Polish Jews in 1939
Polish Jews are a minority group in Poland, consisting of believers in Judaism and/or ethnic Jews. Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe since its formation in 1025, with King Casimir the Great welcoming the Jews to Krakow and letting them start a large community in the country. However, the Partition of Poland and the destruction of the independent Polish state led to the partitioners - chiefly the Russian Empire - enacting anti-Jewish laws and committing pogroms against the Jewish population. During the Holocaust in 1939-1945, 3,000,000 Polish Jews were killed, 90% of the Jewish population in the country. Almost all of the extermination camps, such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Sobibor, were located in the country, while ghettoes such as the Warsaw Ghetto, Krakow Ghetto, and Lodz Ghetto were packed with Jews from the cities and the countryside and later liquidated. The Polish People's Republic allowed for Jews to leave the country for Israel, the United States, or other countries in the Americas, with the Soviet Union-sponsored "anti-Zionist" campaign leading to almost all of the Jews leaving the country. Today, there are only 20,000 Jews in Poland, .05% of the population.