The Persecution of the Jews (Part 13 of 14)
Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression
Volume I Chapter XII
[Page 1007]
5. RESULTS OF THE EXTERMINATION PROGRAM The huge scale of the Jewish eliminations is also reflected in the bookkeeping and statistics of the Germans themselves. The 16 December 1941 entry in the diary of Hans Frank contains these figures: "The Jews for us also represent extraordinarily malignant gluttons.
"We have now approximately 2,500,000 of them in General Government -- perhaps with the Jewish mixtures, and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews." (2233-D-PS) On 25 January 1944, three years and one month later, Frank wrote in his diary these words: "At the present time we still have in the General Government perhaps 100,000 Jews." (2233-F-PS)
Thus, in this period of three years, according to the records of the then Governor General of Occupied Poland, between 2,400,000 and 3,400,000 Jews had been eliminated. The total number of Jews who died by Nazi hands can never be definitely ascertained. It is known, however, that 4 million Jews died in concentration camps, and that 2 million Jews were killed by the State Police in the East, making a total of 6 million murdered Jews. The source of these figures is Adolph Eichmann, Chief of the Jewish Section of the Gestapo. The figures are contained in an affidavit made by Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, Deputy Group Leader of the Foreign Section of the Security Section, AMT VI, of the RSHA. Hoettl, in his affidavit, states as follows:
"Approximately 4 million Jews had been killed in the various concentration camps, while an additional 2 million met death in other ways, the major part of which were shot by operational squads of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia." (2738-PS)
Hoettl describes the source of his information as follows:
"According to my knowledge, Eichmann was at that time the leader of the Jewish Section of the Gestapo, and in addition to that he had been ordered by Himmler to get a hold of the Jews in all the European countries and to transport them to Germany. Eichmann was then very much impressed with the fact that Rumania had withdrawn from the war in those days. Moreover, he had come to me to get information about the military situation which I received daily from the Hungarian Ministry of War and from the Commander of the Waffen-SS in Hungary. He expressed his conviction that Germany had now lost the war and that he personally had no [Page 1008] further chance. He knew that he would be considered one of the main war criminals by the United Nations, since he had millions of Jewish lives on his conscience. I asked him how many that was, to which he answered that although the number was a great Reich secret, he would tell me since I, as a historian, would be interested, and that he would probably not return anyhow from his command in Rumania. He had, shortly before that, made a report to Himmler, as the latter wanted to know the exact number of Jews who had been killed." ( 2738-PS)
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology,
College of Education, University of South Florida © 2005.