasion, June 22, 1941, half the Jewish population on the continent of Europe, estimated at well over 9,000,000, resided in Russia and Russian occupied areas, while the other half lived in Germany and in countries and territories occupied or dominated by her. Figures for Russia published in October, 1940 showed a total Jewish population of 4,600,000 divided as follows:

Old Russia… 3,000,000
Polish Areas… 1,000,000
Lithuania (excluding Vilna)… 200,000
Latvia… 100,000
Bessarabia… 200,000
Northern Bukowina… 100,000

These figures are given in round numbers and we must, therefore, assume them to be rough approximations. A more likely figure would be 4,700,000, which would account for the Jews in Vilna and Estonia as well as for the additional 20,000 Jews in Old Russia as enumerated in the census of January, 1939.”

It should be noted here that it is not made explicitly clear by Bayer whether the 4 million mention included the Jews in the eastern part of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, but given that we are dealing with a Soviet mouthpiece, it seems likely that this part of Poland was regarded as part of the USSR. As for the number of Jews originally present in the parts of the USSR not reached by the Germans (no doubt included in the figure for ”Old Russia” presented by the AJYB, it is well known that they were far outnumbered by the Jews in the western parts. According to the 1926 census, the Jews in the Asian part of the RSFSR, the Transcaucasian Republic, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan totaled merely some 152,000, while there lived some 171,000 Jews in the eastern part of European Russia.[2] The 4 million figure therefore appears to be sound.

Bayer writes that the Soviet authorities managed to evacuate ”about fifty per cent” of the Jews in the western part of the Soviet Union. This would mean a total of some 2 million evacuees. As German historian A. Hillgruber writes,

”The estimates of the number of Jews in the Soviet Union in 1941 varies with a difference of over one million. This is foremost due to the unanswered (and now hardly answerable) question of how many Jews were able to escape before the Germans into the unoccupied territories of the Soviet Union. The estimates range between 2.655 million to 1.6 million.”[3]

Wilfried Heink has brought together a number of estimates made by Holocaust historians and Jewish authorities:

”Raul Hilberg 1.5 million, Yitzak Arad 1 to 1.1 million, Solomon Michoels (of the Jewish Antifascist Committee (JAC)) 2 million, Yisrael Gutmann and Michael Berenbaum estimate 1.5 million.”[4]

Military historian Joachim Hoffmann estimates that 600 000 of the Jews in the Soviet-occupied eastern part of Poland were evacuated, and that 450 000 of these disappeared in the Soviet Union (which may be taken to mean that most of these Jews either perished en route to Siberia or Central Asia or in Soviet camps).[5]

While the number of evacuees stated by Soviet Russia Today is very high and might have been exaggerated in order to put the Soviet regime in the best light possible, it is more or less within the same magnitude as the figures espoused by the prominent Holocaust historians Hilberg, Gutmann and Berenbaum. All this of course indicates that the calculations referred to were not conjured out of nothing by Soviet propagandists, but based on actual statistics. The origin of the estimates presented by Theodore Bayer, however, remains an enigma. Undoubtedly they were relayed to the journal from some official Soviet source, like the bulk of its contents, but from where exactly? Were the same calculations presented in more detail elsewhere? Clearly more research is needed on this issue.

[1] J. Hoffmann, Stalin’s Vernichtungskrieg 1941-1945, Verlag für Wehrwissenschaften, Munich 1995, pp. 160-161, 303.

[2] American Jewish Year Book, vol. 40 (1938-1939), p. 546, 548.
[3] A. Hillgruber, “Der Ostkrieg und die Judenvernichtung”, in: Gerd R. Ueberschär, Wolfram Wette, Unternehmen Barbarossa, Schöningh, Paderborn 1984, p. 228, note 6.
[4] W. Heink, ”Well, where are they then?”, http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/05/well-where-are-they-then/
[5] J. Hoffmann, Stalin’s Vernichtungskrieg 1941-1945, op.cit., p. 139.