People

Born in Białystok, Wiera Gran, or rather Dwojra Grinberg or Dwojra Grynberg - a Polish singer, cabaret and film actor of Jewish origin. Born April 20 1916 in Białystok, died November 19 2007. She also used other pseudonyms: Sylvia Green, Wiera Green on Syrena Electro albums, and Mariol on Melodja Electro albums. After moving to France, she was known as Vera Gran. She was a daughter of Eliasz Grynberg and his second wife, Luba, née Kaplan.

Wiera Gran has achieved a spectacular success on the stages of Europe, Poland and both Americas.

She began her career in 1943 singing in many venues, theatres and on Polish Radio, and publishing a number of records. In 1939, she appeared in the film directed by Aleksander Marten in Yiddish "Bezdomni" ("The Homeless") in the role of Bessa, a singer.

At the beggining of the war, in the autumn of 1939 she worked in Lviv. She came back to Warsaw in March 1941 and she was put in the Warsaw ghetto, from where she escaped and spent the rest of the war hiding. After the war, she was accused of collaborating with the Gestapo which was the basis of the film "Wiera Gran"), but these allegations have never been confirmed. 

After the war, she started touring again. She performed in the Polish Radio, collaborating with, among others, Władysław Szpilman. In 1950 she emigrated to Israel, then France and Venezuela. She performed on stages all over Europe and the United States, to finally settle in Paris. 

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Listen to Wiera Gran's music

Wiera Gran - Wikipedia [en]

Interview with Wiera Gran, part 1

Interview with Wiera Gran, part 2

Wiera Gran in Radio Solidarność, Paris 1986

Wiera Gran speaks about Warsaw Ghetto

The cover of Wiera Gran's LP published in the United States in 1985

Cover of Gran's LP published by Teddy, a Polish company, in 2017