Siegfried Graetschus was an SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

-Oberscharführer

Oberscharführer

Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant) at Sobibor extermination camp

Sobibór extermination camp

Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...

. In the process, Graetschus aided with the genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

 of Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 and other peoples at Sobibor during Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...

 of The Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

.

Gratschus joined the SS in 1935 and the Nazi Party in 1936. He served at Bernburg

Bernburg

Bernburg is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, capital of the district of Salzlandkreis. It is situated on the river Saale, approx. 30 km downstream from Halle. The town is dominated by its huge Renaissance castle featuring a museum as well as a popular, recently updated bear pit in its...

 and Treblinka

Treblinka extermination camp

Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...

 before being posted to Sobibor in August 1943. He succeeded Erich Lachmann

Erich Lachmann

Erich Gustav Willie Lachmann was a police auxiliary and SS-Scharführer who participated in the "Operation Reinhard" in the Sobibor extermination camp.Lachmann was born in Liegnitz on November 6, 1909...

 as commander of the approximately 200 Ukrainian guards at Sobibor.

Siegfried Graetschus was killed in the shoemaker's barracks with an axe

Axe

The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...

 to his head by Arkady Mojzeszewicz Wajspapir, a Jewish Russian Red Army soldier who had been imprisoned at Sobibor as a prisoner of war, during the Sobibor revolt on .