Pogrom

Pogrom
the Judengasse, a Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt am Main, on 22 August 1614
Target	Predominantly Jews

A pogrom is a violent riot aimed at the massacre or persecution of an ethnic or religious group, particularly one aimed at Jews. The term originally entered the English language in order to describe 19th and 20th century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement, what would become Ukraine and Belarus). Similar attacks against Jews at other times and places also became retrospectively known as pogroms. The word is now also sometimes used to describe publicly sanctioned purgative attacks against non-Jewish ethnic or religious groups.

First recorded in 1882, the Russian word pogrom (погро́м, pronounced [pɐˈgrom]) is a noun derived from the verb gromit' (громи́ть, pronounced [grɐˈmʲitʲ]) meaning "to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently". Its literal translation is "to harm". The noun pogrom, which has a relatively short history, is used in English and many other languages as a loanword, possibly borrowed via Yiddish (where the word takes the form פאָגראָם). Its widespread circulation in today's world began with the anti-Semitic excesses in the Russian Empire in 1881–1883.

Anti-Jewish riots took place in Europe already in the Middle Ages. The Jewish communities were targeted in the Black Death Jewish persecutions of 1348–1350, in Toulon in 1348, in Barcelona and in other Catalan cities, during the Erfurt massacre (1349), the Basel massacre, massacres in Aragon, and in Flanders, as well as the "Valentine's Day" Strasbourg pogrom of 1349. Some 510 Jewish communities were destroyed in this period, extending further to the Brussels massacre of 1370. On Holy Saturday of 1389, a pogrom began in Prague that led to the burning of the Jewish quarter, the killing of many Jews, and the suicide of many Jews trapped in the main synagogue; the number of dead was estimated at 400–500 men, women, and children.