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

World History: True Stories of the 20th Century · May 20, 2026 · 14m

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…