Most Sobibor Trials Were Judicial Farces

Actually, all but one: a 1965–66 judicial trial in the West German city of Hagen of SS officers who had worked at Sobibor extermination camp. All other Sobibor-related trials were held in the Soviet Union (infamous for its kangaroo courts, show trials and judicial farces).

The latter were trials of so-called “Trawniki men” (Trawnikis). These were Eastern European (mostly Ukrainian) Nazi collaborators, consisting of either volunteers or recruits from POW camps set up by Wehrmacht for Soviet Red Army soldiers captured during Operation Barbarossa.

Thousands of these volunteers served in the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland until the end of World War II. Trawnikis belonged to a category of Hiwis (from Hilfswilliger – “willing to help”) – recruits from native subjects serving in various jobs such as concentration camp guards.

Between September 1941 and September 1942, the German SS and police trained 2,500 Trawniki men known as Hiwi Wachm;nner (KL camp guards) at the special training camp at Trawniki village just outside of Lublin – hence the name.

The Trawnikis took a major part in Aktion Reinhard (extermination of Jews in General Government part of occupied Poland). They also served at extermination camps and played an important role in the suppression of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

At each of the Aktion Reinhard killing centers Trawniki Hiwi men served as the guard units (between 70 and 120 depending on location). Some were selected to act as the gas chambers operators but almost all were involved in shooting, beating, and terrorizing Jews.

After the war, a small number of Trawnikis were tried in West Germany with little success. Due to a lack of evidence and reliable witnesses, they were usually acquitted of all charges and set free.

Soviet “criminal justice system” was criminal, for sure, but had nothing to do with justice. It was not above torture, forging documents, using false witnesses, etc. (hence any document coming out of Soviet criminal “court” is highly suspect).

Unlike in the West, in the Soviet Union Trawnikis were charged with treason and thus were found guilty and sentenced to death by shooting long before the trial even started. Most probably got what they deserved; however, one can not exclude the possibility that in many cases SS officers shifted the blame for shootings, gassings, etc. to “subhuman” Trawnikis.

Soviet Trawniki trials were not limited to Sobibor; separate trials prosecuted personnel of the Belzec (1963–65), Treblinka (1964–65), and Majdanek (1975–81) extermination camps. With the same murderous result, of course.

Some of the Ukrainian guards who served at Sobibor were prosecuted in Kiev, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. They were convicted of treason, found guilty (no surprise here), sentenced to death and executed.

In April 1963, another trial was held, in Kiev, in which survivor Alexander Pechersky (leader of Sobibor uprising) was the chief prosecution witness. Ten former Trawniki from Ukraine were found guilty and sentenced to death; all were executed. Another was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

A third Soviet trial was held in Kiev in June 1965. Three former Trawniki men from Sobib;r and Belzec were charged with treason, convicted and sentenced to death. They were executed by a firing squad.

The German court in Hagen initiated proceedings on 6 September 1965 against twelve former members of Sobibor personnel. These twelve constituted about a quarter of the SS men employed at Sobib;r; twelve had been killed in the October 1943 uprising, which precipitated closure and destruction of the camp by the end of the year.

Defendants claimed that once assigned to serve at a death camp, they did not believe they could refuse their orders, citing the statement made by Christian Wirth to the personnel at Sobibor:

“If you do not like it here, you can leave, but under the earth, not over it“

But the prosecution presented evidence that SS-Untersturmf;hrer Johann Klier, who asked to be transferred from Sobib;r on moral grounds, was not punished but allowed to leave, which proved that the contrary was true. Well… not exactly proved because in Auschwitz such requests were routinely denied.

The verdicts were pronounced on December 20, 1966. Only one defendant – Karl Frenzel, commandant of Lager I, the area in which Jewish prisoners lived (for a while) and performed forced labor – got life in prison (he served 16 years).

One committed suicide in prison; four got prison terms from 3 to 8 years (no one served the full sentence) and six were acquitted of all charge due to lack of evidence (happened all the time in West German war crimes trials).