The Destruction of The European Jews - A Destruction of 5.1 Million Jews

A Destruction of 5.1 Million Jews

Within a death toll often viewed as ranging between as low as five and as high as seven million, Hilberg's own detailed breakdown in The Destruction reveals a total estimated death toll of 5.1 million Jews. Only for the death toll at Belzec does Hilberg provide a precise figure, all the others are rounded. When these rounding factors are taken into account a range of 4.9 million to 5.4 million deaths emerges. It is instructive to note that the discrepancy in total figures among Holocaust researchers is often overshadowed by that between centres of destruction. One striking example can be seen in the Auschwitz State Museum's significant reduction of the estimated death toll in Auschwitz.

A 1980 study by the Historical Department at the Auschwitz State Museum (later approved by the Polish government), led by the Department chair, Franciszek Piper, revised very dramatically their (widely held as grossly inflated) figure of four million (including a large number of non-Jewish Poles) into one million (mostly Jewish)—Hilberg's own original estimate for the death toll in Auschwitz (though, Piper noted, this estimate fails to account for those not appearing in the records, especially those murdered immediately upon arrival).

This extreme example does not, however, mean that the total death toll should be lowered by three million, argues Brian Harmon in "The Auschwitz gambit: the four million variant" (Deceit and misrepresentation: the techniques of Holocaust denial), but rather, following a correct distribution, the total death toll still amounts to conventionally held figures. The role played by The Destruction in shaping widely held views as to distribution of and evidence for these, has for decades been, and arguably remains, almost canonical in Holocaust historiography.