East Europe’s Jewish Population Before and After World War II

The first map displays the Jewish population in Eastern Europe before World War II. In 1933, 60% of all Jews in the world lived in Europe. Of those 9.5 million, approximately 7.6 million lived in East European countries. The biggest populations were in Poland (3 million Jews) and the Soviet Union (about 2.5 million Jews).

The second map shows the Jewish population in Eastern Europe in 1950, after the war. 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. Many of those who survived left afterwards. They were determined to start a new life in a different country. By 1950, only a third of the world’s Jewish population lived in Europe (about 3.5 million people). Approximately 2.5 million of those people lived in East European countries. The majority lived in the Soviet Union, which was the largest remaining Jewish population (2 million people). Poland’s Jewish population decreased from 3 million to just 45,000.