"Discrepancies between transport lists and lists of registered prisoners undermine the fact of the Holocaust"

One of the features of the negationists’ narrative is alleged reservations concerning the names lists of Jews deported to Auschwitz and the names of Jews registered in the camp. Holocaust deniers point to the fact that some of the names in the transport lists reappear in the so-called Zugangsliste (new prisoners lists), which they interpret as evidence that the deportation to Auschwitz did not necessarily mean death. This is indeed what happened to young and fit people, that is, those able to work, who for this reason survived the selection process after arriving in the camp. Naturally, the negationists do not explain what happened to the remaining deportees, merely suggesting that they became unregistered prisoners but are unable to determine their subsequent fate. It should be stressed that in no postwar documents, such as lists of liberated prisoners in displaced persons camps, is there the case of a Jew whose name appeared on a transport list Auschwitz but was not registered on a Zugangsliste (new prisoner list) – at least not in cases (e.g. as in 1942) where both types of documents are accessible and complete.

The facts:

Extent documents such as transport lists and Auschwitz camp prisoner registers require appropriate interpretation. Worth noting are the dates of birth of Jewish men and women deported in transports to Auschwitz and compare them with the ages of persons registered in the camp.

Most often, deportee lists of Jews include the names of people in a wide range of ages, from children to the very elderly (e.g., 60- or 70-year-olds, or even older). However, the names in camp registration lists are predominantly of people aged between 20 and 40 who were fit for work. People over 50 were very rarely registered.

This means that only the young and healthy were registered in the camp. On the other hand, children and older people were not registered in the camp, which leads to the conclusion people in those age groups were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after their arrival.

A list of Jews registered in KL Auschwitz in 1942. Worth noting is the age range of the registered prisoners. It does not include any children or anyone over the age of 50. Source: Archives of Auschwitz Museum

A transport list of Jews deported from the Drancy camp to KL Auschwitz in mid-1942. The list includes people of advanced age who were sent to the gas chamber immediately after they arrived in KL Auschwitz. Source: Archives of Auschwitz Museum

Likewise, extant death certificates issued for prisoners who had been murdered or died of other causes (exhaustion or epidemic diseases) in the camp, require appropriate interpretation. These death certificates were issued by the camp’s registry office. Almost 69,000 death certificates from mid-July 1941 to the end of 1943 have survived. It is worth noting that although not all the documents have been preserved, their sequence numbers indicate that at least 4,500 death certificates were issued in 1941, 45,632 in 1942, and 36,991 in 1943, which gives a total of 87,123 death certificates. Moreover, death certificates for the last weeks of 1941 are missing, which suggests that by the end of 1943, over 90,000 such death certificates had been issued.

From the late autumn of 1942, the issuing of death certificates for some of the prisoners (mainly Jews) who had been selected in the camp to go to the gas chamber was stopped. From February 1943, the issuing of death certificates for Jewish prisoners was significantly reduced. As previously mentioned, there are no extant certificates from June 1940 to July 1941, for the whole of 1944 and January 1945. To the total figure of camp deaths, there should be added over 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war who had died or were murdered in the camp but whose deaths were recorded on separate lists. Therefore, the general number of registered prisoners who died in Auschwitz was probably three times higher than the aforementioned 69,000.

A death certificate issued by the camp registry office. It is for the Polish political prisoner Eugeniusz Obojski, who had been shot dead in the courtyard of Auschwitz block 11 on 25th January 1943. The stated cause of death is: ‘pneumonia and heart failure’. Source: Archives of Auschwitz Museum

Worth mentioning here is a document from 1984 in which the International Red Cross was informed by the Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution that by December 1984 they had catalogued 373,468 death certificates from all the concentration camps. The negationists frequently refer to this document to question the Holocaust and the actual number of people who were murdered. However, it should be stressed that this figure was never considered final, and the Arolsen Archives itself stated that ‘the data cannot constitute a basis for estimating the total number of people murdered.’