The Jews in Soviet-Occupied Eastern Poland at the End of 1939: Numbers and Distribution

Abstract

The estimates of the total number of Jews in Eastern Poland*, local residents and refugees from the territories to the west of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line, in the first months of the Second World War, range from 1 370 000 to 2 000 000. The lower figure is given in a 1941 publication of the New York Institute of Jewish Affairs,1 whereas the higher estimate is mentioned in a 1943 study produced for the Documents Bureau of the Polish Army in the East by M. Buchwajc.2 Several other sources provide estimates higher than that of the IJA but lower than that of Buchwajc.3