ABSTRACT
The overwhelming majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust came from eastern Europe. The Jewish place in eastern Europe became more tenuous after World War I. Part of the reason was the war itself, which brought mass violence against national and political enemies. On the Eastern Front, Jews suffered brutality under the Russian military. After the war, they suffered violence and discrimination amid the wreckage of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, particularly in Ukraine, Poland, and Romania. In Germany, Jews were not persecuted but they were held in deep suspicion by right-wing groups, which blamed them for the defeat.
