How many people died in the holocost?
Executive summary
The best-supported figure for Jewish deaths in the Holocaust is approximately six million people, a number reached by multiple postwar studies and memorial institutions though some estimates range from about 5.1 to 6 million [1] [2]. When historians and institutions tally all groups targeted and killed by the Nazi regime—Jews plus Roma and Sinti, ethnic Poles and other Slavic civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, political opponents, and others—the commonly cited total is roughly 11 million victims, though that aggregate number is an estimate and conventions vary by source [3] [4].
1. What historians mean by “How many people died”
Scholars distinguish between the number of Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide and the broader death toll of all groups persecuted and killed by the Nazi regime; rigorous treatments always explain that there is no single Nazi ledger listing every death, and that estimates synthesize transport lists, camp records, survivor testimony, and demographic analysis [1]. Major institutions present the six-million figure for Jewish victims as the best-supported total, derived from multiple independent methods of reconstruction rather than a single source document [1] [2].
2. The Jewish death toll: consensus and ranges
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and other leading research centers summarize the evidence as supporting roughly six million Jewish deaths, a total that has been affirmed in postwar tribunals and by historians using Nazi records, Einsatzgruppen reports, camp transport lists, and demographic comparisons of prewar and postwar Jewish populations [1] [2]. Some studies offer slightly lower numerical reconstructions—examples include early postwar counts such as the 1946 Anglo‑American Commission report that produced a figure near 5.72 million—but these are treated in context as part of the body of evidence rather than refutations of the larger consensus [5].
3. The broader tally: “six million” plus millions more
Institutions and national commemorations routinely place the six million Jewish deaths alongside estimates of roughly five million non‑Jewish victims, producing an aggregate figure of about 11 million people killed under Nazi persecution and occupation; this wider total includes victims of mass shootings in the East, the deaths of Roma and Sinti, Polish civilians, Soviet POWs, the disabled murdered in medical programs, and others targeted for political, racial, or social reasons [3] [4]. Individual site tallies underscore the scale: for example, Auschwitz—both a killing and labor complex—received about 1.3 million people and is estimated to have seen approximately 1.1 million die there, most of them Jewish, illustrating how camp figures feed into the larger totals [6].
4. Sources of uncertainty and how scholars handle them
Uncertainty stems from destroyed records, incomplete death registers for killing centers, the chaotic movements of wartime populations, and postwar bureaucratic limits; archivists and historians therefore triangulate among transport lists, SS correspondence, census data, testimonies, and demographic methods to build the most reliable estimates possible [1] [7]. This methodological openness also explains why estimates are expressed as ranges and why reputable archives explicitly rebut misuse of partial documents—such as the Bad Arolsen Special Registry Office lists—to undercut the established totals, a tactic employed by deniers that archivists and scholars have exposed and corrected [7].
5. Verdict and responsible framing
The responsible summary: roughly six million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust—a figure corroborated by major museums, research institutes, and long-standing historical methods—while approximately five million additional victims from other persecuted groups bring the commonly stated total of all victims to about 11 million; both numbers are estimates grounded in extensive documentary and testimonial evidence, and both carry margins of uncertainty that scholars acknowledge [1] [3] [2]. Alternative historical estimates exist and have been cited in different contexts (for example, early postwar counts), but the weight of archival and demographic research across institutions supports the figures presented here rather than the much smaller totals promoted by denialist arguments [5] [7].