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JewishHistoryעברית

Zmievskaya Balka massacre

Date
11 August 1942 – 14 August 1942Hebrew date: 28th of Av, 5702 – 1st of Elul, 5702
Location
Zmievskaya Balka (Zmievka Ravine), Rostov-on-DonRussia
Then part of
German-occupied Soviet Union
Perpetrators
  • Sonderkommando 10a of Einsatzgruppe D (State)
  • Local auxiliaries (Militia / auxiliaries)
Killed (estimate)
2,000 – 18,000[1]Jews killed in the August 1942 massacre. Yad Vashem records about 2,000 killed (more than 10,000 according to Soviet sources). The World Jewish Congress, citing the Russian Jewish Congress, estimates 15,000–18,000 of about 27,000 victims at the site were Jewish.
Locality

4% – 67% of the Jewish population of Zmievskaya Balka (Zmievka Ravine), Rostov-on-Don[3]

Worldwide

0.012% – 0.11% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Category
Massacre, Genocide
Confidence
DisputedYad Vashem and the World Jewish Congress agree that Sonderkommando 10a murdered the Jews of occupied Rostov-on-Don at Zmievskaya Balka / Zmievka Ravine in August 1942. Yad Vashem gives about 2,000 killed in the 11–14 August massacre (more than 10,000 in Soviet figures) and 15,000–30,000 Jewish dead over the occupation. The WJC, citing the Russian Jewish Congress, gives 15,000–18,000 Jewish victims among about 27,000 people killed at the site on 11–12 August.

Summary

After German forces reoccupied Rostov-on-Don on 24 July 1942, Sonderkommando 10a of Einsatzgruppe D ordered a registration of the city's Jews. On 11 August 1942 Jews who assembled for a purported resettlement were taken by truck northwest of the city and shot or killed in gas vans. Yad Vashem dates the main massacre to 11–14 August and attributes it to Sonderkommando 10a with local auxiliaries. The World Jewish Congress describes Zmievskaya Balka as the largest Holocaust killing site on the territory of present-day Russia and dates the march and shootings to 11–12 August 1942. Killings of Jews who had hidden continued at the ravine after the August massacre; Soviet reports cited by Yad Vashem give 15,000 to about 30,000 Jewish dead in Rostov over the whole occupation.

Sources

  1. Rostov na Donu. Yad Vashem, Untold Stories
  2. Russian Jewish Congress marks 75 years since largest Holocaust massacre in Russia. World Jewish Congress (2017)
  3. Холокост в Ростовской области: уничтожение евреев на Нижнем Дону и в Восточном Приазовье. Don State Public Library

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.
  • Zmievskaya Balka (Zmievka Ravine), Rostov-on-Don: 27,039 – 50,000[3]Jews in Rostov-on-Don. The Don State Public Library, citing the 1939 Soviet census, gives 27,039 Jews in the city, three years before the massacre. It quotes a German command estimate of up to 50,000 Jews in the city by November 1941, after refugees arrived, and says the number had probably fallen to 30,000-35,000 by August 1942, the month of the massacre. A summer 1941 figure of possibly 50,000-60,000 on the same page is not used: that paragraph is adding up the oblast, not the city. The oblast total of 33,024 Jews in 1939 is also not used.

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
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  17. Russia (Census Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906)
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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)
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  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
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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)
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  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
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
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  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
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