One Day in Jozefow by Christopher Browning - Essay Example

One Day in Jozefow" by Christopher Browning and the film Night and Fog relate stories from the Holocaust. The Final Solution is examined from different perspectives. Browning investigates individual responsibility and collective responsibility of the community. In Night and Fog, the documentary focuses on the camps like Auschwitz. This approach is more critical of the SS instead of addressing the collective responsibility of Germans, Poles, and other civilians in Third Reich occupied countries. Guilt was felt more by the men that killed Jews up close and person like in “One Day in Jozefow.” The killings at Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, and other camps were not as personal due to the gas chamber and Sondercommandos that burned the bodies of the dead. The SS did not feel guilt due to the hands off method the Nazis used in the camps. Night and Fog demonstrates this sterilized killing method. Both the article and film show aspects of the Holocaust, just diverse aspects. “One Day in Jozefow” is an example of a true account. Browning used a survivor’s testimony and historical records to reconstruct the day of 13 July 1942. All of the cities Jews were executed, except for a few walking wounded or those that had hidden (Browning 180). The action was taken due to some propaganda reason about America boycotting Germany due to the Jews (Browning 171). These ludicrous claims were made to give a reason for the retaliatory murders. Due to the boycott of Germany by America, around 1300 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered. The men sent to complete this action were not the SS Deathhead Unit, but reserve soldiers. These soldiers had not been in Poland long enough to even conceive the actions that were being taken against the Jews. Germans knew about the camps and the deportation of the Jews, but the Poles knew of the mass murders. Most of the rumors getting back to Germany about the mass murders were dismissed by the Germans as exaggerations, or justified according to the German leaders. These men from the Reserve Police Battalion 101 had no idea what was in store for them in Poland. Browning described: In the very early hours of July 13, 1942, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were roused from their bunks in the large brick school building that served as their barracks in the Polish town of Bilgoraj. They were middle-aged family men of working- and lower-middle-class background from the city of Hamburg. Considered too old to be of use to the German army, they had been drafted instead into the Order Police. Most were raw recruits with no previous experience in German occupied territory. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks earlier. (170) Even after the commander said that it was not mandatory for the men to participate in the massacre, 85% of the men went ahead and did their duty. The action in Jozefow included killing women and children. The killing was accomplished by gunfire. The guns of the time made the men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 close enough to get blood splatter and bone fragments on their clothing. The action took all day. Over and over the men would shoot. Surely when shooting the women and children these men thought of their families. The drinking done when the soldiers returned to their barracks was heavy. The psychological toll on these men had to scar them for the rest of their lives. The only other possible solution would be an individual that was a sociopath. The guilt of the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 would have been felt during, right after, and during the rest of their lives. Some ways of dealing with this guilt would be blaming their leaders for the orders, feeling that the Jews were to blame, and the Jews as an inferior people deserved to die. The question then becomes why? If these men felt guilt, they knew that killing Jews was wrong. Browning suggests: In short, the fundamental problem is not to explain why ordinary Germans, as members of a people utterly different from us and shaped by a culture that permitted them to think and act in no other way than to want to be genocidal executioners, eagerly killed Jews when the opportunity offered. The fundamental problem is to explain why ordinary men – shaped by a culture that had its own particularities but was nonetheless within the mainstream of western, Christian, and Enlightenment traditions – under specific circumstances willingly carried out the most extreme genocide in human history (222). Germany was an advanced country. Why would they believe in medieval stories about all of the Jews flaws and mistakes? The answer would be propaganda. Gobbles ran the propaganda machine until the German population believed Jews were the scourge of the earth. The Germans wanted to believe in the propaganda so their guilt would be assuaged. Night and Fog deals with the camp experience. The camp experience was more efficent than the the individual actions. An example would be Auschwitz. Men, women, and cildren arrived at Auschwitz to a scene of confusion. The train normally came in at night. The fog describe in the movie was the smoke from the cremetoria. The weak, elderly, and children were sent to the gas chambers and the others sent to the real showers after getting undressed and their head shaved..A foul burming cream was put on everyone after the shower to prevent lice, although it did not work. At some camps tattoos were then given. Not many SS processed the inmates. A few key SS officers like Dr. Mengele would direct prisoners to handle the transport. The Nazis did not handle the bodies. A Sondercommando, death squad, made up of inmates burned the bodies after pulling them out of the crematoria. This gave the SS a unsympathetic view of the inmates due to their lack of interaction upon arrival. The Nazis dehumanized the inmates after arrival. The shaved heads, dirty conditions, ill fitting striped uniform, lice infestation, and the dynstery all confirmed the propaganda the SS officers had heard for years. Jews were subhuman, dirty, and lazy according to SS officers that interacted with broken inmates. This humilation put up a mental barrier between the SS. It is easier to persecute an unsympathtic individual than a sympathatic individual like women and children. The whole process of the camps were to dehumanize the Jews. The guilt for the concentration camps should be placed on the SS officers and the Ukranian guards, along with the German people. The German people had a suspicion about the deportations, but did not know for sure. Thus the German civilian’s guilt is lesser than the SS and Ukranian guards working at the camps. However, the SS and Ukranian guards, from Eichmann to Hess all proclaimed they were just following orders. No guilt was every expressed by camp officals like Dr. Mengele, Commandant Hess, and others. ‘I followed orders’ was the only excuse that the Nazis came up with (Night and Fog). This is no excuse whatsoever. When Hitler asked these men to torture and kill innocents, the opprotunity to desert, stand up to one’s superiors, or even ask for a transfer. Options were given to the SS. These men volunteered to go to the concentration camps. They wanted to persecute the Jews, whether for personal or propaganda reasons. Although totally guilty of these crimes, not many SS would feel guilt, or even take responsablity for their actions against the Jews. The impersonal method of killing in the camp was less psychologically damaging than the actions taken in the German Occupied Territory. Individual actions, like the ones at Jozefow are psychologically damaging due to the murdering of Jews up close. The concentration camp methods did not affect the SS as badly due to the sterilized method of murder. All involved, whether participant, SS soldier, German citizen, Pole citizen, or anyone else that knew about these tragedies should feel guilty. The problem is not everyone feels that guilt that participated in the Holocaust. The past should be buried according to them. However, these types of heinous crimes will come back to the perpetrators. Karma is true justice. References Browning, C. (1995) “One Day in Jozefow.” The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dauman, A. (Producer), Cayrol, J. (Writer), & Resnais, A. (Director). (1955). Night and Fog [Motion Picture]. Read More