Buzz62, the questions you've chosen to repeat verbatim are pretty misleading. And your own follow up questions aren't much better.
Look at the blueprints of Auschwitz. Could 2,000 people really have fit into that "gas chamber"?
Where was the figure of 2,000 per gassing taken from out of interest? I can't recall it being mentioned in past. I'm guessing that it's based on some quick math based on total deaths or something... which isn't really an accurate measure.
Look at the poor design of the Auschwitz "killing center", first they take their clothes off, then walk through a narrow isle into the "gas chamber", then they die. So after that they have to be cremated. The ovens are on the second story. They have to take the dead bodies up on an elevator (slow process). Then they cremate them, which takes a very, very long time. Consider that Auschwitz wasn't functioning for very long.
Auschwitz wasn't purpose built as a killing centre so in a way inefficiencies in the design shouldn't be a surprise. Other subsequently built facilities had different layouts which were presumably more efficient.
According to "eyewitnesses" there were only 4 Germans monitoring the process and about 100 Jews doing the dirty work. There were 2,000 people about to be killed and thousands more in the living quarters. The "death center" wasn't fenced around, it was open and in direct sight of people in the living quarters. Don't you think they would have rebelled against 4 puny guards?
- I'm pretty sure I've seen a fence around the gas chambers, though can't specifically recall re. Auschwitz. In purpose the Aktion Reinhardt camps the whole path from the railway station to the chamber was covered.
- Lets not forget the chambers were apparently operated under the fiction that they were shower blocks or for delousing. The victims may not have all realised they were going to die until it was far too late.
- The victims would have been in pretty bad condition to begin with, and may not have had much fight left in them.
- Your average prison guard is heavily outnumbered too, but somehow manage to do their job (most of the time).
- As starman2003 notes, there were mass escapes and similar.
According to "eyewitnesses" 90% of Jews coming from being captured in cities were directly sent to the "gas chambers" . So, they weren't starving, they had just been out on the streets living life and may actually have been strong. They could have easily rebelled.
I'm curious who this eyewitness is. Most Jews seem to have been ghettoised first or at least otherwise brought and held at a central location first. I think the hardships of the trip to the camps shouldn't be underestimated either - it's not like they were taking first class carriages.
If they were going to kill them, why would Germans make living quarters? Why would Himmler order that more living quarters be built?
At the Aktion Reinhardt camps, there weren't sufficient living quarters - considerably more people arrived at those camps that could have been housed. I'm suspicious about the Himmler thing, I've seen denialists point to construction intended for the guards etc. before and then claiming it was actually meant for prisoners. It may also have been problem of inefficiency - many of the complexes were not actually keeping up with 'demand'.
Why wouldn't they just fill up the place with "gas chambers" so they could kill more people quicker?
Because there were other bottlenecks to resolve. There were for example shortages of Xyklon-B. The crematoria couldn't always keep up, and as Xbow notes, some were redesigned. And as the guy asking these questions noted before, there was a limit on how many people were available to 'run' the chambers.
Why would they make a soccer field for people they were going to kill?
- This is the kind of claim I've seen in past that ended up being misrepresentation.
- It's worth remembering that not everyone who went to Auschwitz was slated to be killed. There were factories there and some minor allowances may have been made for the workers (I'm guessing we aren't talking about a stadium here...).
- Based on the known limited calory intake of the inmates, why does the person asking these questions really think the prisoners were in any condition to play sports?
Why were they trying to negotiate with Great Britain to make a Jewish Homeland in Palestine? Why would they try to make a Jewish homeland in Madagascar?
Because the genocidal policy didn't emerge fully formed in 1933, or even in 1939. Both of the initiatives mentioned were prior to the Wansee Conference, which by all accounts was when that policy was finally ironed out and presented coherently.
Buzz62 wrote:Ya know people...I am beginning to have this sinking feeling that perhaps the "6,000,000" number is also rather grossly over-estimated...
It's actually held up reasonably well. We're never going to know exactly down to the last digit how many people were killed off. This was a broad policy that spanned huge stretches of Europe, involved multiple nations and political groups, sometimes occurred in the aftermath of battles (ie. the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front) etc. etc. Just how realistic do you think it is to expect an exact number when they probably didn't do exhaustive head counts every time, and to the same standards, perhaps not always submitting a detailed report etc.?
Buzz62 wrote:I think the reasons for this are obvious...and numerous.
Not the least of which is money.
Perhaps more importantly - people of European descent are hugely fixated on a cataclysmic event that took place in Europe, and targetting a European population. It shouldn't surprise you much that outside of Europe etc., the perception of the Holocaust is quite different. This explanation also goes some way to explaining why the Armenian Genocide is still remembered, despite the Armenians not exactly fitting the stereotype of being over represented in media etc.
Buzz62 wrote:It appears they are "fudged".
Let's turn the tables for a change, take your inquisitor's hat off for a tic - where do you think the numbers originally came from, and if you think they are wrong what do you think is more reasonable and why?
Xbow wrote:I guess being exterminated by exotic chemical agents makes better news stories than being starved and worked to death.
A nitpick - Xyklon-B while sounding exotic really wasn't at the time - it was a widely available fumigation product used in industry. Other gas chambers were reported to have been 'powered' by tank engines, and carbon monoxide isn't really all that exotic at all.
The practical reason/s why the gas chambers get all the attention:
- They're prove of deliberate extermination. Death by slave labour could be 'unintended' (though as you note, it clearly wasn't).
- It was relatively speaking unusual, exceptional. History is full of genocides and attempted genocide by starvation, slavery etc. Gas chambers are novel.
- Gas chambers are modern, and may even have a certain perverse appeal to people interested in the engineering side of things (the likes of Fred Leuchter for example might fit into this bracket).