As promised, here is an overview of the evidence regarding deportations, which will come either from 'untainted' sources or be corroborated by sources that cannot be easily demonstrated to have been coordinated between different nation-states, NGOs or private individuals
I will keep this to one country at a time, to allow for proper discussion and querying by Neo. Though some of the principles and cross-references are the same, so we shall start with a longer explanation of some key points.
1. NETHERLANDS
We shall start with pre-war censuses wherever possible, to illustrate that there were indeed Jews inhabiting the countries in question. No revisionist has yet to my knowledge queried the results of such censuses, nor can any logical objection be advanced against them, since in all cases they were conducted without the expectation of being invaded by Nazi Germany. Where possible, they can be compared with pre-1933 censuses, just to underscore this point.
The 1909 census showed 106,409 Jews in the Netherlands
The 1930 census showed 111,917 Jews in the Netherlands
Shortly thereafter, German Jewish refugees began to arrive, swelling the population. In 1941, the Dutch authorities (Secretaries-General) were ordered to conduct a census; this showed 118,455 Dutch Jews and 21,790 German and foreign Jews. A second census by the Dutch Jewish council showed 118,295 Dutch Jews and 22,252 foreign Jews. Thus, a total of 140,000 Jews were present under German occupation as of 1941.
Both documents were found in the Netherlands after the war and thus never fell into the hands of the US, UK or Soviet Union.
The deportation records were also discovered in the Netherlands after the war. These record every transport to the east, with complete lists of names, and were used by the Dutch Red Cross in the postwar years to identify the missing.
A summary of the records to be found in the Dutch national archives on camps, deportations, transport lists as well as correspondence relating to missing persons can be read here (in Dutch, but I think you can puzzle out the really critical words):
http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/images/3_9566.pdf
The results were published circa 1947:
Netherlands > Sobibor 19 known survivors of 34,313 deportees
Netherlands > Auschwitz
selected at Cosel 181 known survivors out of 3540 selected there
July-Feb 1943, Birkenau 85 known survivors out of 42,915
Aug 43 – Sept 44, Birkenau 786 known survivors out of 13,630
Netherlands > Mauthausen 1 known survivor of 1700 (deported in 1941-2)
Netherlands > Theresienstadtca. 1950 survivors of 4870 deportees
Netherlands > Bergen Belsen 2050 known survivors of 3751 deportees
NL > various KLs ? known survivors of ca. 350 deportees
Data taken from Gerhard Hirschfeld's chapter in Dimensionen des Voelkermords edited by Wolfgang Benz; cf also
http://www.cympm.com/Westerbork.html
The small number of Sobibor survivors come either from among those who escaped in the October 1943 revolt, or who were selected for labour and immediately transported onwards to Majdanek, a very small minority indeed.
Theresienstadt deportees died not only inside the ghetto there of 'natural causes' (hunger and disease) but most often from deportation onwards to Auschwitz. These figures are not duplicated in the NL > Auschwitz figures.
Mauthausen deportees are completely uncomplicated, since these were deported in 1941, all died of 'routine' brutality and exhaustion.
Bergen-Belsen deportees are equally uncomplicated, since they died of starvation and disease in the final phase of the war.
Almost all Dutch Jews (including German and other foreign Jews found in Holland) were deported from an internment camp at Westerbork; for which there are other records; and for which one could root around and find bystander witnesses from among the Dutch population if you were that fussed.
There are also photos of departing transports, as can be seen from the above link
http://www.cympm.com/Westerbork.html
The total number of missing is therefore almost exactly 100,000. This is not to be taken as the number immediately killed upon arrival, or in an alternate revisionist hypothesis, transported onwards to another 'unknown destination'.
For Auschwitz, the transport lists can be cross-referenced numerically with the so-called Smolen list, which was spirited out of the Political Department in Auschwitz-Birkenau in late September 1945. In other words, at the precise moment the transport lists were found in the Netherlands, the war was a matter of only weeks over, and there was the chaos of Germany in the war. The Smolen list shows the registration numbers of each transport, big and small, to arrive at Auschwitz, identifying them by place of origin.
The Smolen list was first seen in the west during Case 12 of the successor Nuremberg trials, the OKW trial, when it was used as evidence against Colonel-General Reinhardt, whose 3rd Panzer Army had deported several thousand Belorussians from around Vitebsk to Auschwitz as reprisals for partisan activity.
The list is the basis for the Kalendarium and produces the 'discrepancies' between external sources such as the Dutch Red Cross-published documents showing how many were deported to Auschwitz and the numbers registered.
The registration numbers also allow a swift check on the veracity of a survivor testimony. If they give a registration/tattoo number which corresponds to the transports from their point of origin, then this is further corroboration that both are telling the truth on the date of their arrival at Auschwitz.
In practical terms it is absurd to speculate that a copy of the Smolen list was issued to all escapees and survivors of Auschwitz in the late war and postwar years, since the list was used as court evidence in Poland and in Nuremberg, and was not publicly available until the 1960s in the Hefte von Auschwitz; or by accessing the US archives in Alexandria, Virginia, in the late 1950s.
More to the point: it would beggar belief that this list was duplicated and distributed to every possible location where a survivor might be residing, so that they could corroborate their time in the camp. Furthermore, almost all survivors were evacuated to another camp by the end of January 1945, and most were then re-registered in these camps; for which we have other records.
Of the 60,000 Dutch Jews deported to Auschwitz, approximately 12-13,000 were registered at the camp or were identified as being selected for the labour camp at Cosel nearby. Registered inmates could well of course expire of exhaustion etc either in Auschwitz or another camp, or they could be selected for the gas chambers from within the camp. But 'internal selections' is a separate issue.
Thus, we have ca. 47,000 missing from Auschwitz and ca 34,000 missing from Sobibor, i.e. ca. 81,000 Dutch Jews who, according to the orthodox account, were gassed upon arrival. Another 19,000 Dutch Jews died of other causes in various camps.
So, the questions to
Neo: (911 Investigator)
1. In the light of the fact that any survivor giving his or her tattoo number can have this number corroborated by the Smolen list, and that there are many 10s of 1000s of survivors across more than a dozen nation-states in postwar Europe, can we take the Smolen list as accurate? If not, why not?
2. Is the Dutch Red Cross an untainted organisation? If not, why not?
3. If you have answered 'no' to the above two questions, please outline an alternative explanation for the existence of these records and documents, and why they match the many 10s of 1000s of Auschwitz survivors as a whole, and the circa 1000 Dutch survivors of deportation to Auschwitz and Sobibor-Majdanek, and the photos of departing transports. Please also explain the methods used to orchestrate all of the above information down to the individual survivor level.
4. If you have answered 'yes' to (1) and (2), you will agree that there were deportations from the Netherlands of the stated order of magnitude, and that an alternative destination for the circa 81,000 absolutely missing deportees must be nominated, unless you wish to concede that there were indeed gas chambers, which I presume you don't yet want to do. If not, then care to name one? Or more?
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