600,000) and then multiplies it by a number to express how serious and awful a 'shoah' the event is (from what I've read usually 1 to 10 given that jewish audiences became less accepting of insane figures at least as early as the 19th century). Thus 600,000 x 10 = 6,000,000 (i.e a truly biblical shoah).

So, the official Red Cross documented 291,000 figure is just under 0.5 shoah?

That might be the worst "shoah" on record. :-/