The Trawniki camp first opened after the outbreak of war with the USSR, intended to hold Soviet POWs, with rail lines in all major directions in the General Government territory. Between 1941 and 1944, the camp expanded into an SS training camp for collaborationist auxiliary police, mainly Ukrainian. And in 1942, it became the forced-labor camp for thousands of Jews within the Majdanek concentration camp system as well. The Jewish inmates of Trawniki provided slave labour for the makeshift industrial plants of "SS-Ostindustrie," working in appalling conditions with little food.