---
name: "Paula Biren"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/paula-biren"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "7 April 1922"
died: "26 June 2016"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T04:53:45.035793+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Paula Biren

Actor. Born 7 April 1922 in Łódź, Poland. Died 26 June 2016.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 7 April 1922, Łódź, Poland
- **Died:** 26 June 2016
- **Elsewhere:** https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2067223

## Biography

Paula Biren (1922–2016) was a Holocaust survivor who appeared as herself in Claude Lanzmann’s documentary *Shoah* (1985). She was interviewed at length by Lanzmann in the winter of 1978–1979 in Florida, and excerpts from that testimony were included in the film.

Born Pawa Sara Szmajer in Łódź, Poland, Biren lived in the Łódź ghetto from 1940 until her deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1944. Her account, later released in full as the segment “Baluty” in *Shoah: The Four Sisters* (2018), describes her experiences in the ghetto, including her role in the Jewish women’s police force, and her subsequent survival.

*Sources: imdb.com, collections.ushmm.org, film-forward.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Shoah* (1985), Fi1m 93, as Self — [page](https://film.one/film/shoah.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/paula-biren