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JewishHistoryעברית

Deportation of the Jews of Rhodes

Date
20 July 1944Hebrew date: 29th of Tamuz, 5704
Location
Rhodes, German-occupied DodecaneseGreece
Then part of
German occupation of the former Italian Dodecanese
Perpetrators
  • German occupation authorities (State)
Killed (estimate)
1,641 – 2,200[4]Jews deported from Rhodes who did not survive, or (at the high end) rounded up. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica) gives 1,820 deported on 24 July 1944 and 179 survivors (1,641 dead). A USHMM booklet states that close to 2,000 Jews lived on Rhodes in 1944, that 50 Turkish citizens were protected, that the rest were deported on 20 July, that 23 died on the voyage, and that only 151 from Rhodes survived. USHMM's Greece article gives almost 2,000 deported. Yad Vashem gives 2,200 rounded up.
Locality

82% – 120% of the Jewish population of Rhodes, German-occupied Dodecanese[1]The killed estimate is higher than the population estimate.

Worldwide

0.015% – 0.02% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1945)[5]

Expelled (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Category
Expulsion, Genocide, Massacre
Confidence
DisputedUSHMM gives close to 2,000 residents and a 20 July 1944 deportation, with 151 Rhodes survivors. Yad Vashem gives 2,200 rounded up. Encyclopaedia Judaica via Jewish Virtual Library gives 1,820 deported on 24 July and 179 survivors. The low end (1,641) is that 1,820 minus 179; the high end is Yad Vashem's 2,200 rounded up.

Summary

Rhodes had been under Italy since 1912. After Germany occupied the island in September 1943, the Jews remaining there were deported in July 1944, together with Jews from neighbouring Kos, by boat to the Greek mainland and then by train from the Haidary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau. USHMM calls this the last German deportation from Greece. Most of the deportees were murdered; only a few hundred survived.

Sources

  1. The Holocaust in Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  2. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  3. Yael Weinstock Mashbaum, Sephardic Jews in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece. Yad Vashem
  4. Rhodes, Greece. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 11,000,000[5]c. 1945DellaPergola's core estimate for 1 May 1945, matching the 11 million figure he and the 1948–49 Year Book use for the immediate postwar world total.
  • Rhodes, German-occupied Dodecanese: 1,820 – 2,000[1]Jews living on Rhodes in 1944, the year of the deportation. A USHMM booklet states that close to 2,000 Jews lived on the island, of whom 50 Turkish citizens were protected. Encyclopaedia Judaica, via the Jewish Virtual Library, states that on 24 July 1944 the Germans deported all of the 1,820 Jews left on the island.

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
  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)
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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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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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  41. Yitzhak Arad, “Operation Reinhard” | Death Camps of Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka. Yad Vashem
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
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