World War II Holocaust by the numbers

Update 1: added Guardian Data under Takeaway and also a Later Note at bottom

Update 2: see an example of diffuse geography with Orthodoxy at the very bottom

Update 3: Semitic people of the Levant are described here.

Update 4: in Andrew Zolnai Private Blog, two mid-2026 posts on Middle-Eastern religious regimes compared here, and Climate Change and the Old Testament here.

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As the Ukrainian and Gaza/Lebanon wars are top of the news, it might be good to look at the numbers for WWII casualties reported in Wikipedia. Why here? a) The post-WWII makeup of Israel & Palestine were influenced by Jewish migration as a result of WWII casualties. b) Considering that Israeli (here) & Palestinian (here) populations are 1.91 & 1.01% of Middle-eastern population, I wondered how Holocaust percentages stacked up against population totals?

Further Wikipedia sources are a) WWII casualties by countries here, and b) Lucy Davidowicz Jewish casualties by the same countries here ("Jewish population listing" at bottom). I collated them into one table below, posting numbers here (all CC BY-SA 4.0 here).

Numbers

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There is rather a lot to digest here. At right in grey are the numbers from a Jewish perspective, comparing casualties within the Jewish population. Wikipedia happened to have posted WWII casualties by the same countries in 1939, so it was easy to add Jewish and total casualties against total populations for said countries. While the Shoa is real and no casualties are excusable, it reframes that story in a broader context against the entire population. 

Maps

Such a dense set of numbers may be easier to unpack via maps of those countries.

First the original tabulation of Jewish casualties per Jewish population:

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Second the tabulation of Jewish casualties per total population:

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Third the tabulation of total casualties per total population:

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The numbers speak for themselves: while percentages are indeed high among the Jewish population, they drop by half in total casualty percents, and by an order of magnitude for Jewish among total percent. That makes sense considering the population percent listed in the intro. Again, nothing will erase the horror of either WWII or the Shoa,  but  perspective is always helpful.

Another thing to notice, is that no matter how you slice it, the percentages increase north and east. Now straight choropleths can be misleading by geographic area (here), but Europe is pretty (if not entirely) homogenous by size as displayed above. For example, most of Russia isn't shown (it would dominate any map).

Advanced

Another way to condense numbers visually on maps, is to create so-called bivariate maps: the percentage gradings above are paired, to see if any patterns emerge?

First combine Jewish against total population percent vertical, to Jewish against Jewish population percent horizontal.

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Next combine total against total population percent vertical, to Jewish against total population percent horizontal.

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You'll see it's not entirely as clear-cut as above, and sometimes the KISS principle works best (Keep It Simple Stupid). 

Takeaway

What does emerge is that Belarus, Poland and Ukraine bore the brunt of casualty percents no matter how you slice it. Discussions often highlight the role of Poland & Germany for Jewish and Russia for total population casualties.

In other words, numbers and maps don't lie: They help visualize the intricate relationships, which further the critique and discussion in this important geo-history. 

Let me close from (Microsoft AI search) Copilot:

 "Comment is free, but facts are sacred" is attributed to C. P. Scott, who was the editor of The Manchester Guardian (now The Guardian) from 1872 to 1929. He wrote this in an essay titled "A Hundred Years," published on May 5, 1921, to celebrate the newspaper's centenary [1] [2]."

This was picked up by Simon Rogers 15 yrs ago in Guardian Data Blog here:

 "The first systematic effort to incorporate publicly available data sources into news reporting".

In addition...

This excludes stats for Communist, Roma & homosexual populations persecuted together with the Jewish population: they were largely under-reported partly due to their statistical insignificance c/w numbers above. Also from Copilot: UN & UNHCR have excellent data here & here incl. an app, but they don't extend back to League of Nations or before WWII. 

... Not that the data hadn't been compiled! Finally from Copilot:

IBM's early punch-card technology played a controversial role during the Nazi regime. The company’s machines were used to tabulate data for tasks like census-taking, tracking individuals, and managing logistics, which included concentration camp operations [1][2][3]. This technology enabled the Nazis to efficiently organize and execute their plans, including the identification and persecution of Jewish populations [2][3].

The relationship between IBM and the Nazis has been explored in depth, particularly in Edwin Black's book IBM and the Holocaust, which details the company's involvement and the ethical questions surrounding it [1][3]. It's a stark reminder of how technology can be wielded for both progress and harm.

In closing, you'll have seen I use Copilot (here) a lot: see also a long read on this blog here, and a short one on Medium Personal Channel here; it's pretty well cut my use of Google, even its Gemini AI.

More choropleth maps

Following on the above - see Medium here re: that term - and researching the theme of  religious distribution in Copilot again, here is an excellent use of a choropleth map from Reddit r/MapPorn here: 

Detailed Map of the Orthodox Church (Eastern and Oriental)
 in Europe divided by region (click to enlarge)

Historic footnote: The Pope's funeral showed the Eastern churches' prelates, and that made me look up Oriental & Easten Orthodoxy: it broke off from Roman Catholicism during the Schism (Wikipedia). It became the Oriental Orthodoxy when the Eastern Orthodoxy in Central Europe broke off them to return closer to Roman Catholicism in the 17th c. dep. on regions - they call themselves "Greek Catholics" in NE Hungary (where part of my fam originated) & Bulgaria for ex. - this map shows the diffuse nature of population distribution by religion.

It also suggests that Judaism vs. others isn't necessarily as cut&dry as tabulated in this blog, as it's one group self-indentifying against others (Geocurrents covers such complexities from a linguistic perspective here).