How do you know how many Jews died during world war 2?

Answer 1

The Nazi's maintained excellent records of their achivements.

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There were large groups of victims that the Nazis didn't in fact record - or if they did so, the records were destroyed.

The figures are estimates based on a comparison of various sources:

• Estimates of the Jewish population before and after the Holocaust.
• Details of transports to the extermination camps.
• Records, where these are available.
• Reports back to headquarters by mobile killing units.

Answer 2

# The figure of 6 million was that stated at, and accepted by, the Nuremberg Tribunal. # The figure was restated by Eichmann during his trial. # Holocaust historians have based their figures on comparisons of the pre-1939 and post-1945 Jewish populations of Germany and the areas which were occupied by Germany in World War 2 and the Jewish populations of Germany's allies, some of which carried out their own holocausts (such as Romania and Croatia). The figures are not arrived at by adding up the estimated numbers of Jews who perished in the various extermination and concentration camps. For more detail, please see the link below.

Answer 3

The estimate of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust first appeared in Hoettl's affidavit at Nuremberg in November 1945. He said that this was the figure that Eichmann gave him.

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Many indicators have been pieced together to come up with an estimate.

Here are three of the pieces:

-- Previous populations of the Jewish communities in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Rumania, Russia, which simply vanished without a trace and ceased to exist between 1935 and 1945.

-- Orderly and highly organized lists of names compiled by the German operators of the killing industry. Readable images of these hand-written lists can be viewed at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel.

-- Living history compiled and documented from interviews with survivors where, for example, an extended family comprised 50 individuals in 1935, and 1 in 1945.

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The above indicators show that large numbers of Jews perished, but not how many. Moreoever, the Nazis only recorded the names of Jews 'selected for work' - not those killed on arrival at the camps and not those killed by mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen).

The key indicators generally used are comparisons of the pre-War and post-War Jewish populations of the areas affected, making allowance for those who managed to emigrate to safety. These are compared with lists of rail transports, where available.

In addition, there are various 'names project' in progress. Those these can never be complete, they are very useful.