(Baseler Nachrichten, evening edition, Thursday, 13 June 1946, Page 2, Nr. 243. Please note: This is a somewhat awkward translation, apparently by a translator for whom English was not his native tongue.)
Totally independent of the claims of Dr. Perlzweig, Chief of the Political
Departments of the World Jewish Congress, concerning the number of Jews
who fell victim to the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime in Europe, (numbers)
which were published in Nr. 241 of the "Baseler Nachrichten"
(Basel, Switzerland), we have received from a correspondent in America
under the title "How high is the number of the Jewish victims?"
the following statement:
Nearly all states (with the revealing exception of the Soviet Union!) have
in the meantime reported the official numbers of their war losses - whereby
the astonishing fact came to light that these losses were considerably
lower than those of the first World War.
It is the more astonishing that regarding the losses of the Jewish people
no official numbers were published, but only private and semi-official
estimates. These estimates lie between 5 and 6 millions deaths - I suppose
according to a central propaganda-number - which the Jewish people shall
have suffered as a result of the persecutions from the Hitler system and
of the war. If this number is correct, then the losses of the Jews were
bigger than the losses of England, America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Luxembourg together, which
makes it doubly incomprehensible that they still are satisfied with a simple
estimate of this enormous number of losses.
But a summary overview makes it known that this number of Jewish victims
cannot be correct. - In view of the strange absence of official documents,
the question today can only be considered on the basis of present general
information.
Accordingly, the number of Jews in Europe - outside the Soviet Union -
was in the year 1933 approximately 5.6 million, a number given by the American
Jewish Conference itself (according to a report in the "New York Times"
from January 11th, 1945!). - From this number must be subtracted approx.
1 million living in the east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop-line and therefore
totally outside of the repression of the Hitler system before the June
21st, 1941; and after this date the largest part had taken to flight with
the withdrawing Red Army into the interior of Russia and Siberia. Even
when we suppose that only the half of the Jews living in the east of the
Ribbentrop-Molotov-line could save themselves from the invasion of the
Nazis, we get a solid number - which is also accepted by the highest Jewish
authority - of 5 million Jews, who could get into the sphere of influence
of Hitler at all.
But from these must be subtracted those Jews living in the neutral countries
of Europe. According to the "World Almanac 1942," page 594, the
number of Jews in these neutral countries not overrun by Hitler: Gibraltar
868, England 300,000, Portugal 1200, Spain 4000, Sweden 6653, Switzerland
17,973, Ireland 3686, Turkey 78,730 - together: 413,128.
With this, the number of Jews in Europe "within the grasp" of
Hitler and Himmler is reduced to approximately 4.5 millions. From this
number is to be subtracted the enormous stream of refugees, which flowed
in the years 1933-1945 over all countries and continents. With the great
international support, which this stream of threatened Jews received rightly,
a large amount of these Jews were able to get safe refuge.
Unfortunately, here also no official statistics are available, which would
show the exact immigration of Jews to North and South America, to Australia,
Asia, and the neutral countries of Europe. Because of the supposition being
correct, that after 1933 at least 80% of the immigrants classified as "Germans,
Austrians and Poles" were members of the Jewish people-and after the
beginning of the war nearly all of these immigrants were Jews-an overview
compiled from different sources (including the Jewish newspaper "Aufbau")
shows the following picture of Jewish immigration from 1933 to 1945:
To England approx. 120,000, Sweden approx. 25,000, Switzerland approx.
60,000, Spain and Portugal approx. 5000, Canada approx. 60,000, USA approx.
450,000, Central America approx. 75,000, South America approx. 225,000,
Australia approx. 15,000, China (Shanghai) approx. 35,000, India approx.
25,000, Africa approx. 45,000, Palestine approx. 300,000. Together approx.
1,440,000 or about 1.5 million.
The stream into the large regions of the Soviet Union and Siberia were
excluded in this calculation, because we have no statistics in hand. But
it shall be mentioned that, according to a report of the "New York
Times", more than 500,000 Jews from Poland might have taken to flight
to Siberia alone, a figure which resulted from a recent lecture of a Jewish
lady who returned from there.
The number of Jews in the sphere of influence of Hitler reduces to at most
3 million. The lack of exact numbers also concerns the number of surviving
Jews in Europe and even the detailed report of the English-Jewish committee
strangely restricts itself to "estimates". According to this
estimate the number of Jews still living in Europe (outside of the Soviet
Union) is 1,559,660.
It follows from this survey, which can unfortunately not be based on new
official numbers, but whose numbers all originate from official side, that
there must be classified less than 1.5 million Jews as "dead or missing".
We hope that from this estimate a serious number of these can again be
found when correct statistics will be available. Regarding the immense
importance which the "extermination" of the Jews has received
in world opinion, it is of imperative necessity that the United Nations
create an official committee of inquiry to determine how high the real
number of casualties of the Jewish people was.
One thing is today certain: the claim that this number is 5-6 million (a
claim which inexplicably the Palestine-committee adopts) is not true. The
number of Jewish victims can be between 1 and 1.5 million, because more
were not "within the grasp" of Hitler and Himmler. It is to be
expected and hoped, that the final number of victims of the Jewish people
are below this number. But clarity is necessary - and therefore an examination
from a committee of the UNO should for the present and the future determine
this important truth.