Ordinary Men

Ordinary Men

by

Christopher Browning

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Ordinary Men makes teaching easy.
Literally translated, judenjagd means “Jewish hunting,” or “the Jew hunt.” A judenjagd involves searching homes, barns, abandoned buildings, and even the forest for any Jewish men, women, and children who escaped the roundups and executions. The judenjagd was a major part of truly making an area judenfrei. Reserve Police Battalion 101 took an active role in the judenjagd after being assigned to make the Lublin district judenfrei, ultimately killing about 1,000 Jews who were hiding in buildings and in the forest.

Judenjagd Quotes in Ordinary Men

The Ordinary Men quotes below are all either spoken by Judenjagd or refer to Judenjagd. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 14 Quotes

But the “Jew hunt” was different. Once again they saw their victims face to face, and the killing was personal. More important, each individual policeman once again had a considerable degree of choice. How each exercised that choice revealed the extent to which the battalion had divided into the “tough” and the “weak.” In the months since Józefów many had become numbed, indifferent, and in some cases eager killers; others limited their participation in the killing process, refraining when they could do so without great cost or inconvenience. Only a minority of nonconformists managed to preserve a beleaguered sphere of moral autonomy that emboldened them to employ patterns of behavior and stratagems of evasion that kept them from becoming killers at all.

Related Characters: Christopher R. Browning (speaker)
Page Number: 127
Explanation and Analysis:

Though the “Jew hunt” has received little attention, it was an important and statistically significant phase of the Final Solution. A not inconsiderable percentage of Jewish victims in the General Government lost their lives in this way. Statistics aside, the “Jew hunt” is a psychologically important key to the mentality of the perpetrators. Many of the German occupiers in Poland may have witnessed or participated in ghetto roundups on several occasions—in a lifetime, a few brief moments that could be easily repressed. But the “Jew hunt” was not a brief episode. It was a tenacious, remorseless, ongoing campaign in which the “hunters” tracked down and killed their “prey” in direct and personal confrontation. It was not a passing phase but an existential condition of constant readiness and intention to kill every last Jew who could be found.

Related Characters: Christopher R. Browning (speaker)
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
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Judenjagd Term Timeline in Ordinary Men

The timeline below shows where the term Judenjagd appears in Ordinary Men. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 14: The “Jew Hunt”
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance Theme Icon
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...patrols to find any Jews (called “suspects”) who are hiding. They call this process the judenjagd, or “Jew hunt.” The judenjagd is not just one big event, but a prolonged and... (full context)
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
In the spring, the judenjagd intensifies and becomes more dangerous. During the sweep, the men find a camp full of... (full context)
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance Theme Icon
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
In Browning’s estimation, the battalion’s involvement in the judenjagd is them coming full circle—their killings at Józefów were intensely personal, subsequent actions were (mostly)... (full context)
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance Theme Icon
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
...jokes about eating the brains of slaughtered Jews after a shooting. Whenever there is a judenjagd or shooting task, many men are happy to volunteer; in fact, there are so many... (full context)
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance Theme Icon
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
...actions, they have to blatantly refuse. Lieutenant Hoppner soon earns himself a reputation as a judenjagd enthusiast and tries to make all of his men shoot at some point in time.... (full context)
Freedom of Choice  Theme Icon
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...no reports detailing how many hundreds or thousands of Jews the battalion kills during the judenjagd but reports from other units provide a valuable clue. From May to October 1943, after... (full context)
Chapter 16: Aftermath
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...Polish resistance groups and enemy soldiers. Hagen is accidentally killed by police fire during a judenjagd in 1943; in the final year of the war Gnade, Hoppner, and Peters die in... (full context)
Chapter 17: Germans, Poles, and Jews
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...played a big role in helping the battalion find Jews in the forest during the judenjagd. In fact, many of the “hunts” were instigated by Poles with tips about hidden Jews,... (full context)
Chapter 18: Ordinary Men
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...Jews were killed as “suspects,” but there was no similar situation in Poland until the judenjagd. Another point worth noting is that groups who were sent abroad specifically to carry out... (full context)