15, 16, 17 and 18 are treated in this section together

15. How many Jews were in areas that came to be controlled by the Germans
before the war?

16. If the Jews of Europe were not exterminated by the Nazis, what happened to
them?

17. How many Jews fled to deep within the Soviet Union?

18. How many Jews emigrated prior to the war, thus being outside of German
Reach?

Ernst Zündel

replies to Q/A # 15-18:

A childish argument put forth by many unsophisticated people goes as
follows:

"Since there were X number of Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe prior to
the Hitler years, and only Y could be accounted for after the Hitler years, it
follows that X-Y equals the number of Jews killed wantonly in genocidal ways by
Hitler and his henchmen."

Nizkor takes this simplistic argument one step beyond by saying:

"You monsters! Not only do you deny X-Y, you claim that X-Y equals Z today
and ABC tomorrow. Get your own act together."

This kind of "reasoning" was comprehensively addressed as early as
1958 by Frank H. Hankins. at the suggestion of Professor Harry Elmer Barnes,
the Father of Revisionism.

Professor Hankins was not just anybody citing statistics and democraphics
wildly. He was a renowned sociologist and historian (at one time president of
the American Sociological Society and editor of the American Sociological
Review), and an expert demographer with a world-wide reputation.

According to a precis preceding this article, which appeared in Journal of
Historical Review (ISBN 0-939484-11-0, published in 1990) with this side bar,

". . . (t)he appearance after so many years of "How Many Jews
Were Eliminated by the Nazis?" is especially
noteworthy in view of the publication by the IHR in June 1983 of "The
Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry" by Walter N. Sanning, with an
Introduction by Dr. Arthur R. Butz.

Sanning's book is the result of years of intensive study utilizing the latest
in technological research methods. It was actually written, its figures
compiled and cross-checked, on a computer. It will be, in a word, the
definitive study of the demographics of the Jewish population of Europe during
World War Two, rendering all other studies of the particular question
"Whatever happened to the 'Six Million'?" obsolete or superfluous.

Its conclusions will not comfort the "Holocaust" Establishment. It is
fitting that the publication of what promises to be the "final word"
for years to come on this subject from the revisionist point of view should be
immediately preceded by the publication at last of Frank Hankins's first
foreshadowing of that word.

(Ed. comment: Please note that this commentary was written in anticipation
of the book's being published.)

Hankins brought to the study of Jewish population movements in the
mid-twentieth century an expertise sorely needed in a field noted -- then and
now -- for the inherent malleability of its base-data, the extreme ease with
which that data might be obtained or interpreted in entirely different ways by
different persons, professional or amateur, who would wish to have any
advance-conclusion "confirmed." No twentieth century subject within
the study of population movements has seen more varied conclusions arrived at,
nor more varied ways of arriving at those conclusions, than the subject of what
happened to the Jews of Europe during World War Two . . .

The author was concerned with, first, showing how conjectural in 1958 was any
approach to the problem of determining how many Jews were "missing"
by the end of the war and, second, demonstrating the factors that would have to
be considered in finding the answer to another problem, namely, that of
determining how many Jews, whatever their number "missing" --
actually died, and of these how many died as a result of deliberate Nazi extermination
(as opposed to a host of other causes).

Hankins was the first demographer to raise seriously these issues in a way
which tended to cast doubt on the commonly-cited demographic bases of the
"Six Million (exterminated)" thesis."

Below are some gems that can be found in this article:

The usual estimates, generally based on Jewish figures or charges, range
from about 4 million to 6 or even a possible 7 million. Every estimate is,
however, little more than an informed guess. The extensive variations in
estimates show that all include a wide margin of probable error. The more one
studies the matter, the clearer it becomes that the larger the estimate the
greater the probable error. In most of these there is the tacit but gratuitous
assumption that any decrease in the numbers of Jews in a given area after 1939,
some allowance being made for the shiftings of territories from one
jurisdiction to another, gives an approximation to the number of Jews
deliberately eliminated. Such decreases, however, actually included large
numbers who escaped by various routes and devices. Large numbers were lost
behind the Iron Curtain; thousands died from the same conditions that caused
the abnormal increase in the wartime mortality of the civilian populations of
all central Europe. There would seem to be no reasonable way to give the Jews
special exemption from the general hardships of wartime, especially in occupied
areas.

Addressing himself to the difficulties in getting reliable figures, Hankins
wrote furthermore:

The most obvious and troublesome difficulty is the scarcity of census
materials. In some areas, the last prewar census was made in 1930, 1931, or
1933. For areas of special Jewish concentration there were: for Poland, a
census, 9 December 1931 and an "official estimate," 1 January 1939;
for Russia, a census in 1926, and January 1939, but neither included a question
as to religion; for Rumania, a census of December 1930 and an "official
estimate" of December 1938; also a "census" in April 1941; and
for Hungary, a census of 31 December 1930 and an "official estimate"
of December 1938. To these may be added the immediate postwar census of Poland
of February 1946 which, like most of the other population countings of the
immediate postwar years, was largely only a sampling and an estimate
computation. This was made inevitable by the vast movements of population still
going on to the end of 1946, and even later.

The result is that one finds very considerable differences among the estimates
of the numbers of Jews in various areas in the critical year 1939. It should be
recalled that, from 1939 on, there was an unprecedented upheaval of
populations, both Jewish and Gentile, throughout central Europe, first ahead of
the German armies as they swept eastward after September 1939, and especially
after 22 June 1941, and then behind the Russian forces as they swept westward,
beginning in 1943. As the Germans went east, large numbers followed, especially
from Germany; as the Russians went west, large numbers sought to return to
former homesteads. In these moving hordes of all nationalities, including Jews,
large numbers died from the hardships of war; other millions of several
nationalities, including Jews, were deported; still other millions throughout
the area were killed in civilian bombings, or died in the armed forces. During
this whole period, the records of births and deaths were incomplete and
otherwise defective.

It should be obvious that this situation makes all estimates of the numbers,
both of total populations and especially of the numbers of Jews, at the best
only informed guesses . . .

These are some of the problems which face even the most honest and competent
persons who seek to obtain reliable figures about the number of the Jews in
Europe in 1939, the number who perished in some way during the war, how they
perished, how many that remain unaccounted for really perished, and how many
may now be living behind the Iron Curtain, in Israel, in the United States, and
elsewhere. It is obvious that all these uncertainties which confront honest and
objective students of the subject also provide almost unlimited opportunities
for those who wish to juggle the figures, whether they seek to minimize or
exaggerate the number of Jews who perished during the war.

Addressing what he calls the various "avenues of escape for the
Jews," Hankins stated:

Several studies make passing reference to the numerous Jews who escaped
the Nazi round-ups by: (a) being secreted by non-Jewish friends; (b) using
false identification papers; and (c) baptism into a Christian religious
community. . . . .

In census taking the individual classifies himself as of a certain nationality.
This somewhat ambiguous term covers such alternatives as race, country of
birth, country of residence, and country of citizenship. Jews could thus
classify themselves as of Jewish or of some other nationality, according to
their background, physical traits or language proficiency. Those born in
Poland, but speaking German fluently and living in Germany, could classify
themselves as Jewish, Polish or German, the latter on occasion requiring a new
set of identification papers. A Jew born in Germany, living in Poland, and
speaking Polish, had similar choices. . . .

"thousands of Jews in Poland went through the occupation masquerading as
Poles"; at the war's end some 20,000 Jews were estimated still to possess
forged identification papers . . .

These avenues of escape may account for a considerable part of the reduction in
the number of Jews reported as still in Europe. Official Jewish statistics,
which are almost the only ones now available for postwar calculations, are
likely to reflect the numbers living in organized communities or congregations.
Many of these, as stable groups, were disorganized by various causes, and the
members scattered more or less widely. If they have adopted a protective
coloring (classification), they may not reappear until another day. Other
statistics are based on the numbers of "professing" Jews, and these
would at any time be only a part of the total number. It does not seem likely
that we shall have clear guides to the number of "escapees" for a
long time to come.

As if this were not sufficient to show how unreliable the numbers are,
Hankins then goes on to say:

Some thousands of Jews were killed in the fighting forces of the various
nations, notably Poland and Russia. Just how many is conjectural. Jews in the
Soviet Satellites (p242) says that thousands of young Jewish males were drafted
into the Russian army and labor battalions. Also (p229), some 250,000 to
300,000 Jews were sent by the Russians to forced labor camps and settlements in
northern and Asiatic Russia in the early 1940's. And again (p226), 68,000
Jewish officers and enlisted men were in the Polish army. Lestschinsky (p9)
estimates that 200,000 Jewish soldiers in the Red armies fell during the war.
Also "About half a million Jews died in the Asiatic provinces where twice
that number were deported after evacuation from previous Polish and Rumanian
regions as well as from the Soviet Ukraine and Soviet White Russia." It is
to be noted that some of the computations class all missing Jews as
"killed" or "murdered" . . . making no allowance for those
who died either in the fighting forces, or in air raids, or as a result of the
increased hardships and special mortality of wartime.

Many Jews were either evacuated, as by the Russians, to safer areas, or
migrated to refugee territory such as Switzerland, England, Turkey, Palestine,
the United States and elsewhere. The numbers are uncertain, but that they were
very large is evident from the scant data available. Hitler's Ten-Year War on
the Jews (p300) says: "Some 1,800,000 have been evacuated into the
interior of the Soviet Union." . . .

Jews in the Soviet Satellites (pl82) found in 1945 no less than 21,000
refugees, mostly from Germany, in the ghetto of Japanese Shanghai. It also
notes (pl83) that Spain and Portugal harbor about 8,000 refugees; (pl83)
163,423 Jews entered the U.S., 1933-42; (ppl83 and 190) there are 27,000
refugees in Switzerland, mostly from France and Italy; (ppl90-1) 6,000 Jewish
refugees are in Sweden, mainly Danish; 150,000 Rumanian Jews were living in
Transnistria, behind the Dniester. The numbers migrating to Great Britain
1938-45 are placed at 300,000 with a similar number migrating to Palestine
between 1933 and 1947. It should not be overlooked that even those who migrated
from 1933 to 1939 might appear among the "losses," since most
calculations necessarily begin with censuses dating from the early 1930s. . . .

Of the millions of Jews uprooted by the war, he finds (p264) that only
"about 1.5 million escaped Nazi rule, some 300,000 by emigration overseas
and to the neutral countries, and the remainder through evacuation to interior
USSR." The figure here is crucial to any estimate of what happened to the
3.1 million Jews estimated for prewar Poland and the probable even larger
number that lived in the Soviet Union. As the quote above from the Census
Bureau study of Poland indicates, the "probable error" of estimates
relating to the Polish population is colossal. An additional million Jews
behind the Iron Curtain alters the picture for all Europe.

Hankins even factors in what he calls "excess mortality and decreased
fertility", adding:

"There was no way for the Jews here to escape the usual hazards of
war, such as deaths from air raids and other military attacks on the towns and
cities. Nor could they escape the reduction in vitality and, hence, of
resistance to usual diseases, due to the increased hardships which affected all
other elements in the civilian populations. Their infant mortality also went up
along with that of their fellow citizens.

Now, curious as it may seem, this "excess mortality" item is usually
given separate computation for Jews and non-Jews. For the Jews it is quite
unfairly added to the numbers "killed" or "murdered." . . .

The "excess mortality" cannot be charged to Nazi "murders."
(Researchers) thus, quite dishonestly, lists all Jews lost or unaccounted for
during the war as "killed," implying that they were deliberately
exterminated by the Nazis, which is nonsense . . .

Secondly: the vast upheaval, with its migrations, deportations and evacuations,
made some duplication in the count of those "lost" or
"killed" quite easy. The evacuees behind the Iron Curtain, e.g., are
considered among the latter, unless they returned, at least in large part.
Those sent to the camps of Poland by the Germans could easily be counted as
among the "losses" of the countries from which deported and charged
again among those killed in Poland.

Hankins ends his essay by posing the question:

How Many Jews Were Eliminated In Europe By The War?

This is the leading question and one now impossible to answer with any
assurance. There are many . . . estimates made by Jews or based on Jewish
figures, but most of these are either copied from statements of the Institute
of Jewish Affairs or the World Jewish Congress or, like Fay's statement in
Current History of 6 million, round numbers loosely used without any
investigation of the facts and reflecting the prevailing mood of the day. To
quote them adds nothing to the picture . . .

The foregoing pages should have made it clear that the answer to our title
question is, for the time being, unanswerable in terms that satisfy any
scientific standards. There are so many loopholes amid so few relatively sound
figures that the calculator can set his own figure in advance and arrive there
by estimates and guesses, all of which can be given a certain plausibility.
Even the best studies, therefore, are little more than crazy quilts of
conjectures made somewhat more substantial than a tissue of lies by scattered
bits of fact. . . .

(M)ost of the figures which have to be used are those of Jewish students of the
problem or are based on figures given out by Jews and Jewish organizations. . .

My aim has not been to seek a more decisive estimate than those made by others,
who may have spent many months and consulted thousands of original documents.
Rather it has been to show the transparently conjectural nature of the current
estimates and to point out some of the probable sources of error, which are
mainly lack of adequate and up-to-date population statistics, the manufacture
of statistics where they are actually lacking, the manipulation and juggling of
such statistics (both reliable and manufactured) as are used, to exaggerate the
number of Jews in Europe and the world in 1939 and decrease the number known .
. .

(E)ven if it could be proved that vast numbers of Jews died in the Nazi
concentration, euthanasia, and death camps, it would not follow that all, or
possibly even a majority of these, were deliberately exterminated by the Nazis.
There was a huge death rate in all of these camps due to disease. In one camp,
at least, there was a serious typhus epidemic. Lack of drugs and medical
treatment, coupled with general low vitality and lowered physical resistance to
disease, made the death rate abnormally high. Many died from exposure, and
others from hard labor. Starvation was common, especially toward the end of the
war, when supplies ran low even for soldiers and civilians.

And, best if all, Hankins offers an alternative way of looking at this
question:

The soundest basis for skepticism regarding any such figure as 6 or even
4 million Jews exterminated by Hitler and the Nazis is that contributed by
logistics rather than statistics. As you have seen, the latter are inadequate,
manufactured, garbled, and consciously manipulated to establish a thesis and
figure assumed in advance. Logistics is a well-established science, knows no
political, racial or religious bias, and in this case relies upon a vast body
of materials accumulated during the Second World War. Evidence in this field is
as copious and precise for the years between 1939 and 1945 as it is sparse and
fugitive for population changes and shifts during the same period.

Students of logistics who have given some attention to the charge that the
Nazis, however evil-minded and however much they wished to do so, actually
exterminated 4 to 7 million Jews in less than two years during a desperate
two-front war which turned against Hitler at the very moment he is alleged to
have set up his extermination program, contend that it would have been utterly
impossible for them to have achieved anything like such a result. Itwould have
required so much more effort and manpower and would have brought such confusion
and added strain to the already overtaxed transportation facilities that the
Nazis could not have waged even a reduced one-front conflict . . .

By 1944, Allied bombing in the West and Russian victories in the East rendered
the German situation much more desperate and placed ever greater strains on
German war material, plant, manpower, and transportation. Hitler could not have
diverted enough effort to the extermination of the Jews between November 1943,
and May 1945, to have disposed of 6 million Jews without producing a virtual
collapse of his whole war effort. . . .

The 6 million theme was picked up by President Truman early in his first
administration, without anything but hearsay on his part, and has been so
frequently repeated during the last decade that it is used almost automatically
by journalists who have never made the slightest study of the subject. It has
now become commonplace in journalistic lore.

All the above was summarized in 1958. (!) Since then, there have been two
more major sources that it behooves researchers with an interest in this
question to consult. These sources are:

1) The Walter Sanning book,
"The Dissolution of European Jewry", Published 1983, 1985, 1990
by IHR under license from Grabert-Verlag, Tuebingen, ISBN 0-939484-11-0.
and

2) The Second Zundel Trial in
1988, as summarized and indexed in the Kulaszka book ("Did Six
Million Really Die?") - a landmark which, by itself, contains
some 30 different references, all given in a court of law and under
oath!

There IS no stronger evidence that the "Six Million" is a myth.