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acheron2012 ago

I have always said that people don't realize how many a million is. It is simply not logistically feasible to kill - not to mention dispose of, which takes orders of magnitude longer - 6+ million people in the span of half a decade.

You can argue about how blue the sky is, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or how many ovens the Nazis had and when they had them. But the math just doesn't work out.

For example assume we go with "only" 6 million. Then we assume NO startup time, the camps and all their facilities, as well as the transported prisoners pop into existence all the way back in 1939. Even under that completely unrealistic scenario you are talking about 2700 people a day: 114 people an hour 24 hours a day, day in, day out, every single day for 2200 days straight - in time of war , not missing one single hour for broken equipment, delayed trains, or ANY other reasons.

Conceptually it is possible. But mathematically it is vanishingly unlikely.

SayTan ago

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, chief executioner for the NKVD—and quite possibly the most prolific executioner in history—is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, at Katyn from the Ostashkov camp at Kalinin prison, over a period of 28 days in April 1940 pretty much by himself with a pistol.

10011747? ago

This is one Jew every 5.76 minutes, on average, for the entire 28 days. And you're telling me his hand didn't get tired?

SayTan ago

He used a German .25, as the nagant revolver recoiled too much for continuous use and he was shooting them in the brain stem point blank, and it was Polish officers by Russians at Katyn. Learn your history.

Often when nazis did reprisal killings, where as often as not they often chose jews to herd up and shoot, they had whole companies of men with rifles, subguns, and pistols. Make them dig a pit, strip, shoot.

I worked at a vodka bottling plant and took bottles off a line and stuck them in boxes at a rate of probably 40-50 a minute all day long.

10011833? ago

Learn your history.

My focus is on math, not esoteric historical anecdotes. I leave that to folks such as yourself.

SayTan ago

It could be done. One of my cousins used to do 12 hour shifts running the captive bolt gun at a slaughterhouse. Every 30-60 seconds BANG, with a 15 minute break here and there, not every 5 minutes.

Killing things unable/unwilling to resist is not very hard and can easily be mechanized. Applies to people, too.

10011876? ago

That makes sense. Naturally I didn't think he'd stand there and just shoot people 24/7 - the deaths would likely be clustered, he'd have to sleep and eat, etc.

It seems like there's a more effective way to do this, but I'm wary about giving it too much thought.

SayTan ago

Cambodians saved ammo and used spades, poison, and pointy bamboo sticks. ;-)