1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Over 14,000 Holocaust survivors living in Germany: Study

January 23, 2024

Nearly a quarter of a million people who survived the Holocaust are still alive, many of them in need of elderly care, a new study has shown. Although most live in Israel, 14,200 live in Germany, despite its Nazi past.

Margot Friedländer holds up a copy of her book
Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer returned to Berlin in 2010. She was awarded Germany's highest civilian honor for her work in schools telling pupils about her experiencesImage: Britta Pedersen/dpa/picture alliance

Some 245,000 people who survived the massacre and persecution of Jews under the German Nazi regime between 1941 and 1945 are still living across the world, with 14,200 in Germany, a report published on Tuesday showed.

According to the study by the Jewish Claims Conference, the average age of the survivors is 86, with 95% classified as "child survivors," being aged on average just 7 when World War II ended.

The study has been released ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.

It also comes at a time when antisemitic crimes are on the rise in Germany, with more than 1,200 such offenses committed since the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing offensive by Israel in Gaza.

 Around 560,000 Jews lived in Germany in 1933, the year the Nazis under Adolf Hitler seized power. By the time World War II ended in 1945, that number was about 15,000.

'Germany will remain a home for Jews': German president

02:19

This browser does not support the video element.

What else did the study show?

According to the study, there are Holocaust survivors living in 90 countries across the world.

It said 18% are in Western Europe, with half of those in France. North America has the same percentage, while former Soviet countries are home to 12%.

Altogether 119,000 of the survivors, or 49%, live in Israel. 

Women make up 61% of the survivors, and 0.6% of the survivors are aged 100 and over.

Thousands march in Berlin against antisemitism

01:58

This browser does not support the video element.

What did the Jewish Claims Conference say?

The fact that 5.8% of Holocaust survivors had made their home in Germany was a "sign of the stability of German democracy, which we must defend and preserve," said Rüdiger Mahlo, the German representative of the Jewish Claims Conference.

Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor pointed out that "most survivors have reached a period of life in which they need increasing support and care."

He said it was time "that we pay double as much attention to these people, whose number is decreasing dramatically. For they need us now more than ever."

Greg Schneider, the Claims Conference's executive vice president, said it was "also important to look past the numbers to see the individuals they represent."

"These are Jews who were born into a world that wanted to see them murdered. They endured the atrocities of the Holocaust in their youth and were forced to rebuild an entire life out of the ashes of the camps and ghettos that ended their families and communities."

The New York-headquartered Jewish Claims Conference was founded in 1951 to advocate for compensation to Holocaust victims.

tj/wmr, lo (dpa, AP)

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

Skip next section Explore more
Skip next section DW's Top Story

DW's Top Story

Skip next section More stories from DW