Mennonite Nazi War Crim Dies in bed In Canada

[Neto]

Thanks so much, Neto, for that detailed info....Guess that's what menno-net is all about , someone has credible info , somewhere , about almost everything Anabaptist.....my info is mostly 2nd hand , even hearsay, and stuff i can dig up...And you are a Platdeutch speaker, that's real cool.
i've always heard that the connection between the Nazi SS ,and the 'Russian' Mennonites was very close , didn't realize it was that close..Himmilar was Hitler's next in line....
Also, someone mentioned the decade before WWll, the Ukraine was almost destroyed , and starved ,many millions died......The mennonites ,what was left of them , were right there......
The Anabaptist churches were completly dissolved in Germany after the "Great Leader", Hitler ,took over ,they all joined him , they never recovered ..So we need to not be so hard on the Ukranian Mennonites , They went through a lot..
As for Oberlander , he chose to live most of his life as a lie , a really big lie, and he's now at a place where it's between him and God.....

I should correct a couple of misunderstandings.
I am ethnically 100% Plautdietsch, but unfortunately, I am not a speaker of the language. (My parents were both mother-tongue speakers, but they did not teach us, and although I recognize it when I hear it spoken, I only know a small smattering of words and phrases.)
I would also say that in general, the "Russian Mennonites" did not have a "close connection to the N@zi SS". They, like the German immigrants in what is now Ukraine (such as the German Lutherans. I repeat that the so-called "Russian Mennonites" are not of German descent.), were a persecuted group (like probably all enclaves of non-ethnic Russian Soviet citizens) in the USSR, and they were especially targeted by the German military because of their well-known work ethic and progressive bent and success in terms of both farming methods and industrialization. The persecutions they had faced, and the "de-spiritualization" progress of the Soviet regime, had made them especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment by the N@zi special interest groups, such as the SS. They had regularly seen and personally experienced (through family members) the type of interrogation methods and executions they were then tasked with performing against others. There was largely a spiritual void, which, I will also repeat, was not solely due to the work of the Soviets - it had existed and had been tolerated in the Mennonite church there for some decades already, before the Bolshevik revolutionaries gained control.

[Ken]

Thanks so much, Neto, for that detailed info....Guess that's what menno-net is all about , someone has credible info , somewhere , about almost everything Anabaptist.....my info is mostly 2nd hand , even hearsay, and stuff i can dig up...And you are a Platdeutch speaker, that's real cool.
i've always heard that the connection between the Nazi SS ,and the 'Russian' Mennonites was very close , didn't realize it was that close..Himmilar was Hitler's next in line....
Also, someone mentioned the decade before WWll, the Ukraine was almost destroyed , and starved ,many millions died......The mennonites ,what was left of them , were right there......
The Anabaptist churches were completly dissolved in Germany after the "Great Leader", Hitler ,took over ,they all joined him , they never recovered ..So we need to not be so hard on the Ukranian Mennonites , They went through a lot..
As for Oberlander , he chose to live most of his life as a lie , a really big lie, and he's now at a place where it's between him and God.....

I should correct a couple of misunderstandings.
I am ethnically 100% Plautdietsch, but unfortunately, I am not a speaker of the language. (My parents were both mother-tongue speakers, but they did not teach us, and although I recognize it when I hear it spoken, I only know a small smattering of words and phrases.)
I would also say that in general, the "Russian Mennonites" did not have a "close connection to the N@zi SS". They, like the German immigrants in what is now Ukraine (such as the German Lutherans. I repeat that the so-called "Russian Mennonites" are not of German descent.), were a persecuted group (like probably all enclaves of non-ethnic Russian Soviet citizens) in the USSR, and they were especially targeted by the German military because of their well-known work ethic and progressive bent and success in terms of both farming methods and industrialization. The persecutions they had faced, and the "de-spiritualization" progress of the Soviet regime, had made them especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment by the N@zi special interest groups, such as the SS. They had regularly seen and personally experienced (through family members) the type of interrogation methods and executions they were then tasked with performing against others. There was largely a spiritual void, which, I will also repeat, was not solely due to the work of the Soviets - it had existed and had been tolerated in the Mennonite church there for some decades already, before the Bolshevik revolutionaries gained control.

But were they really “especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment of NAZI groups like the SS?”

As far as I can tell, out of the 100,000 or so Ukrainian Mennonites, only two are known to have joined the more egregious parts of the SS and participated directly in the Holocaust. That is probably a better record than any other sector of Ukrainian society.

[Neto]

Thanks so much, Neto, for that detailed info....Guess that's what menno-net is all about , someone has credible info , somewhere , about almost everything Anabaptist.....my info is mostly 2nd hand , even hearsay, and stuff i can dig up...And you are a Platdeutch speaker, that's real cool.
i've always heard that the connection between the Nazi SS ,and the 'Russian' Mennonites was very close , didn't realize it was that close..Himmilar was Hitler's next in line....
Also, someone mentioned the decade before WWll, the Ukraine was almost destroyed , and starved ,many millions died......The mennonites ,what was left of them , were right there......
The Anabaptist churches were completly dissolved in Germany after the "Great Leader", Hitler ,took over ,they all joined him , they never recovered ..So we need to not be so hard on the Ukranian Mennonites , They went through a lot..
As for Oberlander , he chose to live most of his life as a lie , a really big lie, and he's now at a place where it's between him and God.....

I should correct a couple of misunderstandings.
I am ethnically 100% Plautdietsch, but unfortunately, I am not a speaker of the language. (My parents were both mother-tongue speakers, but they did not teach us, and although I recognize it when I hear it spoken, I only know a small smattering of words and phrases.)
I would also say that in general, the "Russian Mennonites" did not have a "close connection to the N@zi SS". They, like the German immigrants in what is now Ukraine (such as the German Lutherans. I repeat that the so-called "Russian Mennonites" are not of German descent.), were a persecuted group (like probably all enclaves of non-ethnic Russian Soviet citizens) in the USSR, and they were especially targeted by the German military because of their well-known work ethic and progressive bent and success in terms of both farming methods and industrialization. The persecutions they had faced, and the "de-spiritualization" progress of the Soviet regime, had made them especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment by the N@zi special interest groups, such as the SS. They had regularly seen and personally experienced (through family members) the type of interrogation methods and executions they were then tasked with performing against others. There was largely a spiritual void, which, I will also repeat, was not solely due to the work of the Soviets - it had existed and had been tolerated in the Mennonite church there for some decades already, before the Bolshevik revolutionaries gained control.

But were they really “especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment of NAZI groups like the SS?”

As far as I can tell, out of the 100,000 or so Ukrainian Mennonites, only two are known to have joined the more egregious parts of the SS and participated directly in the Holocaust. That is probably a better record than any other sector of Ukrainian society.

I don't know that they were overly RESPONSIVE to the SS recruitment efforts, but I don't see that as the same as "susceptible". (I would regard the latter as the idea that the appeal resonated with them more than it would have had they not been treated by the Soviets as they were.) But there were also actually some Mennonites that came to Canada from the USSR, and agitated politically for communism. You can find the same sort of illogical facts in the Jewish colonies near the Mennonite colonies - and they were also not well treated by the Soviets, either, despite all of the political hype to the contrary.

But specifically to your point, I cannot remember for sure, but I think that the Mennonite man whose sons I met (the one who ended up a missionary in Peru) was also in the SS. (I no longer have any contact information for either of them, although the older brother operated a tourist boat out of Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil for some time.)

[Ken]

I should correct a couple of misunderstandings.
I am ethnically 100% Plautdietsch, but unfortunately, I am not a speaker of the language. (My parents were both mother-tongue speakers, but they did not teach us, and although I recognize it when I hear it spoken, I only know a small smattering of words and phrases.)
I would also say that in general, the "Russian Mennonites" did not have a "close connection to the N@zi SS". They, like the German immigrants in what is now Ukraine (such as the German Lutherans. I repeat that the so-called "Russian Mennonites" are not of German descent.), were a persecuted group (like probably all enclaves of non-ethnic Russian Soviet citizens) in the USSR, and they were especially targeted by the German military because of their well-known work ethic and progressive bent and success in terms of both farming methods and industrialization. The persecutions they had faced, and the "de-spiritualization" progress of the Soviet regime, had made them especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment by the N@zi special interest groups, such as the SS. They had regularly seen and personally experienced (through family members) the type of interrogation methods and executions they were then tasked with performing against others. There was largely a spiritual void, which, I will also repeat, was not solely due to the work of the Soviets - it had existed and had been tolerated in the Mennonite church there for some decades already, before the Bolshevik revolutionaries gained control.

But were they really “especially susceptible to the enthusiastic recruitment of NAZI groups like the SS?”

As far as I can tell, out of the 100,000 or so Ukrainian Mennonites, only two are known to have joined the more egregious parts of the SS and participated directly in the Holocaust. That is probably a better record than any other sector of Ukrainian society.

I don't know that they were overly RESPONSIVE to the SS recruitment efforts, but I don't see that as the same as "susceptible". (I would regard the latter as the idea that the appeal resonated with them more than it would have had they not been treated by the Soviets as they were.) But there were also actually some Mennonites that came to Canada from the USSR, and agitated politically for communism. You can find the same sort of illogical facts in the Jewish colonies near the Mennonite colonies - and they were also not well treated by the Soviets, either, despite all of the political hype to the contrary.

But specifically to your point, I cannot remember for sure, but I think that the Mennonite man whose sons I met (the one who ended up a missionary in Peru) was also in the SS. (I no longer have any contact information for either of them, although the older brother operated a tourist boat out of Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil for some time.)

Oh, I can very much believe that people living through the Holodomor and Soviet persecution would be susceptible to anything else, especially prosperous conservative Western European society from whence they originally came. And Germany was all of that in 1941.

That is different from buying into Hitler’s Holocaust ideology and willingly joining in on that project. Which is something that only a very tiny minority of Germans or occupied peoples actually did. To an extend you can say that all Germans were guilty. But that is like saying all Americans were guilty for Vietnam. Or all Russians are guilty for the current war in Ukraine. I think we can distinguish willing active participants in war crimes from those who are simply at the mercy of events beyond their control.

I’m not trying to whitewash anything. But I think even in the most grim of times we all have agency and have to make difficult decisions. And to excuse people like Oberlander simply because he was caught in a tidal wave of world events denigrates the thousands or millions who faced with the same circumstances made different choices. With a few notable exceptions, it looks to me like the Mennonite communities of Ukraine escaped the bloodletting that was the 1930s and 1940s with very little blood on their own hands and not all that much to be ashamed of.

[Neto]

I haven't been responding in this thread in respect to this particular man, and do not recall ever having heard of him before this was posted here, and haven't looked into the case at all. But a question has come to me, regarding the purpose of legal trials and the imprisonment that follows most convictions. We are told that the purpose of this is "rehabilitation". So take a case like either of the men I mentioned as ones I have either met personally, or some of their family members. Men who became believers in Allied concentration camps, and who have then gone on to lead productive lives in Christian ministry. If either of these men were still living, and were discovered to have committed war crimes, what would be the purpose of imprisoning or executing them?

[Ken]

I haven't been responding in this thread in respect to this particular man, and do not recall ever having heard of him before this was posted here, and haven't looked into the case at all. But a question has come to me, regarding the purpose of legal trials and the imprisonment that follows most convictions. We are told that the purpose of this is "rehabilitation". So take a case like either of the men I mentioned as ones I have either met personally, or some of their family members. Men who became believers in Allied concentration camps, and who have then gone on to lead productive lives in Christian ministry. If either of these men were still living, and were discovered to have committed war crimes, what would be the purpose of imprisoning or executing them?

That is why we have statute of limitations for most crimes.

But there is no statute of limitation for murder or war crimes. Should there be? I don’t know. Not something I have given a lot of thought to.

[PetrChelcicky]

Neto wrote:
"We are told that the purpose of this is "rehabilitation". So take a case like either of the men I mentioned as ones I have either met personally, or some of their family members. Men who became believers in Allied concentration camps, and who have then gone on to lead productive lives in Christian ministry. If either of these men were still living, and were discovered to have committed war crimes, what would be the purpose of imprisoning or executing them?"

Well, this is obviously a matter of "retribution". And if the proponents of "non-retributive" justice were honest, they would protest.

Btw, we had this debate in Germany fifty years ago. In 1969 the great reform of punitive law (Große Strafrechtsreform) wanted to replace the goal of retaliation ("Sühne") by something called "re-socialisation". This would have meant non-punishment for all people who were already "sozialisiert" (unproblematic members of society), including war criminals.
The way to slip out of that consequence is in my eyes interesting. It was argued that (a) war criminals must be punished as a deterrent for other people (prospective future war criminals). And it was secondly argued that (b) a punishment is needed as a means to reconciliate the German state and the Nazi victims (meaning mostly the Jews). There Neto has two well-expressed arguments countering his point of view.

Imho both arguments have a flaw. Art.1 of our constitution states the value of "human dignity" which often has been defined as "no person must be treated as the mere means for to serve other people's goals", but in both arguments the accused person is treated as a mere means of the state for to intimidate or pacify other persons. This, among else, diminishes the judge's interest in facts - factual guilt is basically unimportant, if only the accused person is punished and the goal of deterrence or state-victim reconciliation is achieved.

My general point of view here is that Mennonite debates about retributive and restorative justice - as far as I know them - are extremely superficial, sentimental and lacking real knowledge. When I first learned about those debates I had great expectations, but in the meantime I have become disappointed.

[Ken]

Neto wrote:
"We are told that the purpose of this is "rehabilitation". So take a case like either of the men I mentioned as ones I have either met personally, or some of their family members. Men who became believers in Allied concentration camps, and who have then gone on to lead productive lives in Christian ministry. If either of these men were still living, and were discovered to have committed war crimes, what would be the purpose of imprisoning or executing them?"

Well, this is obviously a matter of "retribution". And if the proponents of "non-retributive" justice were honest, they would protest.

Btw, we had this debate in Germany fifty years ago. In 1969 the great reform of punitive law (Große Strafrechtsreform) wanted to replace the goal of retaliation ("Sühne") by something called "re-socialisation". This would have meant non-punishment for all people who were already "sozialisiert" (unproblematic members of society), including war criminals.
The way to slip out of that consequence is in my eyes interesting. It was argued that (a) war criminals must be punished as a deterrent for other people (prospective future war criminals). And it was secondly argued that (b) a punishment is needed as a means to reconciliate the German state and the Nazi victims (meaning mostly the Jews). There Neto has two well-expressed arguments countering his point of view.

Imho both arguments have a flaw. Art.1 of our constitution states the value of "human dignity" which often has been defined as "no person must be treated as the mere means for to serve other people's goals", but in both arguments the accused person is treated as a mere means of the state for to intimidate or pacify other persons. This, among else, diminishes the judge's interest in facts - factual guilt is basically unimportant, if only the accused person is punished and the goal of deterrence or state-victim reconciliation is achieved.

My general point of view here is that Mennonite debates about retributive and restorative justice - as far as I know them - are extremely superficial, sentimental and lacking real knowledge. When I first learned about those debates I had great expectations, but in the meantime I have become disappointed.

What it comes down to is that there is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity like genocide.

Should there be?

In this case, Oberlander was part of an SS unit that was responsible for the mass murder of something like 23,000 people during the time he was a member of that unit. And he used the legal system in Canada to evade accountability for those crimes for decades and ended up running out the clock and dying a free man. That is not what I would call either repentance or accepting responsibility for one's actions. One cannot actually judge the degree to which he was culpable because he evaded ever being held accountable in a court of law where such evidence could be weighted.

It is all well and good to speak in generalities. But looking at specific cases is also informative.

Also, in the case of the Nazis and the Holocaust, if there is no international system of justice to hold these criminals accountable, then you simply invite vigilante groups to take justice into their own hands. There were serious Jewish vigilante groups that arose in the wake of WW2 and who hunted down and executed Nazi war criminals on their own. The Israelis also did some of that. If there is no meaningful system to bring war criminals to justice, then you simply invite people to take things into their own hands. I think we are better off living in a world that is not full of vigilante groups hunting down and executing people they suspect of crimes.

There was actually a recent movie about Jewish vigilante groups in the wake of WW2 seeking to take revenge on Germans. Apparently a true story. This is what you get if there is no international system of justice to prosecute war criminals. You get an endless cycle of violence.

[Neto]

Neto wrote:
"We are told that the purpose of this is "rehabilitation". So take a case like either of the men I mentioned as ones I have either met personally, or some of their family members. Men who became believers in Allied concentration camps, and who have then gone on to lead productive lives in Christian ministry. If either of these men were still living, and were discovered to have committed war crimes, what would be the purpose of imprisoning or executing them?"

Well, this is obviously a matter of "retribution". And if the proponents of "non-retributive" justice were honest, they would protest.

Btw, we had this debate in Germany fifty years ago. In 1969 the great reform of punitive law (Große Strafrechtsreform) wanted to replace the goal of retaliation ("Sühne") by something called "re-socialisation". This would have meant non-punishment for all people who were already "sozialisiert" (unproblematic members of society), including war criminals.
The way to slip out of that consequence is in my eyes interesting. It was argued that (a) war criminals must be punished as a deterrent for other people (prospective future war criminals). And it was secondly argued that (b) a punishment is needed as a means to reconciliate the German state and the Nazi victims (meaning mostly the Jews). There Neto has two well-expressed arguments countering his point of view.

Imho both arguments have a flaw. Art.1 of our constitution states the value of "human dignity" which often has been defined as "no person must be treated as the mere means for to serve other people's goals", but in both arguments the accused person is treated as a mere means of the state for to intimidate or pacify other persons. This, among else, diminishes the judge's interest in facts - factual guilt is basically unimportant, if only the accused person is punished and the goal of deterrence or state-victim reconciliation is achieved.

My general point of view here is that Mennonite debates about retributive and restorative justice - as far as I know them - are extremely superficial, sentimental and lacking real knowledge. When I first learned about those debates I had great expectations, but in the meantime I have become disappointed.

What it comes down to is that there is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity like genocide.

Should there be?

In this case, Oberlander was part of an SS unit that was responsible for the mass murder of something like 23,000 people during the time he was a member of that unit. And he used the legal system in Canada to evade accountability for those crimes for decades and ended up running out the clock and dying a free man. That is not what I would call either repentance or accepting responsibility for one's actions. One cannot actually judge the degree to which he was culpable because he evaded ever being held accountable in a court of law where such evidence could be weighted.

It is all well and good to speak in generalities. But looking at specific cases is also informative.

Also, in the case of the Nazis and the Holocaust, if there is no international system of justice to hold these criminals accountable, then you simply invite vigilante groups to take justice into their own hands. There were serious Jewish vigilante groups that arose in the wake of WW2 and who hunted down and executed Nazi war criminals on their own. The Israelis also did some of that. If there is no meaningful system to bring war criminals to justice, then you simply invite people to take things into their own hands. I think we are better off living in a world that is not full of vigilante groups hunting down and executing people they suspect of crimes.

There was actually a recent movie about Jewish vigilante groups in the wake of WW2 seeking to take revenge on Germans. Apparently a true story. This is what you get if there is no international system of justice to prosecute war criminals. You get an endless cycle of violence.

I am going to try to respond to both of these sets of comments in one post.
First, I wasn't expressing a point of view regarding retribution vs rehabilitation - I am primarily asking questions. However, I WILL admit that as far as the offender him/herself, the latter is more appealing to me, and I don't see how a well-adjusted person really gets anything out of seeing the offender "punished to the full extent of the law". Take, for example, the OKC bombing - Timothy McVey. My Uncle was killed in that blast, my aunt left alone, and my cousins w/o a father. We were on furlough when he was executed. I prayed for him up until the deed was done. I did not want him to die - I saw no point in it, and felt no joy or relief when the verdict was carried out. It was not going to bring my Uncle back, nor any of the children or other adults who were killed that day. I've probably also mentioned this other situation here before as well - One of the young men in the village shot & killed another young man. We had watched both of these boys grow up, and had spent time with them (at different times) when they were very ill. The boy who was killed that day had been very near death when he was very young. The killer, as a young boy had cut off his own finger with a machete, and his mother brought him to us, berating him the whole time. Another time he had an extremely high fever, and I had sponged him over and over with a cloth, trying to control the temperature. After the killing I heard the one young man's mother crying for her oldest son. I encouraged his father to let God take care of the justice, which he, as a very new Christian, agreed to do, going against the cultural expectations that were on his shoulders. I convinced the shooter to come out of hiding in the jungle, and had my arm around him, and convinced him to turn himself in to the Indian Agency. His father came to me with concerns that the rest of his family would be blamed, or even killed in revenge. I'm just telling this here now to say that these questions do strike home for me - not bragging on what I did, but just to say that I'm not speaking out of a vacuum.

[Ken]

Neto wrote:
"We are told that the purpose of this is "rehabilitation". So take a case like either of the men I mentioned as ones I have either met personally, or some of their family members. Men who became believers in Allied concentration camps, and who have then gone on to lead productive lives in Christian ministry. If either of these men were still living, and were discovered to have committed war crimes, what would be the purpose of imprisoning or executing them?"

Well, this is obviously a matter of "retribution". And if the proponents of "non-retributive" justice were honest, they would protest.

Btw, we had this debate in Germany fifty years ago. In 1969 the great reform of punitive law (Große Strafrechtsreform) wanted to replace the goal of retaliation ("Sühne") by something called "re-socialisation". This would have meant non-punishment for all people who were already "sozialisiert" (unproblematic members of society), including war criminals.
The way to slip out of that consequence is in my eyes interesting. It was argued that (a) war criminals must be punished as a deterrent for other people (prospective future war criminals). And it was secondly argued that (b) a punishment is needed as a means to reconciliate the German state and the Nazi victims (meaning mostly the Jews). There Neto has two well-expressed arguments countering his point of view.

Imho both arguments have a flaw. Art.1 of our constitution states the value of "human dignity" which often has been defined as "no person must be treated as the mere means for to serve other people's goals", but in both arguments the accused person is treated as a mere means of the state for to intimidate or pacify other persons. This, among else, diminishes the judge's interest in facts - factual guilt is basically unimportant, if only the accused person is punished and the goal of deterrence or state-victim reconciliation is achieved.

My general point of view here is that Mennonite debates about retributive and restorative justice - as far as I know them - are extremely superficial, sentimental and lacking real knowledge. When I first learned about those debates I had great expectations, but in the meantime I have become disappointed.

What it comes down to is that there is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity like genocide.

Should there be?

In this case, Oberlander was part of an SS unit that was responsible for the mass murder of something like 23,000 people during the time he was a member of that unit. And he used the legal system in Canada to evade accountability for those crimes for decades and ended up running out the clock and dying a free man. That is not what I would call either repentance or accepting responsibility for one's actions. One cannot actually judge the degree to which he was culpable because he evaded ever being held accountable in a court of law where such evidence could be weighted.

It is all well and good to speak in generalities. But looking at specific cases is also informative.

Also, in the case of the Nazis and the Holocaust, if there is no international system of justice to hold these criminals accountable, then you simply invite vigilante groups to take justice into their own hands. There were serious Jewish vigilante groups that arose in the wake of WW2 and who hunted down and executed Nazi war criminals on their own. The Israelis also did some of that. If there is no meaningful system to bring war criminals to justice, then you simply invite people to take things into their own hands. I think we are better off living in a world that is not full of vigilante groups hunting down and executing people they suspect of crimes.

There was actually a recent movie about Jewish vigilante groups in the wake of WW2 seeking to take revenge on Germans. Apparently a true story. This is what you get if there is no international system of justice to prosecute war criminals. You get an endless cycle of violence.

I am going to try to respond to both of these sets of comments in one post.
First, I wasn't expressing a point of view regarding retribution vs rehabilitation - I am primarily asking questions. However, I WILL admit that as far as the offender him/herself, the latter is more appealing to me, and I don't see how a well-adjusted person really gets anything out of seeing the offender "punished to the full extent of the law". Take, for example, the OKC bombing - Timothy McVey. My Uncle was killed in that blast, my aunt left alone, and my cousins w/o a father. We were on furlough when he was executed. I prayed for him up until the deed was done. I did not want him to die - I saw no point in it, and felt no joy or relief when the verdict was carried out. It was not going to bring my Uncle back, nor any of the children or other adults who were killed that day. I've probably also mentioned this other situation here before as well - One of the young men in the village shot & killed another young man. We had watched both of these boys grow up, and had spent time with them (at different times) when they were very ill. The boy who was killed that day had been very near death when he was very young. The killer, as a young boy had cut off his own finger with a machete, and his mother brought him to us, berating him the whole time. Another time he had an extremely high fever, and I had sponged him over and over with a cloth, trying to control the temperature. After the killing I heard the one young man's mother crying for her oldest son. I encouraged his father to let God take care of the justice, which he, as a very new Christian, agreed to do, going against the cultural expectations that were on his shoulders. I convinced the shooter to come out of hiding in the jungle, and had my arm around him, and convinced him to turn himself in to the Indian Agency. His father came to me with concerns that the rest of his family would be blamed, or even killed in revenge. I'm just telling this here now to say that these questions do strike home for me - not bragging on what I did, but just to say that I'm not speaking out of a vacuum.

Interesting story about the OK City Bombing. I was working in Washington DC when that happened and it completely changed everything about security at Federal office buildings.

I don't believe in the death penalty, even in cases like that (or even war criminals like Oberlander). But I do think McVey should have taken responsibility for his actions and then if there was rehabilitation or redemption to be done the place for that would have been in prison. That would have been the place for him to come around and seek to restore his humanity and soul. If prison is for anyone in our society it is for people like McVey. I didn't follow the case very closely but my recollection was that he never expressed any remorse or sought forgiveness for his crimes. Prison shouldn't be a brutal inhumane place because we should not be a brutal and inhumane society. There should be space for rehabilitation and redemption. Because the vast majority of prisoners do eventually get released back into our society. I also don't think prison is necessarily the worst thing that can happen to someone if it gives them a chance to find redemption and restore their soul.