It's a religious prophecy for the Jews, based on their manipulation of the Hebrew alphabet in what is called the Kabbalah, a form of Jewish occultism. Jews take all their prophecy from sacred texts, which are written in Hebrew. Hebrew letters are also numbers. The Jews used to write the number 6 as the Hebrew letter Vau, the 6th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In one text (I forget which one) the letter Vau is missing from a word. The rabbis interpreted this to mean that, in the future, six million Jews must go missing -- i.e., die -- is order for the Jews to return to Jerusalem. That's the root of all the newspaper stories that claim that six million Jews have died, which appear in newspapers across Europe and North America from around 1850 right up to WW2.
The point you should take home is that there is no valildity in the number whatsoever. It is a mystical number unconnected with real events in the material universe. The Jews have to claim that six million died in the concentration camps -- otherwise, they invalidate their prophecy for their return to Jerusalem, which Jews believe (religious Jews, at least) came directly from God. If they admit there were not six million killed, they admit that there was no communication or promise from God for their return to the Holy Land. This prophecy is the ultimate basis for the justification of the existence of the modern state of Israel.
(post is archived)