Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Training Camp and Operation Reinhard

The “Trawniki men” were indigenous collaborators who provided auxiliaries essential to “Operation Reinhard”—the murder of all Jews in the Government General. As architects of mass robbery, mass enslavement, and mass murder, the SS created in the Trawniki men a ruthless force bound neither to territory nor to nationalist aims, but rather to commanders and missions. The Germans’ provision of military benefits, their extension of awards and status, and even the respect they showed their helpers tightened the bond. Nicknamed for the earlier German colonial “askaris” in East Africa, the Trawniki-men were not so much reminiscent of the past as they were enforcers of the Nazi future.