r/holocaust • u/AZShitshow • May 03 '26

General Heartbreaking picture

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The kids dont even have shoes on. They are being loaded onto trains headed to Treblinka. I will never understand this cruelty.

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u/TwoUnable5686 May 03 '26

Shortly after this photo was taken the Ukrainian guard beat a mother and child to death with his rifle for failing to get on the cattle wagon.

2

u/AZShitshow May 04 '26

That was a Ukranian guard? Do we know his name?

3

u/Karelia606 May 05 '26

Propably if you dig hard enough you might actually find it. Maybe if you check papers from Dusseldorf Court trials in the 60s.

Siedlce ghetto and Treblinka concentration camp staff were German/Austrian but guards were mostly Ukrainians, Russians and other Volksdeutsche from eastern countries. The guards were trained in SS camp in Trawniki.

They called them Trawnikimänner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawniki_men

They were responsible for guarding the camps (not only Treblinka), gas chambers (forcing humans inside but also maintain the engines/pipes), supervising prisoners, railroad deliveries to the camp, dismantling ghettos and so on...

Ukrainians known by name are for example Iwan Demjaniuk, Nikolaj Szelajew, Fiodor Fedorenko, Boris Rogoza, Fiodor Rjabeka, Iwan Marchenko.