The Victims
There were numerous estimates of the number of victims of Auschwitz with initial figures reaching 4-5 million. This was caused by the fact that most of the Jews that arrived in the camp were destined for immediate death were never counted and only some 200,000 were retained for slave labour and registered as prisoners in the same manner as the other categories of prisoners. However post-war studies using gas chamber and the train network capacity have finally arrived at the number of 1.3 million prisoners of whom 1.1 million were murdered.
Table 1. Prisoners of Auschwitz by ethnic group.
Ethnicity/Category | Number |
Jews | 1.1 Million |
Poles | 140,000-150,000 |
Gypsies | 23,000 |
Soviet POWs | 15,000 |
Others | 25,000 |
TOTAL | 1.3 Million |
Table 2. Prisoners murdered at Auschwitz by ethnic group.
Ethnicity/Category | Number |
Jews | 1 Million |
Poles | 70,000-75,000 |
Gypsies | 21,000 |
Soviet POWs | 15,000 |
Others | 10,000-15,000 |
TOTAL | 1.1 Million |