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Maytchenko is a good example of a person who served two regimes. In 1939 he lived in Chelm Lubelski, only about 50 km from Trawniki. At the beginning of the German occupation, his mother and two sisters declared themselves to be Ukrainians. His father wanted to be recognized as a Pole and refused to take a Ukrainian ID-card. Maytchenko's mother owned a bar, which during the war had the category "Nur für Deutsche" ("Only for Germans"). During Maytchenko's trial in 1952, witnesses from Chelm stated openly that the entire family, other than the father, collaborated with the Germans and were very hostile towards Poles. Maytchenko himself stated in his evidence that he had never been nor felt himself a Ukrainian:
"I did not take Ukrainian nationality, I was a Pole and I wrote this nationality in my ID-card from the Trawniki training camp."
In 1943 (in fact probably in 1942) Maytchenko was a pupil at a secondary technical school in Chelm:
"In 1943, whilst still at school, I was taken by the Germans, together with my colleagues, and we were sent to the camp at Trawniki. After a medical examination some of us were sent to assist the German armed forces, mainly the air force, and others were left at Trawniki for guard duty in the camp. We, who were left in Trawniki, signed a questionnaire in which we declared ourselves volunteers."
This information can be regarded as providing positive evidence that Maytchenko could not have been regarded as being a Pole at the time he was taken to Trawniki. There was a group of people whom witnesses described as Poles in Trawniki (about 30 people identified themselves as Poles, but did so only after the war). As a pupil of a secondary school, Maytchenko was sent directly to Trawniki, where there was a recruitment of personnel for duty supplementing the German armed forces. None of Maytchenko's colleagues was sent to Germany for slave labour – they joined the SS-Wachmannschaft in Trawniki or were enlisted as auxiliary units serving with the Luftwaffe (air-force). In contrast, none of the Polish pupils from secondary schools were enlisted as Wehrmacht auxiliaries. Many of them who were arrested after their school lessons in Lublin or in Chelm were deported to Germany for slave labour. Only Ukrainians had the chance not to be deported but instead could join the SS-Wachmannschaf in Trawniki. Among them was Maytchenko.
During his 1952 trial, in trying to defend himself, Maytchenko declared that he joined the SS-Ausbildungslager because he was in the contact with the Home Army (Polish underground organisation), and that he received an order to become a guard at Trawniki and to collect information about the camp. He alleged that apart from collecting information, he purchased weapons for the Polish underground. According to his account he did this when visiting his family in Chelm, where he had made contact with Hungarian soldiers who were stationed in his hometown. Of course, this was not the truth. During his trial, another former guard who had served with Maytchenko told of how his colleague was very helpful to the Germans. On one occasion Maytchenko denounced another colleague who had deserted from Trawniki. Maytchenko met this individual in Chelm and on that same day informed the German Gendarmerie about him, knowing that for desertion from the SS-Training Camp there was only one sentence – death.
The same witness described how Maytchenko was visited quite often by his mother and sisters, who would return to Chelm with suitcases full of Jewish goods. During his time at Trawniki, Maytchenko was a guard at the Jewish work camp and he had contact with Jewish prisoners. There are many stories in connection with the personal theft from Jewish prisoners by Ukrainian guards from Trawniki. The witness who described the visits of the Maytchenko family to Trawniki also stated that Maytchenko and other recruits from the Chelm region were people who "wanted to profit something from the Jews". Maytchenko said that he had not had special contact with the Jewish prisoners:
"During my term of duty there were incidents when Jews escaped, but I never shot at escaping people. I was not often on duty in the camp because I was an aide to the SS company commander."
During the trial he stated that he was a witness of the Erntefest executions, adding at the same time that he had not been a participant.
Maytchenko deserted from Trawniki in July 1944. According his statement, he joined the Home Army and several months later, after the liberation of Lublin, he related his activities to the Communist Secret Police, by whom he had been arrested as a former guard. He was released after several weeks and was enlisted in the Polish army, where he began to make a career. As a soldier and eventually a sergeant, he was in the front line and was decorated for bravery. After the war he served as a political officer. He was arrested for the first time in 1947 and was imprisoned for 11 months, following which he was probably released from the army and lived in Krasnik near Lublin. He was arrested for a final time in 1952, together with the other group of fomer Trawniki guards who at that time lived in Poland. During this final trial he wanted to show that he was connected with the Polish underground and that after the war he had been a good Communist (he showed the judge high Polish decorations for bravery at the front and even 5 laudatory letters from comrade Stalin). Despite this, the judge sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.
Source:
Archive of Majdanek State Museum. Documents of Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Lublin and Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Warsaw. Investigation in the case of Trawniki camp, 1966-1967.
© ARC 2005