Operation Harvest Festival began in late 1943 and its aim was to kill all the Jews that remained in the Lublin district of the Generalgouvernment.
Nazi Germany in 1943
At the time that Operation Harvest Festival was launched in November 1943, the war was beginning to turn against the Nazis. During 1943, Nazi Germany had begin to lose territory to the Allies, Hitler’s own ally Mussolini was ousted and later Italy declared war on Germany, and the Red Army were pushing west and recapturing previously Nazi-occupied areas. In addition, Hitler’s armies had been forced to surrender at Stalingrad, an event which is often viewed as a significant turning point in the Second World War. Nazi Germany had also dealt with resistance on the home front which accumulated in the arrests of the leaders of the White Rose movement.
Jewish Uprisings in 1943
As well as the military defeats on both the Western and Eastern fronts, Nazi Germany faced a significant uprising in occupied Poland. In April 1943 there was an armed resistance movement by the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. Although the uprising lasted little less than a month, Nazi leaders were taken by surprise; firstly that the Jews in the ghetto were able to organise an uprising and secondly, that it took that amount of time for the resistance to be quashed. This was not the only occurrence of Jewish resistance to take place in 1943; there were also uprisings in the Bialystok and Vilno ghettoes. In the summer of 1943 Jewish prisoners at the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland attempted to escape although the majority were swiftly recaptured. And in the autumn, a similar escape attempt took place at the Sobibor extermination camp by Jewish prisoners.
Operation Harvest Festival – November 1943
With events in the war going against Nazi Germany and these incidents of armed Jewish resistance, Nazi leaders were panicked, and all Jews in occupied Poland were viewed as a security threat. Heinrich Himmler issued the order of Aktion Erntefest – Operation Harvest Festival to the SS and Police leader in Lublin, Jakob Sporrenberg. Operation Harvest Festival instructed that all Jews in the Lublin district were to be exterminated, therefore eradicating the threat of further armed resistance. Operation Harvest Festival began at dawn on November 3rd and lasted for only a few days. SS and police units entered the Trawniki and Poniatowa labour camps and removed every Jewish prisoner there. The prisoners were taken to nearby zig-zag shaped air raid trenches and systematically shot. At the Majdanek camp, Jewish prisoners were separated from the other inmates and also shot in trenches. Jewish prisoners from other camps in Lublin were transported to Madjanek to be executed. The SS soldiers played music over loudspeakers to drown out the noise of the shootings, and Sporrenberg circled the site overhead in his plane.
Outcome of Operation Harvest Festival
In the view of the Nazi leaders, Operation Harvest Festival was considered to be a success and Lublin was declared Judenfrei – free of Jews. It has been estimated that between 42,000 and 45,000 Jews were shot during Operation Harvest Festival.
Sources:
Burleigh, M. The Third Reich: A New History. London: Macmillan, 2001.
Fiona Allison - I have a combined honours degree in English Lit with 20th Century European History and Politcs. I work as an editorial assisstant on a ...
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