Willi Mentz

SS-Unterscharführer Willi Bruno Mentz (30 April 1904 – 25 June 1978) was a member of the German SS in World War II and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland. Mentz was known as "Frankenstein" at the camp.

Background Born in Schönhagen near Brandenburg, Mentz joined the NSDAP in 1932. He was a sawmill worker and milkman before joining a police detachment. In 1940, following the outbreak of war, he handled cows and pigs at Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre in the course of Action T4, and in 1941 was transferred to Hadamar gassing facility near Limburg, where he worked in the food garden until early summer 1942. In June–July 1942 Mentz was posted to Treblinka extermination camp and served there until November 1943. He worked at Lazaret killing station at Treblinka II Vernichtungslager and later, at Camp I Arbeitslager as an overseer of the agricultural prisoner-commando . During this time, more than 800,000 Jews; men, women, and children died in its gas chambers. Other estimates of the number killed at Treblinka exceed 1,000,000.

The Gunman of Treblinka At Treblinka, Mentz was subordinate to SS-Unterscharführer August Miete. Upon his arrival there, he was tasked by SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Wirth with supervising the hands-on killing of Jews at the so-called Lazaret, a fake infirmary, surrounded by the barbed wire fence where the sick, old, wounded and "difficult" new arrivals were taken directly from the Holocaust trains. On 31 March 1978 he was released from prison due to poor health and died on 25 June 1978 in Niedermeien.