November 3, 1943–November 4, 1943
Operation Harvest Festival
Historical context
On 3–4 November 1943, SS and police units murdered about 42,000 Jewish prisoners in the Lublin district during Operation Harvest Festival.
Archive record
Read the event, then follow its documented sources and archive threads.
- Date
- November 3, 1943–November 4, 1943
- Verified sources
- 1
- Archive threads
- 5
On 3 and 4 November 1943, SS and police units shot the remaining Jewish forced laborers in the Lublin district. The operation was code-named Erntefest, Harvest Festival. USHMM records that it began at dawn on 3 November. The shootings at Majdanek and at the Trawniki labor camp were finished that day. At Poniatowa they continued through 4 November.
About 42,000 Jews were murdered. At Majdanek and Trawniki, loudspeakers played music over the shooting. Heinrich Himmler had ordered the murders after armed resistance in the Warsaw and Białystok ghettos and the prisoner revolts at Treblinka and Sobibor. The operation brought Operation Reinhard to a close.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Aktion "Erntefest" (Operation "Harvest Festival") · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
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