I N THE VERY EARLY HOURS OF JULY 13, 1942, THE MEN OF Reserve Police Battalion 101 were roused from their bunks in the large brick school building that served as their barracks in the Polish town of Biłgoraj. They were middle-aged family men of working- and lower-middle-class background from the city of Hamburg.
1942年7月13日凌晨，在波兰小镇Biłgoraj的校舍（这些砖头砌的房子被军用了）里，预备役警察部队的人被唤醒，他们是一群来自Hamburger的工薪阶层和中下阶层的中年人。
Considered too old to be of use to the German army, they had been drafted instead into the Order Police. Most were raw recruits with no previous experience in German occupied territory. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks earlier. it was still quite dark as the men climbed into the waiting trucks. Each policeman had been given extra ammunition, and additional boxes had been loaded onto the trucks as well. 1 They were headed for their first major action, though the men had not yet been told what to expect.
考虑到让这些人去德国军队里，太老了不合适，他们被征召进入了秩序警察。他们中的大部分都是新兵，没有在德国占领区的经验。这些人都是三周前抵达波兰的。当他们爬上那辆早早等在那里的卡车时，他们每个人都拿到了充足（额外）的弹药，卡车上也装满了额外的箱子。他们要参加首次重大行动，尽管他们还没有被告知将会发生什么。
The convoy of battalion trucks moved out of Biłgoraj in the dark, heading eastward on a jarring washboard gravel road. The pace was slow, and it took an hour and a half to two hours to arrive at the destination—the village of
Józefów—a mere thirty kilometers away. Just as the sky was beginning to lighten, the convoy halted outside Józefów. It was a typical Polish village of modest white houses with thatched straw roofs. Among its inhabitants
were 1,800 Jews.
大队卡车在黑暗中缓缓的驶出Bilgoraj小镇，沿着一条崎岖不平的砾石路向东行进，发出刺耳的声音。车速很慢，花了一个半小时到两个小时才到达目的地Józefów——只有三十公里远。天蒙蒙亮的时候，车子停在了Józefów村子的外面。这是一个典型的波兰村庄，朴素的白色房子，上面有茅草做的屋顶。里面住着大约1800名犹太人。
The village was totally quiet. 2 The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 climbed down from their trucks and assembled in a half-circle around their commander, Major Wilhelm Trapp, a fifty-three-year-old career policeman
affectionately known by his men as “Papa Trapp.” The time had come for Trapp to address the men and inform them of the assignment the battalion had received.
村子里非常安静。预备役警察101营的士兵们从卡车上爬下来，然后围着他们的指挥官，53岁的职业警察威廉·特拉普少校围成半圆形。他的手下亲切地称他为"特拉普爸爸"，特拉普该向他们讲话并通知他们了
这个营接到的任务。
Pale and nervous, with choking voice and tears in his eyes, Trapp visibly fought to control himself as he spoke.The battalion, he said plaintively, had to perform a frightfully unpleasant task. This assignment was not to his liking,indeed it was highly regrettable, but the orders came from the highest authorities. If it would make their task any easier, the men should remember that in Germany the bombs were falling on women and children.
特拉普脸色苍白，神情紧张，声音哽咽，眼里含着泪水，说话时显然在努力控制自己。他哀怨地说，这个营必须执行一项非常不愉快的任务。这个任务他不喜欢，确实非常令人遗憾，但这是最高当局下达的命令。如果这能使他们的任务有意义的话，更容易的是，男人们应该记住，在德国，炸弹是落在妇女和儿童身上的。
He then turned to the matter at hand. The Jews had instigated the American boycott that had damaged Germany,one policeman remembered Trapp saying. There were Jews in the village of Józefów who were involved with the partisans, he explained according to two others. The battalion had now been ordered to round up these Jews. The male Jews of working age were to be separated and taken to a work camp. The remaining Jews—the women, children, and elderly—were to be shot on the spot by the battalion. Having explained what awaited his men, Trapp then made an extraordinary offer: if any of the older men among them did not feel up to the task that lay before him,he could step out.
然后他转口说手头的事情。犹太人煽动了美国的抵制行动，这损害了德国的利益，一名警察记得特拉普说过，在Józefów村有犹太人参与了那个行动。据另外两个人说，他是游击队员。这时，全营的人奉命围捕这些犹太人。处于工作年龄的男性犹太人将被分开并带到劳动营。剩下的犹太人——女人，孩子和老人都将被全营就地枪决。特拉普向他的部下解释了等待他们的是什么，然后他提出了一个特别的提议:如果他们当中的任何一个老人不能胜任摆在他面前的任务，他可以走出去。(step out 有暂时离开的意思。）
笔者想说：这本书是龙虾教授推荐的，关于“成年人是不是天使”“如何面对人性之恶”这些问题，他举例了这本书，并建议说，将我们每个人都带入文中的警察，将我们带入那些刽子手，坦白的面对自己的软弱、无能、残暴、凶狠，并清晰地认识的自己和那些纳粹、刽子手、屠夫，杀人犯没有任何区别。我不认同他的说法。