The study of mass killings can often lead to a conundrum—the numbers associated with the worst genocides in history can often be so staggering that it's difficult to fully appreciate the actual devestation. A new paper from a mathematical biologist attempts to absorb and quantify some of the most highest rates of systemic murder in human history during the Holocaust. A quarter of all Holocaust victims, he finds, were murdered in a period of just three months.
The study, by Lewi Stone of both Israel's Tel Aviv University and RMIT University in Australia, examines the logistics of making such levels of murder even possible. Its origins start in Operation Reinhard, the overarching Nazi mission to kill all Jews within German-occupied Poland.
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