| Trawniki concentration camp | |
|---|---|
| Forced labour (left) and theSS training camp | |
.jpg) Original German site plan of the Trawniki camp (as of June 21, 1942). Left: Slave labor camp for condemned Jewish prisoners.   | |
 | |
| Operated by | SS-Totenkopfverbände |
| Commandant | Hermann Höfle,Karl Streibel |
| Original use | POW camp for 1941Operation Barbarossa |
| Operational | 1941 – November 1943 |
| Killed | At least 12,000 Jews at the labour camp (left)[1] |
TheTrawniki was aconcentration camp set up byNazi Germany in the village ofTrawniki about 40 kilometres (25 mi) southeast ofLublin during theoccupation of Poland in World War II. Throughout its existence the camp served a dual function. It was organized on the grounds of the former Polish sugar refinery of theCentral Industrial Region, and subdivided into at least three distinct zones.[1]
The Trawniki camp first opened after theoutbreak of war with the Soviet Union, intended to hold Soviet POWs, with rail lines in all major directions in theGeneral Government territory. Between 1941 and 1944, the camp expanded into anSS training camp for collaborationistauxiliary police, mainly Ukrainian.[2] In 1942, it became theforced-labor camp for thousands of Jews within theMajdanek concentration camp system as well.[3] The Jewish inmates of Trawniki provided slave labour for the makeshift industrial plants ofSS-Ostindustrie, working in appalling conditions with little food.[1]
There were 12,000 Jews imprisoned at Trawniki as of 1943 sorting through trainsets of clothing delivered from Holocaust locations.[4] They were all massacred duringOperation Harvest Festival of November 3, 1943, by the auxiliary units ofTrawniki men stationed at the same location, helped by the travellingReserve Police Battalion 101 fromOrpo. The first camp commandant wasHermann Hoefle, replaced byKarl Streibel.[1][5][6]
The Nazi camp at Trawniki was first established in July 1941 to hold prisoners of war captured inOperation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union.[1] The new barracks behind the barbed-wire fence were erected by the prisoners themselves. In 1942 the camp was enlarged to include theSS-Arbeitslager meant for the Polish Jews from across General Government. Within a year, under the management ofGauleiterOdilo Globocnik, the camp included a number of forced labour workshops such as the fur processing plant (Pelzverarbeitungswerk), the brush factory (Bürstenfabrik), the bristles finishing (Borstenzurichterei), and the new branch ofDas Torfwerk inDorohucza.[1][7][8]
The Jews who worked there from June 1942 to May 1944 asslave labour for the German war effort were brought in from theWarsaw Ghetto as well as selected transit ghettos across Europe (Germany, Austria, Slovakia) underOperation Reinhard, and from September 1943 as part of theMajdanek concentration camp system of subcamps such as thePoniatowa concentration camp and several others.[3]
From September 1941 until July 1944,[3] the facility served as the full-fledged training base with dining rooms and sleeping quarters for the newSchutzmannschaften recruited fromPOW camps for service with Nazi Germany in theGeneral Government territory.Karl Streibel, the camp commander, and his officers used to induce Ukrainian, Latvian and Lithuanian men already familiar with firearms to take the initiative of their own free will.[9] The total of 5,082 men were prepared at Trawniki for duty in GermanSonderdienst battalions before the end of 1944 – across from the forlorn Jewish camp separated by an inner fence.[3][10]: 366
Although the majority ofTrawniki men (orHiwis) came from among the willing prisoners of war of Ukrainian ethnicity,[11] there were alsoVolksdeutsche from Eastern Europe among them, valued because of their ability to speak Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and other languages of the occupied territories.[12][13] They became the only squad commanders. Trawniki men took major part inOperation Reinhard, the Nazi plan to exterminatePolish and foreign Jews. They served atextermination camps, and played an important role in the annihilation of theWarsaw Ghetto Uprising (see theStroop Report) and theBiałystok Ghetto Uprising among other ghetto insurgencies.[14][15]
Towards the end of October, the entire slave-labour workforce of KL Lublin/Majdanek including Jewish prisoners of the Trawniki concentration camp were ordered to begin the construction of trenches that would become mass graves. Although the trenches were supposedly for defense against air raids, and their zigzag shape granted some plausibility to this lie, the prisoners guessed their true purpose.[16]:232[17]:403–404[18]:285–286 The massacres, later assumed to have been revenge for Germandefeat at Stalingrad,[4] were set byChristian Wirth for November 3, 1943, under the codenameOperation Harvest Festival,[19] simultaneously atMajdanek, Trawniki,Poniatowa, Budzyn,Kraśnik, Puławy andLipowa subcamps.[20] The bodies of Jews shot in the pits by Trawniki men aided by Battalion 101 were later incinerated by aSonderkommando fromMilejów, who were executed on site upon the completion of their task by the end of 1943.[3]
Operation Harvest Festival, with approximately 43,000 victims, was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war. It surpassed the notorious massacre of more than 33,000 Jews atBabi Yar outside Kiev by 10,000 victims.[21] The Trawniki training camp was dismantled in July 1944 because of the approaching front line.[3] The last 1,000Hiwis forming theSS Battalion Streibel led byKarl Streibel himself,[22] were transported west to work at the still functioning death camps.[3] The Soviets entered the completely empty facility on July 23, 1944.[3] After the war, they captured and prosecuted hundreds, possibly as many as one thousandHiwis who returned home to USSR.[3] Most were sentenced toGulags, and released under theKhrushchev amnesty of 1955.[23]
The number ofHiwis tried in the West was very small by comparison. Six defendants were acquitted on all charges and set free by a West German court inHamburg in 1976 including commandant Streibel.[22][24] The Trawniki men apprehended in Soviet Union were charged with treason (not the shootings) and therefore wereguilty of enlistment from the start of judicial proceedings.[25] In the U.S. some 16 formerHiwi guards weredenaturalized, some of whom were very old.[3]
In January 1943 theSSGermanische Leitstelle in occupiedZakopane in the heartland of theTatra mountains embarked on a recruitment drive with an idea of forming a brand new Waffen-SS highlander division. Some 200 youngGoralenvolk signed up, while offered unlimited supply of alcohol. They boarded a passenger train to Trawniki, but most left the train inMaków Podhalański once already sober. Only twelve men arrived in Trawniki. At the first opportunity they got into a major fistfight with the Ukrainians, causing havoc. They were arrested and sent away. The whole idea was abandoned as impossible bySS-ObergruppenführerKrüger in occupiedKraków by an official letter of April 5, 1943.[26] The failure probably contributed to his dismissal on November 9, 1943, by Governor GeneralHans Frank.[27] Krüger committed suicide in upper Austria two years later.[28]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)Text from USHMM has been released under theGFDL.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)Ukraine differs from other parts of the Nazi-occupied eastern territories because the local administrators were able to form the UkrainianHilfsverwaltung in support of the extermination policies in 1941 and 1942, providing assistance for the deportations to camps in 1942 and 1943.
Archiwum Państwowe w Siedlcach (APS),Akta Gminy Prostyń (AGP), t. 104, "Budowa i odbudowa, 1946–1947".
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)Source: Yitzhak Arad, Thomas (Toivi) Blatt,Alexander Donat, Rudolf Reder, Tom Teicholz,Samuel Willenberg,Richard Glazar; museums and private collections.
51°08′21″N22°59′35″E / 51.139267°N 22.993140°E /51.139267; 22.993140
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