In 1939, historians estimate that there were roughly 9.5–9.7 million Jews living in Europe , out of a world Jewish population of about 16.6 million.

Key figures

  • Around 9.5 million Jews are commonly cited as living in Europe on the eve of the Second World War, making up well over half of the global Jewish population at the time.
  • Scholarly demographic reconstructions put the pre‑war European Jewish population at approximately 9.74 million in 1939.
  • By comparison, the global Jewish population in 1939 is estimated at about 16.6 million , highlighting how central Europe was to Jewish life before the Holocaust.

Context in the late 1930s

  • Earlier in the decade, in 1933, the number of Jews in Europe is also estimated at about 9.5 million , or around 1.7% of Europe’s total population , showing that overall numbers remained in the same range up to 1939.
  • These European communities represented more than 60% of the world’s Jews on the eve of the Nazi era, concentrated especially in Eastern and Central Europe (such as Poland and the European parts of the Soviet Union).

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