I believe it was much less than 6 million, in Germany at least. You can’t rely on public population numbers, all bullshit. There are other ways to estimate the population though. I found the info several years ago, they may have started fudging these numbers too.
If I remember correctly, the Germans kept very specific records on disease. Tay Sachs only appears in jews, it’s a genetic disorder. I believe it’s double recessive present in 1% of jews. You can mathematically calculate the total population size with the number of reported tay sachs cases in Germany in 1933. It’s a serious disease, nearly all will request medical treatment and were recorded.
Long story short, the jewish population in Germany in 1933 was around 1 million.
In Germany itself the jewish population was closer to half a million than a million. You have to add jews from France, Poland, and a bunch of eastern European countries to get anywhere near 6 million.
You may be correct, my research was a very long time ago and my memory is shit. But that method using medical records prior to ww2 is definitive, it’s a good tool to have/use in conversation.
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