Well as we all know, it could be worse, a thousand times worse.
So the thinking here is that the Jews will perish on their own in these harsh lands but of course they will most likely find a way to not only survive but thrive.
So... really no organized killings this time? Or is this deportation only a "deportation", if you understand what I mean?
Yeah it sounds a little too cool even for Wagner. I have to imagine the deportations will be very harsh and that many will die of malnutrition and disease along the way, also the Jews will probably have dicks for neighbors.
^ Exactly this. Plus there will be numerous abuses and summary killings of Jews by Nazis during the deportation process. And the logistical strain of deporting, housing and then feeding the entirety of European Jewry to such a small area will be massive, with the "reservation" being overstretched to the limits.
This is like a industrialized anti-Semitic Trail of Tears, or even the Armenian Genocide when the Ottomans drove columns of dispossessed Armenian civilians through the Anatolian hinterlands and the Mesopotamian desert. Hundreds of thousands of them died.
A hell of a way to put it but quite apt.
I would say the closest OTL comparison would be the various deportations carried out under Stalin in the USSR, which is to say that conditions will be very bad, but most will survive.
Not sure if Wagner would allow a Trail of Tears type situation. His main objective is the removal of Jews from Europe, with as few negative repercussions as possible. With the scale the removal will be on, a certain number of deaths can be explained due to "logistical difficulties." But if it becomes known that the routes to the Jewish settlements were deliberately set up to be deathtraps, or that the resettlement camps designed to provide not even bare minimum to sustain them, it could be very damaging politically to Wagner. So long as the Jews are removed from Europe he should be satisfied, and from what I've seen of him ITTL he would always be planning that details of anything negative in the resettlement could potentially get out and want to minimize anything that could be used negatively against him and the ETL.
It is very true that minimizing negative attention is a high priority, and logistical problems as an explanation only go so far.
I think a lot of lower ranking Nazis will make the transferring of the Jews to the east as difficult and possible, whether Wagner approves or not. They might be sly about it especially when foreign press are around but where they are not, it will be bad.
Wagner might not intent to make any effort on his part to kill any Jews, but it doesn't mean he'd mind that much if a lot of them died in transfer or exile.
Malnourishment, travelling in bad conditions, and living in a swamp, are very bad for health.
This, sadly, is also true. Large-scale abuses by lower-ranking cadres, especially when conducted away from prying eyes, in combination with the hostile climate, will mean that fatalities will not exactly be rare despite their not being as such the goal.
Plus this might not be the final "final" solution. Depending on how the war goes and what territory opens up after the defeat of the USSR I could see the Jewish people made to go further East. Think about it. If the Jews are all pushed East of the Urals it solves everyone's problems.
Well, there is an autonomous Jewish Oblast in the Russian Far East IOTL...
Were the option to become available, it would be given serious consideration.
In other news, I made some maps with @CrimsonKing's blessings.
Europa, Asia, and Africa:
European Treaty League members:
European Common Market members:
Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere members:
These were great maps!
I agree with BrazilSpirit, nice work on the maps.
I concur. They fill a real gap in this thread.
I thought that France got the former Belgian Congo for their trouble? Great maps otherwise, though.
They did, but is that not what the map shows?