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JewishHistoryעברית

Minsk ghetto

Date
July 1941 – 1943
Location
MinskBelarus
Then part of
Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien
Perpetrators
  • Einsatzgruppe B (State)
  • SS (State)
Killed (estimate)
80,000 – 100,000[1]Jews of the Minsk ghetto murdered in shooting Aktions, deportations, and killings at Maly Trostenets. USHMM states that about 80,000 people, including Jews from nearby towns, were crowded into the ghetto, and that about 4,000 remaining Jews were killed at Maly Trostenets when the ghetto was destroyed in the fall of 1943. YIVO states that 85,000 ghetto inhabitants were killed in Aktions from November 1941 to July 1942. Yad Vashem states that some 100,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto were among those murdered in the Blagovshchina forest near Maly Trostenets.
Locality

80% – 130% of the Jewish population of Minsk[2]The killed estimate is higher than the population estimate.

Country

23% – 40% of the Jewish population of Reichskommissariat Ostland (c. 1941)[55]

Worldwide

0.48% – 0.61% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[5]

Category
Massacre, Genocide, Persecution
Confidence
DisputedUSHMM gives about 80,000 crowded into the ghetto and about 4,000 remaining Jews killed at Maly Trostenets in fall 1943, plus nearly 24,000 Reich deportees mostly killed on arrival. YIVO gives 85,000 ghetto inhabitants killed from November 1941 to July 1942. Yad Vashem gives some 100,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto among those murdered near Maly Trostenets, and 206,500 to half a million people of all categories in the Trostenets area. The 80,000–100,000 range used here is for Jews of the Minsk ghetto and does not include Yad Vashem's wider Trostenets-area total.

Summary

German forces occupied Minsk in June 1941. In late July they established a ghetto in the northwestern part of the city; USHMM gives about 80,000 inmates, including Jews from nearby towns. Einsatzgruppe B and German SS and police units carried out repeated mass-killing operations from August 1941. Between November 1941 and October 1942 the German authorities deported nearly 24,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Minsk; USHMM records that SS and police shot or gassed most of them on arrival at Maly Trostenets, about eight miles east of the city. YIVO states that 85,000 ghetto inhabitants were killed from November 1941 to July 1942. An underground in the ghetto organized escapes; USHMM and YIVO both record about 10,000 Jews fleeing to the forests. In the fall of 1943 the Germans destroyed the ghetto, deporting some Jews to Sobibor and killing about 4,000 remaining Jews at Maly Trostenets.

Sources

  1. Minsk. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Elissa Bemporad, Minsk. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  3. The Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Beginnings of Mass Murder. Yad Vashem
  4. Einsatzgruppen and other SS and Police Units in the Soviet Union. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia

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.
  • Reichskommissariat Ostland: 250,000 – 350,000[55]c. 1941Partial wartime Baltic figures only (not a full Ostland census). USHMM Lithuania: prewar about 160,000, swollen to about 250,000 by 1941 with Polish refugees; Latvia article: 94,000 in 1935; Losses Estonia 4,500 (1937). Combined Baltic range roughly 250,000–350,000 depending on whether the enlarged Lithuania figure is used. Still excludes Weissruthenien.
  • Minsk: 80,000 – 100,000[2]Jews in Minsk. YIVO gives 100,000 in the city when the German army arrived in June 1941, including refugees from Białystok and western Belorussia. USHMM gives about 80,000 people crowded into the ghetto in late July 1941, including Jews from nearby towns. The June figure is the city community before the ghetto; the July figure is the ghetto a month later.

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)
  14. Statistics of Jews. American Jewish Year Book 1917–1918, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1918)
  15. Statistics of Jews. American Jewish Year Book 1928–1929, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1929)
  16. Israel Bartal and Kenneth B. Moss, The Jews of the Russian Empire in the Late 19th Century. The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization
  17. Russia (Census Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906)
  18. Yannay Spitzer, A New Map of Jewish Communities in the Russian Empire (2012)
  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)
  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)
  25. Changes in the Jewish Population of the United States, 1949–1950. American Jewish Year Book 1951, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1951)
  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
  28. German Jewish Refugees, 1933–1939. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  29. Robin R. Mundill, The Jews under Edward I (PhD thesis). University of St Andrews
  30. Stéphane Mechoulan, The Expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306: a modern fiscal analysis. University of Toronto Department of Economics working paper (2004)
  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)
  38. Statistics of Jews (World Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1940–1941, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1940)
  39. Jewish Losses during the Holocaust: By Country. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  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
  42. The Holocaust in Hungary. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  43. Bulgaria. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  44. The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  45. The Holocaust in Slovakia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  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)
  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)