David's Harp: Shoah after math

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. 1.5 million were children. 4.5 million were adults. Each couple had at least five to ten children. Some had more. Some had many more. If the 4.5 million Jews constituted 2.25 million families and each family had five more children, that would equal 11.25 million more children. Combine the 11.25 million with the existing 1.5 million children and that equals 12,750,000 children. If these children were allowed to grow up, then half of them, 6,375,000, would have married the other half. And if they had five children that would be 31,875,000. That’s just one generation later. Add three more generations of half those children marrying the other half while having five children… Let’s see half of 31,875,000 is 15,937,500 multiply by five, for each child, and you get 79,687,500. Half of that times five gives us the second generation, which is 119,218,750. And then the third generation would be half of that number times five which is 498,046,875.

Half a billion Jews are missing from this world. Well, maybe these numbers are not so accurate as some of those who perished were having ten to twenty children. And certainly if the world of Torah that had flourished throughout Eastern Europe was not destroyed, the birthrate would have been more than five children per family. Also, the half a billion number only represents how many Jews would be around today. It does not embody the tens of millions that never even existed in those generations in the above math, who never had a chance to be born and live.

Six million is an insult to the numerical magnitude of the destruction of Jewish life that was diabolically maneuvered during the Holocaust. The half a billion calculation is the conservative number using a minimal of generations from the time of the Holocaust and only assuming a relatively minimal amount of off spring from the religious Eastern European communities that were destroyed. The number should have been in the billions.

“I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore.” (Gen. 22:17) May the billions who were destroyed from this world be a blessing. Billions of blessings.