Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ordinary Men, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom of Choice
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance
Normalization of Violence
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing
Summary
Analysis
Łomazy is far from any railway station, which is why the Jews were executed there instead of being deported to an extermination camp. Most of the rest of the Jews in the district lived in ghettos near railways, so Reserve Police Battalion 101’s primary duties involved ghetto clearings and deportations instead of murder. Steinmetz’s Third Platoon of Second Company is stationed in Parczew, home to about 5,000 Jews, when orders come down to round them up for deportation with the help of First Company and a unit of Hiwis. In Trapp’s speech before the action, he “‘indirectly’ but without ambiguity” tells the men that all the old, frail, and sick must be shot on the spot, the rest are to march to the train station about three kilometers away. On the first day about 3,000 Jews are deported to Treblinka; several days later, the remaining 2,000 Jews follow.
Extermination camps like Treblinka are specifically designed to help make Poland and eventually the rest of Europe judenfrei. The Jews who are sent there are not sent to work; they are only there to be killed. Helping round up and load Jews onto the deportation trains makes the men in Reserve Police Battalion 101 complicit in their murder. The gas chambers at Treblinka aren’t a heavily guarded secret by this time, so the men know that the Jews they’re rounding up will be killed. However, because they’re not doing the killing themselves, it’s easier for the men to create a psychological distance between their actions and what the results of those actions will be—namely, that people, including women and young children, will be killed.
Themes
The roundups and deportations are largely uneventful. Some men even feel that the Hiwis are unnecessary during the second roundup. They all know where the Jews are going and what will happen when they get there; in this instance, putting the Jews’ inevitable deaths out of sight seems to put them out of mind, as well. The clearing of the ghetto at Międzyrzec (home to 12,000 Jews, 11,000 of which are deported) just a few days later is far more memorable.
As the men in Reserve Police Battalion 101 become more and more active in the process of rounding up and deporting Jews to the death camps, the events begin blending together. The men get so used to casual violence and the standing order to shoot anyone who can’t march to the station that the violence only becomes noteworthy when there’s an abnormally large body count or if it’s particularly bloody.
Themes
As a “transit ghetto,” Międzyrzec must be periodically emptied to make room for more Jews. Reserve Police Battalion 101’s First Company, First Platoon of Third Company, and Third Platoon of Second Company all show up to clear the ghetto. First Sergeant Kammer helps supervise and Captain Wohlauf, along with his pregnant young wife, arrives to help. Wohlauf’s past career is full of difficulties. He is bright but lacks discipline and is very full of himself. Two of his past commanders simply gave up trying to work with him and shuffled him around before he landed under Trapp’s command. Trapp helps promote Wohlauf’s career, securing his company command and making him a deputy commander. The men, however, mock him for being so conceited and they believe that Wohlauf brought his wife to show off how much power he has.
A “transit ghetto” is a place where Jews are concentrated until it’s time to deport them to the extermination camps. Wohlauf makes an odd choice by bringing his wife to a ghetto clearing. Even the uneventful ones involve the shooting deaths of elderly Jews or those too sick to walk—it is always violent, and presumably it’d be shocking to a young woman who’s not used to violence. It’s a testament to how habituated Wohlauf has become to violence that he apparently thinks she’ll be more impressed than disgusted with what goes on there.
Themes
After arriving in Międzyrzec, Wohlauf sends some men out on outer guard duty but most are sent into the ghetto to help the Hiwis clear it with the usual order to shoot the old and sick. The Hiwis (who are quite drunk and trigger happy) and the policemen drive the Jews into the marketplace, where they’re forced to sit or stand under the hot sun and are occasionally beaten. Wohlauf’s wife is seen standing nearby, watching closely.
The Hiwis are usually only called in when they know something particularly violent will need to be done. This makes Wohlauf’s choice to bring his wife even more questionable—if the Hiwis are there, the action is bound to be bloody. Furthermore, the men from the battalion might be more willing to use more violence because they are working with an extremely violent group. In other words, a mob mentality might settle in making the men willing to inflict unnecessary pain or humiliation.
Themes
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After several hours, the roundup is finished. The policemen and Hiwis march the Jews toward the train station, shooting all those who are too tired to walk. At the train station, the men beat and whip the Jews to force them into overcrowded cars and then leave before the train pulls out. This is the largest deportation the battalion carries out in Poland. While the men themselves don’t know how many people they shot, the Jews that are left behind to bury the corpses say it was 960. This number is notable because it means about nine percent of the Jews in the ghetto were killed. Comparatively, when the Warsaw ghetto (Poland’s largest) was cleared, only 2 percent of the Jews were killed. The Jews in Międzyrzec, then, were brutally treated in a way that left an imprint on even the most calloused men’s minds.
This roundup is even more violent than usual. This shows that a large number of the men are becoming more like Lieutenant Gnade, deriving pleasure from using violence against the Jews. Violence for these men has become, at best, ordinary and routine. It’s part of the job now. One aspect of violence becoming routine is that the murders they commit in the ghettos are not personal, one-on-one events with the victims. They can shoot indiscriminately or without really paying attention to what they’re doing. For most of these men, there is no longer any question whether it’s right or wrong.
Themes
Part of the reason the ghetto clearing at Międzyrzec is so violent is that there are hundreds more policemen and Hiwis than usual. Furthermore, there are more than twice as many Jews to round up, which, combined with increased manpower, leads to increased brutality. So many Jews are sent to Treblinka at once—not just from Międzyrzec, but also Warsaw and Radom—that the killing process breaks down and it takes weeks to fix it. This offers the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 a brief respite from killing.
The more people there are shooting, the greater pressure the men feel to conform to the group. Furthermore, a sort of mob mentality sets in—the men begin committing violent crimes that they’d never commit alone or under any other circumstances. In other words, there is a sense of safety in numbers and individual men have less of an issue being extraordinarily violent, either just to get the job done or for their personal enjoyment.
Themes
