Operation Harvest Festival ( '' Aktion Erntefest '' in German ) , with approximately 43,000 victims , was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war . It surpassed the notorious massacre of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar outside Kiev by 10,000 victims . The Trawniki training camp was dismantled in July 1944 because of the approaching frontline . The last 1,000 '' Hiwis '' forming the '' SS Battalion Streibel '' led by Karl Streibel himself , were transported west to continue their dirty deeds at the still functioning death camps . The Soviets entered the completely empty facility on July 23 , 1944 . After the war , they captured and prosecuted hundreds , possibly as many as one thousand '' Hiwis '' who returned home to USSR . Most were sentenced to a Gulag , and released under the Khrushchev amnesty of 1955
Aktion Erntefest
Aktion Erntefest
Trawniki concentration camp