To: Maurice Winn who wrote (131468 ) 5/5/2004 9:13:04 AM From: Neocon Read Replies (1) | Respond to The first action taken in pursuit of an exterminationist policy was when the SS Einsatzgruppen were directed to kill massive numbers of Jews in the Baltic States and Ukraine, digging mass graves and shooting them in the head. This was deemed too inefficient and costly, and had been somewhat experimental. It was not until the Wansee Conference in 1942 that the exterminationist policy was confirmed, and the SS was given the task of finding efficient and profitable ways of accomplishing the task. After experiments with carbon monoxide, the insecticide Zyklon- B was finally determined to be an efficient means of mass killing, and it was determined that those who could work would be hired out as slave labor and gradually starved to death, to help defray costs. Those who were too old, young, infirm, or rebellious would be gassed immediately. It is generally accepted that 6 million Jews from all over Europe perished in the camps, although some have argued it was more like 5.5 million or thereabouts. Of course, since 80 or 90 percent of world Jewry was in Poland or the Russian Pale of Settlement, the greatest devastation was there. If it were not for the large migration of Eastern European Jews to America at the turn of the century, among them my paternal ancestors, the genocide of Ashkenazi Jews would have been almost complete.
