Literally translated, judenfrei means “free of Jews.” This was the term the Nazis used to designate areas where every single Jew had been killed or rounded up for deportation. Massacres like the Erntefest were designed to create judenfrei areas in Poland. Reserve Police Battalion 101 helped create judenfrei areas by overseeing mass deportations, ghetto liquidations, and mass murders.
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Judenfrei Term Timeline in Ordinary Men
The timeline below shows where the term Judenfrei appears in Ordinary Men. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 12: The Deportations Resume
...a prelude to renewed transports to Treblinka as part of the mission to make Lublin judenfrei. Reserve Police Battalion 101 provides the bulk of the manpower in rounding up and deporting...
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Chapter 13: The Strange Health of Captain Hoffman
...ghetto at Konskowola, home to about 2,000 Jews. Third Company must help make Northern Lublin judenfrei along with First Lieutenant Messmann’s gendarmerie, about 100 Hiwis, and several SS men. In an...
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Chapter 14: The “Jew Hunt”
...hunt down all the Jews who are hiding in the area and make their region judenfrei. It is easier for the Jews in the battalion’s district to hide because, unlike in...
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...them and any other Jew he finds. Steinmetz is essentially tasked with keeping his region judenfrei. This becomes an official order in numerous areas in October. The battalion creates special patrols...
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Chapter 15: The Last Massacres: “Harvest Festival”
...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.
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...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...
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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...
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Chapter 18: Ordinary Men
...likely have sent the readers to sleep. Even in material about Hitler’s vision of a judenfrei Europe, the scant attention paid directly to the reserve police seems to assume they’re doing...
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...superiority of the German race, even the pamphlets that deal with the necessity of a judenfrei Europe don’t actually urge direct participation in killing the Jews. Order Police pamphlets do urge...
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