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JewishHistoryעברית

Iași pogrom

Date
28 June 1941 – 30 June 1941Hebrew date: 3rd of Tamuz, 5701 – 5th of Tamuz, 5701
Location
Iași, RomaniaRomania
Then part of
Kingdom of Romania
Perpetrators
  • Romanian army, police and gendarmes (Military)
  • German soldiers stationed in Iași (Military)
  • Romanian civilians (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
4,000 – 14,850[1]Jews killed in the city and on the "death trains." USHMM states that at least 4,000 were murdered in Iași and that many more died of starvation or dehydration on trains to Călărași and Podu Iloaiei; another USHMM article gives at least 8,000 killed. Yad Vashem cites a 2 July 1941 police report of more than 8,000 killed in the city and on the trains, and a 1948 Romanian war-crimes court figure of more than 10,000. YIVO gives almost 14,000 victims including 2,205 who died on the trains. The Wiesel Commission cites an SSI figure of 13,266 and a Jewish community census of 14,850.
Locality

11% – 42% of the Jewish population of Iași, Romania[4]

Country

0.91% – 3.4% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Romania (c. 1940)[43]

Worldwide

0.024% – 0.09% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[6]

Category
Pogrom, Massacre
Confidence
DisputedUSHMM gives at least 4,000 killed in the city, and separately at least 8,000. Yad Vashem reports more than 8,000 (police, 2 July 1941) and more than 10,000 (1948 court). YIVO gives almost 14,000 including the trains. The Wiesel Commission reports SSI 13,266 and a community census of 14,850. The lower figure covers killings in the city; the higher figures include the death trains.

Summary

On the evening of 28 June 1941, after Romania joined the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Romanian soldiers, police and civilians, with German soldiers also taking part, attacked Jews in Iași, the capital of Moldavia. Thousands were killed in their homes, in the streets and in the courtyard of police headquarters. About 4,300 survivors and other Jews rounded up in the city were packed into sealed freight cars; thousands more died of thirst and suffocation on trains sent toward Călărași and Podu Iloaiei.

Sources

  1. Romania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Pogroms. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  3. Roundup of Jews during a Pogrom in Iasi, Romania, June 1941. Yad Vashem
  4. Lucian-Zeev Herşcovici, Iaşi. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  5. Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania (hosted by USHMM) (2004)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[6]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[43]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).
  • Iași, Romania: 35,465[4]Jews in Iași in the 1930 census (34.4 percent of the town), eleven years before the June 1941 pogrom. YIVO's next town figure is 32,369 in 1942, after the pogrom, and is not included in this range. No 1941 pre-pogrom city total was stated on the pages opened.

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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  17. Russia (Census Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906)
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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)
  22. Population of Israel/Palestine by Religion (1553–Present). Jewish Virtual Library (citing CBS, British Mandate publications, Bachi and others)
  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
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  26. American Jewry, 1970 (NJPS 1971 article). American Jewish Year Book, via Berman Jewish DataBank
  27. Germany: Jewish Population in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  29. Robin R. Mundill, The Jews under Edward I (PhD thesis). University of St Andrews
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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
  36. Mark Tolts, Population since World War I. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  37. Davis Trietsch, Die Juden der Türkei. Länder und Völker der Türkei, Heft 8 (Leipzig) (1915)
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  41. Yitzhak Arad, “Operation Reinhard” | Death Camps of Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka. Yad Vashem
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  43. Bulgaria. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  46. France. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  47. Belgium. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  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)
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  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)