Trawniki men

During World War II, Trawniki men (travˈniki; Trawnikimänner) were Central and Eastern European Nazi collaborators, consisting of either volunteers or recruits from prisoner-of-war camps set up by Nazi Germany for Soviet Red Army soldiers captured in the border regions during Operation Barbarossa launched in June 1941. Thousands of these volunteers served in the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland until the end of World War II. Trawnikis belonged to a category of Hiwis (German abbreviation for Hilfswilliger, literally "those willing to help"), Nazi auxiliary forces recruited from native subjects serving in various jobs such as concentration camp guards. Between September 1941 and September 1942, the German SS and police trained 2,500 Trawniki men known as Hiwi Wachmänner (guards) at the special training camp at Trawniki outside of Lublin; by the end of 1944, 5,082 men were on active duty. Trawnikimänner were organized by Streibel into two SS Sonderdienst battalions. 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 Russian, Ukrainian and other languages of the occupied territories. All the officers at the Trawniki camp were Reichsdeutsche (citizens of the German Reich), and most of the squad commanders were Volksdeutsche (people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship). The conscripted civilians and former Soviet POWs included Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Estonians, Georgians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Russians, Tatars, and Ukrainians. The Trawnikis took a major part in Operation Reinhard, the Nazi plan to exterminate 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.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (16)

Kraków Ghetto

The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and persecution of local Polish Jews. The ghetto was later used as a staging area for separating the "able workers" from those to be deported to extermination camps in Operation Reinhard.

Chełm

Chełm (xɛwm; Kholm; Cholm; Khelm) is a city in southeastern Poland with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some from the border with Ukraine. Chełm used to be the capital of the Chełm Voivodeship until it became part of the Lublin Voivodeship in 1999. The city is of mostly industrial character, though it also features numerous notable historical monuments and tourist attractions in the Old Town. Chełm is a multiple (former) bishopric.

Hiwi (volunteer)

Hiwi (ˈhiːviː), the German abbreviation of the word Hilfswilliger or, in English, auxiliary volunteer, designated, during World War II, a member of different kinds of voluntary auxiliary forces made up of recruits indigenous to the territories of Eastern Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler reluctantly agreed to allow recruitment of Soviet citizens in the Rear Areas during Operation Barbarossa. In a short period of time, many of them were moved to combat units.