Trawniki (Concentration camp)

The Trawniki was a concentration camp set up by Nazi Germany in the village of Trawniki about 40 kilometres (25 mi) southeast of Lublin during the occupation 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 the Central Industrial Region, and subdivided into at least three distinct zones. The Trawniki camp first opened after the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union, intended to hold Soviet POWs, with rail lines in all major directions in the General Government territory. Between 1941 and 1944, the camp expanded into an SS training camp for collaborationist auxiliary police, mainly Ukrainian. In 1942, it became the forced-labor camp for thousands of Jews within the Majdanek concentration camp system as well. The Jewish inmates of Trawniki provided slave labour for the makeshift industrial plants of SS-Ostindustrie, working in appalling conditions with little food. There were 12,000 Jews imprisoned at Trawniki as of 1943 sorting through trainsets of clothing delivered from Holocaust locations. They were all massacred during Operation Harvest Festival of November 3, 1943, by the auxiliary units of Trawniki men stationed at the same location, helped by the travelling Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Orpo. The first camp commandant was Hermann Hoefle, replaced by Karl Streibel.