# How many people were directly killed in the Holocaust? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2017, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983 "2017-12-21T10:14:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/1 "2017-12-21T10:14:27Z")
Anne Frank died of Typhus not the gas chambers, or einsatzgruppen, but she is rightly counted as a victim, and the Nazis properly blamed for her death. How many people were killed, because of active measures, like gas or shooting and how many were killed due to the general nature of Camps, which have appalling death rates even when the goalers are trying to keep the rates down and the Germans were not. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/2 "2017-12-21T10:52:46Z")
Not entirely possible to know, I suspect. There are all sorts of written records from the time, but they don’t necessarily record everyone and precisely what happened to them, nor with scrupulous honesty where there is a record of death. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/3 "2017-12-21T14:16:21Z")
Are you counting starvation as an active measure or a passive one? ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/4 "2017-12-21T18:59:16Z")
When someone is beaten to death, is that “direct” or indirect? If someone dies in a work camp, and that work camp was set up specifically to work people to death, how do you separate that from being shot, gassed, hanged, beaten to death, live vivisection, or injected with benzene? I would argue that anyone who died in a camp, even those committing suicide, was a direct victim of the Nazi machine. While in some camps at some points in the existence of the camp, a portion of the inmates was not necessarily desired to die (certain of the “Prominenten”, some of those in Sippenhaft, Berufsverbrecher), I’m not sure it’s useful to separate that relatively small number out. The goal was annihilation of undesired groups, by multiple means. From the Wannsee Konferenz, (a useful translation here: [The Wannsee Protocol](https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DocWanns.htm) ): Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. ``` The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly ``` consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.) ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/5 "2017-12-21T20:44:26Z")
I agree. If you died in the camp you died in the Holocaust. Why else would someone be in the camps if not to eventually be killed? Corrie ten Boom’s sister [Betsie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsie_ten_Boom) died at Ravensbruck from illness. I doubt the Nazis offered stellar health care to their prisoners. _The Hiding Place_ said Betsie couldn’t even go to the infirmary until her temperature hit 104[sup]o[/sup]. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/6 "2017-12-21T21:04:13Z")
To give a few numbers, about 1.1 million were killed by Einsatzgruppen. In terms of gas chamber deaths, here are estimates from the Jewish Virtual Library. Chelmno : 150,000 jews, 5000 gypsies Belzec: 600,000 Sobibor: at least 200,000 Treblinka: 700,000 Majdanek :24,000 mass shootings, 50,000 gassing Auschwitz: more than 1 million jews, 4000 gypsies Mauthausen: 4000 Neuengamme: 450 Sachenhausen: several thousand Natzweiller: 120-200 Stutthoff: more than 1000 Ravensbruck: 2300. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/7 "2017-12-22T00:33:22Z")
Even after the Liberation, people who had been in the camps continued to die. Typhus and starvation were rampant, and a great many inmates were too far gone to recover. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/8 "2017-12-22T02:26:51Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Anne Frank died of Typhus not the gas chambers, or einsatzgruppen, but she is rightly counted as a victim, and the Nazis properly blamed for her death. I would say actively putting people into a place with active and rampant sickness due to not addressing the situation is probably fairly actively killing them. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/9 "2017-12-22T02:56:38Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Even after the Liberation, people who had been in the camps continued to die. Typhus and starvation were rampant, and a great many inmates were too far gone to recover. SDGQ: [Liberated Holocaust survivors dying when given food](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=549447) ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/10 "2017-12-22T03:14:11Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > To give a few numbers, about 1.1 million were killed by Einsatzgruppen. In terms of gas chamber deaths, here are estimates from the Jewish Virtual Library. > > Chelmno : 150,000 jews, 5000 gypsies > Belzec: 600,000 > Sobibor: at least 200,000 > Treblinka: 700,000 > Majdanek :24,000 mass shootings, 50,000 gassing > Auschwitz: more than 1 million jews, 4000 gypsies > Mauthausen: 4000 > Neuengamme: 450 > Sachenhausen: several thousand > Natzweiller: 120-200 > Stutthoff: more than 1000 > Ravensbruck: 2300. So about a 3:1 ratio. Thanks. Telling, that Auschwitz, not technically a “death” camp, but rather a concentration camp had the highest number of killings. Makes Allied reluctance to accept reports of organised killings harder to understand. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/11 "2017-12-22T03:26:27Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > I agree. If you died in the camp you died in the Holocaust. Why else would someone be in the camps if not to eventually be killed? Since, putting “problematic group”, into camps or relocating them was SOP in that era. The British and the Americans had both done it, that century, the British would do it again, post war. The Germans had also done it earlier. It was also known that “unfortunately” camps/relocation caused higher death rates. Regardless of efforts to reduce the same, and even when there was no direct intention to kill. It was the excuse that the Germans put forward and also why claims of organised killings were not taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/12 "2017-12-22T06:51:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > So about a 3:1 ratio. Thanks. > Telling, that Auschwitz, not technically a “death” camp, but rather a concentration camp had the highest number of killings. Makes Allied reluctance to accept reports of organised killings harder to understand. Huh? I get over 2.5M - plus 1.1M from Einsatzgruppen. That’s 3.6M out of the 6M total usually mentioned. (True, the Einsatzgruppen were mostly gunshot victims buried in mass graves IIRC as they circulated the conquered areas - but that would count as actual deaths. Either way it’s 5 in 12 or 7 in 12 roughly simply slaughtered outright, either by gas or by gas and bullets. But the other posters are correct- if the policy was to deliberately starve workers to death, or allow them to die in epidemics by deliberate neglect - what’s really the difference? Other than it seems to me watching someone die by fading away over a course of weeks or months implies a far greater sadism than shooting them in the back of the head or simply gassing them. I assume that was the purpose of the sorting on arrival - “This one will give us a few productive months before they die; that one, no point wasting meager rations.” The intent was already there. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/13 "2017-12-22T08:27:36Z")
Thats what I said, abiout 3:1 ration as to killed outright versus died from mistreatment. 4-4.5 million out of 6 were killed outright, if I am reading **Captain Amazing’s** post and the sources correctly… As for the rest, oversensitive posters like **Ivylass** and yourself notwithstanding, I stated in my OP that the Germans were culpable for all deaths, whether by shooting, gasing or disease. I was interested to know what the breakdown was. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/14 "2017-12-22T13:02:18Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I assume that was the purpose of the sorting on arrival - “This one will give us a few productive months before they die; that one, no point wasting meager rations.” The intent was already there. That was explicitly expressed in the Wannsee protocol, as a formula to resolve the differences between different organisations in their approach to their Jewish victims. The mass shootings of the Einsatzgruppen were proving too expensive in terms of ammunition, organisation and pressure on the executioners, and the unco-ordinated variations in practice by different functionaries with different priorities were seen as too chaotic, for continued and wider application. So the Wannsee meeting got all the relevant ministries to settle on the principle, expressed in classically contorted bureaucratese, of working Jews to death and/or starving them, and using deliberate murder to ensure that those strong enough to survive couldn’t then also reproduce\*, the whole to be under the authority of the SS, rather than a matter of individual initiatives. \*last para on p. 7 and first in p. 8 in the document: https://archive.org/stream/WannseeProtokoll/protokoll-januar1942#page/n5/mode/2up (My translation: \*Under appropriate direction, Jews in the East should now be put to work, in a specific form, in the course of the Final Solution. Those Jews capable of work should be led in great labour columns, with the sexes separated, to build roads into these areas, in the course of which the major part will doubtless fall by the wayside through natural wastage. The possible surviving remainder, since it will doubtless be the part most capable of resistance, will be dealt with accordingly, since if left free this, in a form of natural selection, would form the nucleus of a new Jewish resurgence. (See the experience of history.\*) ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/15 "2017-12-22T14:20:37Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Telling, that Auschwitz, not technically a “death” camp, but rather a concentration camp KZ Auschwitz was a collection of camps. Auschwitz II, aka “Auschwitz Birkenau” was very much a death camp - it was a Vernichtungslager where the only purpose was the ending of human life through gassing. There were 5 other camps in the Auschwitz system, which, as you put it, were not technically “death” camps. But inability to work, illness or just random malice would earn inmates of those a quick transfer to II, and near immediate death through gassing. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/16 "2017-12-22T14:42:20Z")
It’s worth noting that Rudolf Hoess, who in two stints was the commander of Auschwitz for most of its existence and who readily discussed all the people destroyed in Auschwitz felt there was a difference between direct killing and other causes. Specifically, when accused of having murdered 3.5 million people, he replied: “Nein , nur zwei und eine halbe Million der Rest von Krankheit und Hunger gestorben.” (no, just 2.5 \* million, the rest died of disease and hunger). \*It is now believed by many historians that he had the number wrong, and that it is probably closer to 1.5 million total deaths in the Auschwitz system. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/17 "2017-12-22T15:19:38Z")
Up to 17 million people died in total in the concentration camps. I find it very odd that we normally ignore the non Jew deaths. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/18 "2017-12-22T17:52:14Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > It’s worth noting that Rudolf Hoess, who in two stints was the commander of Auschwitz for most of its existence and who readily discussed all the people destroyed in Auschwitz felt there was a difference between direct killing and other causes. Specifically, when accused of having murdered 3.5 million people, he replied: “Nein , nur zwei und eine halbe Million der Rest von Krankheit und Hunger gestorben.” (no, just 2.5 \* million, the rest died of disease and hunger). > > \*It is now believed by many historians that he had the number wrong, and that it is probably closer to 1.5 million total deaths in the Auschwitz system. A distinction without a difference. Contrast even 1.5 million deaths against the 1,862 deaths from all causes among about 112,000 Japanese-Americans who were in internment camps during World War II. That’s about 1.5%, not much different from the U.S. population at large. You can’t just handwave the Holocaust away by claiming it was the nature of the camps. > [@Mijin](#): > > Up to 17 million people died in total in the concentration camps. > I find it very odd that we normally ignore the non Jew deaths. The number I hear is 11-12 million, including non-Jew Poles, Ukranians, Romani and other ethnic groups, persons with physical and mental challenges, gay men, and others who were simply swept up. But none of those groups seems to be as _specifically_ targeted for extermination as Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/19 "2017-12-23T04:06:00Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > A distinction without a difference. My point exactly, as you might see up-thread. I just found it interesting that that particular person held that opinion, and also how he voiced it. It doesn’t inherently invalidate the notion of separating deaths in that way, but it sure doesn’t speak for it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983/20 "2017-12-23T05:17:48Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > The number I hear is 11-12 million, including non-Jew Poles, Ukranians, Romani and other ethnic groups, persons with physical and mental challenges, gay men, and others who were simply swept up. That’s the number I hear most frequently too. But estimates vary and I was just saying _up to_. Although perhaps I should have said[up to 20 million]([http://cking](http://cking)’ New Holocaust Study Claims Nazis Killed Up To 20 Million People ['Shocking' New Holocaust Study Claims Nazis Killed up to 20 Million People - Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/shocking-new-holocaust-study-claims-nazis-killed-up-to-20-million-people-2013-3?IR=T) MX5) > [@](#): > > But none of those groups seems to be as _specifically_ targeted for extermination as Jews. Sure, and that is very important, but when do we ever count death tolls that way? If I set out to kill black people, and I kill 10 blacks and 7 whites, say, you’re not going to see an article saying “Mijin killed 10 blacks” and not mention any other fatalities. It’s particularly odd in a thread like this, where we’re discussing the physical details and management of the camps. Not only do we not have reason to focus only on one group, but it actually could give a misleading answer if we do so. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-were-directly-killed-in-the-holocaust/804983.md?page=2)