SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 131
Drancy to Sobibór comprised a total of 2,002 deportees, among them
110 children up to the age of 16, 376 i.e. about 5.5%. Schelvis 377 has two
more transports from Drancy which he assigns to Sobibór (departure
from Drancy on 4 and 6 March 1943), but which Klarsfeld assigns to
Majdanek. These transports comprised 2,001 deportees, with 7 boys and
girls under the age of 17, i.e. about 0.35%.
The percentage of “Kinder” in all of the above Dutch and French
transports thus amounts to 15.6% on average, or 1 out of 6 persons.
Helena Kubica estimates that out of the roughly 1,095,000 deportees
to Auschwitz 378 some 216,300 379 were children, corresponding to
19.75% or 1 out of 5 persons.
For Poland H. Kubica finds some 66,000 children out of a total of
300,000 deportees, i.e. 22%; for Slovakia 9,000 out of 27,000 or 30%.
She has a percentage of about 11.5% (2,636 out of 23,000 deportees)
for Germany and Austria, and about 14.04% (6,460 out of 46,000) for
the Protectorate (Theresienstadt).
Her estimate for Poland is probably too low. If we take as a
yardstick the population of Polish Jews in the �od� ghetto on 30 June
1942, 380 there were 25,947 children under the age of 16 among the total
of 96,874 persons, or some 26.8%. We may thus assume roughly 27%
instead of 22%.
On the other hand, the estimate with respect to Slovakia is rather on
the high side. According to Andrej Steiner, altogether 57,837 Jews were
deported from Slovakia, among them 2,482 children below 4 years of
age and another 4,581 between the ages of 4 and 10 years of age, 381 resulting
in a total of 7,063 children below age 10 or 12.21% of the total.
As compared to this, there were 12,891 children below age 10 in the
�od� ghetto, some 49.7% of all children. Hence, the percentage of
children below the age of 16 deported from Slovakia may have been as
high as 25%.
376
S. Klarsfeld, op. cit. (note 75), p. 17 (our pagination).
377
J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 217.
378
Franciszek Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz, Verlag des Staatlichen Museums in
O�wi�cim, O�wi�cim 1993, p. 200.
379
H. Kubica, “Kinder und Jugendliche im KL Auschwitz,” in: Wac�aw D�ugoborski, Franciszek
Piper (eds.), Auschwitz 1940-1945. Studien zur Geschichte des Konzentrationsund
Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz, Verlag des Staatlichen Museums Auschwitz-
Birkenau, O�wi�cim 1999. vol. II, p. 349.
380
“Die Ghettobevölkerung am 30. Juni 1942 (laut Meldungen),” WAPL, PSZ, 863, pp.
16,16a.
381
State of Israel, op. cit. (note 137), vol. II, p. 912.