Fewer Than 10,000 Survive of 234,000 Jews Depoted from Western Europe, U.S. Army Says

Fewer than 10,000 of the 234,000 Jews deported to Germany and Poland from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway during the Nazi occupation have returned to their homelands, according to the first statistical review on the subject prepared by U.S. military authorities.

It appears from the review, which was released today, that fewer than five percent of the deportees are still alive.It said: “Although a few additional Jews and political deportees may still be uncovered in hospitals and other places in Germany, the difference between the two sets of figures represents approximately the number of French, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian racial and political deportees who died at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Nordhausen, Dachau, Buchenwald, and other Nazi murder camps.”

Political deportees fared somewhat better than Jews, the report points out, disclosing that of 163,000 deported for political reasons, 39,000 have been repatriated. It then continues; “With respect to racial deportees, the figures indicate that the Nazi policy was to deport Jews from the occupied countries and then exterminate them. The physical condition of the repatriated Jews is bad on the whole, and it was necessary to bring most of them home in hospital trains or special convoys.”