Which European countries lost the largest proportions of their Jewish populations during the Holocaust?

1. The broad picture: two out of three European Jews were murdered

Historians and major institutions agree the Holocaust destroyed roughly six million Jews, amounting to about two‑thirds of the Jewish population living in Europe before World War II; European Jewish numbers fell from about 9–9.5 million on the eve of the war to roughly 3.8–4 million in 1945 ^{[1] [2] [3]}. This continental collapse was not uniform: Western Europe lost smaller absolute and often smaller proportional shares compared with the catastrophic losses in Eastern Europe ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Eastern Europe: the devastation was demographic annihilation

Sources emphasize that Eastern European Jewish communities were “particularly hard hit,” with many areas losing the vast majority of their Jews. Estimates in the reporting place some Eastern European losses in the 80–90% range; one synthesis notes the Eastern European Jewish population was reduced by about 90% in places, and scholarly demographic reconstructions show prewar Soviet‑European territories alone held millions of Jews who were either killed or later emigrated ^{[4] [1] [2]}. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s country breakdowns document extremely high death tolls in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and other eastern areas ^[3].

3. Poland: largest Jewish community, largest absolute and huge proportional losses

Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe before the war and therefore recorded the largest absolute number of victims; country‑by‑country tables from Holocaust research institutions show Poland’s Jewish population was destroyed to an extraordinary degree and accounts for a major share of the six million total ^{[3] [2]}. The demographic collapse in Poland underpins the statement that two‑thirds of European Jews were murdered ^[2].

4. Country‑by‑country data exist but require careful reading

The USHMM offers a country‑level list of Jewish losses and prewar populations; Statista and other compilations reproduce similar numbers that allow calculation of percentages killed per country ^{[3] [5]}. These sources show very high proportional losses in many Balkan and Eastern European countries (for example, Macedonia under occupation, parts of the Soviet western borderlands), but absolute and percentage figures vary by dataset and by whether later emigration is included ^{[3] [5]}.

5. Postwar migration and demographic change complicate “loss” figures

Post‑1945 emigration to Israel and other countries further reduced Jewish presence in Europe; authors such as DellaPergola and reporting summarized by Pew and World Jewish Congress emphasize that the postwar numbers reflect both Holocaust deaths and subsequent migration and assimilation ^{[1] [6]}. For example, the Eastern European Jewish community numbered millions before the war and by later decades was reduced to a fraction through both murder and departure ^{[6] [1]}.

6. What the sources report about the worst proportional losses

Available reporting and the Holocaust Encyclopedia point to Eastern European countries as having the highest proportional losses, with certain localities and countries losing around 80–90% of their Jewish populations; the USHMM country table provides the raw data to calculate exact percentages if desired ^{[3] [4] [2]}. National narratives and datasets differ slightly on precise percentages, so ranking every country by an exact percent requires consulting the country list in the USHMM or similar tables ^{[3] [5]}.

7. Limitations, disagreements and what’s not in these sources

These sources agree on the overall scale but vary on country‑level nuance and on whether “loss” means killed during the Holocaust only or killed plus later emigration. Precise country rankings by percentage depend on the base year and methodology; the provided excerpts do not supply a single ranked table in this packet, so I cannot quote an exact ordered list here without additional extraction from the USHMM/Statista tables that are cited ^{[3] [5] [2]}. Available sources do not mention a unified, single‑table ranking in the snippets provided.

8. Bottom line for readers

If you seek the clearest evidence of which countries lost the largest proportions of their Jewish populations, consult the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s country‑by‑country losses (summarized in the Holocaust Encyclopedia) and comparable country tables reproduced by Statista; these show Eastern Europe — and Poland in particular as the epicenter — experienced the most extreme proportional and absolute losses, often reaching eight‑to‑nine‑tenths of some local Jewish communities ^{[3] [5] [2]}.