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The Trawniki men, named after the SS training camp near Lublin, belonged to the "foreign national" auxiliary troops in service of the Nazis and were drawn primarily from Soviet prisoners of war. They were employed across occupied Poland and the Soviet Union where they performed a wide range of tasks. These included guarding forced labor and POW camps, participating directly in Operation Reinhardt, the liquidation of ghettos, and the operation of extermination camps. Their status, however, was ambiguous. Shaped by coercion, survival, and shifting incentives, the Trawniki men displayed behaviors of extreme violence, desertion, and occasional resistance. Trawniki Men and the Holocaust examines the formation, recruitment, and deployment of this group, situating them within the wider structures of Nazi occupation and genocide. In doing so, it reveals the fluid boundaries between coercion and collaboration, and the complex realities behind the implementation of mass murder in Eastern Europe.
Censebrunn- Benz’s work offers an important contribution to the field of not only Holocaust studies, but the study of violence and genocide. Her account of the Trawniki men and the Operation Reinhard camps fill an important gap in our understanding of the Holocaust in the east and the men behind the on-the-ground implementation.
— Kimberly Allar, H-Soz-Kult
Angelika Benz’s study is the first to address a subject matter that is difficult to grasp both ethically and legally. ... Above all, it demonstrates how the SS was able to reduce inhabitants of the conquered territories into instruments of its genocidal policies. In doing so, it also makes an important contribution to the history of genocide and violence in the twentieth century.
— Klaus-Peter Friedrich, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
Angelika Censebrunn-Benz is a historian and lecturer at the Alice Salomon University in Berlin. She is leading the "Nicolhaus in Willmars" research project on coming to terms with the past for the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her research focuses on the history of National Socialism, the GDR, and the consequences of institutionalization and incarceration.
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Prisoners of War and Volunteers as Henchmen of the SS
Chapter 2. The SS Training and Labour Camp Trawniki
Chapter 3. From “Euthanasia” to the Genocide of the Jews
Chapter 4. Cooperation and Individual Initiative
Chapter 5. Criminal Prosecution after 1945
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of People
Index