Previous
Chapter 14
Themes
and Colors
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
On October 28, 1942, the SS and Police Leader for the General Government decides that only eight Jewish ghettos can remain in operation. Four of these are in Reserve Police Battalion 101’s security zone: Łukow, Parczew, Konskowola, and Międzyrzec. Many Jews flee these ghettos out of fear of being shot or deported in October and November, but they return for shelter during the winter months, even though the danger of being shot is ever present. After four months of calm, Second Company and a unit from Trawniki descend upon Międzyrzec and deport somewhere between 700 and 5,000 Jews (reports vary) in one action, around 1,000 in another, and the Security Police shoot the rest in one final action. After this, Międzyrzec is proclaimed judenfrei. In May, 3,000 to 4,000 Jews are deported to Treblinka from Łuków.
The systematic deportation and murder of every individual Jew in the ghettos is another sign that the Final Solution in this area is about to reach its climax. No longer content with just regular deportations to death camps, the Nazis increase the killing in one area at a time, rapidly moving through the Lublin district with the goal of making it entirely judenfrei in a very short amount of time. Reserve Police Battalion 101, then, is now an important part of the Final Solution. This is ironic because so few of the men actually belong to the Nazi Party and because quite a few of them joined the Order Police because they didn’t want to participate in violent military action, but now they are participating in one of the most deadly genocides in modern history.
Active
Themes
By this time, many of the men who were part of Reserve Police Battalion 101 when it arrived in Poland in July 1942 had been shuffled around. Men born before 1898 are sent back to Germany, some men are taken out of each unit to create a new special unit under Lieutenant Brand, some of the younger noncommissioned officers are reassigned to the Waffen-SS, and Lieutenant Gnade takes Steinmetz with him to Lublin to form a special guard company. Some reinforcements are brought in, but the battalion is not as large as it once was. Only a portion of the policemen who had been at Józefów are still part of the battalion in November 1943 when it is called to participate in the Erntefest (“harvest festival”), the largest German killing operation against the Jews in World War II, during which approximately 42,000 Jews are killed.
Erntefest is supposed to be the final action in the Lublin district to make it judenfrei. Although Browning says the number of Jews killed during the operation is 42,000, some estimates vary between 39,000 and 43,000. These numbers are hard to pinpoint because there’s simply no way to adequately keep paperwork on every individual person that’s killed. There’s always the chance that someone escapes, people are counted twice, or that someone in charge simply didn’t count at all. However, as Browning has mentioned before, these numbers are generally conservative estimates. In other words, there’s a good chance that more people died than what the paperwork shows.
Active
Themes
Erntefest is the climax of Himmler’s mission to obliterate the Polish Jewry. After the ghetto deportations in May 1943, the only Jews in the Lublin district are spread out in Globocnik’s labor camps, (about 45,000 workers). It is soon apparent to Himmler that these Jews must be killed in order to make the area truly judenfrei. More importantly, Jewish resistance is on the rise in some of the camps as Jews begin to realize that making themselves useful workers won’t save them from the gas chamber. Because of this, Himmler knows that he can’t kill the Jews slowly, one camp at a time—they must all be killed in a single operation or else they’ll fight back. Planning and preparation for the event begins months in advance, including making the Jews dig large trenches that will become their graves.
Active
Themes
On November 2, the night before the killings begin, Globocnik’s recent successor as SS and Police Leader of the district meets with the commanders of the units that will help with the Erntefest, including Reserve Police Battalion 101. The men from the battalion take part in nearly every part of the operation. Some march Jews from small work camps to the larger Majdanek concentration camp and others position themselves on the road into the camp to prevent escapes. They watch as 16,500 to 18,000 Jews file past while music blares from the speakers. Even with the music, everyone can clearly hear the gunfire as Jews are murdered. One witness remembers watching the Jews being forced to undress, run into the graves, lie on top of the previous victims, and then wait to be shot by executioners from above.
Active
Themes
Get the entire Ordinary Men LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Meanwhile, similar executions are being carried out in a Trawniki work camp (about 6,000 to 10,000 victims) and a few smaller camps. Nearby, 17,000 Jews are still alive at Paniatowa and smaller camps that will be spared because the Jews work on aircraft parts. Poniatowa is scheduled to be hit the next day, and Reserve Police Battalion 101 evidently participates in this action as well. In the minds of the men from Reserve Police Battalion 101, the two days of killing at the two camps merge together and are somewhat confused. As at Majdanek, the Jews undress and then march naked into the graves while music plays over the speakers. One witness remembers that some of the Jews did not die immediately but lay in the grave cursing the men while others were shot on top of them.
Active
Themes
Although the men are used to killing, they are not accustomed to the process of disposing of so many bodies. According to one of Gnade’s men, the stench of burning bodies in Majdanek permeates Lublin for days. The men of Third Company, on the other hand, view the body disposal for themselves: half-decomposed bodies are disinterred, placed on an iron grill, and burned.
Active
Themes
After Erntefest, the district of Lublin is essentially judenfrei and Reserve Police Battalion 101’s participation in the Final Solution ends. Using conservative estimates of about 6,500 Jews shot at mass executions like Józefów, 1,000 Jews shot during the “Jew hunts,” and a minimum of 35,000 Jews shot at Majdanek and Poniatowa, Browning concludes that the battalion has participated in the murder of 38,000 Jews. Additionally, the men have helped to deport around 45,000 Jews to Treblinka. With fewer than 500 men, the battalion effectively causes the deaths of 83,000 Jews.
Active
Themes
