• Memorial to the Victims of the Forced Labour Camp Trawniki
A memorial in the small town of Trawniki, located about forty kilometres south-east of Lublin, honours the thousands of Jewish forced labourers held here from 1942 on and murdered during »Aktion Erntefest« (»Operation Harvest Festival«) in 1943.
Image: Trawniki, undated, Site of the sugar plant in Trawniki, which was used as forced labour camp from 1942/43, Scheffler
Trawniki, undated, Site of the sugar plant in Trawniki, which was used as forced labour camp from 1942/43, Scheffler

Image: Trawniki, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews, Tomasz Kowalik
Trawniki, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews, Tomasz Kowalik
The small town of Trawniki lies close to Lublin in eastern Poland. In the autumn of 1941, Lublin SS and police leader Odilo Globocnik had an SS training camp established on the premises of a former sugar plant in Trawniki. There the SS trained »Hilfswillige« (»volunteer auxiliaries«), including »Volksdeutsche« (German nationals) from Eastern Europe and anti-communist Soviet prisoners of war, especially Ukrainians. The SS deployed these men, referred to as »Trawniki men«, as concentration camp guards, in mass shootings of Jews or in anti-partisan warfare. In total, between 4,000 and 5,000 men were trained at the Trawniki camp, which was dismantled only in the summer of 1944.
At the end of 1942, the SS also set up a forced labour camp on the premises of the old sugar plant in Trawniki. Almost all of the forced labourers at the camp were Polish Jews. The nearby training facility provided the guards for the camp. At the end of 1941, a brush factory from the Międzyrzec Podlaski ghetto was transferred to the Trawniki camp along with several hundred of its forced labourers. In early 1943, the Fritz Schultz company relocated about 5,600 Jewish forced labourers from the Warsaw ghetto, where they had produced textiles for the Wehrmacht, to Trawniki. Among them were many members of the underground resistance movement in the Warsaw ghetto, including Emanuel Ringelblum, who had led the underground archives. The Jews continued to work for the Schultz company in Trawniki until the camp was dissolved in November 1943 during »Operation Harvest Festival« and its prisoners were shot by SS units: On November 3, 1943, members of the SS and SD surrounded the forced labour camp and gradually brought the Jews to the premises of the SS training camp, where they were forced to undress and climb into a prepared ditch. All of the approximately 6,000 forced labourers, including women and children, were shot by SS men. Their bodies were subsequently burned.
Image: Trawniki, undated, Site of the sugar plant in Trawniki, which was used as forced labour camp from 1942/43, Scheffler
Trawniki, undated, Site of the sugar plant in Trawniki, which was used as forced labour camp from 1942/43, Scheffler

Image: Trawniki, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews, Tomasz Kowalik
Trawniki, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews, Tomasz Kowalik
About 6,000 Jewish forced labourers were shot in Trawniki in November 1943. A small group came from the Międzyrzec Podlaski ghetto; the majority - about 5,600 Jews - came from the Warsaw ghetto.
Image: Trawniki, 1942, Prisoners of the forced labour camp in front of the sugar plant, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny
Trawniki, 1942, Prisoners of the forced labour camp in front of the sugar plant, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny

Many of the former camp buildings remain intact, however, they are not publicly accessible as the premises are private property. In the 1960s, a memorial to the murdered Jewish forced labourers was erected on the site of the November 1943 mass shootings, which were part of »Operation Harvest Festival«. The inscription on the pedestal does not refer to Jews, but to »victims of many nationalities«. Only in 2001 was the dedication altered, on the initiative of the Israeli David Efrati, a former prisoner of the Trawniki camp who had survived because a small group of Jewish prisoners were sent to the Majdanek concentration camp instead of being murdered during »Operation Harvest Festival«. The new inscription on the side of the monument now specifically identifies the victims as Jews.
Image: Trawniki, 2009, The old inscription on the pedestal of the monument, Tomasz Kowalik
Trawniki, 2009, The old inscription on the pedestal of the monument, Tomasz Kowalik

Image: Trawniki, 2009, New inscription on the monument, identifying the victims as Jews, Tomasz Kowalik
Trawniki, 2009, New inscription on the monument, identifying the victims as Jews, Tomasz Kowalik
Name
Pomnik dla Ofiar Bylego Obozu Pracy Przymusowej
Phone
+48 (0)81 5856042
Open
The memorial is always open.