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JewishHistoryעברית

Ninth Fort massacre

Date
28 October 1941 – 29 October 1941Hebrew date: 7th of Cheshvan, 5702 – 8th of Cheshvan, 5702
Location
Ninth Fort, Kaunas (Kovno)Lithuania
Then part of
Generalbezirk Litauen
Perpetrators
  • SS (State)
  • Lithuanian police auxiliaries (Militia / auxiliaries)
Killed (estimate)
9,200[1]Jews selected from the Kovno ghetto on 28 October 1941 and shot at the Ninth Fort the next day. Nearly 4,300 of the victims were children. USHMM and YIVO both give 9,200; Yad Vashem describes more than 9,000 led to the fort after the 28 October selection. The fort was also used for earlier and later shootings.
Locality

29% – 31% of the Jewish population of Ninth Fort, Kaunas (Kovno)[3]

Country

2.6% – 3.7% of the Jewish population of Reichskommissariat Ostland (c. 1941)[55]

Worldwide

0.055% – 0.056% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[5]

Category
Massacre
Confidence
High

Summary

On 28 October 1941 the remaining Jews of the Kovno ghetto were ordered onto Demokratų Square. German authorities selected more than 9,200 people, including nearly 4,300 children, held them overnight, and on 29 October German SS and police units and Lithuanian police auxiliaries shot them into pits at the Ninth Fort on the edge of the city. USHMM records earlier Ninth Fort shootings on 26 September and 4 October, and later executions of Jews arrested in the ghetto; Yad Vashem identifies this 28–29 October killing as the fatal turning point of ghetto life.

Sources

  1. The Holocaust in Kovno. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Massacre in Fort IX. 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.
  • 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.
  • Ninth Fort, Kaunas (Kovno): 30,000 – 32,000[3]Jews in Kaunas. YIVO gives 32,000 in 1939, 23 percent of the city, before the Soviet and German occupations. On 15 August 1941, about two and a half months before the Ninth Fort massacre, USHMM states that some 30,000 of Kovno's Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto; YIVO gives the same figure of 30,000 when the ghetto was sealed in August 1941.

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)
  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)
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  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
  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)
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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
  42. The Holocaust in Hungary. 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)
  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)