Research & Analysis

Alternate Names: 271,000; 271

271k is an antisemitic shorthand reference to a false claim made by Holocaust deniers that only around 271,000 Jews died during the Holocaust rather than the consensus view, based on exhaustive research, that the Nazis killed approximately six million Jews in their extermination campaign. 

The number 271,000 stems from a scanned image of part of a 1979 document often shared by Holocaust deniers. The document originated from what is today known as the Arolsen Archives, based in Germany, one of the largest repositories of records related to victims of Nazi persecution.  Often attributed to the Red Cross, which administered the Archives for many years, the document provided then-current statistics on the number of victims at 13 concentration camps that the repository had, upon request, confirmed as dead and issued death certificates for (often needed by next of kin to obtain insurance benefits, pensions, etc.). This number was slightly over 271,000 (Holocaust deniers may also circulate a similar document from 1984 with somewhat higher numbers). 

As the Arolsen Archives and others have explained, such documents did not list the total number of Jewish victims at these 13 locations, nor did they include victims from the many other concentration camps, death camps, and slave labor camps operated by the Nazi regime, nor figures for the vast numbers of victims who died in ghettoes or were shot outside of camps, especially in the Soviet Union.  Holocaust deniers, however, claim that the 271,000 figure represents the totality of Jews who perished under the Nazi regime; many deniers further assert that most of these victims were not killed by the Nazis but rather died of malnutrition or diseases like typhus because of the chaos and dislocation caused by the Allied strategic bombing of Germany in the final year of the war.  In other words, they falsely claim that few Jews died during World War II and that most of the deaths that did occur were the fault of the Allies, not the Nazis. 

The 271,000 claim is linked to an older false assertion originating with the West German far right in the 1950s that the Red Cross had ostensibly said Jewish victims of the Nazis had not numbered more than 300,000. The Red Cross has repeatedly refuted that fabricated claim. Holocaust deniers say that Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel uncovered the “271,000” document in the 1980s and used it (unsuccessfully) to defend himself in Canadian trials over his reprinting of a Holocaust denial pamphlet from Great Britain in the 1970s that repeated the older 300,000 claim. The image of the document was later used by other Holocaust deniers, eventually making its way to the internet, where it spread still further.  However, it was not until around 2024 that 271k and 271,000 emerged on social media as popular shorthand references to the false claim and as antisemitic references, generally.

Antisemites often use 271k in response to online posts about the Holocaust or the six million Jews who perished in it. Often it appears in language such as “271k at best,” “271k tops, mostly from typhus” or “271k is the best we can do.”  It also frequently appears in Holocaust denial memes designed to suggest that the mass murder of six million Jews in such a short time was impossible. One such meme features a worker in a pizza parlor saying “Six million pizzas?  The most we can make is 271k.”  Variations replace pizzas with other things, such as tea: “Six million cups in five years? Sorry, the most I can make is 271k.” Other memes feature images from the television show Pawn Stars, depicting pawn shop workers from the show saying, “Best I can do is 271,301.”  Some people use it to suggest more Jews should be killed, employing phrases such as “271k is not enough.”  Since its introduction, use of 271k as antisemitic shorthand has grown rapidly on social media.

As numbers, 271, 271k and 271,000 may have very different meanings in other contexts; they should always be evaluated carefully in the specific context in which they appear. 

Alternate Names: Terrorgram Collective, Terrorgram Network

Terrorgram emerged in the late 2010s as a loose international network of white supremacist individuals and groups, typically neo-Nazi in nature, seeking to promote violent acts in the service of white supremacist accelerationism. White supremacist accelerationism is a school of thought within the white supremacist movement that argues the only way to create a desired whites-only or white-dominated society is to destabilize and destroy current society through violence and disruption, then build a new society from its ashes. Terrorgram—taking its name from the internet platform Telegram, on which it conducted most of its activities—dedicated itself to accelerationist propaganda, glorifying white supremacist mass killers like Dylann Roof and Brenton Tarrant as “saints” and urging others to follow in their footsteps to commit terrorist attacks and hate crimes against minorities and other targets, such as infrastructure.  Their propaganda efforts included producing several lengthy and distinctively illustrated manuals with motivational screeds as well as ostensibly practical advice for would-be terrorists.

In 2024, the U.S. designated Terrorgram as Specially Designated Global Terrorists; later that year, the FBI arrested two key American Terrorgram leaders on a number of charges.  The arrests precipitated Terrorgram’s collapse as the network’s remaining members sought to avoid infiltration or identification.  However, Terrorgram’s digital publications are still in circulation among accelerationists, meaning that people can still encounter their symbols. Terrorgram logos imitate a Waffen SS divisional shield design, though with their own distinct symbology. One simply features a paper airplane, while a different logo depicts a swastika, an infinity symbol, and a ski mask. A third version features the swastika and ski mask along with part of a Sonnenrad symbol. 

Alternate Names: NLYS

Never Lose Your Smile is a design/meme consisting of the phrase “Never Lose Your Smile” accompanied by the Totenkopf skull image or, more commonly, merely the bottom half of that skull, which obscures its true nature and thus allows the image to pass unnoticed as a white supremacist symbol. The deceptive nature of this design has also allowed extremists to sell clothing, patches, and other items featuring the image on major internet platforms without triggering moderation.

Some Never Lose Your Smile images may also contain the colors or designs of national flags. Other variations use Totenkopf imagery with a slightly different phrase, such as “Never Lose Your Love” or “Never Lose Your Hope.”

Some white supremacists have also used the phrase alone, without the skull, in circumstances such as screen names.  However, use of the phrase by itself without a clear white supremacist context should not be taken for granted as hate-related.

White supremacists likely borrowed this concept from older, non-extremist designs that combined the phrase with non-Totenkopf skull images. Use of the “Never Lose Your Smile” slogan in combination with generic skulls or other non-white supremacist images, such as generic clowns, should not be considered hate related.