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JewishHistoryעברית

Kielce pogrom of 1918

Date
11 November 1918 – 12 November 1918Hebrew date: 7th of Kislev, 5679 – 8th of Kislev, 5679
Location
KielcePoland
Then part of
Second Polish Republic
Perpetrators
  • Polish right-wing activists (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
4[3]Jews killed on 11-12 November 1918. Dominik Flisiak names Chaim Jeger, Szulim Owsiany, Jojne Cytryn and Jojne Janas, and rejects a Nowy Dziennik report of seven dead. YIVO says several Jews were maimed or killed and gives no number.
Locality

0.026% – 0.065% of the Jewish population of Kielce[1]

Country

0.00013% of the Jewish population of Second Polish Republic (c. 1931)[38]

Worldwide

0.000029% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1917)[17]

Category
Pogrom
Confidence
Medium

Summary

On 11-12 November 1918, as Poland declared independence, Jews in Kielce held a rally to demand political and cultural autonomy. In response, Polish right-wing activists destroyed many Jewish-owned shops and houses. Dominik Flisiak states that four Jews were killed and names them. YIVO records that several Jews were maimed or killed and does not give a number.

Sources

  1. Wacław Wierzbieniec, Kielce. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  2. History of the Jewish community in Kielce. Virtual Shtetl, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
  3. Dominik Flisiak, Pogrom ludności żydowskiej w Kielcach z 11-12 listopada 1918 roku. Facta Simonidis (2017)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,980,715[17]c. 1917American Jewish Year Book 1917–18 revised world total of 13,980,715 (Europe 9,986,447; America 3,094,309; Asia 499,679; Africa 380,865; Australia 19,415).
  • Second Polish Republic: 3,113,900 – 3,113,933[38]c. 1931Rothschild's tabulation (via Lawrence University) gives 3,113,900 Polish citizens declaring Judaism in the 9 December 1931 census (9.8%). IPN Polish-Jewish Studies rounds the same census growth to 3,113,900. Yiddish+Hebrew mother-tongue was lower (2,732,584). Also: Polish census of 1931, as compiled in the American Jewish Year Book 1940–41 Table X (3,113,900). Prewar Second Republic borders.
  • Kielce: 6,137 – 15,530[1]Jews in Kielce in the 1897 imperial census (6,137) and the 1921 Polish census (15,530). The November 1918 pogrom falls between those counts, twenty-one years after the first and three years before the second.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
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  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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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
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
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  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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