Changes

==== Psychological Effects ====

The horrors of July, along with a steady stream of alcohol, desensitized the men of the 101st for future tasks. Whereas Major Trapp gave his men an opportunity to avoid killing Jews at Jozefow, subsequent participation in the Final Solution was mandatory, thus removing the factor of choice. Once the onus of making a decision was removed, the policemen were then able to utilize deflection and become obedient participants in the genocide of the European Jewish population. Murder became more palatable for some after Jozefow as they no longer were forced to confront their victims in a face-to-face manner, which afforded the reservists the opportunity to dehumanize the Jews and distance themselves through fragmentation. Working as part of the deportation process, the men of the 101st no longer had a direct hand in the killings thereby providing these civilian reservists a chance to depersonalize their involvement and detach themselves from the children they killed. Without the employment of these psychological tools, these people may not have been able to carry out such atrocities; what they had done at Jozefow provided the desensitization.

For most, Jozefow was the first occasion wherein these men had to kill and the procedure devolved into such a gruesome catastrophe that it forever altered the perpetrators. After such an indoctrination it is easy to understand that future endeavors of the like seemed easier to perform, both in method and conscience. After murdering for almost a full calendar day, the men retired to the barracks without speaking a word of what had just transpired and plunged quickly into the act of psychological repression. After successfully hiding the magnitude of their participation at Jozefow, subsequent killings in and around Serokomla became routine. In stark contrast to the somber mood after their first killings, the event in Serokomla was treated by most as just another day of work. Regardless of the fact that “bodies of dead Jews were simply left lying in the gravel pits,” the men seemed unfazed as they “stopped in Kock, where they had an afternoon meal.”<ref>Browning, 100.</ref>