ABSTRACT
The Nazi mass murder of the Jews reduced their number in Europe from about 9. 5 million on the eve of the Second World War to less than 4 million according to a rough estimate for mid-1948. This figure includes repatriates from the Asian territories of the USSR and those who would shortly leave Europe for the newly founded State of Israel.1 This constituted a decrease of more than 5.5 million Jews in Europe-somewhat more than the corresponding decrease of about 5 million for the whole of world Jewry, which had numbered more than 16 million in 1939 and was still more than 11 million in 1948. The diminution of Jewry world-wide was smaller than in Europe, because of some natural increase that occurred outside that continent in the interval 1939-48.
