The smallest religious group is the Jewish community, which has about 11,000 members. This compares to 161,000 Jews living in Berlin in 1933. Most of the prewar Jewish population was devastated during the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s, when Nazi leaders organized the systematic destruction of Jewish people. - Encarta.msn.com
It is estimated that from the summer of 1941 to the summer of 1942, the Nazis shot more than a million Jews in front of mass graves.
Gassing commenced at those three camps in the period from March through July 1942. From 750,000 to 950,000 Jews were gassed at Treblinka; from 500,000 to 600,000 at Bełżec; and about 200,000 at Sobibór.
Two camps were built near Auschwitz (Oświęcim in Polish), a small town in the region of Upper Silesia. The smaller camp was known as Auschwitz I. The larger camp was called Auschwitz II and was also known as Birkenau. Most of the extermination occurred at the larger camp: About 1 million Jews died there as a result of gassing, starvation, or disease.
The Vichy government in unoccupied France sent about 70,000 foreign Jews and Jewish refugees to the concentration camps, but only a few of its own Jewish citizens.
When World War II ended in 1945, the entire Jewish secular and religious culture in Europe had been obliterated, and from 5.6 million to 5.9 million Jews had been exterminated. Some 1.5 million of the victims were children. - Encarts.msn.com
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 17659 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
ReligiousTolerance.org estimates the number today as 18 million. This does not count atheistic and agnostic ethnic Jews or those who have converted to other religions and does count people who are religiously but not ethnically Jewish.
Wikipedia gives two estimates (which agree well): 5-6 million Jews killed or 5.85 million Jews killed (it also suggests reasons these estimates may be low); and estimates that 35% of the world's Jewish population was killed (60% of Europe's). Combining those two numbers, we would get an estimate of 14-17 million Jews in the world before the Holocaust and 8-12 million afterwards.
Edit: DG was typing as I was, and I've just seen his numbers. It looks like there's good agreement between our sources on the pre- and post-holocaust numbers but not very good on the present population. Another Wikipedia article gives 13.2 million in 2002, in agreement with DG's source.
I agree that the main difference between our sources is the current population, and I think that my source is low on that. A growth of less than 2 million in the 52 years from 1948 until 2000 seems low. While the death of most of a generation of children would account for much of that, I don't think that it would limit the growth as much as my source indicates.
Posts: 17659 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I wonder if the discrepency in numbers comes from a difference in their definition of what makes a person a Jew. The religioustolerance site includes converts to Judaism. The Jewish Virtual Library doesn't specify how they define "Jewish." Perhaps it only includes people who are religiously and ethnically Jewish. This might not have made much difference in World War II, when I imagine it was extremely unusual for someone who wasn't Jewish to convert to Judaism, but might make a difference today. I wonder if it would make a difference of 5 million, however?
Posts: 2248 | Location: In between | Registered: 06-03-02
"The smallest religious group is the Jewish community, which has about 11,000 members. This compares to 161,000 Jews living in Berlin in 1933." Reading the second sentence at least suggests that the 11,000 is the current population of Jews in Berlin today. Googling "smallest religious group is the Jewish community, which has about 11,000 members" takes one to the article about Berlin in Encarta.msn.com.
Posts: 17659 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
at me for not looking at the link first.
