The statistics are meagre, and so we have no way of knowing the number of non-Jews who were murdered in the gas chambers prior to this cut-off date [i.e. 4 April 1943]; not many, compared to the Jews, but certainly they numbered in the tens of thousands. Yet to escape the crematoriums was, of course, to gain only the most feeble hold on the possibility of survival. Statistics regarding the non-Jews who perished during the four years of the existence of Auschwitz as a result of starvation and disease are likewise inexact but somewhat more reliable. It would appear that out of the four million who died, perhaps three quarters of a million - or approximately a fifth of the total - fell into the category which the Nazis termed Aryan. This was at Auschwitz alone.
William Styron Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Essay, 'Hell Reconsidered' [pub. New York Review of Books, June 29 1978] - p.112
- work
- This Quiet Dust and Other Writings (1982)
- year
- 1978
- locator
- p.112
Cite this record
“The statistics are meagre, and so we have no way of knowing …” William Styron. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-6D2256AB35. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/6d2256ab35
More from William Styron
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