IN THE BEGINNING, it was proclaimed that 4 million of the celebrated "Six Million" died at this famous wartime campsite.

Then, in the face of growing skepticism, that figure was quietly revised by 2.5 million to 1.5 million.

Next, a tally by the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross reduced the total number of deaths to less than 140,000.

Finally, with the opening of the Soviet death registers, the grand total of all those of all nationalities who died of all causes, — including heart attack, stroke and old age — at the facility over a five-year period was placed at exactly 73,137. This, in a place comparable in size to a city of a quarter million, where obituary pages would normally be replete with the names of thousands who had died during a similar time span!

Besides old age and natural causes, some at the internment center succumbed to severe wartime conditions, aggravated by the outbreak of typhoid and the Allied bombing of the German transport infrastructure, which resulted in disruption to the delivery of food, medicine, and other vital supplies.

There were, however, no gassings — or gas-chamber facilities, for that matter. Unlike in the United States, where there were such facilities, that was not the German method of execution!

Less than half of those who died were Jews. Among the dead, there were even German camp personnel. The names of everyone who died are carefully recorded in the 46-volume death books held in the Soviet archives and released to the Red Cross in 1989. Besides the person's full name, these volumes document his or her profession, religion, date and place of birth, pre-Auschwitz residence, parents' names, time of death, and cause of death, as determined by a camp physician. Mass murderers do not keep such meticulous records!

Source: http://www.theneworder.org/commentary/holocau$t/090126auschwitznumbers.htm