IFZ FILE

Sender: dzk@cs.brown.edu (Danny Keren) 
Subject: German Historians on the Dimension of the Holocaust 
 
 
     A few weeks ago I mailed the Institut Fuer Zeitgeschicthe  
(Institute for Contemporary History) in Munich, Germany, asking them for a
short survey on the dimensions of the Holocaust, with special emphasis on
the murder by gas in various extermination camps. Here is their answer,
after translating it from German. 
 
     The Institut Fuer Zeitgeschicthe is considered an authority on this
issue in Germany, and has been used as a source of information on the
Holocaust in various trials of Nazi war criminals there. 
 
Feel free to quote from this letter, under the following 
conditions: 
 
     1) Verbatim quotes only. 
     2) The Institut Fuer Zeitgeschicthe has to be cited as the source. 
 
-Danny Keren. 
 
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Concerns:  Number of victims of the Nazi tyranny 
In reference to your letter which arrived here on 9/3/92. 
 
Dear Mr. Dr. Keren: 
 
     In answer to your above mentioned request we send you in a separate
mailing by air mail book-post a composition achieved in house, concerning
"The killing of humans through gas in the extermination- and concentration
camps under the Nazi tyranny" in which you will find answers to your
questions # 1,2 and 4. 
 
     The victims of the operation groups of the security service and the SD
behind the German frontier in the Russia-campaign were to the by far argest
part Jews. Their number is estimated to be at least 900,000. 
 
     The difference between the total of the victims of the gassings cited
in the above mentioned composition and the number of victims of the
operation groups and the total of roughly 6 million victims of the Nazi
persecution of the Jews results from the fact that a very high percentage
of the victims have lost their lives through indirect extermination actions
such as the method "destruction through work", bad treatment, under-
nourishment, epidemics, exhaustion during forced transportations etc. 
About 120,000 people were killed through the Nazi "Euthanasia" actions. 
 
Concerns: The killing of people through gas in the extermination and
concentrations camps under the Nazi power. 
 
     The systematic murdering of humans through gas during the Nazi rule
was introduced for the first time from January 1940 on in the area of the
"Euthanasia", the extermination of the "lives not worthy to live" of the
handicapped, mental patients and the terminally ill, and from fall 1941 on
was continued to a much larger extent by the pogroms of the operation
groups of the security police and the SD in the seized eastern areas with
the help of mobile gas vans. 
 
     Beginning December of 1941 one proceeded in the camp Kulmhof (Polish
Chelmno) to use stationary gas vans for the killing of Jews, and from the
beginning of 1942 in different camps fixed gas chambers were built, or
already existing buildings were restructured for this purpose. 
 
     One needs to differentiate by the furnishing of such gas chambers and
the gassing actions carried out within them between the mass gassings of
Jews in the extermination camps build for that purpose and the gassings of
smaller scale in individual, already existing concentration camps (whereby
patients, seized forced laborers, war prisoners, and political prisoners
among others were also victims) 
 
The following extermination camps existed: 
 
     Kulmhof i.e. Chelmno (in the then Wartheland), where between December
1941 and fall 1942 and again from May until August 1944 gassings by means
of carbon monoxide from motor exhaust gas took place. Altogether more than
150,000 Jews as well as 5000 gypsies have hereby been killed. 
 
     Belzec (in the district Lublin of the then general governments): from
march to December 1942 in the beginning in three, later in six large gas
chambers by means of carbon monoxide from motor exhaust gas altogether
about 600,000 Jews were killed here. 
 
     Sobibor (district Lublin, general government) received in April 1942
three, later in September 1942 six gas chambers and until October 1943 it
was "in operation". During this period at least 200,000 Jews have been
murdered through carbon monoxide gas. 
 
     Treblinka (district Warschau, general government) from the end of July
1942 on had three gas chambers and received at the start of September 1942
furthermore ten larger gas chambers. Up to the dissolution of the camp in
November 1943 altogether 700,000 Jews were killed here by carbon monoxide. 
 
     Majdanek (district Lublin, general government): The concentration camp
existing since September 1941 turned into an extermination camp when
between April 1942 and November 1943 mass shootings took place to which
24,000 Jews fell victim. In October 1942 also two, later three gas chambers
were built. In the beginning the killings in these were done by means of
carbon monoxide, s> from cyan hydrogen). Up until the dissolution of the
camp in March 1944 about 50,000 Jews have been gassed. 
 
     Auschwitz-Birkenau (in the formerly polish, in 1939 adjoined to the
"Reich" upper eastern Silesian area, south eastern of Kattowitz): The
extermination camp in Birkenau, established in the second half of 1941, was
joined to the concentration camp Auschwitz, existing since May 1940. From
January 1942 on in five gas chambers and from the end of June 1943 in four
additional large gassing-rooms gassings with Zyklon B have been undertaken.
Up until November 1944 more than one million Jews and at least 
4000 gypsies have been murdered by gas. 
 
     In the following concentration camps gas chambers were established and
have gone into operation: 
 
          Mauthausen (upper Austria): From fall 1941 on one gas chamber 
     existed which was operated with Zyklon B. In addition, gassings with
     carbon monoxide took place through gas vans which were driven between
     Mauthausen and its side-camp Gusen. Altogether more than 4000 have
     been killed here through gas. Neuengamme (southeastern of Hamburg):
     From fall of 1942 on gassings with Zyklon B were undertaken here in a
     "Bunker" prepared for that, about 450 victims. 
 
          Sachsenhausen (Province Brandenburg, north of Berlin) received 
     mid March 1943 a gas chamber which was operated with Zyklon B. Several
     thousand people fell victim to the gassings, a more specific number
     cannot be determined. 
 
          Natzweiler (by Struthof, Elsass): From August 1943 to August 1944
     a gas chamber existed here in which between 120 and 200 people were
     killed through Zyklon B in order to be able to dissect their skeletons
     for the Anatomica Institute of University of Strassburg.  Back then
     this institute was managed by a chief company commander of SS Prof.
     Dr. August Hirt. 
 
          Stutthof (east of Danzig) had from June 1944 on one gas chamber
     in which more than 1000 were killed by Zyklon B. 
 
          Ravensbruck (Bradenburg, north of Berlin): Here still in January 
     1945 a gas chamber was established;  the number of the people killed
     in it was at least 2300. 
 
          Dachau (Upper Bavaria, northeast of Munich): During the
     establishment of a new house of cremation in 1942 also a gas chamber
     was established in it in which in connection with the medical
     experiments of the chief company commander of SS Dr. Rascher also a
     few experimental gassings were undertaken, a> The Concentration Camp
     Dachau. A study of the Nazi crimes of violence in Bavaria in the
     NS-time II, edited by Martin Broszat and Elke Froehlich, Munich, R.
     Oldenburg Press, 1979, P. 391.) Larger gassing operations have not
     taken place in Dachau. 
 
     The above mentioned numbers of the people killed in the gas chambers
of the individual camps are only approximations.  They also only refer to
the people killed in gassing operations. The number of the Jews killed in
Europe due to the effects of the Nazi tyranny amounts, according to the
newest research to at least 5.29 million. Possibly, however, also more than
six million.