Too many questions to consider all at once. I’ll consider this question before any others - ‘How many Jews were killed in the holocaust?’
First we must examine the evidence. In a murder case we start with the bodies and the second thing to consider is the murder weapon. Then there is other physical evidence, documentary evidence, and testimony.
I’ll start with the bodies. What evidence do we have here? Do we have photographic evidence? Let’s examine this question critically. If you watch the* first minute* of the Oprah special with Elie Wiesel on the subject of Auschwitz you will see photographic evidence of the holocaust, stacks of bodies, and even bodies being bulldozed into mass graves. Most likely you are already familiar with the photos/film, but if not you can see it here after 1 minute …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KugVjbq6Si8
Now, let’s examine the provenance of the imagery. Who took the photos, when, where, and how did the prisoners die?
I’ll answer these questions. The British took the photos, after the end of the war, in Belsen, and the prisoners died of typhus and other diseases. In fact the British took a lot of documentary film footage when they entered Belsen and it was edited into a movie by none other than Alfred Hitchcock, but it was shelved. You can see it here …
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/
At the end of the war the Nazis had evacuated the camps in the east and transferred the prisoners west (Wiesel describes this in his book ‘Night’), and the overcrowding, lack of supplies, medicine, infrastructure failure, etc., led to a typhus epidemic at Belsen that killed 35,000, 10,000 of them dying after the wars end. For USHMM documentation see …
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-19-holocaust-papers_x.htm
For more photos of Belsen at the end of the war see …
http://www.bergenbelsen.co.uk/pages/Database/SurvivorsPhotos.asp?index=0
The Nazis did everything they could to combat the epidemic. The correspondence of the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, was captured and can be seen here …
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Belsen/Kramer010345.html
The photos and the letter above are not controversial and are recognized by everyone on all sides of the debate.
Draw your own conclusions.