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JewishHistoryעברית

Zhytomyr pogroms of 1919–1920

Date
1919 – June 1920
Location
ZhytomyrUkraine
Then part of
Ukrainian People's Republic, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Perpetrators
  • Ukrainian army units (Military)
Killed (estimate)
400[1]Local Jews killed in pogroms in early 1919 and in June 1920, according to YIVO. The figure is a combined total for both outbreaks.
Locality

1% – 1.3% of the Jewish population of Zhytomyr[4]

Country

0.026% of the Jewish population of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (c. 1939)[10]

Worldwide

0.0029% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1917)[18]

Category
Pogrom
Confidence
Medium

Summary

During the Civil War, Jews in Zhytomyr were attacked in early 1919, when units of the Ukrainian army carried out organized military pogroms there and in Berdychiv, and again in June 1920. YIVO records that more than 400 local Jews were killed in those pogroms. Encyclopaedia Judaica names Zhytomyr among the towns struck in the spring 1919 wave as the Ukrainian army retreated before the Red Army. YIVO also notes that in April 1905 Jewish self-defence units in the town had already faced a pogrom.

Sources

  1. Benyamin Lukin, Zhytomyr. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  2. Modern Jewish History; Pogroms. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)
  3. Henry Abramson, Russian Civil War. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  4. Zhitomir. Encyclopaedia Judaica (via Encyclopedia.com)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,980,715[18]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).
  • Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic: 1,532,776[10]c. 1939Jewish nationality in the Ukrainian SSR in the 17 January 1939 All-Union census (5.0% of the republic).
  • Zhytomyr: 30,748 – 38,427[4]Jews in Zhytomyr in the 1897 imperial census (30,748, 46.6 percent) and in 1910 (38,427). The 1919–1920 pogroms are nine years after the 1910 count. YIVO says that in the early twentieth century the town's Jews numbered more than 30,000, about 47 percent, and that refugees crowded in during World War I; it does not give a 1919 head count.

Sources for population estimates

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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
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
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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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