The majority of the men also came from the social class that had been anti-Nazi in its political culture. These men would not seem to have been a very promising group from which to recruit mass murderers on behalf of the Nazi vision of a racial utopia free of Jews. (Browning, 48).
While at Jozefow, on July 11, 1942 the officers of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 were given orders by the highest authorities that their battalion was to kill the Jewish women, children and elderly on the 13th of July, while the male Jews of working age were to be sent off to a work camp. (Browning, 55) The battalion was to get this done by getting all of the Jews together, of which the number was close to 1800 and then separate them. The male working Jews were then to be sent to one of the camps in Lublin, and the Jews that were left, the women, children, and elders, were to be shot on the spot. .
Early in the morning, on July 13th, Commander Trapp got his men ready and explained the task ahead of them. This is when he told them that if any of the older men did not feel up to the task that lay before them, they could step out. Lieutenant Heinz Buchmann, who was in charge of the First Platoon of the First Company of the Reserve Police Battalion 101, was among the men who refused to shoot the defenseless Jewish women, children and elders, and was therefore reassigned to organize the male working Jews who were to be escorted to Lublin. One of the officers, Sergeant Steinmetz, warned his men that, "he didn't want to see any cowards." (Browning, 56) Even with this statement, 10 or 12 men stepped out of line and were told to await further instructions from the major. (Browning, 57).
The orders that were given for this mass murder was to have some of the men surround the village, so the Jews could not escape. The rest of the men were to take the women, children, and elders to the marketplace, and anyone who could not make it to the marketplace, for whatever reason, was to be shot on the spot.
