Similar executions took place the same day at the labour camp in Trawniki, and on the following day in Poniatowa. In total, operation "Erntefest" claimed the lives of over 42,000 Jewish women, children, and men. It was the largest execution massacre during World War II.

Listen to the testimony of Helena Kurcyusz, a Polish woman deported to #Majdanek in January 1943. In this fragment she describes the "Bloody Wednesday" of 3 November 1943. youtu.be/ikMu1mQ1C54?...

During the morning roll-call all non-Jewish prisoners were locked inside the barracks of other fields. Survivors recalled loud music played in the camp: waltzes, marches or foxtrots that were played to drown out gun noises. They recalled the 3 November 1943 as "Bloody Wednesday".

At the same time, German functionaries also liquidated the Jewish orphanage in Kraków. Its head Dawid Kurzmann and other personnel members were offered a chance to be excluded from deportation. They decided to stay with the kids and were all murdered in the gas chambers of SS-Sonderkommando Belzec.

That day during the roll-call, Pechersky addressed the inmates with the words: “Those of you who survive, should bear witness to this. Let the world know what happened here.” They are the motto of the Museum and Memorial in #Sobibór that we've created on the former camp grounds.