Steidtmann was born on November 15 , 1914 , in Weißenfels and joined the SS on June 1 , 1933 . In 1942 , as commander of a police unit , the Third Battalion of Police Regiment 22 , Steidtmann guarded trains used for the deportation of Polish Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp . His unit remained in the ghetto through 1943 , where it would have been involved in the liquidation of the Ghetto under Gen. Jürgen Stroop in which 55,000 people were killed or sent to the death camps . Though Steidtmann had denied that he was involved in the events in the Warsaw Ghetto , witnesses placed him there . He was later assigned to Police Battalion 101 , which was involved in the November 1943 " Harvest Festival " in which Jews in camps near Lublin were systematically shot and killed . Steidtmann also claimed not to have been in the area during the killings in Lublin , saying he had been on leave , but letters he had written at the time provided evidence that he was present
Harvest Festival
Aktion Erntefest
Erich Steidtmann