History of the Jews during World War II
Part of Auschwitz , May 1944 |
The history of the Jews during World War II is almost synonymous with the
Leading to World War II, nearly all Jewish businesses in Nazi Germany had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been forced to sell out to the Nazi German government as part of the "
History
Country | Estimated Pre-War Jewish population |
Estimated killed |
Percent killed |
---|---|---|---|
Poland | 3,400,000 | 3,000,000 | 88.25% |
Soviet Union (excl. Baltic states) | 3,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 33.3% |
Romania | 757,000 | 287,000 | 38% |
Hungary | 445,000 | 270,000 | 60.7% |
Czechoslovakia | 357,000 | 260,000 | 73% |
Germany | 500,000 | 165,000 | 33% |
Lithuania | 150,000 | 145,000 | 96.7% |
Netherlands | 140,000 | 102,000 | 72.9% |
France | 300,000 | 76,000 | 25.33% |
Latvia | 93,500 | 70,000 | 74.9% |
Austria | 206,000 | 65,000 | 31.5% |
Yugoslavia | 68,500 | 60,000 | 87.6% |
Greece | 70,000 | 58,800 | 84% |
Belgium | 90,000 | 25,000 | 27.8% |
Italy | 46,000 | 7,500 | 16.3% |
Luxembourg | 3,600 | 1,200 | 33.3% |
Estonia | 4,300 | 1,000 | 23% |
Norway | 1,800 | 758 | 42.1% |
Bulgaria | 48,400 | 142 | 0.3% |
Denmark | 7,800 | 116 | 1.49% |
Albania | 200 | 100 | 50% |
Finland | 2,200 | 7 | 0.32% |
Total | 9,689,500 | 5,594,623 | 57.74% |
Before the onset of war, the first
In Lithuania, local militant groups engaged in anti-Jewish pogroms on July 25 and 26, 1941 around Kaunas even before the Nazi forces arrived, killing about 3,800 Jews and burning synagogues and Jewish shops.[7] Perhaps the deadliest of these Holocaust-era pogroms was the Iași pogrom in Romania, in which as many as 14,000 Jews were killed by Romanian citizens, police, and military officials.
By December 1941,
Even as the German Nazi war machine faltered in the last years of the war, precious military resources such as fuel, transport, munitions, soldiers, and industrial resources were still being heavily diverted away from the war and towards the death camps. By the end of the war, more than half of Jewish population of Europe had been murdered in the
Hungary and Albania lost around half of their Jewish populations, the Soviet Union, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg lost over one third of its Jews, Belgium and France each saw around a quarter of their Jewish populations murdered.[2]
During the war, Spain became an unlikely haven for several thousand Jews. They were mainly from Western Europe, fleeing deportation to concentration camps from occupied France, but also Sephardic Jews from Eastern Europe, especially in Hungary. Trudy Alexy[who?] refers to the "absurdity" and "paradox of refugees fleeing the Nazis' Final Solution to seek asylum in a country where no Jews had been allowed to live openly as Jews for over four centuries."[9]
Jews in the Allied Forces
Approximately 1.5 million Jews served in the regular Allied militaries during World War II.[10]
Approximately 550,000 American Jews served in the various branches of the United States Armed Forces. Roughly 52,000 received U.S. military awards.[11] Another 500,000 served in the Red Army, and more than 160,000 earned citations, with over 150 receiving the Hero of the Soviet Union award. Some 100,000 Jews served in the Polish Army during the German invasion, and thousands served in the Free Polish Forces, including about 10,000 in Anders' Army. Over 60,000 Jews served in the British Armed Forces (excluding dominion or colonial personnel), including 14,000 in the Royal Air Force and 15,000 in the Royal Navy. About 30,000 Jews from Mandatory Palestine also served in the British military, including 5,500 who served in the Jewish Brigade, a military formation composed of Jewish soldiers from Palestine led by British-Jewish officers.[12][13][14] About 17,000 Canadian Jews served in the Canadian Armed Forces.[15]
See also
- History of the Jews in Europe
- Jews escaping from German-occupied Europe to the United Kingdom
- Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe
- Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe
- Jewish settlement in the Japanese Empire
- Timeline of the Holocaust
References
- ^ "GERMAN JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST". Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- ^ ISBN 0874412366.
- ^ "Unter der NS-Herrschaft ermordete Juden nach Land." / "Jews by country murdered under Nazi rule." Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung / Federal Agency for Civic Education (Germany), April 29th 2018
- ^ Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. Harper Collins, 2006, p. 30.
- ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
- ^ USHMM. "Lwów". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ISBN 0-253-33359-8.
- ISBN 0300093004.
- ISBN 0-671-77816-1. p. 74.
- ^ "Jewish Soldiers in the Allied Armies". Yad Vashem.
- ^ Hartwick, Sharon (December 24, 2003) [Dec 24–30]. "Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War". The Villager. 73 (34). Archived from the original on October 7, 2016. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ^ The Hebrew Impact on Western Civilization, Dagobert D. Runes
- ^ Noah Klieger (11 September 2006), Army was Polish, soldiers were Jews. Exhibition set to open next week salutes anonymous Jewish fighters who fought with Poland’s armies.
- ^ Yad Vashem, The Holocaust: Combat and Resistance. Jewish Soldiers in the Allied Armies.
- ^ Jewish Canadian service in the Second World War
External links
- About the Holocaust A thematic and chronological narrative of the Holocaust with related video, photos, documents and more from Yad Vashem
- Murav, Harriet; Estraikh, Gennady, eds. (2014). Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (PDF). Boston: JSTOR j.ctt1zxsjkw.