A Scary Thought

It wasn’t because they had grown up under a Nazi regime. These men were mostly in their thirties and forties and had other political norms to check their behavior against. It wasn’t even because they had received inescapable orders. These men were given the option to back out of this assignment. “The battalion in general was under orders...but each individual man was not.” It wasn’t because they had been specially selected to do this “job”. These men didn’t take pride in “achieving this mission,” most of them were apolitical. It wasn’t because the killing was depersonalized. These men stood in front of their victims and killed them in cold blood. So than what could possibly have been the motive behind the men in Reserve Police Battalion 101 who so brutally executed over 1,500 Jewish people? Some men when questioned claimed, they had no choice and that they hadn’t heard the part of Trapp’s speech telling them any differently. However, plenty of other men remember clearly hearing Trapp give them this choice. What then could have made them not choose to opt out of murdering 1,500 Jews? One man admitted that he “had not wanted to be considered a coward by his comrades.” Another frankly stated, “I was cowardly.” In both cases it seems the main impetus was fear, fear of appearance. The first man was afraid to appear a coward to his comrades and the second man admitted his cowardice; however, like the first, gave in because it was easier than going against the grain and appearing different to his comrades. Is fear of appearances truly enough to keep a person from being different and, in this case, being a part of the murder of over 1,500 Jewish people? This is a very frightening thought.