How many Jewish survivors remained in Europe immediately after WWII and how did numbers change by 1946-1947?
Executive summary
Immediately after World War II the Jewish population of Europe had been reduced from a prewar total of roughly 9.5 million to a postwar remainder in the mid‑3‑million range, with most reputable contemporary counts placing the number between about 3.5 and 3.8 million by 1945; historians attribute the gap to roughly six million murdered in the Holocaust, though precise tallies vary by methodology [1] [2] [3]. By 1946–1947 the European Jewish population had edged slightly as displaced survivors moved, repatriated, or emigrated—contemporary postwar enumerations often cited roughly 3.6–3.7 million Jews remaining in Europe while global Jewish totals dropped to about 11 million in 1946, reflecting both the demographic catastrophe and rapid postwar migrations [4] [5] [1].
1. The baseline: prewar Europe and the scale of loss
On the eve of war modern estimates put about 9.5 million Jews in Europe, a majority of the world's Jewish population at the time, and historians estimate that up to six million European Jews were murdered under Nazi rule and occupation—figures that anchor any calculation of survivors and postwar population [1] [2] [3]. That scale of destruction means that the immediate postwar question is not whether the community was diminished but by how much and how to count those who remained: liberated inmates, those who avoided deportation, children hidden with non‑Jewish families, refugees who had fled before the war, and Jews in the Soviet Union who were not always included in Western tallies [3] [6].
2. The immediate postwar headcount: 1945 figures and why they vary
Contemporary and later accounts cite slightly different postwar figures because of variations in scope and methodology: the World Jewish Congress and allied demographers reported the Jewish population of Europe at roughly 3.8 million by the end of World War II, while other postwar assessments and encyclopedic summaries sometimes give slightly lower estimates near 3.5 million—numbers consistent with the conclusion that roughly two‑thirds of European Jewry had been annihilated [1] [3] [6]. Official investigations and committees working in 1945–46, including Allied inquiries, produced similar, though not identical, results; differences stem from who was counted (territorial boundaries, Soviet‑held populations, displaced persons, and those temporarily absent) and the chaos of immediate postwar Europe [4] [5].
3. The transitional year: 1946–1947 and shifting totals
By 1946–1947 the headline arithmetic had stabilized into widely cited contemporary figures: the world Jewish population was estimated at about 11 million in 1946, down from roughly 16.6 million in 1939, and European Jewish totals in Allied reports often clustered around 3.6–3.7 million—reflecting both the earlier losses and the start of large postwar movements out of Europe [4] [5] [1]. That apparent stagnation or slight decline in Europe between 1945 and 1947 disguises intense demographic churn—many survivors were in displaced persons (DP) camps, some had returned to home countries only to find hostility or violence (Kielce and other pogroms drove further departures), and substantial numbers were emigrating toward Palestine, the Americas, and elsewhere [7] [6].
4. Causes for change after 1945: migration, violence, and counting problems
The shifts in European Jewish numbers after 1945 were driven primarily by migration out of Europe—both organized transfers and illegal aliyah toward Palestine—and by return migration that was often temporary, as well as renewed anti‑Jewish violence and property disputes that persuaded many survivors to leave [7] [5]. Demographic reconstructions also face methodological limits: different agencies used different base maps, included or excluded Jews in zones occupied by the USSR, and wrestled with the porous definition of Jewish identity (ethnic, religious, or self‑identified), so exact year‑to‑year changes should be read as the product of movement and measurement as much as of births and deaths [1] [4].
5. Bottom line and caveats
The consensus among the cited contemporary and scholarly sources is clear in scale though porous in decimals: roughly 3.5–3.8 million Jews remained in Europe immediately after WWII (circa 1945), and by 1946–1947 Europe still counted in the mid‑3‑million range—about 3.6–3.7 million—while global Jewish totals dropped to ~11 million, a reflection of both the Holocaust’s death toll and the mass migrations that followed [1] [4] [5]. Precise year‑by‑year shifts are best understood as estimates with acknowledged uncertainties in scope and methodology rather than as exact headcounts; the sources cited show broad agreement on the catastrophic decline and the postwar mobility that reshaped Jewish Europe [3] [1].