Ivan Marchenko: Former Soviet Soldier Turned Nazi Treblinka Gas Chamber Operator

Ivan Marchenko was a Trawniki guard at Treblinka extermination camp who helped operate the gas chambers during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Ivan Marchenko was born on the 2 March 1911, in the Ukrainian village of Sierhiejówka, then part of the Russian Empire. Before the outbreak of the war, Ivan Marchenko was already a father of two children - a son and a daughter – whom he had with his wife Kateryna Krawtchenko. The Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Poland found itself fighting a two front war when the Soviet Union invaded the country from the east on the 17th of September. The last resistance of Polish units ended on the 6th of October. Ivan Marchenko entered the Red Army infantry on the 27 May 1941. However, on the 10 July of the same year, he was captured by the Germans near the city of Bila Tserkva, about 80 kilometres — or 50 miles — south of Kyiv. Shortly after his capture, his third child was born. In May of 1942, Marchenko was sent to Treblinka extermination camp which was constructed in the summer of 1942. It was the third killing center, after Bełżec and Sobibór, established by Operation Reinhard authorities. In Treblinka, the Germans would compete with the Trawniki guards in brutality towards the people selected to die.At each gas chamber there were 5 or 6 Germans besides the motorists with their dogs. Motorists such as Ivan Marchenko were the Trawniki guards who operated the gas chambers which were built next to the motor room, which was equipped with various engines taken from large lorries and tanks. When Trawniki guards turned on the motor, the exhaust gases were led by pipes into the gas chambers, thereby killing the people inside. While at the beginning the Nazis claimed to be able to ‘process’ meaning “to kill” a train of around 3,000 people in about three hours, later on they reduced this to around 30 minutes. In an hour's time the gas chambers were opened up and the bodies taken out, undressed and burnt on a framework made of railway lines which served as the open-air crematoria.This episode is part of the series Fascist Collaborators.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv