How do you know that the holocaust happened?

Answer 1

I know because i have seen how many people were taken from each region. I follow the number of 5.9 million.

The collection of data follows different sources, in some cases we only have one type of source (eg how many departed from a region), in other cases we have exact data of the numbers on trains and the number of trains and the numbers on arrival.

Other people have used cencus data ( i personally chose no to go with this method), in almost all of the regions Jews were registered with their local synagogue and one can calculate the numbers before the war and after the war. For me this opens up too much room for error as many survivors did not return home and it does not include those who did not consider themselves Jewish (but never-the-less were victims anyway), also pre-war borders were different to the changing borders during the war and to those post-war this method would give you results that many follow like 5.7 million.

If you are really interested, then look to the method of the historian (or institute) and decide for yourself which you consider more reliable (or less room for error). But because some of the data has very little chance of error (like with the Polish Jews) deviations from the number are not great.

Answer 2

It is evident in the testimony of tens of thousands of World War II soldiers that liberated the camps, the surviving victims, the film and pictures of that period and the remaining buildings and structures.