Good points, Jack; & good questions. But I still think my main point holds. Think of the logistics of running those long long trains of cattle trucks all the way from Hungary to POLAND; of staffing all those camps with able-bodied military-age young men & women. NOT EVEN AS IF THEY ONLY USED LOCAL EXTERMINATION CAMPS FOR LOCAL POPULATIONS [like Treblinka for Warsaw] AFTER ABOUT 1941: TRAINS RAN NORTH TO AUSCHWITZ FROM EVERYWHERE [sorry, not shouting: stuck shiftlock!]. I take the point re bloodlust, as I say; but it was surely, from any objective pov, a terrible waste of their resources which should [looking at it from their side] have been dedicated to their war effort?

~Michael~