Short Script: Clearing Józefów

Approximately 15-20 minute film.

Based off of events described in Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Synopsis:

In the summer of 1942, nearly 500 hundred middle-aged men from Hamburg were sent to Józefów, Poland with instructions to round up and kill Jews. These men made up Ordnungspolizei Reserve Battalion 101. They killed approximately 1,500 Jews from Józefów in a sixteen hour period. This battalion of drafted men was considered unfit for other military duty and were not given the training and preparation that was a military standard.

Drafted in early 1942, Kurt, a 41-year-old unemployed shopkeeper, was forced to leave behind his wife and son in Hamburg. After months of sickness, his son's health began to improve just prior to Kurt's departure. This was due in part to the dedication of the local apothecarist, who sympathized with Kurt's lack of finances to pay for medicine.

Kurt, like the other drafted men, are hardly blood-thirsty. They long to return back home and are convinced that carrying out the mission to kill Jews will result in a quicker return home. Within a hours of arriving to Józefów, the men get to work gathering Jews from their homes into the streets, loading many into cattle cars, and walking others to the woods to be shot.

German men walk in and out of the woods, practically exchanging spots with each shot of a gun. They stand around a large ditch and their faces are hidden with gun-smoke. Kurt and another officer have brought a young couple to the woods. Kurt's companion kills the wife and walks away immediately, leaving Kurt with the husband. The man is in hysterics until Kurt finally shoots. The smoke clears and Kurt's face is speckled with blood.

The event has traumatized Kurt and he rushes back into town. When asked my fellow companions what's wrong, Kurt quickly brushes them off and says that he's looking. He is desperate to find refuge and wanders into the basement of an abandoned home. He throws his gun down and he goes into a panic, trying desperately to wipe away any lingering blood from his face. He is frantic, crying, sick. He hears a noise. In the basement a woman is curled up tightly in the corner. Kurt quickly stands up, wipes his tears, and grabs his gun. He demands the woman come out of the corner. She does, obediently. It is evident she is a Jew based on the star on her jacket.

Her manner is so strangely calm and Kurt's just the opposite. He tells her to sit. She does. He puts the gun aside and begins talking with her. There's something familiar about her. Conversation reveals that she was pushed out of Hamburg to Poland. Kurt continues to talk with her and slowly he is able to identify her as the apothecarist. In near panic, he rattles off ways to try and get her out, but it's little help when he hears his men.

They congratulate him on finding another Jew. His comrades tell him to bring the woman out to the street where they will all walk together to the woods.