Skip to content
JewishHistoryעברית

Deportation of Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina and Dorohoi to Transnistria

Date
September 1941 – October 1942
Location
Bessarabia, Bukovina, the Dorohoi district, and TransnistriaRomania, Moldova, Ukraine
Then part of
Kingdom of Romania, Transnistria Governorate
Perpetrators
  • Ion Antonescu and the Romanian government (State)
  • Romanian army and gendarmerie (Military)
Killed (estimate)
88,294 – 120,000[2]Deported Romanian Jews who died as a result of the expulsions to Transnistria. Encyclopaedia Judaica gives 88,294 deaths out of 146,555 people deported. The International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania gives 105,000–120,000. Indigenous Jews killed in Transnistria are not included in this range.
Country

20% – 27% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Romania (c. 1940)[41]

Worldwide

0.53% – 0.73% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Expelled (estimate)
146,555 – 200,000[2]146,555 deported in all, after a first wave of 118,847 by mid-November 1941 (source 2). USHMM gives as many as 200,000 (source 1). The first wave is included in 146,555 and is not a separate lower bound.
Country

33% – 46% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of Romania (c. 1940)[41]

Worldwide

0.88% – 1.2% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Category
Expulsion, Genocide
Confidence
DisputedEncyclopaedia Judaica gives 88,294 deaths out of 146,555 people deported, and states that the Romanian Ministry of the Interior reported in December 1943 that 50,741 deportees had survived. The International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania gives 105,000–120,000 deaths among deported Romanian Jews. USHMM gives as many as 200,000 Jews deported, higher than the 146,555 in Encyclopaedia Judaica. The commission's separate figure of 115,000–180,000 indigenous Jews killed in Transnistria, especially in Odessa and the counties of Golta and Berezovka, is not included here.

Summary

From the middle of September 1941, Romanian authorities deported the surviving Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina, except for some 20,000 Jews of Chernovtsy, and part of the Jewish population of the Dorohoi district, across the Dniester into Transnistria, the Romanian occupation zone between the Dniester and the Southern Bug. Encyclopaedia Judaica gives 118,847 people in this first wave by mid-November 1941, further deportations in the summer of 1942, including 4,200 Jews from Chernovtsy and 450 from Dorohoi, and a total of 146,555 deported, of whom 88,294 died. The International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania gives 105,000–120,000 deaths among deported Romanian Jews, separate from 115,000–180,000 indigenous Jews killed in Transnistria. USHMM states that Romanian authorities deported as many as 200,000 Jews from other parts of the country, including Bukovina and Bessarabia, and that deportations from Bessarabia and Bukovina stopped in October 1942.

Sources

  1. Transnistria Governorate. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. Theodor Lavi, Transnistria. Encyclopaedia Judaica, via Jewish Virtual Library
  3. Findings and Recommendations (Historical Findings). International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[4]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.
  • Kingdom of Romania: 438,226[41]c. 1940AJYB 1940–41 Moskowitz territorial-change note: after the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in June 1940, Romania's Jewish population fell from 758,226 (1930 census citation in that note) to 438,226. Does not yet subtract northern Transylvania ceded to Hungary (Second Vienna Award, August 1940).

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)