Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Jews Killed During the Holocaust by Country

During the Holocaust, the  Nazis murdered an estimated six million Jews. These were Jews from across Europe who spoke different languages and had different cultures. Some of them were wealthy and some of them were poor. Some were assimilated and some were Orthodox. What they did have in common was that all of them had at least one Jewish grandparent, which was how the Nazis defined who was Jewish. The Nazis forced Jews out of their homes, crowded them into ghettos, and then deported them to either a concentration or a death camp. Most died of starvation, disease, overwork, shooting, or gas. After death, their bodies  were either dumped into a mass grave or cremated.   Never in the history of the world had there been such a large-scale, systematic genocide as that conducted by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Estimating the Holocaust Murders   Because of the vast numbers of Jews murdered, no one is absolutely sure how many died in each camp, but there are good estimates of deaths by the camp. The same is true about estimates per country.   There is no single wartime document that estimates the number of Jewish deaths during the Holocaust. Between 1942 and 1943, the Nazis did attempt to compile statistics for their final solution. One copy of that record  was captured by the U.S. Army in 1945. By late 1943, however, the German and Axis authorities recognized they were losing the war and had no time to continue counting. Instead, they ramped up the number of deaths and began destroying existing records and evidence of previous mass murders. Total estimates used today are based on postwar studies and research of the existing data. New Estimates A study published in 2013 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, based on a painstaking evaluation of available documents and investigation of 42,000 camps and ghettos, identified that the total number of deaths was almost double the numbers generated shortly after the war.   In addition to at least 7 million Jews killed, the Axis killed around 5.7 million non-Jewish Soviet citizens, around 3 million non-Jewish Soviet prisoners of war, 300,000 Serb citizens, around 250,000 people with disabilities living in institutions, and around 300,000 Roma (Gypsies). Jehovahs Witnesses, homosexuals,  and German political opponents account for at least another 100,000 people.  Estimates of the total number of people who died in the Holocaust now range between 15 and 20 million.   Jews Killed in the Holocaust  by Country The following chart shows the estimated number of Jews killed during the Holocaust by country. Notice that Poland by far lost the largest number (three million), with Russia having lost the second most (one million). The third highest losses were from Hungary (550,000). Notice also that despite the smaller numbers in Slovakia and Greece, for example, they still lost an estimated 80 and 87 percent, respectively, of their pre-war Jewish populations. The totals for all countries show that an estimated 58 percent of all Jews in Europe were killed during the Holocaust. The following  figures are estimates  based on census reports, captured German and Axis archived records, and postwar investigations. These are the numbers according to the latest investigations by ​The U.S. Museum of the Holocaust.    Country Pre-war Jewish Population Estimated Murdered Albania 200 unknown Austria 185,000 65,500 Belgium 90,000 25,000 Bulgaria 50,000 unknown Czechoslovakia 709,000 590,000 Denmark 7,500 80 Estonia 4,500 1,000 France 315,000 74,000 Germany 237,000 165,000 Greece 72,000 69,000 Hungary 825,000 560,000 Italy 100,000 8,000 Latvia 93,500 70,000 Lithuania 153,000 130,000 Luxembourg 4,000 1,200 Netherlands 140,000 100,000 Norway 1,800 760 Poland 3,350,000 3,000,000 Romania 1,070,000 480,000 Soviet Union 3,030,000 1,340,000 Yugoslavia 203,500 164,500 Total: 10,641,800 6,844,040 Sources Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945. Paperback, Reissue edition, Bantam, March 1, 1986. Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution. Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, February 4, 2019, Washington, DC. Edelheit, Abraham. History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary. 1st Edition, Kindle Edition, Routledge, October 9, 2018. Gutman, Israel (editor). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Hardcover, 1st edition, Macmillan Pub. Co, 1990. Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of European Jews. Student One Volume Edition, Paperback, 1st Ed. edition, Holmes Meier, September 1, 1985. Jewish Losses During the Holocaust: By Country. Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, March 27, 2019, Washington, DC. Megargee, Geoffrey (editor). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume I: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and ... Administration Main Office. Elie Wiesel (Foreward), Kindle Edition, Indiana University Press, May 22, 2009.

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