Trawniki

Trawniki [travˈniki] is a village in Świdnik County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Trawniki. It lies approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi) south-east of Świdnik and 33 km (21 mi) south-east of the regional capital Lublin.

The village has a population of 2,893.

During World War II Trawniki was the location of Trawniki concentration camp. This camp provided slave labourers for nearby industrial plants of the SS Ostindustrie where they worked in appalling conditions with little food. From September 1941 until July 1944, the camp was also utilized for training guards recruited from Soviet POWs, known as "Hiwi" (German letterword for 'Hilfswillige', lit. "those willing to help"), for service with Auxiliary police in occupied Poland. The Trawniki men (German: Trawnikimänner) took part in Operation Reinhard, the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews. They conducted executions at extermination camps and in Jewish ghettos including at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II, Warsaw (three times, see Stroop Report), , Lublin, Lvov, Radom, Kraków, Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki itself.