32 Facts About Feodor Fedorenko

Feodor Fedorenko was a Soviet Nazi collaborator and war criminal who served at Treblinka extermination camp in German occupied Poland during World War II.

Feodor Fedorenko was deported to the USSR and sentenced to death for treason and participation in the Holocaust.

Feodor Fedorenko was born in Dzhankoy in the Sivash region of the Crimea, in southern Ukraine.

Feodor Fedorenko was mobilized into the Soviet Army in June 1941, around the time of the Nazi German Operation Barbarossa.

Feodor Fedorenko was a truck driver, and had no previous military training.

Feodor Fedorenko was one of approximately 5,000 Trawniki men trained as Holocaust executioners by SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl Streibel from Operation Reinhard.

Feodor Fedorenko claimed in his postwar hearing that he was issued a rifle which was not fired.

Feodor Fedorenko was dispatched to Treblinka approximately in September 1942.

Feodor Fedorenko became a non-commissioned officer attaining the rank of Oberwacher.

Feodor Fedorenko was assistant to the commander of the first platoon of a guards company in the Treblinka "death camp".

Feodor Fedorenko came together with me from the city of Warsaw to the Treblinka "death camp".

Feodor Fedorenko took part in the shooting of citizens of Jewish nationality during the unloading of trains, in the undressing places to the gas chambers and to the "infirmary".

Feodor Fedorenko emigrated to the United States from Hamburg in 1949 and was granted permanent residency status under the Displaced Persons Act.

Feodor Fedorenko initially resided in Philadelphia but later settled in Waterbury, Connecticut, where he found employment as a brass factory worker.

Feodor Fedorenko was granted US citizenship in 1970, and later retired to Miami Beach, Florida in 1973.

Feodor Fedorenko was arrested and, in June 1978, brought for a denaturalization trial in district court at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Feodor Fedorenko testified over three days, denying that he had actually entered the section of the camp where the gas chambers were located but admitted that he had once been posted on a guard tower overlooking this section of the camp.

Feodor Fedorenko argued that his service at Treblinka had been involuntary and, since he had worked only as a perimeter guard, he had virtually no contact with the prisoners.

Feodor Fedorenko had mistreated no one and, therefore, when he lied on his immigration forms about his birthplace and wartime service, it was not about any material fact that would have excluded him from entering the US.

Six Treblinka survivors testified that Feodor Fedorenko had in fact committed atrocities, namely beating and shooting Jewish prisoners.

Schalom Kohn said Feodor Fedorenko beat him almost daily with an iron-tipped whip, and that he saw him whip and shoot other prisoners.

Josef Czarny said he saw Feodor Fedorenko beat arriving prisoners and shoot one prisoner.

Feodor Fedorenko said that on one occasion, he heard a shot and ran outside to see Fedorenko, with a gun drawn, standing close to a wounded woman who later told him that Fedorenko was responsible for the shooting.

Lastly, Pinchas Epstein said Feodor Fedorenko shot and killed a friend of his, after making him crawl naked on all fours.

Feodor Fedorenko ruled that the 71-year-old Fedorenko had himself been a "victim of Nazi aggression" and that the prosecutors had failed to prove Fedorenko had committed any atrocities while serving as a guard at the extermination camp.

Further, after entering the US, Feodor Fedorenko had been a hard-working and responsible resident and citizen.

Feodor Fedorenko argued that Fedorenko's deception when entering the US was a material fact that justified revocation of citizenship, that the district court had erred in judging the credibility of the survivor witnesses, and that it erred in its determination that Fedorenko's good conduct in the US after the war was relevant to the decision about revoking his citizenship.

Feodor Fedorenko appealed to the Supreme Court which, in January 1981, sustained the appellate court's decision.

In Punishers, it was claimed that he was not detained by the KGB upon arrival and spent weeks drinking in his native Dzhankoy, walking free until his arrest in January 1985 after a report titled "Nazi Feodor Fedorenko feels free in USSR" was reportedly published in The Washington Post.

Feodor Fedorenko spent about a year in jail before his trial in the Crimean Regional Court began on June 10,1986.

The prosecutor was adamant that Feodor Fedorenko should be executed, while his lawyer asked the court for leniency on the grounds of his client's age.

Feodor Fedorenko was ordered to forfeit all of his belongings.