Pola Braun — singer from camp hell

83rd anniversary of “Erntefest”

On 3 November 1943, German security police and SS officers shot all Jewish prisoners of KL Lublin and its sub-camps at Lipova Street and on the so-called Flugplatz at Wrońska Street in Lublin in three pre-prepared execution trenches.

Admission to the meeting organized by us is free. No records apply.

The operation, codenamed “Erntefest” (“Harvest Harvest”), was the largest single execution of the Second World War, killing more than 18,000 Jewish women, men and children in Majdanek. It was one of the most shocking events in Majdanek's history.

As part of the same operation, 10 thousand people lost their lives in the labor camp in Trawniki, and another 14 thousand in Poniatowa on November 4. In total, during these two days, the Germans murdered 42,000 Jews, thus ending a genocidal operation codenamed “Einsatz Reinhardt”, which claimed nearly 2 million victims, mainly Polish Jews, but also deported from many European countries.

Among the victims was Paulina Braunówna, also known as Pola Braun. Before the war, she worked in the editorial office of the illustrated satirical magazine “Szpilki” and performed as a cabaret artist. In the Warsaw ghetto, she established cooperation with the satirical and satirical theater “Femina”. She has collaborated with pianist Władysław Szpilman and actress and singer Diana Blumenfeld. Pola Braun also wrote poems and songs for the “Żywy Dziennik”, a literary and artistic program directed by the poet Władysław Szlengel, which was organized in the art cafe “Sztuka”.

It reached Majdanek in May 1943 with a transport of Jews after the collapse of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. In the Pola camp, she continued her artistic activity, wrote poems, composed songs. For a small group of insiders, she organized poetry evenings, during which she recited poems or sang them to music she composed. The melodies were lost but Poli remained in the memory of her fellow prisoners, which were recited by them after her death. The women who survived the camp wrote them down after the war in their accounts and memories, thanks to which they have survived to this day.

9:00 | Visitor Center | “Pola Braun — a singer from camp hell”. Lecture and broadcast of the report “Only songs will remain” by Aleksandra Dobieszewska, journalist of Radio 357

10:00 | free guided tour

12:00 | ceremony commemorating the victims of the “Erntefest” action at the execution trenches