Article Examination: the One Day in Jozefow: Initiation to Mass Murder

The main question raised in the One Day in Jozefow: Initiation to Mass Murder article is that of how did the Nazis get the manpower and successfully eliminate so many Polish Jews in a mere matter of eleven months. What is found is that the Nazis did not actually use real military force to clear the ghettos. When they were given orders leaders did not have enough men to successfully clear ghettos therefore they turned to normal everyday Polish police. They also gathered prisoners of war who were from places like the Ukraine and Lithuania. The Nazis also took order police who were stationed in the German government. This gave them the numbers they were so lacking and that were vital to them to take on their orders. Many of these people had not been brought up and raised in Nazi Germany and therefore they did not have the values and anti-Semitism that other soldiers had. They were simply given orders and expected to carry them out. Some men did not want to participate in shooting Jews at point blank range and yet some did without even giving a second thought as to why they were killing these people. It seemed as if some of the men were merely just going along with what their peers were doing in order not to be singled out or labeled a coward. This concept is a very interesting one. How could the Nazis succeed in simply convincing men who were not necessarily racists towards Jewish people to kill them so mercilessly? Surely the men could have refused and went against orders but instead they chose to kill innocent people. After the Holocaust the men were uncomfortable talking about what they did. They did not feel good about it nor did they take any sort of pride. They themselves probably wondered how they were so easily persuaded and convinced to murder so many Polish Jews. Genocide and Public Health: German Doctors and Polish Jews examines the roles that German Doctors played in the mass murder of the Polish Jews. It looks especially at the public health