Researchers at the United States Holocaust Museum claim that 15-20 million people died in the Holoca
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[QUOTE]THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.
What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.
The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.
The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington.
“The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data.
“We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”
The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.
Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness. Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear.
The maps the researchers have created to identify the camps and ghettos turn wide sections of wartime Europe into black clusters of death, torture and slavery — centered in Germany and Poland, but reaching in all directions.
The lead editors on the project, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified as part of a multivolume encyclopedia. (The Holocaust museum has published the first two, with five more planned by 2025.)
The existence of many individual camps and ghettos was previously known only on a fragmented, region-by-region basis. But the researchers, using data from some 400 contributors, have been documenting the entire scale for the first time, studying where they were located, how they were run, and what their purpose was.
The brutal experience of Henry Greenbaum, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives outside Washington, typifies the wide range of Nazi sites.
When Mr. Greenbaum, a volunteer at the Holocaust museum, tells visitors today about his wartime odyssey, listeners inevitably focus on his confinement of months at Auschwitz, the most notorious of all the camps.
But the images of the other camps where the Nazis imprisoned him are ingrained in his memory as deeply as the concentration camp number — A188991 — tattooed on his left forearm.
In an interview, he ticked off the locations in rapid fire, the details still vivid.
First came the Starachowice ghetto in his hometown in Poland, where the Germans herded his family and other local Jews in 1940, when he was just 12.
Next came a slave labor camp with six-foot-high fences outside the town, where he and a sister were moved while the rest of the family was sent to die at Treblinka. After his regular work shift at a factory, the Germans would force him and other prisoners to dig trenches that were used for dumping the bodies of victims. He was sent to Auschwitz, then removed to work at a chemical manufacturing plant in Poland known as Buna Monowitz, where he and some 50 other prisoners who had been held at the main camp at Auschwitz were taken to manufacture rubber and synthetic oil. And last was another slave labor camp at Flossenbürg, near the Czech border, where food was so scarce that the weight on his 5-foot-8-inch frame fell away to less than 100 pounds.
By the age of 17, Mr. Greenbaum had been enslaved in five camps in five years, and was on his way to a sixth, when American soldiers freed him in 1945. “Nobody even knows about these places,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Everything should be documented. That’s very important. We try to tell the youngsters so that they know, and they’ll remember.”
The research could have legal implications as well by helping a small number of survivors document their continuing claims over unpaid insurance policies, looted property, seized land and other financial matters.
“HOW many claims have been rejected because the victims were in a camp that we didn’t even know about?” asked Sam Dubbin, a Florida lawyer who represents a group of survivors who are seeking to bring claims against European insurance companies.
Dr. Megargee, the lead researcher, said the project was changing the understanding among Holocaust scholars of how the camps and ghettos evolved.
As early as 1933, at the start of Hitler’s reign, the Third Reich established about 110 camps specifically designed to imprison some 10,000 political opponents and others, the researchers found. As Germany invaded and began occupying European neighbors, the use of camps and ghettos was expanded to confine and sometimes kill not only Jews but also homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and many other ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. The camps and ghettos varied enormously in their mission, organization and size, depending on the Nazis’ needs, the researchers have found.
The biggest site identified is the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, which held about 500,000 people at its height. But as few as a dozen prisoners worked at one of the smallest camps, the München-Schwabing site in Germany. Small groups of prisoners were sent there from the Dachau concentration camp under armed guard. They were reportedly whipped and ordered to do manual labor at the home of a fervent Nazi patron known as “Sister Pia,” cleaning her house, tending her garden and even building children’s toys for her.
When the research began in 2000, Dr. Megargee said he expected to find perhaps 7,000 Nazi camps and ghettos, based on postwar estimates. But the numbers kept climbing — first to 11,500, then 20,000, then 30,000, and now 42,500.
The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.
In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.
Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.
“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”
Eric Lichtblau is a reporter for The New York Times in Washington and a visiting fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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Copied the entire article because NYT has a paywall.
[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/sunday-review/the-holocaust-just-got-more-shocking.html?pagewanted=all&_r=4&"]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/sunday-review/the-holocaust-just-got-more-shocking.html?pagewanted=all&_r=4&[/URL]
Oh boy, here we go again. /pol/'s gonna go nuts over this.
[QUOTE=article]The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.[/QUOTE]
Reading shit like this really makes me grasp how evil these motherfuckers were.
And what's worse is that Israel is doing some of the same shit today against Palestinians trying to take back their land.
Abused becomes the abuser, etc.
[QUOTE=Kuro.;39769443]And what's worse is that Israel is doing some of the same shit today against Palestinians trying to take back their land.
Abused becomes the abuser, etc.[/QUOTE]
not a single reasonable person would say something as fucking ridiculous as that
i am pro-palastine 100%, but to say that Israel is doing "some of the same shit" to Palestinians is just wow
[QUOTE=Kuro.;39769443]And what's worse is that Israel is doing some of the same shit today against Palestinians trying to take back their land.
Abused becomes the abuser, etc.[/QUOTE]
As bad as the state of Israel are with regard to the Palestinians, nothing they have been doing has been comparable to the holocaust itself.
Let's leave the debate out for at least the first page and shout about how terrible this new research is.
[QUOTE=Kuro.;39769443]And what's worse is that Israel is doing some of the same shit today against Palestinians trying to take back their land.[/QUOTE]
Where are the gas-chambers? Where are the trenches stacked to the brim with the dead? Where are the children being given a piece of candy before they are sent to be burned alive in the ovens?
There will always be evil in this world. It is inevitable. But no evil that is equal to that of the holocaust.
Damn, another 10 million for Ahmadinejad to deny
[QUOTE=Kuro.;39769443]And what's worse is that Israel is doing some of the same shit today against Palestinians trying to take back their land.
Abused becomes the abuser, etc.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, no. What Israel is doing to Palestine isn't right, but equating them to the Nazis just undermines your argument.
Israel is like, MAYBE Mussolini level. Or Horthy, maybe.
Anyway, this research is amazing for how thorough it is. I am glad this is being revealed, as sickening as it is.
How did Germany manage to supply enough guards for over 40000 ghettos and camps?
[QUOTE=Carnage2323;39769558]How did Germany manage to supply enough guards for over 40000 ghettos and camps?[/QUOTE]
By taking over countries and conscripting people.
[QUOTE=Dr. Ethan Asia;39769567]By taking over countries and conscripting people.[/QUOTE]
But with two fronts, how could they give up that much manpower to not fight the russians?
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;39769486]There will always be evil in this world. It is inevitable. But no evil that is equal to that of the holocaust.[/QUOTE]
Honestly the Stalinist purges and the Sino-Japanese massacres of pre-WW2 were about as bad, or even worse than the holocaust.. even after these new figures. Mind you it's hard to rate these sorts of atrocities on a "ranking system" though, they were all unimaginably terrible and nothing has really come close since.
This won't be the first time they have said the holocaust estimates were higher.
[QUOTE=Carnage2323;39769573]But with two fronts, how could they give up that much manpower to not fight the russians?[/QUOTE]
They lost the Eastern Front for a reason.
[QUOTE=King Tiger;39769594]They lost the Eastern Front for a reason.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't say it was due to concentration camps, if that's what you're implying. I'm not sure that it took many people to man these camps, not much when compared to the millions of soldiers that were fighting in the war.
[QUOTE=Carnage2323;39769573]But with two fronts, how could they give up that much manpower to not fight the russians?[/QUOTE]
There were special SS units attached to ghettos and camps called the Totenkopfverbande, non-combat troops that were solely responsible for them. They had their own command structure and were directly subordinate to Theodore Eicke. Some of them were those too old and a few were exempt from general military service because injuries - I recall Dr. Mengele was wounded and assigned to the SS-TV.
As the war neared the end, the SS-TV were drafted into the Waffen-SS and auxiliary SS units were drafted from the Nazi party, Volkssturm, and other branches of the army to keep the camps going.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;39769640]I wouldn't say it was due to concentration camps, if that's what you're implying. I'm not sure that it took many people to man these camps, not much when compared to the millions of soldiers that were fighting in the war.[/QUOTE]
I was talking about manpower in general. I didn't mean to imply that the holocaust lost Germany the war. If anything, they greatly benefited from the slave labor.
I can't say I'm surprised. When you learn about it in history, it sounds so widespread and huge and 2~ million does seem like a big number, but it just doesn't fit.
I'm sorry, I'm by no means a holocaust denying whacko, but that high of a number just sounds almost absurd to me.
[editline]2nd March 2013[/editline]
Oh wait. The article says 15 to 20 million people died [B]or were imprisoned[/B]. It's not the complete death toll, it is the number of victims, surviving or otherwise. Reading comprehension, people!
[QUOTE=The First 11'er;39769667]I can't say I'm surprised. When you learn about it in history, it sounds so widespread and huge and 2~ million does seem like a big number, but it just doesn't fit.[/QUOTE]
Who the hell told you 2 million? It's well known that around 6 million jews alone were killed, not taking into account gays, undesirables, romani gypsies and a ton of other people.
[QUOTE=The First 11'er;39769667]I can't say I'm surprised. When you learn about it in history, it sounds so widespread and huge and 2~ million does seem like a big number, but it just doesn't fit.[/QUOTE]
yeah, plus a lot of whole families and even whole regions were wiped out, leaving many people and deaths unaccounted for. not to mention how millions of people were trafficked to other places, easily leaving even more unaccounted for. I am terribly surprised at how high that number is though
Do believe alot of people don't remember this
[video=youtube;ZeU9QVh4MI8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeU9QVh4MI8[/video]
Makes me think about how stupid and sick the people who deny the holocaust are.
How can you deny the death of millions when there is clear proof of it?
This article just reeks of bullshit.
People don't comprehend how large number of people 10 million is, it would be impossible to kill that many in the span of 3-5 years without just going around, openly massacring people everywhere.
[QUOTE=smeismastger;39770258]This article just reeks of bullshit.
People don't comprehend how large number of people 10 million is, it would be impossible to kill that many in the span of 3-5 years without just going around, openly massacring people everywhere.[/QUOTE]
Except thats what the nazis pretty much did???
[QUOTE=smeismastger;39770258]This article just reeks of bullshit.
People don't comprehend how large number of people 10 million is, it would be impossible to kill that many in the span of 3-5 years without just going around, openly massacring people everywhere.[/QUOTE]
Well, the Germans did turn it into an industry. That's what separates the holocaust from every other massacre in history. The Germans perfected ways to as quickly as possible kill as many as possible.
[QUOTE=smeismastger;39770258]This article just reeks of bullshit.
People don't comprehend how large number of people 10 million is, it would be impossible to kill that many in the span of 3-5 years without just going around, openly massacring people everywhere.[/QUOTE]
i think you need to close fp and read up on some history
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen[/url]
death squads would often just walk into a town or location and line up the jews
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