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JewishHistoryעברית

Kaunas pogroms

Date
23 June 1941 – 7 July 1941Hebrew date: 28th of Sivan, 5701 – 12th of Tamuz, 5701
Location
Kaunas (Kovno)Lithuania
Then part of
German-occupied Lithuania
Perpetrators
  • Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and other Lithuanian "partisans" (Militia / auxiliaries)
  • Einsatzgruppe A (State)
  • Lithuanian police guards (Militia / auxiliaries)
Killed (estimate)
1,000 – 5,850[1]Jews killed in Kaunas in the first two weeks of the German occupation. YIVO states that deaths in the 24 June attacks on Slobodka and other parts of the city exceeded 1,000, perhaps by a large margin. USHMM records more than 800 Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Slobodka pogrom of 25–26 June, more than 50 Jewish men killed at the Lietūkis garage on 27 June, and about 5,000 Jewish men shot at the Seventh Fort between 30 June and 7 July.
Locality

3.1% – 20% of the Jewish population of Kaunas (Kovno)[3]

Worldwide

0.006% – 0.035% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[5]

Category
Pogrom, Massacre
Confidence
DisputedYIVO gives more than 1,000 dead in the 24 June city attacks and does not itemize the Seventh Fort. USHMM separates Slobodka (more than 800), Lietūkis (more than 50) and the Seventh Fort (about 5,000 men). The lower figure is the YIVO floor for the first pogroms; the higher figure adds USHMM's Seventh Fort total.

Summary

After the Soviet retreat and the German capture of Kaunas (Kovno) on 24 June 1941, Lithuanian Activist Front members and other armed Lithuanians attacked Jews in the city. On 25–26 June they murdered more than 800 Jewish residents of the old Jewish quarter of Slobodka (Vilijampolė); on 27 June Lithuanian perpetrators, and possibly some Germans, beat more than 50 Jewish men to death in the Lietūkis garage courtyard before a crowd. Einsatzgruppe A then organized further killings: about 5,000 Jewish men were shot at the Seventh Fort between 30 June and 7 July. Surviving Jews were later forced into a ghetto in Slobodka.

Sources

  1. The Holocaust in Kovno. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Aftermath of a massacre at Lietukis Garage in Kovno. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  3. Dov Levin, Kaunas. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  4. Murder of the Jews of the Baltic States. Yad Vashem

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[5]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.
  • Kaunas (Kovno): 30,000 – 32,000[3]Jews in Kaunas. YIVO gives 32,000 in 1939, before the Soviet annexation of June 1940 and the German capture of the city on 24 June 1941. YIVO and USHMM both give about 30,000 confined in the ghetto sealed in August 1941, after these June–July pogroms and after thousands tried to flee east.

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)
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  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)
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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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  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
  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)
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  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)
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  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)
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