Anyone here a statistician?

[Stubble]

What are the odds?

https://ihr.org/journal/v13n1p45_weber-html

I seriously want to know the odds, really, of all the people, of all the places, of all the times, how did the planets, stars, asteroids, planetoids, moons and every single other thing in the known and unknown universe line up for that.

[Stubble]

Nobody? Surely someone can take a guess at the odds.

How about we just try to establish a dataset first.

Any advice?

[Nazgul]

What are the odds?

https://ihr.org/journal/v13n1p45_weber-html

I seriously want to know the odds, really, of all the people, of all the places, of all the times, how did the planets, stars, asteroids, planetoids, moons and every single other thing in the known and unknown universe line up for that.

We are a product of the conditions of the time and the laws of probability of that reality or dimension. So far, as far as I know we can only understand a small part of the current Universe. One must be wary of falling into the god of the gaps argument, in that what we do no know was caused by some deity. Everything in this known Universe is made up of Star Stuff, you, me, the dog or cat, the house, but these days even the nature of space-time and matter is under scrutiny as quantum physics and new hypothesise confirm new facts. From these facts new scientific theories arise. BTW don't ask Nessie (flipper) about this as he believes in the magical universe. The chances of atoms coming together and forming you or I as infestisimal in probability; however, if you read Dawkins, "climbing" Mount Improbable, nature has a way of dealing with this. It is wonder that makes atheists spiritual in nature.

[Stubble]

Philosophical conversation and discussion about the nature of reality can be deeply rewarding and engaging.

Here however, what I was attempting to bring up, again, is that this reunion of these fellows is statistically significant.

I wonder how many other such reunions were prevented because both sides of the family were told the other had been gassed...

Is 'The Holocaust' observer dependent like the twin slit experiment? I have my doubts. I do know that the evidence is Schrodinger's evidence, both complete and damning and also missing because it was destroyed. Just depends on if you want to see it or not.

[Nazgul]

Philosophical conversation and discussion about the nature of reality can be deeply rewarding and engaging.

Here however, what I was attempting to bring up, again, is that this reunion of these fellows is statistically significant.

I wonder how many other such reunions were prevented because both sides of the family were told the other had been gassed...

Is 'The Holocaust' observer dependent like the twin slit experiment? I have my doubts. I do know that the evidence is Schrodinger's evidence, both complete and damning and also missing because it was destroyed. Just depends on if you want to see it or not.

I see much disconnected evidence and for the "believers" they ignore evidence, accepting dodgy evidence to connect the dots and make their own story. I am interested in the real story, good or bad to dignify the true suffering of the people of the time. If it was me, I would rather be put out of my misery than say living in cardboard huts as a slave labourer in Lithuania during winter with a mere candle for heat and crap food. If there was a holocaust this is it and worse than the partial nightmare Nessie tries to deliver.

[Stubble]

That's very fair Mr Wraith, and I do still seek the noble aim, even with my bias (ultimately, truth is more important than conviction or belief).

That said, here, in this thread, I was hoping an attempt could be made to statistically quantify the odds that the man who shouted down David Cole about his dead brother, was later reunited on television with his very alive brother.

[Nazgul]

statistically quantify the odds that the man who shouted down David Cole about his dead brother, was later reunited on television with his very alive brother.

All science is calculated statistically, even psychology; no scientist is happy without a probability of A connected with B. For this to happen quantifiable data is necessary, and must be obtainable. If this is not then it is only common sense and or conjecture.

[Stubble]

Correct.

[SanityCheck]

Nobody? Surely someone can take a guess at the odds.

How about we just try to establish a dataset first.

Any advice?

Zoltan Hollander, from the description in the JHR summary but more crucially from interviews with Ernest Hollander, was evidently conscripted in 1944 to the Hungarian Labour Service.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn515894

This also connects the Hollander family to Munkacs in Subcarpathian Rus (today Mukachevo in Ukraine), and the itineraries mentioned for Ernest fit this. Zoltan was conscripted to the HLS and thus was not in the Munkacs ghetto nor was he deported to Auschwitz. Ernest was in the Munkacs ghetto, deported to Auschwitz, selected for labour and transfered to camps in Germany. Allenbush near Breslau is surely a garbling, this would be a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen and is most likely Erlenbusch:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der ... 3%9F-Rosen

Zoltan being imprisoned by the Soviets was quite standard for members of the HLS; the large numbers sent east in 1942 with the 2nd Hungarian Army were all treated as POWs since they were in Hungarian uniform.

So the datasets are
- 800,000 Jews counted in the 1941 census of Greater Hungary, including 13,488 in Munkacs (Jan 1941 census)
https://wwv.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibit ... /index.asp

- subtract 40,000 HLS casualties out of 100,000 conscripts in 1941-43
- subtract up to 50,000 conscripts to the HLS in 1944 - including Zoltan
- concentrate and deport 422,000 Jews from ghettos in Greater Hungary to Auschwitz, alongside 15,000 to Vienna
- select 110,000 at Auschwitz for labour, including Ernest and several relatives
- deaths among labour selectees including their father


The separation of the Hollander family and division by the Iron Curtain after 1945 of surviving members preceded Auschwitz so says nothing about Auschwitz or gassings.

It says a little about overall survival chances of forced labourers and the possibility of mistaken reports, and a bit more about what happened when the Iron Curtain got in the way of clarifying circumstances, but that also applies to much larger datasets like the 17 million German service personnel called up to the Wehrmacht and the 'missing million' thought to have died in Soviet captivity (as of 1955 when the last POWs were repatriated) but who in fact died on or near the 1944-45 battlefields.

Separations at Auschwitz-Birkenau leading to eventual later reunions undoubtedly occurred within the 110,000 selected for labour on arrival from Hungary in 1944, and in other 1944 cohorts. Assembling labour transports from within the transit camp could be misinterpreted as a later selection for the gas chambers, because these also took place affecting the same cohort.

Selections on arrival and the left-right division into fit and unfit for work were much harder to misinterpret, but one would expect in the confusion of the ramp in 1944 in Birkenau, with much larger numbers, that some did and didn't realise the column of men/women were going to the quarantine/transit camps.

Survivors reporting about the selections on arrival in Birkenau, including in 1944 (Hungarians, Lodz Jews etc) generally testified in 1945 to not seeing relatives again if separated on arrival, or learning shortly afterwards that they had been taken to be gassed; only Polish Jews might have heard anything about gas chambers beforehand.

This doesn't seem to have stopped extensive misssing persons enquiries after 1945, hoping against hope, with national tracing services/enquiries, international ones like the WJC and then the ITS Arolsen.

By 1949 the immediate aftermath everywhere from eastern Poland westwards (since Poles and Jews resident in eastern Poland could be repatriated to postwar Poland) could be cleared up and the wartime missing could generally be declared dead by courts (as was recommended to all states suggesting a five year gap). That had some embarrassing consequences for Germans who got spouses declared dead and then they returned in 1955 with the final POWs repatriated from the USSR. But no more than one would expect in any 'postwar' world; there are various stories about misinformed death notices in even US fiction and TV about WWII.

Being stuck behind the Iron Curtain or otherwise divided clearly happened for many on the margins. One of my students in recent years described how her grandparents' Polish family ended up divided between postwar Poland and postwar Soviet Ukraine; they lived right on the border near Przemysl. The 'Ukrainian' side of the family spoke Polish at home and were eventually reunited after 1990. I didn't quite get why they couldn't be repatriated, but the presence of minorities who were otherwise repatriated or expelled from border regions is a standard feature of every East European society where these happened, e.g. Germans remaining in Silesia, Hungarians in Romania, Poles in Ukraine, etc. They're just much smaller minorities than before 1939.

So the reunion of the Hollander brothers fits pretty well alongside many other parallel family histories.

If Zoltan had in fact perished in the war, his fate would not be any different to the 'missing million' among Wehrmacht casualties, i.e. he would not have been in full Soviet captivity in GUVPI (POW camp system) or recorded in that system, much as many Soviet POWs did not survive to be properly registered in WASt (Wehrmachtauskunftsstelle) and its related POW registration card indexes.
If Zoltan hadn't resurfaced, he would still have been missing presumed dead in 1992, whether he had died in a Soviet POW camp or been killed as described by the mistaken witness.

[Stubble]

That is nothing less than interesting history, but, ultimately it fails to address the original query, what are the odds Mr Check.

There are a lot of rabbit holes in that post and it will take me time to dive each one individually and to vet them.

At the end of the day, Mr Cole was shouted down by a man whose brother had been 'gassed at Auschwitz', only for that brother to end up being very much not gassed at Auschwitz and living in New York.

It is a curious set of circumstances.

[Nessie]

Some Holocaust survivors watch a popular TV show, that is about the Holocaust, and they recognise one of the people on the show, as someone who they thought was dead. Do we need a statistician to work out how that could happen?

[Stubble]

To determine the odds? Absolutely.

[Nazgul]

Some Holocaust survivors watch a popular TV show, that is about the Holocaust, and they recognise one of the people on the show, as someone who they thought was dead. Do we need a statistician to work out how that could happen?

Your level of thinking is really limited. What is the probability of this happening.

[Nessie]

To determine the odds? Absolutely.

Holocaust survivors tuning in to watch a popular TV show, that features the Holocaust, high probability.
TV show about the Holocaust, having a Holocaust survivor on it, very high probability.
That they know each other and are unexpectedly reunited, not unreasonable possibility.

[SanityCheck]

That is nothing less than interesting history, but, ultimately it fails to address the original query, what are the odds Mr Check.

There are a lot of rabbit holes in that post and it will take me time to dive each one individually and to vet them.

At the end of the day, Mr Cole was shouted down by a man whose brother had been 'gassed at Auschwitz', only for that brother to end up being very much not gassed at Auschwitz and living in New York.

It is a curious set of circumstances.

the gassed at Auschwitz part on the show was wrong - Zoltan Hollander was nowhere near Auschwitz. That's the tl;dr