Ordinary Men: The "Forgotten Holocaust"

This is a disconcerting study on human nature and how regular people took part in the face-to-face executions that were as much a part of the Holocaust as concentration camps. Ordinary Men: The "Forgotten Holocaust" takes a look at Reserve Battalion 101 from Hamburg, men who offered to join the police forces being sent to Poland in order to avoid fighting in the Nazi army as it was engaged in bloody conflict in Russia during World War II, and how these men would end up being ordered to commit mass executions of Jewish citizens, shooting men, women, and children, face-to-face. We see the twisted ways in which these men became desensitized to the atrocities they were committing and how they tried to rationalize their actions when, finally, they were brought to justice.

What's particularly disturbing is that historians have since revealed that these men were told that they could say no to the orders to execute thousands of Jewish citizens without there being any dire consequences, and while some did refuse the orders, most did not, opting to "get along to go along" instead of following their conscience. It's a story of groupthink, a psychological study of how evil can take root, and, ultimately justice. It also reveals how this ugly behavior can and has taken root in so many places around the world since World War II, from the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War to the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, among far too many other places. The one bright spot in this documentary is in how law and history can be used for good, to bring justice in the case of the former, and as a way to learn from the horrors of the past in the hopes of warning, if not outright preventing, genocide from happening.