trawnikami

The Trawnikis were auxiliary police units recruited primarily from ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, and other non-Jewish Eastern Europeans during World War II. The term "Trawniki" originates from the Trawniki concentration camp in occupied Poland, where many of these units were initially trained by Nazi Germany’s SS (Schutzstaffel) between 1941 and 1944. Their role was to assist German forces in policing occupied territories, particularly in the General Government of occupied Poland and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.

The Trawniki battalions were composed of approximately 4,000 to 5,000 men, organized into companies of around 100–150 individuals. They were armed with rifles, pistols, and sometimes machine guns, though their equipment was generally inferior to that of German SS units. Their duties included guarding concentration camps, rounding up Jews and other perceived enemies of the Nazi regime, and participating in mass executions. Some Trawniki units were deployed to the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka extermination camps, where they played a direct role in the Holocaust by assisting in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.

The motivation for joining the Trawniki units varied. Some recruits were coerced or promised economic incentives, while others were driven by nationalist or anti-Semitic ideologies. After the war, many Trawniki members fled to the West, including to the United States, Canada, and Australia, where they often avoided prosecution due to lack of evidence or political pressure. In the 1960s, several former Trawniki members were identified and prosecuted in Israel, particularly in the Adolf Eichmann trial and subsequent trials of other Nazi collaborators.

Historical accounts of the Trawniki units highlight their complex roles as both perpetrators and, in some cases, victims of Nazi atrocities. Their participation in the Holocaust remains a subject of ongoing historical research, emphasizing the collaboration of local populations with the Nazi regime during World War II.