How high is the number of Jewish victims?

Basler Nachrichten, June 13, 1946

Completely independent of the information published in No. 241 of the “Basler Nachrichten” by Dr. Per l branch, head of the political departments of the World Jewish Congress on the number of Jews.

We have reported on the number of Jews who fell victim to the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime in Europe, from a correspondent in America under the title “What is the number of Jewish victims?” received the following statements: Almost all states (with the significant exception of the Soviet Union!) have now announced the official figures for war losses - which revealed the astonishing fact that these losses were consistently significantly lower than those in the First World War. 

It is all the more surprising that no official figures have been published regarding the losses of the Jewish people, but only private and official estimates. These estimates range - probably based on a central propaganda figure - between 5 and 6 million deaths that the Jewish people are said to have suffered as a result of the persecution of the Hitler system and the war. If this figure is correct, then the losses of the Jews would be greater than the losses of England, America, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Luxembourg combined, which makes it doubly incomprehensible that one is still content with a mere estimate of this enormous loss figure.

However, a summary overview makes it clear that this number of Jewish victims cannot be correct. Given the aforementioned strange lack of official documents, the question can today only be examined based on the general information available. According to this, the number of Jews in Europe - outside the Soviet Union - was approximately 5.6 million in 1933, a figure that the American Jewish Conference itself reported (according to a report in the New York Times on January 11, 1945!). -

From this number, around 1 million would have to be deducted who lived east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line and were therefore completely outside the persecution of the Hitler system before June 21, 1941, and after this date for the most part aligned themselves with the declining Reds Army fled into the interior of Russia and Siberia. Even if we assume that only about half of these Jews living east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line were able to save themselves from the Nazi invasion, we still get a fixed starting number of Jews, one that is also recognized by the highest Jewish authority. 

The total population in Europe was 5 million Jews, who were in Hitler's sphere of influence could advise. But the Jews livingwerein the neutral countries of Europe must also be deducted from this immediately.
According to "World Almanac 1942", page 594, the number of Jews in these neutral countries or those not overrun by Hitler was: Gibraltar 868, England 300,000, Portugal 1200, Spain 4000, Sweden 6653, Switzerland 17,973, Ireland 3686, Turkey 78,730 – together: 413,128. This means that the number of Jews in Europe that Hitler and Himmler could reach is reduced to around 4.5 million. 

From this number, the huge flow of refugees that poured into all countries and continents between 1933 and 1945 must now be deducted. Given the great international support that this refugee stream of threatened Jews rightly received, a very significant percentage of these Jews managed to reach a haven. Unfortunately, there are no precise official statistics that accurately reflect the immigration of Jews to North and South America, Australia, Asia, or the neutral countries of Europe. 

However, it is reasonable to assume that from 1933 onwards at least 80% of the immigrants classified under the heading “Germans, Austrians, and Poles” were members of the Jewish people, and since the beginning of the war almost the entire number of these immigrants were Jews, it follows from this An overview compiled from various sources (including the Jewish newspaper “Aufbau”) roughly shows the following picture of Jewish immigration from 1933 to 1945:

England around 120,000, Sweden around 25,000, Switzerland around 60,000, Spain and Portugal around 5000, Canada around 60,000, the USA around 450,000, Central America around 75,000, South America around 225,000, Australia around 15,000, China (Shanghai!) around 35,000, India around 25,000, Africa around 45,000, Palestine around 300,000. So altogether, around 1,440,000 or around 1.5 million.

Any influx into the vast areas of the Soviet Union and Siberia has been ignored because there are no statistics about it. It should be noted, however, that according to a report in the New York Times, more than 500,000 Polish Jews may have fled to Siberia alone, as emerged from a recent lecture by a Jewish lady returning from there. The number of Jews who fell under Hitler's sphere of influence was reduced to a maximum of 3 million. 

Unfortunately, the lack of precise figures also includes the number of surviving Jews in Europe and even the detailed report of the Anglo-American Palestine Committee strangely only makes do with this
“Estimates.” According to this estimate, the number of Jews still living in Europe (outside the Soviet Union) today is 1,559,660. According to this list, which is unfortunately not based on new official figures, but whose basic figures come entirely from official sources, it follows that all in all less than 1.5 million Jews have to be described as “dead or missing” for the time being. 

It is to be hoped that a significant percentage of this number will still be found once precise statistics are available. Given the enormous
importance that the “extermination of the Jews” has acquired in world opinion, it is imperative that the United Nations urgently set up an official commission of inquiry to determine how high the death toll of the Jewish people was. One thing is already certain today: the claim that this number is 5-6 million (a claim which, incomprehensibly, the
Palestine Committee also adopts) is untrue. 

The number of Jewish victims can range between 1 and 1.5 million because no more were “tangible” for Hitler and Himmler. However, it can be assumed and hoped that the final loss figure for the Jewish people will be even lower than this number. But clarity is necessary - and that is why an investigation by the UN's committee should establish the truth, which is so important for the present and the future.