Analysis of Holocaust Statistics and Methods

But a lot of the ugly part of the story is true.

Himmler's finding out that these truckloads, trainloads of Jews are backed up all the way

down the railway lines because the whole procedure's taking too long.

He's measured it to be done quite simply.

Riddle him.

What the director of Eastern Railways has actually said for the benefit of the SS.

Since the 22nd of July, every day, a train with 5,000 Jews aboard

has gone from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka.

Now we're getting some numbers.

Well, what kind of numbers are we actually looking at overall?

This is where it becomes unfortunate and very interesting and very important.

The short answer is the big number that they quote is probably the right order of magnitude.

That's what scientists say.

In other words, it's not ten times too big, it's not ten times too small.

It's probably the right ballpark, the figure.

The ballpark figures are about right.

Up to a million killed in the police operations, I think,

in the shooting into the pit operations up to Barbarossa and after Barbarossa.

Operation Reinhardt, one and a quarter million in 1942 and the same number in 1943.

That's 2.5 million, so you've got something like 3.5 million straight away.

In the pits, they were executed by shooting in the nape of the neck,

which is a kind of Soviet-style tool.

But then eventually, I think they ended up with morale problems

with people actually doing it.

It was coarsening the entire SS force who were getting involved in this.

And so they decided to use the methods that they'd been using for euthanasia tool,

which is various toxic gases.