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Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

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J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 117<br />

How many <strong>of</strong> the alleged victims were buried prior to being exhumed<br />

and cremated, and how many were incinerated immediately after<br />

having been gassed? Schelvis has calculated the total number <strong>of</strong> deportees<br />

to be 170,165, rounded <strong>of</strong>f to 170,000. 330 As we know from the<br />

Höfle telegram, 101,370 Jews were sent to Sobibór up until 31 December<br />

1942. It follows from this that (170,165 – 101,370 =) 68,795 deportees<br />

arrived during 1943. According to orthodox historiography they<br />

were all cremated without prior interment. Schelvis states that this<br />

group was comprised <strong>of</strong> Jews from the Netherlands (34,313), France<br />

(3,500), Reichskommissariat Ostland (13,700), Skopje (2,382), and the<br />

General Government (14,900). 330<br />

The victim figure for 1943, however, has to be slightly reduced.<br />

Schelvis admits that, according to “rough estimates,” approximately<br />

1,000 Dutch Jews were transferred from Sobibór to labor camps in the<br />

Lublin district. 331 Despite the fact that those Jews did not perish in Sobibór,<br />

Schelvis has included them in his victim figure. 332 The real number<br />

<strong>of</strong> hypothetical victims for 1943 should therefore be 67,795.<br />

Next we must determine how many Jews were deported to the camp<br />

from 1 st October to 31 st December 1942. According to Arad a total <strong>of</strong><br />

31,300 – 32,300 Jews were sent to Sobibór during this period. 333 Arad<br />

assures his readers that his lists <strong>of</strong> transports are based on “existing information.”<br />

However, these lists consist to a large degree <strong>of</strong> figures<br />

lifted from testimonial evidence, estimates made by Jewish resistance<br />

members, or arrived at by mere conjecture. 334 For example, the lists for<br />

Treblinka 335 indicate that 824,170 Jews were deported to that camp during<br />

1942, whereas the Höfle telegram shows that the actual figure<br />

amounted to 713,555 – an exaggeration <strong>of</strong> 16%. Faced with this tendency,<br />

we find it more reasonable to accept Gilead et al.’s estimate that<br />

80,000 Jews arrived at the camp prior to the interruption <strong>of</strong> burials. 336 In<br />

330<br />

331<br />

332<br />

333<br />

334<br />

335<br />

336<br />

J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 198.<br />

Ibid., p. 14.<br />

Witnesses quoted by Schelvis speak <strong>of</strong> at least 40 French Jews transferred from Sobibór<br />

to Lublin and <strong>of</strong> 830-880 Byelorussian Jews transferred to Trawniki, but it is unclear<br />

whether those groups are included in the victim figure or not; ibid., pp. 217, 219f.<br />

Y. Arad, op. cit. (note 49), pp. 390f.<br />

Cf. C. Mattogno, J. Graf, op. cit. (note 10, Engl. ed.), pp. 102f.<br />

Y. Arad, op. cit. (note 49), pp. 392-397.<br />

I. Gilead, Y. Haimi, W. Mazurek, op. cit. (note 293), p. 25. Schelvis (op. cit. (note 71),<br />

pp. 112, 116 n. 64) writes that “there were already more than 100,000” corpses in the<br />

mass graves at the time cremations began, giving as his source a court document (VoHa-<br />

66-61b), but here he is clearly contradicting himself, as this would mean that cremations<br />

did not commence until early 1943.

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