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JewishHistoryעברית

Dorohoi pogrom

Date
1 July 1940Hebrew date: 25th of Sivan, 5700
Location
Dorohoi, RomaniaRomania
Then part of
Kingdom of Romania
Perpetrators
  • Romanian army units withdrawing from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (Military)
Killed (estimate)
53 – 200[1]Jews killed. The Wiesel Commission cites an official body count of 53 murdered Jews, beginning with ten Jewish soldiers shot at the cemetery. Pinkas ha-kehilot records an official document of 52 dead and a community figure of close to 200. YIVO gives approximately 200 killed, of whom 44 were identified.
Locality

0.91% – 3.7% of the Jewish population of Dorohoi, Romania[2]

Country

0.012% – 0.046% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Romania (c. 1940)[41]

Worldwide

0.00032% – 0.0012% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Category
Pogrom, Massacre
Confidence
DisputedOfficial Romanian counts are 52 (Pinkas) or 53 (Wiesel Commission). Community and later accounts give about 200 killed (YIVO; Pinkas community records). The Commission notes that none of the perpetrators was court-martialed.

Summary

On 1 July 1940, after the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and Herța, a Romanian army unit arriving in Dorohoi attacked Jews in the town. Soldiers shot Jewish soldiers and civilians, including women and children, at the Jewish cemetery and then in the streets. Investigators later found that the attackers had spread false claims that local Jews had fired on the army. None of the perpetrators was court-martialed.

Sources

  1. Executive Summary of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania (hosted by USHMM) (2004)
  2. Carol Iancu, Dorohoi. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  3. Theodor Lavi and Dora Litani, Pinkas Hakehillot Romania: Dorohoi. Yad Vashem / JewishGen (Pinkas ha-kehilot, Romanyah, vol. 1) (1969)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[4]c. 1939DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1939 is 16.5 million. The American Jewish Year Book 1948–49 compiled 16,633,675 at the end of 1939.
  • Kingdom of Romania: 438,226[41]c. 1940AJYB 1940–41 Moskowitz territorial-change note: after the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in June 1940, Romania's Jewish population fell from 758,226 (1930 census citation in that note) to 438,226. Does not yet subtract northern Transylvania ceded to Hungary (Second Vienna Award, August 1940).
  • Dorohoi, Romania: 5,396 – 5,820[2]Jews in Dorohoi. YIVO gives 5,820 in the 1930 census, ten years before the 1 July 1940 pogrom, and 5,396 in 1941, the year after the pogrom and before the November 1941 deportations from the town.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  19. Игорь Виленский, Оценка сокращения численности еврейского населения Российской Империи и СССР (1897–1926). Еврейская Старина (2024)
  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
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  24. H. S. Linfield, The Jews of the United States: Preliminary Figures for 1937 (Linfield) / Statistics of Jews. American Jewish Year Book 1939–40, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1939)
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  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
  32. Kirsten E. Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon between Coexistence and Conflict. Internet Archive full text
  33. Jews in Arab Countries. American Jewish Year Book excerpt, Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1978)
  34. Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, The Farhud. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  35. Joseph Rothschild (tabulated), Interwar East European Census Data. Lawrence University course materials
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  37. Davis Trietsch, Die Juden der Türkei. Länder und Völker der Türkei, Heft 8 (Leipzig) (1915)
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  40. Andrzej Żbikowski, Extermination of Polish Jews. The genesis and course of Operation Reinhard. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute)
  41. Yitzhak Arad, “Operation Reinhard” | Death Camps of Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka. Yad Vashem
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  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  52. German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
  60. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book 1981 (estimates for 1979), via Berman Jewish DataBank (1981)
  61. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2020. American Jewish Year Book 2020, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2022)
  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
  65. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the Uzbek SSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)