Trawniki men

Trawnikimänner
Inspection of Trawnikimänner by Karl Streibel at Trawniki. They were tasked with the liquidation of Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland
Active	Founded in 1941
Country	occupied Poland
Allegiance	Nazi Germany, the SS
Type	Paramilitary police reserve

Trawniki men (German: Trawnikimänner) were the Eastern European collaborators from the POW camps for the Red Army soldiers recruited in the border regions during Operation Barbarossa of 1941. These volunteers served with Nazi Germany in the General Government territory until the end of World War II. Trawnikis belonged to a category of "Hiwis" (German abbreviation for 'Hilfswilliger', lit. "those willing to help"), auxiliary forces recruited from the conquered nationals.

The German SS and police trained 2,500 Hiwi Wachmänner (guards) known as Trawniki men (Trawnikimänner) at a special Trawniki training camp between September 1941 and September 1942; for the total of 5,082 men before the end of 1944. They were organized by Streibel into two SS Sonderdienst battalions. The number of them may as well have been much greater, if it hadn't been for mass desertions among conscripts. Some 1,000 Hiwis are known to have run away during field operations. Although the majority of Trawniki men or Hiwis came from among the prisoners of war, there were also Volksdeutsche from Eastern Europe among them, valued because of their ability to speak Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and other languages of the occupied territories. All the officers at Trawniki camp were ethnic Germans, and most of the squad commanders were Volksdeutsche. The conscripted civilians and former Soviet POWs included Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Tartars, Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The Trawnikis took major part in Operation Reinhard, the Nazi plan to exterminate Polish Jews. They also served at extermination camps and played an important role in the annihilation of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (see the Stroop Report) among others.

Key role of Trawniki men in the Final Solution

"Trawniki" men during the pacification of Warsaw Ghetto. Photo from Jürgen Stroop Report, May 1943

In 1941 Himmler instructed Globocnik to start recruiting non-­Polish auxiliaries (mainly Ukrainian), behind the Wehrmacht lines in Eastern Europe. The ethnic Poles would not serve knowing the purpose of training. For example, one conscripted Polish farm boy was lashed nearly to death in public for insubordination once he realized what was expected of him. He perished at Majdanek three months later. Globocnik had selected Karl Streibel from Operation Reinhard as the key person for his new secret project. Streibel visited all POW camps for the Soviets in the vicinity with the assistance of his officers and after individual screening, would recruit Ukrainian, Latvian and Lithuanian volunteers as ordered.

The Trawniki-men were assembled at a training facility adjacent to the Trawniki concentration camp for the Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto. The complex (serving dual purpose in 1941–43) was built in the village of Trawniki about 40 kilometres (25 mi) southeast of Lublin with rail lines in all directions in the occupied territory. From there, the Hiwi shooters were deployed to all major killing sites of the Final Solution. It was their primary purpose of training. They took an active role in the extermination of Jews at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II, Warsaw (three times), Częstochowa, Lublin, Lvov, Radom, Kraków, Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki concentration camp itself, and the remaining subcamps of KL Lublin/Majdanek camp complex including Poniatowa, Budzyn, Kraśnik, Puławy, Lipowa, and also during massacres in Łomazy, Międzyrzec, Łuków, Radzyń, Parczew, Końskowola, Komarówka and all other locations, augmented by the SS and Schupo, as well as the Reserve Police Battalion 101 formation of Ordnungspolizei. The German Order Police performed roundups inside the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland shooting everyone unable to move or attempting to flee, while the Trawnikis conducted large-scale civilian massacres in the same locations.

Further information: The Holocaust in occupied Poland

Between 70 and 120 Trawniki Hiwi men were selected to act as the guard unit and the gas chambers operators at each of the Reinhard extermination camps. They came under the jurisdiction of the relevant camp commandant. Almost all of the Trawniki guards were involved in shooting, beating and terrorizing Jews. The Russian historian Sergei Kudryashov, who made a study of the Trawniki men serving at death camps claimed that there was little sign of any attraction to National Socialism among them. Most of the guards volunteered in order to leave the POW camps and/or because of self-interest. This statement however, is contradicted by information provided by the Holocaust historian Christopher R. Browning (Ordinary Men) who wrote that Hiwis "were screened on the basis of their anti-Communist and hence almost invariably anti-Semitic sentiments." Despite the generally apathetic views of the Trawniki guards, the vast majority faithfully carried out the SS expectations in the mistreatment of Jews. Most Trawniki men executed Jews already as part of their job training. Following the lead of the American historian Christopher Browning in his 1992 book Ordinary Men, Kudryashov argued that the Trawniki men were examples of how ordinary people could become willing killers.

Murder operations

The Hiwi shooters were assigned to the worst of the "on-the-spot dirty work" by Hauptsturmführer Karl Streibel (wrote Browning), so the Germans from the parallel Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the Ordnungspolizei from Hamburg "would not go crazy" from the horror of hands-on killing for hours or days on end. The Trawnikis used to arrive in squads numbering around 50 at the killing site, and start by sitting down to a sandwich and bottles of vodka from their knapsacks behaving like guests, while the Germans dealt with unruly crowds of thousands of ghetto inhabitants: as in Międzyrzec, Łuków, Radzyń, Parczew, Końskowola, Komarówka and all other locations.

The Trawniki men shot so fast and so wildly that the German policemen "frequently had to take cover to avoid being hit." Ukrainian Hiwis were perceived as indispensable. In Łomazy, the Germans were "overjoyed" to see them coming after the messy Józefów massacre which permanently traumatized the untrained executioners. The wave of mass killings of Jews from the Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto lasting non-stop for several days were conducted by the Trawniki battalion of about 350 to 400 men, same as in Parczew, or the Izbica Ghetto. Some officers of the Nazi German Ordnungspolizei felt uneasy about killing non-Jewish Poles. Their unit shot 4,600 Jews by September 1942, but only 78 ethnic Poles (a grossly disproportionate number). In contrast, the Hiwis, saw the Christian Poles as equal opportunity offenders. When they got too drunk to show up in Aleksandrów, Major Wilhelm Trapp ordered the release of prisoners rounded up for mass execution.

Later careers of Trawniki personnel

The Trawniki training camp was dismantled in July 1944 because of the approaching frontline. The last 1,000 Hiwis forming the SS Battalion Streibel led by Karl Streibel himself, were transported west to continue their dirty deeds at the still functioning death camps. The Jews of the adjacent labor camp were long-dead and incinerated by a Sonderkommando from Milejów who were executed on site upon the completion of their task by the end of 1943. The Soviets entered the completely empty facility on July 23, 1944. After the war, they captured and prosecuted hundreds, possibly as many as one thousand Hiwis who returned home to USSR. Most were sentenced to a Gulag, and released under the Khrushchev amnesty of 1955.

The number of Hiwis tried in the West was very small by comparison. Six defendants were acquitted on all charges and set free by a West German court in Hamburg in 1976 including commandant Streibel. The main difference between them and the Trawnikis apprehended in Russia was that the former claimed lack of awareness and left no live witnesses who could testify against them, while the latter were charged with treason and therefore were doomed from the start. In the U.S. some 16 former Hiwi guards were denaturalized.

In 1984 Feodor Fedorenko was extradited to the USSR where he was sentenced to death and executed in short order. Another former Hiwi, Vladas Zajančkauskas deployed to help with the annihilation of the Warsaw Ghetto, had his U.S. citizenship revoked in 2005 at the age of ninety-five. Trawniki guard, Jaroslaw Bilaniuk, a friend of Palij, was placed into denaturalization proceedings, but it is not clear if those proceedings had concluded or if he was still a U.S. citizen at the time of his death in 2007. In March 2009 Josias Kumpf a Yugoslav who served as a guard in Trawniki, was deported from the U.S. to Austria. In May 2009 John Demjanjuk was deported from the U.S. to Germany. Demjanuk was convicted of being a guard at Sobibor and sentenced in May 2011. Demjanjuk was released pending an appeal. He died in March 2012 before his appeal could be heard. In July 2010 a former Soviet POW, Samuel Kunz, was charged with being a Belzec guard who had been trained at Trawniki. Kunz died in November 2010 before his trial. Jakiw Palij, another Hiwi guard, was stripped of his United States citizenship for having "made material misrepresentations in his application for a visa to immigrate to the United States".

Known names of Trawnikis serving at death camps

The notoriety of crimes committed by selected "Trawniki men" at extermination camps in Belzec [Be], Sobibor [So], and Treblinka [Tr] during Operation Reinhard, have led to many specific names being publicized in postwar literature and by Holocaust museums, based on Jewish and Polish survivor-testimonies and archives. The long list of names of camp guards mentioned mostly in English and Polish translation (or transliteration from Cyrillic), include the following in alphabetical order.

• Peter Aleksejev [Be]
• Andreyev [Tr] construction of gas chambers in autumn 1942, supervised Jankiel Wiernik
• Wasil Antonov [So]
• Ilya Badin [So]
• Iwan Bartels [Be], Volksdeutscher
• Sabit Barandtimov [So]
• Aglam Batarinov [So]
• Michali Belyi [So]
• Ivan Bender [Be]
• Wasil Bialakow [Be]
• Jan Bialowas [So]
• Ivan Bilik [So]
• Bodessa [So], took part in the final executions of about 30 Jewish workers on 23 November 1943 in Camp III
• Dimitri Bogunow [So]
• Mikolaj Bondarenko [Tr]
• Peter Bondave (Bondare) [Tr]
• Dimitriy Borodin [Tr]
• Felix Brandecki [So]
• Wasyl Bulji [Be]
• Achmed Chaibulin [So]
• Volodymr Cherniavshy [Tr]
• Chariton Chromenko [So]
• Heinrich Dalke [Be] [So], Volksdeutscher
• Ignat Danylchenko [So], served with Demjanjuk from March 1943, later at Flossenbürg
• Ivan Demjanjuk, testimony of Ignat Danylchenko, emigrated to the United States with his wife Vera, extradited to Israel in 1986, found guilty, appeal commenced in 1990
• Vasilii Deptyarev [So]
• Konstantin Dimida [So]
• Piotr Dmitrenko [Tr]
• Jakub Domeratzki [So]
• Wladimieraz Duda [So]
• Michail Dudko [So]
• Fiodor Duszenko [Tr]
• Karl Dzirkal [So], Volksdeutscher
• Jakow Engelhard [So], Volksdeutscher
• Fedor Federenko (Fedorenko) [Tr], Soviet POW recruited from Stalag 319 at Chełm, guard at Jewish ghetto in Lublin, sent to Warsaw and to Treblinka in September 1942, settled in the U.S., extradited to Russia in December 1984, trial and execution pronounced in July 1986
• Ivan Federenko [So]
• Miron Flunt [So]
• Gennardi Frolov [So]
• Anatoli Goncharenko [So]
• Nikolai Goncharenko [So]
• Efim Goncharov [So]
• Pyoter Goncharov [Tr]
• Mikolaj Gonzural [Tr]
• Nikolai Gordienko [So]
• Fedor Gorlov [So]
• Pavel Stepanovich Grigorchuk [Tr]
• Wasyl Gruzin [Be]
• Wasil Hetmaniec [So]
• Jan Hotowrowiecz [So]
• Michal Huber [Be], Volksdeutscher
• Vasyl Huleyt [Be]
• Wasyl Hutyt [Be]
• Iwan Huzij [Be], photographed in Belzec village
• Ivan Indyukov [So]
• Alexsai Isaenko [So]
• Ivan Ivchenko [So]
• Piotr Iwashenko [So]
• Stefan Jadziol [Be], photographed with Boris Kotychin and in the Trawniki bar
• Diner Jakovevits [Be]
• Ivan Jaryniuk [So]
• Iosof Jechal [So]
• Wasili Jefimov [So]
• Sasha Jeger [Tr]
• Wasil Jelentschuk [Tr]
• Ivan Jermoldayev [So]
• Adolf Jeschke [Be], Volksdeutscher
• Nikolai Judin [So]
• Nurgail Kabroiv [So]
• Alexander Kaiser [So], Volksdeutscher, photographed in Italy with Gomerski and Hodl
• Ivan Kakorach [So]
• Pavel Karas [So]
• Fetich Karimov [So]
• Alexander Karpenko [So]
• Viktor Kisilew [So]
• Ivan Klatt [So], Volksdeutscher, Ukrainian guard leader killed in the revolt on 14 October 1943
• Boris Kolisyn [Be]
• Kolashnikov [Tr]
• Adolf Kolenko [Be]
• Piotr Koschekuk [So]
• Jakow Koschemykin [So]
• Volodia Koshewadzki [So], deserted with stash of money taken from Jews
• Kostenko [Tr], remembered by Wiernik as the older one
• Emil Kostenko [So]
• Kyril Kostenko [Be]
• Boris Kotychin [Be], photographed with Stefan Jadziol
• Piotr Kozaczuk [So]
• Mikolay Kozende [Be]
• Ivan Kozlowski [Be]
• Filip Krawchenko [So]
• Nikolaii Krupinewich [So]
• Iwan Kuczercha [Be]
• Pavel Kudin [So]
• Nikolai Kulak [Tr]
• Wasyl Kulychin [Be]
• Samuel Kunz [Be], Volksdeutscher, photographed at the camp entrance in Belzec holding a mandolin
• Leonard Kurckov [So]
• Ivan Kurinnoy [Tr]
• Michali Kusevanov [So]
• Ananiy Grigoryevich Kuzminski [Tr]
• Nikolay Lebedenko [Tr]
• Pavel Vladimirovich Leleko [Tr]
• Filip Levchishin [Tr]
• Peto Litus [Be]
• Friedrich Lorenz [So], Volksdeutscher
• Gregoril Lyachov [So]
• Nikolay Makoda [Tr]
• Nikolay Petrovich Malagon [Tr], b. 1919 in the Red Army since 1941, POW camps in Zhitomir, Rovno and Chełm in Poland, in 1942 sent to Zamosc, returned to Trawniki, posted to Warsaw and to Treblinka, in February 1943 transferred to Belzec, in March/April 1943 transferred to Auschwitz, also at Buchenwald
• Ivan Ivanovych Marchenko [Tr] b. 1911, in the Red Army since 1941, POW camp in Chełm before Trawniki, guard at Jewish ghetto in Lublin and in Treblinka along with Nikolay Shalayev herding Jews to gas chambers, the “motorists” cranking up the gas engine when asked to “turn on the water”, called by Jews “Ivan the Terrible” (Ivan Grozny), exhibited special savagery during the killing process, photographed with Ivan Tkachuk in Treblinka, in 1943 transferred to Trieste, in 1944 fled to Yugoslavia, fate unknown, never tried
• Pawel Markarenko [So]
• Moisei Martoszenko [Tr]
• Nikolai Martynov [So]
• Terentij Martynov [So]
• Andrei Mashenko [So]
• Nikolay Matwijenko [Be]
• Nikolai Medvedev [So]
• Theodozy Melnik [Tr]
• Pavel Mordwinichev [So]
• Bari Nabiyew [So]
• Andrej Nagornyi [So]
• Mikolaj Nidosrelow [Tr]
• Ivan Nikoforov [Be] [So]
• Wasily Nijko [So]
• Anatoli Olexenko [So]
• Daniel Onoprijenko [Tr]
• Vasilij Orlovski [Be]
• Peter Oster [Be], Volksdeutscher
• Mikolaj Osyczanski [Tr]
• Franz Pamin [Be], Volksdeutscher
• Ivan Panashuk [So]
• Anatoli Pankov [So]
• Aleksander Paraschenko [Tr]
• Yevdokim Parfinyuk [Tr]
• Nikolai Pavli [Be]
• Nikolay Payevshchik [Tr]
• Gygori Peczenyt [Be]
• Dimitrii Pickerov [So]
• Alexey Pietka [Be]
• Pinneman [Tr], Volksdeutscher photographed with August Hengst
• Genrikh Pitnowij [Be], photographed in the Trawniki bar
• Michal Pocholenko [Be]
• Wasyl Podienko [Be]
• Wasyl Podionak [Be]
• Leon Polakow [Tr]
• Michal Polenko [Be]
• Gregor Preczony [Be]
• Samuil Martinovich Prits ( Prishch) [Tr]
• Wasyl Prochenko [Be]
• Dimitri Prochin [Be]
• Alexander Prus [Be], a Volksdeutscher
• Michali Reschetnikov [So]
• Igor Rezverchy [So]
• Alexander Rittich [Tr]
• Robertus [Tr], an Oberwachman cut on the neck in Totenlager by Jew from work commando resulting in liquidation of the unit on orders of Kurt Franz
• Heinrich Rohle [Be], a Volksdeutsher
• Boris Rogoza [Be] [Tr], head of Ukrainian guards particularly brutal as remembered by Willenberg and Glazar
• Rosenholz [Be], Volksdeutscher photographed with other guards at the main gate at Belzec
• Arnold Rosenko [Be]
• Grigorij Rubez [Tr]
• Piotr Rudenko [So]
• Wasyl Rudenko [Tr]
• Fyodor Ryabeka [Tr] called Rebeka in Malgon’s statement, guarded Lazaret, boasted that the barrel of his gun gets red-hot from killing Jews "unfit" to enter gas chambers
• Prokofiy Ryabtsev [Tr]
• Vasilii Ryschkov [So]
• Viktor Sabat [Be]
• Chares Sabirov [So]
• Samuel [Be], Volksdeutscher photographed at the main gate at Belzec with other Volksdeutscher guards
• Petro Sbesnikov [So]
• Mikolay Scheffer [T], Volksdeutscher
• Dimitrii Schevchenko [So]
• Pavel Shicavin [So]
• Wasil Schischajew [T]
• Kamil Schirpev [So]
• Iwan Schmidkin (Schwidkin) [Tr]
• Heinz Schmidt [Be], Volksdeutscher from Latvia in charge of Sonderkommando, personally shot its 30–40 members daily, later in Italy, committed suicide
• Klaus Schreiber [So], Volksdeutscher, killed in the revolt on 14 October 1943
• Aleksander Schultz [Tr], Volksdeutscher
• Emanuel Genrikhov Schultz [Tr] [So], Volksdeutscher
• Ernst Schumacher [So], Volksdeutscher
• Mikolaii Seleznev [So]
• Nikolay Senik [Tr]
• Mikolay Senykow [Tr]
• Gregorij Sergienko [So]
• Dimitriy Serik [So]
• Nikolay Shalayev b. 1921 [Tr], from September 1942 on with Marchenko cranking up engine feeding fumes to gas chambers
• Ivan Shevchenko [Tr]
• Ivan Shukow [So]
• Ivan Danilovich Shvidkoy [Tr]
• Maxim Sirenko [So]
• Vladimir Sirotenko [So]
• Nikolay Skakodub [Tr]
• Grigoriy Skydan [Tr]
• Semion Sokorev [So]
• Kuzma Sokur [So]
• Jakub Systola [Be]
• Wasyl Szacholij [Be]
• Oswald Strebel [Tr], Volksdeutscher, settled in its farmhouse after the camp was dismantled
• Dimitri Szpak [Be]
• Profiry Szpak [Be]
• Heinrich Szpliny [So]
• Alexander Szwab [Be]
• Ivan Terekhov [Tr]
• Fiodor Tichonowski [So]
• Iwan Tichonowski [Be]
• Ivan Tischenko [So]
• Ivan Tkachuk [Tr], photographed with Ivan Marchenko
• Wilhelm Trautwein [Be], Volksdeutscher photographed at main entrance to Belzec with other Volksdeutscher guards
• Wasyl Tribenko [Be]
• Wladimir Tscherniewskij [Tr]
• Alexander Twerdochlib [Be]
• Jakub Urnan (Unrau) [So]
• Ivan Ustinnokov [So]
• Ivan Vakutenko [So]
• Sergey Vasilenko [Tr]
• Kuzma Vaskin [So]
• Aleksander Voleshenko [Tr]
• Efim Volynieytz [So]
• Yakob Wasem [So]
• Iwan Wasilenko [Tr]
• Fiodor Wedenko [So]
• Fiodor Wedryhan [Be]
• Petro Wedryhan [Be]
• Ivan Werdenik [Be]
• Edward Wlasiuk [Be], gassing mechanic, first assistant of Hackenholt in the chambers photographed a number of times
• Wasyl Woloszyn [Be] [Tr]
• Michal Wonk [Be]
• Vasily Woronkow [Tr], remembered by Wiernik as brutal, maimed and killed Jews building gas chambers in autumn 1942
• Jakub Wysota [Be]
• Aleksander Yasko [So]
• Alexander Ivanovich Yeger [Tr], b. 25 June 1918, Zugwachmann, Volksdeutscher
• Vasily Yelenchuk [Tr]
• Konstantin Zabertnev [So]
• Iwan Zajczew [So] [Be]
• Trofim Zavidenko [Tr]
• Emil Zischer  [So]
• Ivan Zuk [Be].

Source: Trawniki Staff Page. Aktion Reinhard by Holocaust Research Project.

References

• Browning, Christopher R. (1992; 1998), "Arrival in Poland" (PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete), Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, Penguin Books, pp. 1–298, retrieved May 1, 2013, also: PDF cache archived by WebCite. {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); External link in |quote= (help)
• Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah (1997, 2007). Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Ordinary Germans and Holocaust (Google Books preview). Random House, New York. pp. 203, 232–233. ISBN 0307426238. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
• Kudryashov, Sergei, "Ordinary Collaborators: The Case of the Travniki Guards," in Mark and Ljubica Erickson (eds), Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy Essays in Honour of John Erickson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), 226-239.
• Steinhart, Eric C., "The Chameleon of Trawniki: Jack Reimer, Soviet Volksdeutsche, and the Holocaust," Holocaust & Genocide Studies, 23,2 (2009), pp. 239-262.