Following Indian Independence majority of the Baghdadi Jewish population began to rapidly emigrate to London, to where the richer Baghdadi Jewish merchant families had been drawn for a generation. The community was deeply affected by the Great Kolkata Killing of 1946 that saw 4,000 killed and 100,000 made homeless in seventy-two hours of Hindu-Muslim communal violence. Rioting between 1945 and 1947 also killed numerous Europeans. Scenes of devastation that unsettled the Baghdadi Jewish community included vultures feasting on piles of human remains in the streets of Kolkata. Both the extreme violence of Indian Partition between Hindus and Muslims and the Bengal Famine witnessed during World War Two frightened the Baghdadi Jewish community and led them to believe there was no future for them in the city.