Assessing witness evidence, credibilty & truthfulness

... figure for deaths at Auschwitz was reached by Raul Hilberg in his 1961 book by working from the documentary (not eyewitness) base of the number of Jews transported to Auschwitz and a reasonable estimate of the number of survivors.
...Historians like Hilberg, and the newer estimates, are not based on the eyewitness estimates, because though such witnesses could accurately report that part of the procedure of killing they actually witnessed, they were not in a position to make accurate calculations concerning the overall and cumulative killing operations.

The search for the single witness or single document that proves or disproves all is framing the research question wrongly...

~~ Christopher Browning

In the Report of the Soviet War Crimes Commission of 6 May, 1945, the following is written:
"The Germans killed and burned between 10,000 and 12,000 human beings daily [at Auschwitz-Birkenau]". The Soviet report refers to the testimonies of witnesses Dragon and Tauber ("who worked in a special commando servicing the gas chambers") as ratification for the estimated number of daily victims, based on "theoretical" crematory throughput.

...Pressac stressed the minimum fourfold exaggerations of Tauber, Nyisli, and Dragon (p. 171). As members of the Sonderkommando, these direct witnesses would certainly have been "in a position to make accurate [or "ballpark"] calculations concerning the overall and cumulative killing operations".

Filip Müller, whose book was published in 1979, also referred to "the incineration of up to 10,000 corpses in 24 hours" in the crematoria (Pressac, p. 97).
And SS-officer Franke-Gricksch is alleged to have written in a report for Himmler in May, 1943:
"Current capacity of the "resettlement action" ovens: 10,000 in 24 hours" (Pressac, p. 239).

[The] question remains: what credibility can we ascribe to these [witness] testimonies which can only have served to "validate" Soviet post-war falsehoods as to crematory capacities and actual numbers of victims?

What reports or testimonies should one consult to find corroboration for the death toll as it is understood today?

The aforementioned "imposed falsehood" (Pressac) cannot be excused as resulting from the post-war political climate, because Müller's account was published in 1979 and Franke-Gricksch's account dates from 1943.
There appears to be a convergence of evidence to Soviet falsehood and no testimonies or contemporaneous documents I would consider as representative of a death toll of one million, excluding the revised confession of Rudolf Höss, which was not based on documentary sources. This would encompass the bodies of evidence I have mentioned. Should it not be the subject of a future colloquy to address this element of falsehood within such texts?

British historian Gerald Fleming, in assessing the Franke-Gricksch text, wrote:
"The account of the SS officer and the former concentration camp prisoner [Müller] concur on one fact: that the cremation capacity of the camp reached up to 10,000 corpses per twenty four hours" (from "Hitler and the Final Solution" [1984] p. 145).

It is the citation of such figures as valid which needs redress. Pressac alluded to a "famous multiplier" (pp. 171, 483, 494) which has never been discussed in historical accounts to my knowledge.

If the Holocaust historians have always disregarded the Soviet claim of four million, why have the testimonies cited above been regarded as accurate representations of the number of victims? The Soviets broke the four million figure down to a monthly rate of 279,000 average, and a daily rate of 10,000-12,000.

Brian Renk

In the Report of the Soviet War Crimes Commission of 6 May, 1945, the following is written:
"The Germans killed and burned between 10,000 and 12,000 human beings daily [at Auschwitz-Birkenau]". The Soviet report refers to the testimonies of witnesses Dragon and Tauber ("who worked in a special commando servicing the gas chambers") as ratification for the estimated number of daily victims, based on "theoretical" crematory throughput.

...Pressac stressed the minimum fourfold exaggerations of Tauber, Nyisli, and Dragon (p. 171). As members of the Sonderkommando, these direct witnesses would certainly have been "in a position to make accurate [or "ballpark"] calculations concerning the overall and cumulative killing operations".

Filip Müller, whose book was published in 1979, also referred to "the incineration of up to 10,000 corpses in 24 hours" in the crematoria (Pressac, p. 97).
And SS-officer Franke-Gricksch is alleged to have written in a report for Himmler in May, 1943:
"Current capacity of the "resettlement action" ovens: 10,000 in 24 hours" (Pressac, p. 239).

[The] question remains: what credibility can we ascribe to these [witness] testimonies which can only have served to "validate" Soviet post-war falsehoods as to crematory capacities and actual numbers of victims?

What reports or testimonies should one consult to find corroboration for the death toll as it is understood today?

The aforementioned "imposed falsehood" (Pressac) cannot be excused as resulting from the post-war political climate, because Müller's account was published in 1979 and Franke-Gricksch's account dates from 1943.
There appears to be a convergence of evidence to Soviet falsehood and no testimonies or contemporaneous documents I would consider as representative of a death toll of one million, excluding the revised confession of Rudolf Höss, which was not based on documentary sources. This would encompass the bodies of evidence I have mentioned. Should it not be the subject of a future colloquy to address this element of falsehood within such texts?

British historian Gerald Fleming, in assessing the Franke-Gricksch text, wrote:
"The account of the SS officer and the former concentration camp prisoner [Müller] concur on one fact: that the cremation capacity of the camp reached up to 10,000 corpses per twenty four hours" (from "Hitler and the Final Solution" [1984] p. 145).

It is the citation of such figures as valid which needs redress. Pressac alluded to a "famous multiplier" (pp. 171, 483, 494) which has never been discussed in historical accounts to my knowledge.

If the Holocaust historians have always disregarded the Soviet claim of four million, why have the testimonies cited above been regarded as accurate representations of the number of victims? The Soviets broke the four million figure down to a monthly rate of 279,000 average, and a daily rate of 10,000-12,000.

Brian Renk