A Nazi to Heaven

Disclaim: The following text is about a man with Nazi history trying to go to heaven and having a “debate” with St Peter to see if he deserves to go to heaven or should go to hell. The individual in this text is not based on a specific person, but the reasons he uses to justify his actions are based on real statements used to forgive and/or understand Nazi behaviour.

And he followed the light. The man's uniform fell from his skin like smoke, a light faded in around his naked body and with each step he gave the light grew stronger. The man stopped, at his last step the light from his skin turned into white cloth. In front of him was the golden gate with a high altar on the right side which hid the bottom half of an old, long-bearded man. "Are you St Peter?" he asked the old man.

"I am, but names are not important. You are here, what you want is there on the other side, and I'm in between. Let's see where you deserve to be." St Peter opened a book so large that when the cover fell on the surface of the altar it made a sound of thunder. "Hum... a nazi. Very few of those get through."

"But I'm a Christian." said the man with pride.

"A Christian, ah... even fewer of those get through." He giggled. "You may be a Christian, but more importantly, how loyal were you to your morals? And what morals were they? Have you murdered, committed adultery, raped..."

"I love my wife," said the man. "I could never abuse her trust, just like I would never abuse any other woman, and I..." The man looked down and for the first time he broke eye contact with St Peter "I never killed anyone."

"Do you believe that to be true?" He raised an eyebrow "I believe that's a lie. It is a sin to betray the truth. Tell me, now that it's all over, do you feel bad, guilty or ashamed about what you have done?"

The man looked up again with eyes wide open "No, I'm not! I never killed anyone. Why would I feel a weight on my shoulders for a deed that I'm not responsible for? I'm no murderer." St Peter stayed silent "All I did was look out for trains coming into the camp and wave to open the gates. Is it a sin to wave?"

"There is no sin in waving. But, do you know what else isn't a sin? -Pulling a lever, but if every time I pulled the lever ten thousand people die, would it not be murder? An executioner has no say, but are his hands clean?"

"I don't know," said the man with a smug smile "when you send people to Hell, are you the one to blame for their eternal punishment?" St Peter lost his friendly smile "I didn't do it because I wanted to. I had a family to feed and if I showed any disobedience- what would they do to me? What would they do to my family? My wife and children? I'm not a murderer, but, just like many others I'll do anything to protect those who I love. Sometimes we have to make hard decisions." He closed his fists and looked up at St Peter. St Peter made his way down the altar until they were both at the same height.

"My boy, "St Peter put his hand on the man's shoulder "You were afraid, afraid for others and for yourself. Only those that don't fear Death can be truly free. Fear has always remained the true enemy of freedom." He slowly made his way up the cloud to the altar. "My boy, you say you're not a murderer, that you have clean hands. Let me ask you, what if you had been ordered to shoot someone, would you have done it?" The man opened his mouth to answer.

"Answer truthfully."

The man took his time and said "If it would've helped me feed my family- the answer is yes." St Peter stayed silent "It wouldn't be my hands that would be dirty with blood- it would be the hands of who gave me the order. When I waved, I was doing my job. It was a small job, I just waved and I was following the instructions given to me. I was following orders..."

"Orders?" St Peter interrupted. "JUST WAVED? Hum, so it's clear you're not responsible." He said shaking his head. "No my boy, no... there’s no small job: the driver of the train had one job, so did the men who got people out of the train, just like the man that divided those who would live and die, and the man that closed the door and the man that turned on the gas- they had all one job, and they all did their jobs. So, it's clear that no one is responsible for what happened." The man tried to speak, but St Peter continued "Orders you say- the man that gave you orders was also receiving orders from above, just like the one above him and so forth- with the blame being passed on to those above- in the end only one person could be blamed, but one person couldn't have done this on their own." Neither he nor the man made a sound for one minute.

The man turned his head left and right trying to shake off the memories flooding his mind, seeing the face of each prisoner: the old and the young, the men and the women, the blonds and brunets; seeing faces of children that looked like his children, of women that reminded him of his wife, his mother, his neighbour, his friend and many others that touched his heart. Images of people kept entering his imagination, like photos ripped out from a photo album until the man fell on his knees and tears started to drop from his face. The man put his hands together in a gesture of prayer and waved them at St Peter "But please, please try to understand: I was afraid, many that been through this same gate would've performed the same actions in my place! I didn't fight for them because no victory came from rebellion. I didn't have the freedom to fight for them. I didn't have the voice to speak for them. I was powerless!"

St Peter took a big breath "But my boy, you were not powerless at the beginning, you had the freedom to fight for them at the beginning... but did you use the freedom you had? Did you fight for them when they were forbidden from sitting on public benches and to buy from grocery stores and their children weren’t allowed to enter public pools? Did you fight for them then? Did you use your voice when you saw propaganda against them, when they couldn't go on the sidewalk and had to wear stars to separate them from everyone else- did you speak for them then? No, you didn't!" St Peter pointed at him and the man's cloth turned back into his uniform "When they came to take the voice of others you didn't speak and when they came to take your voice there was no one to speak for you." St Peter closed the book and the sound of thunder was even louder than before, so loud that the gates sock. "My boy, I have made my judgment."