A pogrom is an act of mass violence or murder against a specific group of people, historically often targeting Jews. It involves not only killing but also destroying homes, businesses, and culture. Pogroms have occurred throughout history, particularly in Eastern Europe, and continued under Nazi Germany. Other groups, such as Sikhs and Muslims, have also been targeted in pogroms.
Simply put, a pogrom is an act of mass violence or mass murder of a certain group of people. Historically, this term – Russian for “violently demolish or revolt” – has been applied more specifically to the mass killings of the Jewish people, perhaps due to the frequency with which pogroms have been committed against them. But a pogrom goes far beyond simple killing; a pogrom is very similar to an uprising aimed not only at killing but also at destroying homes, businesses and other forms of daily life and culture.
Throughout history, Jews have suffered pogroms at the hands of various groups across Europe. Starting in Eastern Europe and spreading west, Russia and the Ukraine are places of particularly concentrated violence. During a pogrom, a certain sect or group was targeted and violently attacked. Businesses were pillaged and looted, homes were destroyed, entire villages would be razed to the ground, and more often than not, people would die at the hands of their attackers. In the case of Jews, these pogroms continued for decades after the first reported pogrom in Russia in 1880, thus perpetuating anti-Semitism and eventually culminating in the Holocaust.
In Nazi Germany, pogrom activity continued under Hitler’s rule, although Hitler himself discouraged such disorganized violence. But Nazi troops and German police often allowed such disturbances to occur, sometimes even encouraging them. Perhaps the most famous and devastating pogrom, Kristallnacht, occurred in 1938 and saw the destruction of some 2,000 synagogues and the murder of nearly a hundred Jews. Thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed and aggression towards Jews went savage, paving the way for Hitler’s plans to eradicate Jews.
During this era, however, the Germans were not the only aggressors against the Jews. Polish citizens staged pogrom after pogrom throughout the war, persisting even after the war ended, leading Jews to believe they would never again be welcome in Poland. As a result of the Polish pogroms, as well as previous pogrom events in Russia, other nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, experienced massive influxes of Jews fleeing the violence.
Pogroms have occurred in other parts of the world to other groups: Sikhs in India suffered a pogrom in the early 1980s and Muslims in India were targeted some twenty years later. Greeks were targeted in Istanbul in the 1950s by the Turks. In 1999 in Kosovo, non-Albanians were driven from their homes and saw the destruction of their property and businesses. NATO forces were present but did not intervene.
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