by Carrington M. Nye

Created on: June 13, 2008

Years later..

Murder has no statute of limitations and for this American law, I am both grateful and pleased.

So you were just following orders. You didn't really want to kill 100,000 people in human-sized ovens; you were forced to do so.should we just turn the other cheek because you were so clever at evading the law for 40 or more years? Nah.

For those of us that could only endure "Shindler's List" one time, for those of us that have the ability to know that the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust were in the least very bad and in reality were so bad to not have any words for them, we know that those responsible for said atrocities should be held accountable. Oh, but you say that these very old individuals have led exemplarily lives since those darkest days of human history? I must confess that I just don't give a damn!

Short of becoming the second Mother Teresa, I must admit to being so calloused that the crimes of those involved in the Holocaust should be in the very least brought to trial for their part. Let the judges or the juries decide if the lives that these "innocent until proven guilty" officers of the Nazi party have led since 1943 have been worthy of mercy. It is not something that I can decide for them.

I can tell you that it would break my very heart to find out that my wonderful grandfather was a member of the Nazi party during World War II, and that he served to rid the world of the Jewish populace, but I would be a liar if I also said that I wouldn't want him to face his acts and to account accordingly for them. Hard-hearted? Yes, it may be, but I also admit that I find the events of those long-ago days sickening, heart-wrenching, and too huge to even contemplate accurately.

One of my favorite characters in one of my favorite short-stories once said, "I am not that nine-teen year old boy that first came here, I am a different man now and I know what I did back then was wrong. If I could go back and talk to that boy, I would tell him not to do those things, but I can't." Yes, the older man is a different man from the one who perpetrated those crimes of long ago, but he is still the same person that faced countless victims and said that they were not worthy of his mercy, of his love, of his kindness, and that person must stand up and face his judgment; if not today, then in the here-after. There is no escape, no true escape from the carnage inflicted upon a whole people by a few.

-The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King is quoted in the above article. Thank you, Mr. King for your great works that have stayed with me over the years!

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