During the Second World War, there were many different concentration camps and extermination
camps established by the Third Reich.
These ultimately had one goal in mind, mass murder and killing.
There were many guards that gained notorious reputations, for example Josef Kramer the
Beast of Belsen, the Commandant of Bergen-Belsen.
He became known for his brutal treatment, and the conditions of Belsen which caused
the deaths of hundreds each day from disease and starvation.
Irma Grese was another who gained a notorious name, for her evil and brutality with regards
to how she treated female prisoners.
These both worked at a concentration camp, but there was a different sort of camp built
by the Nazis that sought to just be solely intent on death.
The Extermination Camps had no facilities for people to stay inside of, only those who
were forced to help with the process of mass killing, and they were centres where thousands
were killed each hour.
One of the most deadly camps was Treblinka, which victims were loaded onto trains and
transported to Treblinka.
Once they arrived they were driven into gas chambers, and many were treated brutally on
their journey to their final moments.
Today we look at the mysterious guard known as Ivan the Terrible who was one of the most
evil guards involved in the killing process.
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Treblinka was an extermination camp inside occupied Poland.
It was found inside a forest north east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblika.
It operated between July 1942 and October 1943, and during this period its estimated
that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered inside the gas chambers there.
It was the deadliest extermination camp built, and there was only a larger death toll for
Jews inside of Auschwitz Birkenau.
It was managed by the German SS who recruited a number of guards from Soviet Prisoners of
War who were then serving the Germans, and there were two elements of Treblinka.
The first, Treblinka I was the forced labour element, where prisoners were ordered to work
in the gravel pit, and in the forest where they were forced to cut down the trees for
the cremation pits.
There were only a small amount of workers inside Treblinka I, who were forced to help
in the killing process, and inside the camp around 10,000 people were killed via executions,
disease and poor treatment.
The second element of Treblinka was the extermination centre.
This is where the victims were transported to, and where the gas chambers were that claimed
the lives of hundreds of thousands.
Within Treblinka II there were a number of different sections.
The first part of the camp, was an administration and residential centre, that had a main road
and a number of barracks for the Jewish sonderkommando, who were forced to clean up after the atrocities.
The SS quarters were also located here, and closely was the receiving area where the railway
unloading ramp was found.
This was surrounded by barbed wire, and once you were there was no chance of escaping.
There were two large barracks here that were where the victims would undress and remove
their jewellery and hand over valuables.
Here also was where Women and children had their hair cut short, and then clothes and
other belongings were piled up.
In a sick sight, the Nazis had created a different shack with a Red Cross symbol on it, and this
was a fake infirmary. Old, sick wounded and difficult prisoners were taken here, where
behind was an open deep pit, and prisoners were led to the edge of the pit, and then
shot by Blockfuhrer Willi Mentz, and he himself executed thousands of Jews inside of the pit.
The Third part of Treblinka II was the killing area with the gas chambers in the centre.
It was hidden from the railway tracks by earthen banks, and from the undressing barracks there
was a fenced off path that went through the forest to the gas chambers.
It was nicknamed the Tube or the Road to Heaven, and after the short walk the victims were
forced into the gas chambers.
Treblinka only had one purpose, to murder those people who were sent there.
Many who were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto’s liquidation arrived at Treblinka, and thousands
were being killed each day.
After they were told to undress, the Jews were beaten with whips to force them quickly
into the gas chambers, and those men who were hesitant and defiant were beaten barbarically
and often killed, or shot.
The victims were told they were going to be deloused, but instead they were killed inside
the gas chambers.
Sadistically, women and children were gassed after the men, and often they could hear the
screams and shouts of the panicked men as they took their last breathes, and this caused
a huge degree of panic.
The survivors of Treblinka, told of one guard who in particular was known for his sadistic
treatment of Jews and victims, and he was nicknamed Ivan the Terrible.
Long with another guard named Nikolai, Ivan the Terrible was known for his terrible treatment
and brutal murdering of prisoners.
It was said that Ivan was in charge of operating the gas chambers, and quickly forcing those
men, women and children into the chamber.
It was said that he would armed with an iron pipe and a sword, cut whip and torture people
before they were driven into the death chamber.
Others also told of how he nailed peoples ears to walls, gouged out their eyes in violent
scenes and also brutally killed children with his bare hands.
It was claimed that these incidents occured whilst Jews were waiting outside the gas chamber.
He repeated beat victims over the head with his pipe, sometimes to dead bludgeoning them,
and also that he stabbed many to death.
He was also known for mutilating younger children.
One account of Ivan the Terrible and the killing process states, ‘Ivan was tall and though
his eyes seemed kind and gentle, he was a sadist.
He enjoyed torturing his victims, while he did this, his face showed sadistic satisfaction
and he laughed and joked.
He finished off the victims according to his mood at the moment.
On top of all of this, were other guards forcing the people towards the two Ukrainians who
stood by the chamber entrance.
Rifle butts shoved and shunted, attack dogs bit and tore flesh from the bones whilst the
guards shouted the abhorrent lies of, ‘Faster Faster, the water will get cold, others still
have to go under the showers.
To escape the blows and the dogs, the crowd rushed to its death, pushing into the chamber,
the stronger ones shoving the weaker ones ahead of them.
The bedlam lasted only a short while for soon the doors slammed shut.
The chamber was filled, the motor turned on and connected with the inflow pipes and within
25 minus, at the most all lay stretched out dead, or to be more accurate were standing
up dead.
Since there was not an inch of free space, they just leaned against each other.’
The brutality of Ivan the Terrible was investigated after the war.
Firstly Treblinka was staffed by 25 SS men, and also around 120 other guards made up of
Russian and Ukranian POWs.
The name Ivan was a common one inside the camp, and was common amongst the Ukranian
and Russian men, and many of the guards were given Soviet nicknames.
The true identity of the guard has still today not completely been worked out.
One key man associated with the work of Ivan the Terrible was John Demjanjuk, who was accused
of being Ivan.
Demjanjuk was a Ukrainian who worked as a guard at Sobribor, Majdanek and Flossenburg.
He was extradited from the US to Israel, and was accused of being a Trawniki man, one of
those soviet men who aided the Nazis in mass murder, and he was accused of being the most
notorious of them, Ivan the terrible.
He faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he claimed it was a
case a mistaken identity, but many surviving witnesses of Treblinka identified him as Ivan.
Eliyahu Rosenberg was asked by the prosecution if he recognised Damjanjuk, and he asked him
to remove his glasses.
Rosenberg approached him and stated into his face, and when Demjanjuk smiled and offered
his hand, Rosenberg jumped back shouting Grozny meaning Terrible in Polish and Russia.
He said ‘Ivan, I say it unhesistantly without the slightest shadow of a doubt.
It is Ivan from Treblinka from the has chambers, the man I am looking at now.
I saw his eyes, I saw those murderous eyes.
How dare you put out your hand, murderer that you are.’
However Rosenberg had previously testified that Ivan the Terrible was killed during a
prisoner uprising in Treblinka in 1943.
He was identified also by a former German SS guard who worked at Treblinka.
The court sentenced him to death by hanging, But new evidence from the Soviets threw into
doubt the credibility of the Prosecution’s case against Demjanjuk, and the death sentence
was overturned.
However there was proof beyond doubt that he had worked as a guard in an extermination
camp, but it could not definitively be proven that he was Ivan the Terrible.
He was then sent back to America, before he was brought to trial again as a SS guard who
served at Sobribor Extermination Camp, and he was charged with being involved in the
deaths of 28,000 people.
Demjanjuk was found guilty and was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, but he died in 2012
pending his appeal.
According to Soviet archives, there is evidence that points towards Ivan the Terrible being
‘Ivan Marchenko,’ and that he had brown hair, hazel eyes, a square face and a large
scar down his neck.’
This was different to Demjanjuk, and it was said that Marchenko was last seen in Yugoslavian
in 1944, and that he fled to the partisans.
It was said he was last seen coming out of a brothel, and it was documented that the
Soviets were looking for him, but he could not be found.
It is noted that if Marchenko was found, then he would be 110 years old based on evidence,
putting beyond almost certainty that Marchenko if not killed during the Second World War,
would now be dead.
Ivan the Terrible was a name that has lived on notoriously along with the most brutal
SS guards who conducted the war crimes under the guise of the Second World War.
There’s much doubt about his true identity, but little can be doubted about the horrific
crimes of those staff who worked at Treblinka, and were complicit in the deaths of an estimated
900,000 people.
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