Ordinary Men Chp 6-7 w/John Weeks

0:00Mr. John Weeks has joined us and we are about ready to pull up the text here. That should be it. Yep, that'd be it. That'd be it, right there. All right. So how's your day been going? It's been going very well, how about yourself? Not too bad. That transmission issues, that's what I was talking about just before you jumped on. Transmissions give me an issue. So I was supposed to go to work yesterday and I didn't have an opportunity to go to work yesterday because I didn't want to get stuck on the side of the road. And then I was supposed to go to work Tuesday, but I can't find a transmission place open in my area on Labor Day weekend.

1:02So I have to wait till Tuesday to go get my truck looked at. So I ended up having to swap my days off. So instead of being off Thursday, now I'm off Tuesday. But other than that, not too bad, just a little inconvenience, but nothing major. What kind of truck do you drive, Tommy? It's a 2016 Nissan Frontier. Nice. Yeah, I mean, I haven't had any major issues with it. This is like the second problem I've ever had. And the first issue was a sensor went out. So and I'm thinking by the way that was acting on Friday that it's probably a sensor or electrical in some manner, but you never know. So I'm going to get up to go see my tires guy referred me to a transmission guy.

2:11So I'm going to go see him on Tuesday morning and see if I can't get it all situated and make sure everything's taken care of. Nice. So. But other than that, everything else is going well. The Matrix made four pizzas and they were. I've tried three of them and they were amazing, but still have to. Sure, after we get off here, I'll be trying the fourth one. That's good living. Yeah, yeah, she spent all day doing that. I think she started making the dough at like two o'clock. Oh, wow. Yeah, she's been, she spent most of the day in good four or five hours making pizza. So it's our seasonal. Yeah, and I put a new coat of a high heat paint on her grill because I was getting, we were

3:13getting a little surface rust on there. So. I took some. I sanded it down a little bit and put a new coat of paint on there. So. But man, it's so humid outside though because it stormed last night. Can you get a lot of rain? Yeah, we lost Wi-Fi. We lost Wi-Fi for probably about an hour. So. It was coming down on us. But any flooded? No, I wouldn't that bad. It didn't get any flooding. The big storm that came through last Saturday or was the last Tuesday when I was out fishing,

4:15tropical depression blew in. And it went west or yeah, it went west of us. So we happen to, we've been catching just like the edge of these showers and haven't caught anything directly. We've got this summer. So. But that doesn't mean we won't see something else. I know there are hurricanes forming. So that's always a possibility when you're down here. Stay safe. Try to stay dry. That's the hard part is. Try not to lose Wi-Fi. Yeah, the word, let's stay dry. But I think, well, see, the last hurricane we had was back whenever I was still driving over the road. So I think that was in, excuse me, I think it was a 2019 was the last one we had that

5:22hit here. And we didn't have, there wasn't electricity at the house for three weeks. So damn. Yeah. Yeah. So. So, luckily, I was, because I was over the road, I was able to come pick up Beatrix and the dogs just before the storm hit and get them out over the road. And they didn't have to try to ride the storm out. It brought them with me in the truck and we lived in a truck for a couple of weeks and she got to see the countries. An adventure. Yeah. She loves Pennsylvania. We drove mainly on the East Coast that time went up through Arkansas, up into Illinois, excuse me.

6:23Illinois, and up into Wisconsin, and from Wisconsin, we went across down into the East Coast and into Pennsylvania, down into Kentucky, and then back across the country through Arkansas, down through Texas, and back to the house. And that kept us gone for about two weeks, just that, making that loop. Lots of stops along the way. But well, you want to get jump into this? We're in chapter six. Let's do it. Yeah. They're arriving in Poland, the arrival in Poland. Sometime in the summer of 1941, after the onslaught against Russian jury was underway, Hitler confided to the SS and police leader in Lublin, Odelo, Globachnik.

7:26That's a, that's a weird one, Globachnik. Hitler's intention to murder the Jews of Europe as well. Moreover, himler put Globachnik in charge of the single most important element of his final solution to the Jewish question in Europe. The destruction of the Jews of this general government, who constituted the bulk of Polish Jewry, a method different from the firing squad operations, used against Russian jury was deemed essential for the murder of European Jews. However, one that was more efficient, less public, and less burdensome, psychologically for the killers. The organizational and technological answer to these needs was the extermination camp. The victims would be deported to special camps, where by virtue of assembly line procedures, requiring very limited manpower, most of it prisoner labor, they would be gassed in relative secrecy. Preparations for gassing began at three locations in the fall of 1941.

8:31Auschwitz, Burkano, near Catawis, in Celicia, and Chieheno near Lodz in the Warthago, both in the incorporated territories, and Belzick in Globachnik's Lublin district. Large-scale gassing began at Chieheno in early December 1941, and at Burkano in mid-February 1942. The task, Gublachnik faced, was enormous, but he was given virtually no manpower to accomplish it. For expertise and assistance in building and operating the extermination center at Belzick, Gublachnik was able to draw on personnel from the Euthanasia program in Germany. But this was a handful of men that at its maximum never exceeded 100.

9:33This number by itself was insufficient to staff a single extermination camp, and two more were yet to be built by Gublachnik at Sobebor and Treblinka. But the extermination camps were not Gublachnik's biggest problem. Far more pressing was the manpower required to clear the ghettos, to round up the victims and force them onto the death trains. In the Lublin district alone, there were nearly 300,000 Jews, and all of the general government about 2 million. While Germany's military fate hung in the balance in the crucial year of 1942, where were the men of such a staggering logistical task? In fact, aside from the assignment itself, Himmler gave Gublachnik virtually nothing, and he had to improvise. He had to create private armies out of his own resources and ingenuity to accomplish the task with which Himmler had entrusted him. For the coordination of the mass murder campaign against Polish Jewry, dubbed Operation

10:37Reinhardt after Reinhard Haydrich was slain in Czechoslovakia in June 1942, Gublachnik formed a special staff under his deputy and fellow Austrian Hermann Hoffel. The key people on this staff included Christian Worth and his adjutant, Joseph Oberhauser, in charge of the extermination centers. Helmuth Pol, another Austrian in charge of incoming transports. George Michaelson, Kurt Klassen, and yet another Austrian, Ernst Lyrk, to oversee and often personally conduct operations in the field. In George Whippern, in charge of collecting, sorting and utilizing, the Jewish property collected at the extermination camps and in the vacated ghettos. As the SS and police leader in the Lublin District, Gublachnik, was responsible for coordinating all regional operations, then involved the joint action of mixed SS units.

11:41As the entire SS and police network in the Lublin District, though already stretched then, was at his disposal. Most important this meant the two branches of the Security Police, on the one hand in various units of the Order Police on the other. In addition to its main headquarters in the city of Lublin, the Security Police had four branch offices in the district, each contained a Gestapo section for Jewish affairs. The presence of the Order Police was felt in three ways. First, each of the major towns in the Lublin District had a Schutzpolize Agency. Included in its responsibilities was the supervision of the Polish Municipal Police. Second, scattered throughout the towns in the countryside were small attachments of gender-marry. Finally, three battalions of Order Police were stationed in the Lublin District. The Security Police branches along with the Schutzpolize and Gender-Marry units provided

12:45small numbers of policemen who knew the local conditions. But the three Order Police battalions, totaling 1500 men, represented the single largest policeman power pool, Gublachnik, could draw on. Clearly, they were indispensable, but still not sufficient to meet his needs. Lublin also utilized two other sources of manpower. The first was the Sunderdance, composed of small units of ethnic Germans who had been mobilized and trained after the German conquest and assigned to the head of the Civil Administration in each county of the district in the summer of 1940. Second, and far more important were the so-called Troniki's. Unable to satisfy his manpower needs, out of local resources, Gublachnik prevailed upon himler to recruit non-polish auxiliaries from the Soviet border regions. The key person on Gublachnik's Operation Reinhardt staff for this task was Karl Strribal.

13:47He and his men visited the POW camps and recruited Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian volunteers, who were screened on the basis of their anti-communist sentiments, offered an escape from probable starvation and promised that they would not be used in combat against the Soviet army. These volunteers were taken to the SS camp at Troniki for training. Under German SS officers and ethnic German non-commissioned officers, they were formed into units on the basis of nationality. Alongside the order police, they constituted the second major manpower pool from which Gublachnik would form his private armies for the ghetto clearing campaign. The first murderous onslaught against Lublin-Jurie began in mid-March 1942 and continued until mid-April. About 90% of the 40,000 inhabitants of the Lublin ghetto were killed either through deportation to the extermination camp at Belzac or execution on the spot.

14:48In 11,000 to 12,000 more Jews were sent to Belzac from the nearby towns, Izbika, Pioski, Luberto, Zamask, and Krasnik. During the same period, some 36,000 Jews from the neighboring district of Galicia to the east of Lublin were also deported to Belzac. From mid-April to late May, the killing operations at Belzac were temporarily halted as the small wooden building with three gas chambers was torn down and a large stone building with six larger gas chambers was erected. When killing operations resumed at Belzac in late May, the camp primarily received Jews deported from the neighboring district of Krakow to the west, not from the Lublin district itself. However, soba borg, Gublachnik's second extermination camp in the Lublin district had begun operating in early May. For the next six weeks, it received deportations from the Lublin counties of Zamask, Palawe,

15:50Krasnistal, and Chum. By June 18th, scarcely three months after the first deportations from the Lublin ghetto, about 100,000 Jews from the Lublin district had been killed, along with 65,000 from Krakow and Galicia, the vast majority by gasping at Belzac and Soba borg. The deportations to the death camps were only part of a vast relocation of Central European Jewry. At the same time that Polish Jews were being deported from their homes to the extermination camps, train loads of Jews from Germany, Austria, the Protectorate, and the puppet state of Slovakia were being dumped into the Lublin district. Some of these transports such as the June 14th train from Vienna, guarded by Lieutenant Fishman, were also sent directly to Soba borg. Others however were unloaded in various ghettos, with the foreign Jews temporarily taking the places of those who had recently been killed.

16:51This vast shuffling of Jews, as well as the mass murder in Belzac and Soba borg, stopped temporarily on June 19th, when a shortage of rolling stock brought to a halt all Jewish transports in the general government for a period of 20 days. Two death trans per week from the Krakow district to Belzac resumed on July 9th, and the steady flow of transports from Warsaw to the newly opened extermination center at Treblinka began on July 22nd. However, the main rail line to Soba borg was under repair, rendering that camp virtually inaccessible until the fall. In the Lublin district itself, therefore deportations to the extermination camps did not resume in early July. It was during this enforced law in the final solution in the general government that reserved police battalion 101 arrived in the Lublin district. On June 20th, 1942, the battalion received orders for a special action in Poland.

17:53The nature of this special action was not specified in the written orders, but the men were led to believe that they would be performing guard duty. There is no indication whatsoever that even the officers suspected the true nature of the duties that awaited them. The battalion entrained at the Sturnt Stance station, the same point from which some of its men had deported Hamburg Jews to the east the previous fall. It arrived in the Polish town of Zamask in the southern part of the Lublin district on June 25th. Five days later, the battalion headquarters was shifted to Bilgorodz and various units of the battalion were quickly stationed in the nearby towns of Frample, Tarnogrod, Yuleno, Turban and Weisoki, as well as the more distant Zachrizzo. Despite the temporary lull in the killing, SS and police leader Odeolo Globoknik and his operation Reinhardt Stach were not about to allow the newly arrived police battalion to

18:55remain entirely inactive in regard to the Lublin Jews. If the killing cannot be resumed, the process of consolidating the victims and transit ghettos and camps could be. For most of the policemen of Reserv-com, Reserv-com, Police Battalion 101, the searing memory of the subsequent action in Josepho blotted out lesser events that had occurred during their four week stay south of Lublin. However, if you did remember taking part in this consolidation process, collecting Jews and smaller settlements and moving them to larger ghettos and camps. In some cases, only so-called work Jews were seized, put on trucks and sent to camps around Lublin. In other cases, the entire Jewish population was rounded up and put on trucks or sent off on foot. Sometimes the Jews from the smaller surrounding villages were then collected and resettled. In their place, none of these actions involved mass executions, though Jews who were too old

19:57frail or sick to be transported were shot in at least some instances. The men were uniformly uncertain about the towns from which they had deported Jews and the places to which the Jews had been relocated. No one recalled the names is Beka and Pioski. Though these were the two major transit ghettos south of Lublin that were used for collecting Jews. Apparently, Glaboknik lost patients with this consolidation process and decided to experiment with renewed killing. As deportation to the extermination camps was not possible at the time, mass execution through firing squad was the available alternative. Reserve Police Battalion 101 was the unit to be tested. Chapter 7. Initiation to mass murder. The Josepho massacre. It was probably on July 11th, that Glaboknik, or someone on his staff contacted Major Trap

20:58and informed him that Reserve Police Battalion 101 had the task of rounding up the 1800 Jews in Josepho, a village about 30 kilometers slightly south and east of Bilgaraj. This time, however, most of the Jews were not to be relocated. Probably the male Jews of working age were to be sent to one of Glaboknik's camps in Lublin. The women children at Elderly were simply to be shot on the spot. Trap recalled the units that were stationed in nearby towns. The battalion reassembled in Bilgaraj on July 12th with two exceptions. The third platoon of third company, including Captain Hoffman, stationed in Zacharyzau, as well as a few men of first company already stationed in Josepho. Trap met with first and second company commanders, Captain Wolfhoff and Lieutenant Nade, and informed them of the next day's task. Trap's adjudant, first lieutenant Hagen, must have informed the other officers of the

21:59battalion for Lieutenant Hines Buchmann, learned from him the precise details of the pending action that evening. Lieutenant Hagen Buchmann then 38 years old was the head of a family lumber business in Hamburg. He had joined the Nazi Party in May 1937. Drafted into the order police in 1939, he had served as a driver in Poland. In the summer of 1940, he applied for a discharge. Instead, he was sent to officer training and commissioned as a reserve lieutenant in November 1941. He was given command of the first platoon of first company in 1942. Upon learning of the imminent massacre, Buchmann made clear to Hagen that as a Hamburg businessman and reserve lieutenant, he would in no case participate in such an action in which defenseless women and children are shot. He asked for another assignment. Hagen arranged for Buchmann to be in charge of the escort for the male work Jews who were to be selected out and taken to Lublin.

23:01His company, Captain Wolfhoff, was informed of Buchmann's assignment, but not the reason for it. The men were not officially informed other than that they would be awakened early in the morning for a major action involving the entire battalion. But some had at least a hint of what was to come. Captain Wolfhoff told a group of his men that an extremely interesting task awaited them the next day. Another man who complained that he was being left behind to guard the barracks was told by his company adjutant, be happy that you don't have to come. You'll see what happens. Sergeant Heinrich Steinmeats warned his men of 3rd platoon's second company that he didn't want to see any cowards. Additional ammunition was given out. One policeman reported that his unit was given whips, which led to rumors of a jude in action. No one else, however, remembered whips. Departing from Bill Garage around 2 a.m., the truck convoy arrived in Josepho just as

24:04the sky was beginning to lighten. Tap assembled the men in a half circle and addressed them. After explaining the battalion's murderous assignment, he made his extraordinary offer. Any of the older men who did not fill up to the task that lay before them could step out. Trapped paused and after some moments one man from 3rd company, Otto Julius Schimpke stepped forward. Captain Hoffman, who had arrived in Josepho directly from Zachary's Owl with the 3rd platoon of 3rd company and had not been part of the officer's meetings in Bill Garage the day before was furious that one of his men had been the first to break ranks. Hoffman began to berate Schimpke, but Trapped cut him off. After he had taken Schimpke under his protection, some 10 or 12 other men stepped forward as well. They turned in their rifles and were told to await a further assignment from the major. That then summoned the company commanders and gave them their respective assignments.

25:04The orders were relayed by the first sergeant camera to 1st company and by Nade and Hoffman do 2nd and 3rd companies. 2 platoons of 3rd company were to surround the village. The men were explicitly ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. The remaining men were to round up the Jews and take them to the marketplace. Those two sick or frail to walk to the marketplace as well as infants and anyone offering resistance or attempting to hide were to be shot on the spot. Thereafter a few men of 1st company were to escort the work Jews who had been selected at the marketplace while the rest of 1st company was to proceed to the forest to form the firing squads. The Jews were to be loaded onto the battalion trucks by 2nd company and 3rd platoon of 3rd company and shuttled from the marketplace to the forest. After making the assignments, Trapped spent most of the day in town, either in a schoolroom converted into his headquarters at the homes of the Polish mayor and the local priest at the marketplace or on the road to the forest.

26:06But he did not go to the forest itself or witness the execution. He, his absence there, was conspicuous. As one policeman bitterly commented, major Trapped was never there, instead he remained in Josepho because he allegedly could not bear the sight. We men were upset about that and said we couldn't bear it either. Indeed Trapped's distress was a secret to no one. At the marketplace, one policeman remembered hearing Trapped say, oh God, why did I have to be given these orders as he put his hand on his heart. Another policeman witnessed him at the schoolhouse. Today I can still see exactly before my eyes. Major Trapped there in the room, pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back. He made a downcast impression and spoke to me. He said something like, man, such jobs don't suit me. Orders are orders. Another man remembered vividly how Trapped finally alone in our room sat on a stool and went bitterly. The tears really flowed.

27:07Another also witnessed Trapped at his headquarters. Major Trapped ran around excitedly and then suddenly stopped dead in front of me, stared and asked if I agreed with this. I looked at him, strained in the eye and said no, her major. He then began to run around again and wept like a child. The doctors aid encountered Trapped weeping on the path from the marketplace to the forest and asked if he could help. He answered me only to the effect that everything was very terrible. Concerning just vote, Trapped later confided to his driver. If this Jewish business is ever avenged on earth, then have mercy on us Germans. While Trapped complained of his orders and wept, his men proceeded to carry out the battalions task. The non-commissioned officers divided some of their men into search teams of two, three or four and sent them into the Jewish section of Josepho. Other men were assigned as guards along the streets leading to the marketplace or at the marketplace itself. As the Jews were driven out of their houses and the immobile were shot, the air was filled

28:10with screams and gunfire. As one policeman noted, it was a small town and they could hear everything. Many policemen admitted seeing the corpses of those who had been shot during the search, but only two admitted having shot. Again, several policemen admitted having heard that all the patients in the Jewish hospital or old people's home had been shot on the spot, though no one admitted having actually seen the shooting or taken part. The witnesses were least agreed on the question of how the men initially reacted to the problem of shooting infants. Some claimed that along with the elderly and sick infants were among those shot and left lying in the houses, doorways and streets of the town. Others, however, stress quite specifically that in this initial action the men still shied from shooting infants during the search and clearing operations. One policeman was empathetic that among the Jews shot in our section of town, there were

29:11no infants or small children. I would like to say that almost tacitly, everyone refrained from shooting infants and small children. In Josepho, as later he has observed, even in the face of death the Jewish mothers did not separate from their children. Thus we tolerated the mothers taking their small children to the marketplace in Josepho. Another policeman likewise noted that tacitly the shooting of infants and small children was avoided by almost all the men involved. During the entire morning I was able to observe that when being taken away many women carried infants in their arms and led small children by the hand. According to both witnesses, none of the officers intervened when infants were brought to the marketplace. Another policeman, however, recalled that after the clearing operation, his unit was reproached by Captain Hoffman. We had not proceeded energetically enough. Since the roundup near completion, the first of the company man were withdrawn from the search and given a quick lesson in the gruesome task that awaited them.

30:15They were instructed by the battalion doctor in the company's first sergeant. One musically inclined policeman who frequently played the violin on social evenings along with the doctor who played a wonderful accordion recalled. I believe that at this point all officers of the battalion were present, especially our battalion physician, Dr. Schoenfeldr. He now had to explain to us precisely how we had to shoot in order to induce the immediate death of the victim. I remember exactly that for this demonstration he drew or outlined the contour of human body, at least from the shoulders upward, and then indicated precisely the point on which the fixed bayonet was to be placed as an aiming guide. After first company had received instructions and departed for the woods, traps adjudent Hagen presided over the selection of the workjuice. The head of a nearby sawmill had already approached trap with a list of 25 Jews who worked for him, and trap had permitted their release.

31:17Through an interpreter Hagen now called for craftsmen and able-bodied male workers. There was unrest as some 300 workers were separated from their families. Before they had been marched out of Josepho on foot, the first shots from the woods were heard. After the first salvos, a grave unrest grew among these craftsmen and some of the men threw themselves upon the ground weeping. It had to have become clear to them at this point that the families they had left behind were being shot. Lieutenant Pukeman and the Luxemburgers in first company marched the workers a few kilometers to a country loading station on the rail line. People trained cars including a passenger car were waiting. The workjuice and their guards were then taken by train to Lublin, where Pukeman delivered them to a camp. According to Pukeman, he did not put them in the notorious concentration camp at Majdeneck, but in another camp instead. The Jews were not expected, he said, but the camp administration was glad to take them.

32:19Pukeman and his men returned to Bilgaraj the same day. Meanwhile, first sergeant camera had taken the initial contingent of shooters in first company to a forest several kilometers from Josepho. The trucks halted on a dirt road that ran along the edge and at a point where a pathway led into the woods, the men climbed down from their trucks and waited. When the first truckload of 35 to 40 Jews arrived, an equal number of policemen came forward and faced a face were paired off with their victims. Led by camera, the policemen and Jews marched down the forest path. They turned off into the woods at a point indicated by Captain Woholf, who busied himself throughout the day selecting the execution sites. Camera then ordered the Jews to lie down in a row. The policemen stepped up behind them, placed their bayonets on their backbone above the shoulder blades as earlier instructed and on camera's orders fired in unison. In the meantime, more policemen of first company had arrived at the edge of the forest to fill

33:20out a second firing squad. As the first firing squad marched out of the woods to the unloading point, the second group took their victims along the same path into the woods. Woholf chose a site a few yards further on so that the next batch of victims would not see the corpses from the earlier execution. These Jews were again forced to lie face down in a row and the shooting procedure was repeated. Thereafter the pendulum traffic of the two firing squads in and out of the woods continued throughout the day. Except for a midday break, the shooting proceeded without interruption until nightfall. At some point in the afternoon, someone organized the supply of alcohol for the shooters. By the end of a day of nearly continuous shooting, the men had completely lost track of how many Jews they had each killed. In the words of one policeman, it was in any case a great number. When Trapp first made his offer early in the morning, the real nature of the action had just been announced, and time to think and react had been very short.

34:23Only a dozen men had instinctively seized the moment to step out, turning their rifles and thus excused themselves from the subsequent killing. For many, the reality of what they were about to do, and particularly that they themselves might be chosen for the firing squad, had probably not sunk in. But when the men of first company were summoned to the marketplace, instructed in giving a next shot and sent to the woods to kill Jews, some of them tried to make up for the opportunity they had missed earlier. One policeman approached first Sergeant Camer, whom he knew well. He confessed that the task was repugnant to him and asked for a different assignment. Camer obliged, assigning him to guard duty on the edge of the forest, where he remained throughout the day. Several other policemen who knew Camer well were giving guard duty along the truck route. After shooting for some time, another group of policemen approached Camer and said they could not continue. He released them from the firing squad and reassigned them to accompany the trucks. Two policemen made the mistake of approaching Captain Wohoff instead of Camer.

35:27They pleaded that they two were fathers and children and could not continue. Colonel Wohoff currently refused them, indicating that they could lie down alongside the victims. At the men day pause however, Camer relieved not only these two men, but a number of other older men as well. They were sent back to the marketplace accompanied by a non-commissioned officer who reported to trap. Trapped dismissed them from further duty and permitted them to return early to the barracks and Bilgrosch. Some policemen who did not request to be released from the firing squad sought other ways to invade. Non-commissioned officers armed with submachine guns had to be assigned to give so-called mercy shots because both from excitement as well as intentionally individual policemen shot past their victims. Others had taken evasive action early. During the clearing operation, some men of first company hid in the Catholic priest garden until they grew afraid that their absence would be noticed. According to the marketplace, they jumped aboard a truck that was going to pick up Jews

36:31from a nearby village in order to have an excuse for their absence. Others hung around the marketplace because they did not want to round up Jews during the search. Still, others spent as much time as possible searching the houses so as not to be present at the marketplace where they feared being assigned to a firing squad. A driver assigned to take Jews to the forest made only one trip before he asked to be relieved. Luckily his nerves were not strong enough to drive more Jews to the shooting site. Commented the man who took over his truck into his duties of chauffeering Jews to their death. After the men of first company departed for the woods, second company was left to complete the round up and load Jews onto the trucks. When the first salvo was heard from the woods, a terrible cry swept the marketplace. As the collected Jews realized their fate, thereafter, however, a quiet composure indeed in the words of German witnesses, an unbelievable and astonishing composure settled over the Jews.

37:31If the victims were composed, the German officers grew increasingly agitated as it became clear that the pace of the executions was much too slow if they were to finish the job in one day. Comments were repeatedly made such as it's not getting anywhere and it's not going fast enough. Trapp reached a decision and gave new orders. Third company was called in from its outpost around the village to take over close guard of the marketplace. The men of Lieutenant Nade's second company were informed that they too must now go to the woods to join the shooters. Sergeant Steinmeats of the third platoon once again gave his men the opportunity to report if they did not fill up to it. No one took up his offer. Lieutenant Nade divided his company into two groups assigned to different sections of the woods. Lieutenant Nade visited Woolhoff's first company to witness a demonstration of the executions. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Shere in Sergeant Herbert took the first platoon of second company along with some men of the third platoon to a certain point in the woods.

38:33Shere divided his men into four groups, assigned them each a shooting area and sent them back to fetch the Jews. They were to kill. Lieutenant Nade arrived and heatedly argued with Shere that the men were not being sent deep enough into the woods. By the time each group had made two or three round trips to the collection point and carried out their executions, it was clear to Shere that the process was too slow. He asked Herbert for advice. I then made the proposal, Herbert recalled, that it would suffice if the Jews were brought from the collection point to the place of execution by only two men of each group, while the other shooters of the execution commando would already have moved to the next shooting site. Furthermore, this shooting site was moved somewhat forward from the execution to execution, and thus always got closer to the collection point on the forest path. We then proceeded accordingly. Herbert's suggestion speeded the killing process considerably. In contrast to first company, the men of second company received no instruction on how to

39:35carry out the shooting. Initially bayonets were not fixed as an aiming guide, and as Herbert noted, there was a considerable number of missed shots that led to the unnecessary wounding of the victims. One of the policemen in Herbert's unit, likewise noted the difficulty the men had in aiming properly. At first we shot freehand, when one aimed too high the entire skull exploded, as a consequence brains and bones flew everywhere. Thus we were instructed to place the bayonet point on the neck. According to Herbert, however, using fixed bayonets as an aiming guide was no solution. Through the point blank shot, that was thus required, the bullet struck the head of the victim at such a trajectory that often the entire skull, or at least the entire rear skull cap, was torn off, and blood, bones, splinters, and brains sprayed everywhere, and be smurched to the shooters. Herbert was emphatic that no one in first platoon was given the option of withdrawing beforehand. But once the executions began and men approached either him or she or because they could not

40:38shoot women and children, they were given other duties. This was confirmed by one of his men. During the execution, words spread that anyone who could not take any longer could report. He went on to note, I myself took part in some 10 shootings in which I had to shoot men and women. I simply could not shoot at people anymore, which became apparent to my sergeant. Hergert, because at the end I repeatedly shot past. For this reason, he relieved me. Other comrades were also relieved sooner or later, because they simply could no longer continue. Lieutenant Drucker's second platoon in the bulk of sergeant Steinmetz, third platoon, were assigned to yet another part of the forest. Like sheers men, they were divided in the small groups of five to eight each. Groups of five to eight each rather than large groups of thirty five to forty as in Wallhoff's first company. The men were told to place the end of their carbines at the cervical vertebrae at the

41:38base of the neck, but here too the shooting was done initially without fixed bayonets as a guide. The results were horrifying. The shooters were gruesomely smirched with blood, brains and bone splinters. It hung on their clothing. When dividing his men into small groups of shooters, Drucker had kept about a third of them in reserve. Ultimately, everyone was to shoot, but the idea was to allow frequent relief and cigarette breaks. With the constant coming and going from the trucks, the wild terrain and the frequent rotation, the men did not remain in fixed groups. The confusion created the opportunity for work slowdown and evasion. Some men who hurried at their tasks shot far more Jews than others who delayed as much as they could. After two rounds, one policeman simply slipped off and stayed among the trunks on the edge of the forest. People managed to avoid taking his turn with the shooters all together. It was in no way the case that those who did not want to or could not carry out the shooting of human beings with their own hands, could not keep themselves out of this task.

42:42No strict control was being carried out here. I therefore remained by the arriving trucks and kept myself busy at the arrival point. In any case, I gave my activities such an appearance. It could not be avoided that one or another of my comrades noticed that I was not going to do the executions to fire away at the victims. They showered me with remarks such as shithead and weakling to express their disgust. But I suffered no consequences for my actions. I must mention here that I was not the only one who kept himself out of participating in the executions. By far, the largest number of shooters at Jezefault who were interrogated after the war came from the Third Platoon of Second Company. It is from them that we can perhaps get the best impression of the effect of the executions on the men and the dropout rate among them during the course of the action. Hans Detelman, a 40-year-old barber, was assigned by Drucker II a firing squad. It was still not possible for me to shoot the first victim at the first execution, and

43:42I wondered often asked Lieutenant Drucker to be relieved. Detelman told his lieutenant that he had a very weak nature and Drucker let him go. Walter Nailis, a former Rimsme cigarette sales representative, was paired with an elderly woman for the first round. After I had shot the elderly woman, I went to Tony, Bentham, and told him that I was not able to carry out further executions. I did not have to participate in the shooting anymore. My nerves were totally finished from this one shooting. For his first victim, August Zorn was given a very old man. Zorn recalled that his elderly victim could not or would not keep up with his countrymen because he repeatedly fell and then simply lay there. I regularly had to lift him up and drag him forward. Thus I only reached the execution site when my comrades had already shot their Jews. At the sight of his countrymen who had been shot, my Jew threw himself on the ground and remained lying there. I then cocked my carbine and shot him through the back of the head.

44:46As I was already very upset from the cruel treatment of the Jews during the clearing of the town and was completely in turmoil, I shot to high. The entire back of the skull of my Jew was torn off and the brain exposed. Parts of the skull flew into Sergeant Steinmeitz's face. This was grounds for me after returning to the truck to go to the first sergeant and ask for my release. I had become so sick that I simply couldn't anymore. I was then relieved by the first sergeant. George Kegler, a 37-year-old tailor, made it through the first round before encountering difficulty. After I carried out the first shooting and at the unloading point was allotted a mother with daughter as victim for the next shooting, I began a conversation with them and learned that they were Germans from Kassel. And I took the decision not to participate further in the executions. The entire business was now so repugnant to me that I returned to my platoon leader and told him that I was still sick and asked for my release. Shemke was sent to guard the marketplace.

45:47Neither his pre-execution conversation with his victim nor his discovery that there were German Jews in Josepho was unique. Shemke, the man who had first stepped out and countered a Jew from Hamburg in the marketplace as did a second policeman. Yet another policeman remembered that the first Jew he shot was a decorated World War I veteran from Bremen who begged and vane for mercy. Franz Kastinbaum, who during his official interrogation had denied remembering anything about the killing of Jews in Poland suddenly appeared uninvited at the office of the Hamburg State Prosecutor investigating Reserve Police Battalion 101. He told how he had been a member of a firing squad of seven or eight men that had taken its victims into the woods and shot them in the neck at point blank range. This procedure had been repeated until the fourth victim. The shooting of the men was so repugnant to me that I missed the fourth man. It was simply no longer possible for me to aim accurately.

46:48I suddenly felt nauseous and ran away from the shooting site. I have expressed myself incorrectly just now. It was not that I could no longer aim accurately rather than that the four time I intentionally missed. I then ran into the woods vomited and sat down against a tree. To make sure that no one was nearby I called loudly into the woods because I wanted to be alone. Today I can say that my nerves were totally finished. I think that I remained alone in the woods for some two or three hours. Castanbaum then returned to the edge of the woods and rode an empty truck back to the marketplace. He suffered no consequences. His absence had gone unnoticed because the firing squads had been all mixed up and randomly assigned. He had come to make this statement. He explained to the investigating attorney because he had had no peace since attempting to conceal the shooting action. Most of those who found the shooting impossible to bear quit very early, but not always, the men in one squad had already shot 10 to 20 Jews each when they finally asked to be relieved.

47:52As one of them explained, I especially asked to be relieved because the man next to me shot so impossibly. Apparently he always aimed his gun too high, producing terrible wounds in his victims. In many cases, the entire backs of the victim's heads were torn off so that the brains sprayed all over. I simply couldn't watch it any longer. At the unloading point, Sergeant Benton watched men emerge from the woods covered with blood and brains, moral shaken, moral shaken and nerves finished. Those who asked to be relieved, he advised to slink away to the marketplace. As a result, the number of policemen gathered on the marketplace grew constantly. As with first company, alcohol was made available to the policemen underdricker and Steinmeats, who stayed in the forest and continued shooting. As darkness approached at the end of the long summer day and the murderous task was still not finished, the shooting became even less organized and more hectic.

48:52The forest was so full of dead bodies that it was difficult to find places to make the Jews lie down. And darkness finally fell about 9 p.m. some 17 hours after reserve police battalion 101 had first arrived on the outskirts of Jezefou and the last Jews had been killed, the men returned to the marketplace and prepared to depart for Bilgaraj. No plants had been made for the burial of the bodies and the dead Jews were simply left lying in the woods. Neither clothing nor valuables had been officially collected, though at least some of the policemen had enriched themselves with watches, jewelry and money taken from the victims. The pile of luggage the Jews had been forced to leave at the marketplace was simply burned. Before the policemen climbed into their trucks and left Jezefou, a ten-year-old girl appeared, bleeding from the head. She was brought to trap who took her in his arms and said, you shall remain alive. When the men arrived at the barracks in Bilgaraj, they were depressed, angered, embittered and shaken. They ate little but drank heavily.

49:54Generous quantities of alcohol were provided and many of the policemen got quite drunk. Major trap made the rounds trying to console and reassure them and again placing the responsibility on higher authorities. But neither the drink nor trap's consolation could wash away the sense of shame and horror that pervaded the barracks. Trapp asked the men not to talk about it, but they needed no encouragement in that direction. Those who had not been in the forest did not want to learn more. Those who had been there likewise had no desire to speak either then or later. By silent consensus within reserve police battalion 101, the Jezefou massacre was simply not discussed. The entire matter was a taboo, but repression during the waking hours could not stop the nightmares. During the first night back from Jezefou, one policeman awoke firing his gun into the ceiling of the barracks. Several days after Jezefou the battalion, it would seem, narrowly misparticipation and yet another massacre. This is the first and second company under trap in Woolhoff, entered Alexandra in a so-called

50:57street village composed of houses strung out along the road, 12 kilometers west of Jezefou. A small number of Jews was rounded up and both the policemen and the Jews feared that another massacre was imminent. After some hesitation, there he goes. After some hesitation, however, the action was broken off and trap permitted the Jews to return to their houses. One policeman remembered vividly how individual Jews fell on their knees before trap and tried to kiss his hands and feet. Trap however did not permit this and turned away. The policeman returned to Bilgaraj with no explanation for the strange turn of events. Then on July 20th, precisely one month after its departure from Hamburg and one week after the Jezefou massacre, reserve police battalion 101 left Bilgaraj for redeployment in the northern sector of the Loveland district. Oh, I need a drink.

52:10The coordination, it's like they created this supply line going into the woods to kill these people. It's almost like they turned their security battalion into a mechanical tool of execution. A machine. It's like a disability line. The disassembly line. Well you had started off our reading of this book by pointing out a few things one of

53:11which was how they did not discipline. The officers did not discipline. The soldiers and officers, police officers who refused to participate. I'm really zero in on that. But the part where one of the guys goes to the SS officer, that guy is ideological discipline. So he's like no, you are going to continue to do it or you can lie down next to the victims and we'll shoot you too. And so what's interesting is you have, you build this machine to kill these people. Each man's body and mind is put into the service of this machine. But you don't need all of them to be like fully committed the way that SS officer is for

54:12the machine to work. You can even have a certain percentage of them refused to do it or do it a little bit and then stop. So it's interesting like what's the algorithm? What are the equations that show like this is what you need for the machine to work? It almost seems like they didn't even try to figure that part out though. It's almost like they were just playing it by ear. You know, it's like we got these orders now we got to figure out how to make it work. And so you could see at the beginning of the day it was going so slow because they hadn't properly prepared to go through with these actions. They didn't take into consideration how long it was going to take them to truck all these women

55:13and children and elderly people up into the woods in order to complete this task. And as the day went by they got more efficient at it at least in some places. In some places it was complete chaos the entire time some platoons and it was just like some of them became so efficient at it that they were actually able to finish the task right at sundown around 9 pm that night. So 17 hours after getting there they had kind of perfected the strategy to massacring this whole town of Jews. You can see like start right ahead. Well just that starts with like the general order coming down but it's in writing it's not

56:17specific. Yeah. So that's like the beginning and then at the end it's at least in part the perfected mass murder. So if you're which is really interesting if you're the you might think if you're just like I might have thought years ago just thinking about this reading about it. I know if you're like the officers back at headquarters you want this to be really efficient and thought out in plan but no you don't because there's a whole moral psychology. There's a whole sociology and play. If the orders say that you're going to be it's going to have an effect on you that you actually wrote that down. So it's like trying to achieve a certain goal all these people dead without suffering certain

57:20consequences and without having your the men under you suffer more than is necessary right or to the point where the machine breaks down and you can't achieve your goal. Yeah and they didn't you know I mean it makes you it kind of makes me wonder though because like as the as the orders are coming down from like him or and working their way down to please battalion 101. It's like did they intentionally not tell them what they were going to have them do because they didn't want a paper trail or was it something like we don't want to give them to alert them to what what the plans are because they might like abandon post you know.

58:25And they don't want to give them the heads up but it could be they don't want a paper trail although I don't think they're planning on losing the war. So well no but they I mean there's still the the opportunity for for espionage right and papers to exchange hands. So there might be certain things that you don't want documented because you don't want the opportunity for that information to get get out to your enemies for whatever reason like not just some more of the operational security. Yeah right. Hell responsible right right right I don't think anybody thinks when you go into a war you're not thinking about being held responsible for what happens in a war. You know like if you're especially if you if you go into a war as you said you're not

59:26planning on losing like that's not you can't go into you can't go into a fight thinking you're going to lose because then you've already lost you know. So you have to be convinced that the actions you're taking are justified moral and will accomplish the goal. And I don't think they I don't think there was any way to write down and send an order to these these people that were average men. You know I mean you hear that some of them are barbers and laborers and you know some that one guy owns a small shop you know and you're sending these like small business owners and average blue collar guys this order to come to execute all these Jews. I don't I don't think there's any way to pass down that order in a way that that guarantees

1:00:39in any way that would give them the confidence that going in and doing this is in any way justified or moral. And I think that's what a lot of these guys were dealing with were just like moral agency versus you know orders coming down from on high. And it's like once you start seeing that there is no repercussion no consequence for stepping out on this duty then then you have you have a little bit then you're taking more of the responsibility on yourself than you're more responsible for the actions because the guys who stepped out and said no I can't do this they're not facial repercussions and you're still sitting there doing it. So you're like destroying your own man your like your own humanity in the actions from that point on because you know that that voice is always in the back of your head saying

1:01:44you don't really have to be doing this you can get out of it and there's not going to be any consequences. But they had enough people that stuck with it that they were able to accomplish the goal. You commented in the past that for a human being to kill another human being is not naturally in our nature. But it does happen a lot. It actually happens a lot less than it used to if the anthropologists are correct.

1:02:44So it does happen when it happens at scale like this usually have the modern state organizing it. This book I really like it's called human kind and why I forget the name of the author. It's a really good book and in there he talks about what he calls it the veneer theory. That it's popular for people to think that there's like this thin veneer between civilization and complete barbarism. And then the book that people will cite like as a reference is the novel the work of fiction

1:03:44the Lord of the Flies. And he's like yeah that's like I mean that's a novel made up but does it represent like a reality about human nature. And he actually found a real life example where a bunch of young boys from a boarding school stole a boat and then got capsized and stranded on island for a few months and it didn't descend into Lord of the Flies. They got along with each other. They divvied up responsibilities when one of the boys broke his leg. They gave him first aid and gave him a splint and then they would carry him around and they divided up his jobs among themselves. And in that book he talks about the Nazis.

1:04:47He talks about the Nazis. There's a cool line there where it's like they're interrogating the German soldiers after the war and they're basically like you know like how could you do this especially when you knew that like the war was lost was it the Nazi ideology? Did you believe in it that much? And basically the soldiers were like no and one soldier said something like Naziism begins 10 miles behind the front. When you're at the front it's all about trying to survive and not let down your brothers and arms. So I like to joke around that a new conservatism starts like 3,000 miles behind the line. But the basic idea is that like he seems to be agreeing with you that like it's not

1:05:52in our nature at that individual level to kill someone else. So for it to be to happen at scale it can war. You need that organizing power of the state. But it does seem like war is part of our nature because we keep doing it. So what are your thoughts on that? So this book where this guy is talking about Lord of the Flies. Is he like a psychiatrist? A sociologist? A sociologist? A sociologist makes sense. Because Lord of the Flies is a direct reference to Beelzebub from the Bible. That's what that literally translates into Beelzebub translates into Lord of the Flies. Right? Which was another and biblically it's another term for Satan. Another term for the devil was Beelzebub. And it was actually an insult because I believe if I'm the actual name of the demon and biblically

1:07:02wasn't Beelzebub it was like Beelzebub I think. Beelzebub and the Jews called him Beelzebub as a prejorative. Basically calling him a pile of shit. You're the Lord of the Flies. You're a pile of shit. Right? So that's where the term came from and that's what the book is based off of. The book is actually about spiritual warfare and the devil offering up the kingdoms of this world. Right? So it's like do you work? Like do you work something along the lines of like do you work to protect the image of God and to move into his to attempt to come to his kingdom despite the world being intoxicated

1:08:12and overrun by these evil demonic forces that offer power and sacrifice. You see what I'm saying? It's something like that. Like I'd have to go about I haven't read that book like since I was like probably like 12. So I'd have to go back and reread the book to be able to really put it in a make a good like summary of it. But that's kind of like where it's coming from. So that's so it doesn't surprise me that you have like a sociologist who looks at everything from a secular point of view not understanding that the the book wasn't written from a secular perspective. It wasn't talking about actual action. It was actually like a metaphor for our world for the way that the world works. The world the way that the world operates. The way that people interact within the world. And so an island if you think about it like they're stranded on an island and island is a small continent.

1:09:19And like teenage boys are small adults. You know so it's like this whole like minimizing like bringing everything down into this minimal perspective and showing the decay of humanity by pursuit of the promises that the devil lays out for us kind of deal. So not really shocking that sociologist would miss that. I understand why they would want to come from a from a secular position because all they believe in is materialism. So if it's not material like to their to their lives not something they can touch or see or feel daily then it's not real to them. I think that misses a big big portion of that. And that's like pretty common for that that era of literature. Right?

1:10:20You got to think like Christianity was very very strongly emphasized in novels of that era. So it's not it's it's nothing crazy to see the the kind of Christian perspective in what was being talked about in that story. Anyway what was the other part of the question? I kind of got focused on that and then I kind of lost track where I was going. Well let's stay with that for a moment because that's good stuff. It seems like so the sociologist was coming at it from a secular perspective. But it seems like a lot of people who really like that book also come at it from a secular perspective. So for for example Bill Maher he references that book a lot and it's always like I'm paraphrasing but he's basically like like do you know what happened if like

1:11:27we didn't have the police it would just be immediately Lord of the Flies or you know we're like if we don't have electricity for a couple days it's going to be Lord of the Flies and so the the sociologist guy is like well he's taking issue with that unlike the secular plane but need but both of them are missing this other meaning of the spiritual warfare. So that's really fascinating. Um the other part of the question was just like looking at how the massive violence is organized through the state and that like war if you're just like looking from a secular so let's say we just take the secular contemporary scientific frame of reference

1:12:29it looks like war is part of the nature of our species because it keeps happening and it happens like at pretty big scale but at the same time at the level of the individual member 100% I agree with you it seems to be against our nature and like the empirical evidence of that is you have like the best trained soldiers maybe the world's ever seen and they go and they kill the enemy and it may be just like they kill adult male soldiers in like military action and then it screws them up so bad that they kill themselves they feel as massive guilt they feel as massive shame just from killing the actual enemy the actual uh soldiers that we're trying to kill them um so it definitely screws people up and change you you're talking about this

1:13:39you had a really great episode you did on the Lindsey Clancy trial or mistrial here's how it's about like once she killed her children now she's somebody different hmm yeah especially she just such an intimate way yeah yeah right with like I think personal yeah I think I think killing somebody like like like bombing somebody though it could have like bombing bombing a village is different than stabbing somebody and looking in their eyes as they're dying it's it's just a different thing I'm not saying that you can't have like moral injury from you know running drones or something like that excuse me from being a drone operator but at the same time it's not the same it's just there's when you're when your hands on your look you you have that you can feel that person stop breathing

1:14:41you can feel the life leave their body it's completely different than you know from a distance you know drop you know controlling a drone you know it's interesting about the drones is there's like you know I say you're flying around in like a B1 or whatever and dropping a bomb on the target but I've read that the drone operators do actually suffer a lot of moral injury when they because they stalk the the targets so they're looking at the screen it's like psychologically closing the distance like oh this is the guy we need to kill and you follow him around for a couple weeks before you blow him up with the hellfire missile so even if you don't like miss yeah I'm not yeah I'm definitely not saying it's good for him I just think it's a different experience is what I'm getting oh it's definitely a completely different experience it's just that

1:15:41if we have like three scenarios one where you're like high up at like you're 30,000 feet up in the plane and you don't actually see the people versus up close and personally being at the guy but this is sort of like an in between where yeah your thousands of miles away but like psychologically you've been brought a lot closer because you're watching them and you start to like you can't detach or ignore the fact that you're like killing another human who is like in many ways like just like you so they do get screwed up although I know like I think it was in the book kill chain at one of the like drone command centers in like Nevada there's a sign when you leave the base that says like your drive home is the most dangerous part of your day drive safely like it's kind of a joke like what you do is not dangerous and yet what you're doing is like actually like destroying yourself all day long right so when when it comes to like war it made me

1:16:48think of this this is from the prologue of Orid from today under the reflection you know just highlight this first couple of sentences here because this is what I wanted to focus on Christianity has uprooted many barbaric customs from the society of man but some of these customs praiseworthy from the pagan point of view but shameful from the Christian point of view are even to the present day like hidden corruption using from a supposedly healed wound and that's kind of like the way I look at what like what you were asking about where am I there we go how what you were asking about war still being persistent there's saint E from the Syrian he wrote is called the cave of treasures it's not a very long story but he writes about how when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden so remember we were talking a while

1:17:55back how Eden was at the top of a mountain right this is how this was how all ancient civilizations like viewed gods living on tops of mountains like that's why you have like mountain Olympus and all these all these mountains and in the Bible if you read the Bible you get Mount Sinai, Mount Table where all these mountains are mentioned Moses goes up to the top of the mountain to get the the 10 commandments you know like all his interactions with God were he went up to the top of the mountain the the mountain is is as simple it's like the tower of Bable it was it was like um it was a ziggurat which is like kind of like a pyramid almost this is why pyramids kind of look like mountains like getting up you know reaching up into heaven to to to to God like this was like the the the the myth that they that they function under was the gods the god lived on top of

1:19:00a mountain like the the access to god was to get to the top of the mountain that's where the that's where that term the top of the mountain you got to reach the mountaintop you know when for success reach the mountaintop that's where that comes from so so Eden being on top of the mountain when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden then they had to go further down the mountain and they went a little ways down the mountain and they found a they found a cave and in that cave they would they would put relics in that cave so when Adam died his relics went into that cave when Eve died her relics went into that cave and then Cain after killing Abel was was kicked down to the bottom of the mountain and so he built his city down at the bottom of the mountain and being jealous of the relationship between those that were partially up the mountain that were still living on the mountain side worshipping within the cave which is the cave of treasures

1:20:03tubal cane then created weaponry and they declared war on those that were living on the side of the mountain and so they killed all those that were up like up on the side living on the side of the mountain through war and so this is like kind of like this symbolic way of expressing why war persists it's because those the Christian men that are traversing the mountain side and trying to reach the peak of the mountain are so concerned about their own shortcomings their own failings that they're not paying attention to the people down at the bottom of the mountain that want to help that want to harm them they're constantly looking up the side of the mountain to the peak to where Eden is and so those that would would have war stop and in war in the name of Christ

1:21:18then get massacred and so that so then human nature persists and so what I mean by that is it's like it's like when you let's say when you become when you get baptized right when you get baptized it's a spiritual rebirth right and the point is to rid yourselves of of these fleshly passions that attach themselves to you so like lust envy greed it's to get rid of those things it's to wash those things away from you to leave those things behind you and to be reborn into the life of Adam to what Adam originally was because Adam was flesh but he was also spirit just like we're flesh and spirit so then but war being against human nature is no

1:22:25against humanity and being bad for humans in our nature is no different than lust being damaging or drugs being damaging or any number of things being damaging right like greed anger these things can drive men to destruction war is just like instantaneous destruction because the winner of the war gains ultimate power probably loses their soul in the process of gaining that power and the loser of the war loses their lives and has probably committed such atrocities that they've lost their soul in the process you see what I'm saying so like in war there's there's really no winner because you're you're losing the important parts of yourselves but that that search for power that that little devil whispering in your ear like sitting at the sitting on the mountain top

1:23:35after when Christ goes up to the mountain top he's sitting on the mountain top after having fasted for 40 days or during his fast when he's fasting for 40 days and the devil comes to him and he says you see all these kingdoms they can all be yours that's what creates war it's that it's that desire for all those kingdoms and so it's it's the pursuit of the wrong thing it's it's allowing the passion to for power and wealth to overtake you and move you in that direction and so that's why war persists it's no different than lust and pornography or greed and theft and all these other things they continue to persist too and they're against human nature too they're not good for humanity they're not good for the person that does these things and that's why the Orthodox church they'll

1:24:41say that the church is the hospital for sinners that all of us suffer from these passions in one way shape or form we're all looking for power we're all chasing the fruits of the flesh instead of the fruits of the spirit and it's an illness it's not it's not like it's not something to be shamed for it's an illness you're sick and you go to the church to be healed this is why when you read like mark or you read the book of Matthew Christ is healing the sick and cast in demons out that's what he's doing the entire book of mark he's healing the sick and casting out demons that's what he's doing that's the whole point and it's pointing you in the direction that the church is the hospital it's an illness it is not some like crime to be punished for it's an illness that

1:25:42you need to be cured of I brought up your episode on the Clancy Mistrial hmm did you see people are talking about this similar case from I believe Ireland from 2020 hmm where have you seen this I have not no okay just creepy there was a mother in Ireland I believe it's Ireland in 2020 she was like the same kind of nurse the Lindsey Clancy was she had three children like around the same ages she killed all of them and like in like all there there's some

1:26:43other weird coincidences like the like first initials of their names or the same as the first initials of the Clancy chill or yeah the Clancy Children's names and when I saw people talking about this it like creep me out and made me think about like show is about serial killers or like a serial killer will like turn the kill into like a ritual where it's like they choose a specific victim they kill them in a specific way it has like this symbolic repertoire to it and like it made me I had just like you know we talked about before like where thoughts come from I just had like the thought come up like is there like a just the thought came into my head it was like

1:27:45is there like a serial killing demon at work that's like recreating this like ritualistic thing like tempting the the mother who's got whatever's going on with her giving her these ideas persistently and like now that if you were to say that or if I were to say that like in polite society people would be like well that's insane that sounds like medieval what's wrong with you but it's like well the like contemporary modern enlightenment based scientific frame of reference has like it's own sort of versions of that that that across the board are like collapsing under its own

1:28:45investigations but is it really so crazy is it really crazy or to wonder if there's like some demonic entity that was at work versus oh it's you see it's just the hormones and these medications and like she was tired and like she's got psychosis and like that's not really even defined but yeah what do you think about that no I mean I don't I would never discount anything like that like yeah like father turbos told me I think he's probably said it publicly too on one of his podcast at some point that demons only have so many tools in their toolbox if they find something that works they're gonna keep using it right and like I I know there have been times for absolutely

1:29:51zero reason whatsoever I've had some of the craziest most absurd thoughts come into my mind for no reason I'm just maybe like sometimes I'm at work I'm just driving down the road and an image or an I thought will come to mind I'll be like where the hell did that come from you know and I know I'm not the only person that's dealt with that but people don't like to talk about those things they make them uncomfortable because they don't know how to explain it but if you're if you're aware that every day all around us constantly there's a spiritual war taking place and that you're being tempted in all kinds of different ways some some a little bit less obvious than others that and you're and you're on alert and you're aware that these things are taking place

1:30:57then you're less likely to fall victim to these temptations but we live in we live in a world now where the the spiritual world isn't real to most people they don't they don't see it or understand that it exists or you know intentionally ignorant to whatever the case may be but people people believed I guess that they they bought in to the post modern idea that everything it is just in its name and it's work in the wording and that if you pretend like this world doesn't exist then it will cease to exist and I think what we found out over the last probably 10 years at least the last 10 years and it's becoming more obvious if you

1:32:03ask me is that it doesn't this this spiritual world doesn't cease to exist you just becoming capable of diagnosing how it's working in your life and on you when you ignore it and so I think it's quite possible that the same tricks and tools have been used in several circumstances over the years in order to destroy people and this is this is one of the things that I really took into consideration when sitting down to think about recording that episode and how I wanted to talk about that is because I I continuously heard Father Peter hears

1:33:04saying the point of retributive justice is the salvation of everybody involved what is best for the person's repentance what's best for their salvation and it's like I don't know how a person that did what Lindsey Clancy did repents I don't know what that begins to look like I think the first step of it would would have been to plead guilty but that's my personal opinion I'm not going to cast judgment upon the upon the lady I just that's my that's the way I look at it and I'm like with that I think that would be your first the first step and attempting to repent for doing something so terrible yet and and I look at like you're talking about this case in Ireland the one I saw that popped up

1:34:04was the Clarence Fisher case from like the 1950s was something I heard pop up so this lady Clarence Fisher had three children five three and ten months old well if you look at Cora Dawson and Callan Lindsey Clancy's children they were five three and eight months old and Clarence Fisher drowned her three children and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity was put into a mental institution six years later she gets out she gets remarried has three more children and kills those children so obviously in that situation there was no repentance for the first act and so and they did not cure her yeah obviously some malpractice yes but so so yeah I'm I don't

1:35:07think you're crazy in thinking that way I think it's a valuable way to think I think it's hard not necessarily to talk about it because I don't mind talking about those things you know if somebody has questions about them I don't but but it's it's going to it's it's hard for some people to to accept that right because our world has done everything and it's and it's power to make make our lives and our culture and everything around us material and to make the material reality of our world the most important thing to all of us by turning us into consumers and producers were human resources we're not human beings and all of that has turned down our awareness as a culture

1:36:11as a as a society maybe even as maybe even globally to the realities of spiritual warfare so I don't know how valuable it is to talk about that but I think it's I think there's a reality in what you're asking I think there's something real there that I'm not qualified to pinpoint but I do understand exists if that makes any sense that does thank you I've been reading this really cool book called analytic ideals in a nutshell and now this is I would say also from a secular point of view but he's attacking materialism and what he calls physicalism now I'm not clear yet on what

1:37:15the difference is but my like working understanding is materialism would be the position like pure materialism would be the position that all it exists is matter which I don't think anyone actually believes because then because of what is consciousness what is love so maybe physicalism or a downgraded bit qualified materialism would say that material is fundamental that's like fundamental based reality is matter everything else arises out of that so consciousness arises out of the brain and he's attacking that and he has really funny line where he says it's no wonder that physicalism accrued so much cultural momentum ever since ever since the Enlightenment despite being perhaps the worst metaphysical hypothesis in terms of explanatory power conceptual parsimony empirical adequacy adequacy internal consistency and overall coherence ever to gain mainstream status in any

1:38:19society on the planet and then he actually has a really cool quote from this guy did a row who's like like Indian light and it's like yeah we don't the materialism is obviously bullshit but it's our best weapon against the church and then he had like other scientists basically taking the position that like look we want to do this work we want to develop this technology but we don't want to antagonize the church so we're gonna we're gonna like focus on this like material realm we're not like stepping on their toes sort of thing but we know that it's not true but it's like it's like marketing so we don't get burned at the stake which now is how he's presenting and I'm always suspicious when I see any narrative that's like the hard work in scientists were so afraid of the

1:39:22church you know I know a lot that's overblown but what's cool is there's there's a book by Steven Pinker also from a secular perspective called the blank slate and he talks about like the idea of the blank slate that we're all that we don't really have in in a nature that were just socially constructed that like the people pushing that at the time they kind of knew it wasn't true but it was it was justifying ideas of equality and democracy and like oh and one more this is like the same thing so get the blank slate and we got materialism and physicalism when the very people that built these systems were trying to they were trying to achieve a greater good from their perspective but they knew that it that it wasn't really true but then a hundred years later

1:40:26everyone's forgotten that it's not really true and he has a funny funny another part in the book where he's like most people because the individual isn't lived that long so you're spending your whole life surrounded by so-called experts they're constantly telling you you know xyz and they really do believe it even though you know according to this guy it's bullshit and so you don't see the like the historical shifts you can't comprehend that oh no people didn't always think like this for a good reason and and like and I think it's funny now that like like the top scientists in the world are rejecting materialism and physicalism out like the local state run high school those like those chemistry teachers they're they're embracing it they're telling the kids yeah this is how it is but like these super smart people it's completely collapsing so then it's like oh man it's like

1:41:27opening up the door for all sorts of thinking all sorts of mystical thinking all sorts of religious thinking and then it's like well what's gonna what's gonna fill that once it's opened up like the dam is breaking what's gonna flood in yeah you know and and you see this I mean you see it all over the place I mean a cultism is becoming really really popular with with gen z women the orthodox church is growing incredibly right now I know Catholicism growing mainly with young men saying with the orthodox church even though the orthodox church here recently has been we've been seeing a lot of young families come into orthodoxy recently um Protestantism is dying

1:42:33people are leaving the Protestant church and I think the Protestant church in many ways was used to to push materialism in a lot of ways kind of shied away from the the spiritual aspects of of the world and so they they've definitely done a good job of infiltrating the church and this is something I've talked about quite a bit I might have mentioned it with you a couple of times but you know the one thing that the orthodox church is succeeded at that most other churches have failed at is the world wants to change the church they want to invade and change the church in order to look more like the world and if you you can get on you can go look for like Catholic masses where they're doing like clown masses or LGBTQ masses or I mean I've even seen a well mass

1:43:39where they're you know doing a mass and remembrance of all the whales that have died a lot of the Protestant churches have been invaded by these these political ideologies especially LGBTQ ideologies have have worked their way into a lot of Protestant churches with the orthodox church has a different way of viewing the church and they view the church as a place outside of the world that when we when we go into that church and we begin our liturgy that we've actually the the church has been elevated and has come together with heaven and we're we're merged in that moment with the kingdom of God and we're outside of the world and and it's our burden not to bring the world into the church to change the church to look more like the world it's our burden to bring the church

1:44:45out of the church into the world to make the world look more like the church and so there's a different perspective whenever from the orthodox point of view then there is to a lot of these you know Catholic or Protestant churches because a lot of the Catholic or Protestant churches they want to make the church look more like the world to attract more of the people from the world into the church but if I want to go to a concert I'm going to go to a good concert I'm not going to go to the local Protestant church and hear some like two-bit band that's not really that good like I'll go to an actual show but that's not the orthodox church doesn't view church in the same way we view we view church as the merging of heaven and earth and that if you want to attract people into the church then you have to be a good representative of what the kingdom of God actually entails

1:45:53you had mentioned that to me before about the world coming into the church and just like just last week I drove past the church beautiful stone church and then it's got like right above the door a big sign black lives matter and then it's got the the pride flag which is funny that's called pride the pride flag hanging there and I was like oh the world is in that church have you seen the meme where it's like one side of the screen is a is like a boulevard in urban in Germany under the Nazis and then the schwaasdick of flags are hanging all the way down the street and then the right side of the screen it's like some street in the west now and it's all the pride flags like hung up the same way I haven't seen that and like and I'm not trying to equate the pride

1:46:58with the schwaasdick I'm just saying it does represent an ideology and I used to think when I would see that flag like hanging on a cafe door I would think man there's some good coffee in there but now I think seriously let me tell you something tell me if you see a cafe it's hanging the pride flag and then it's got one of those like posters that says like ice is not wanted in here like without a warrant or whatever like this probably some good coffee in there but the funny thing is I feel like that flag is like it's like transcended sexuality because take for example the case of Lindsey Graham where liberals and democrats and leftists were always making fun of him for his sexuality and like being really cool about it where it's like if somebody on the right said that kind of stuff about

1:48:02Pete Buttigieg they'd be like that person's a fascist get him so the flag and they've added a lot to it now it's got like all the racial stuff there's different versions some with like the circles and everything but it's like that flag is like representing like an ideology that is like backed by power or that is driving power yeah when it's not just about you know accept you know love is love it's way beyond that and it's like whoa it's crazy to think that like that has like just like I'm not gonna say necessarily taken over the entire society but it's very prevalent throughout the society yeah especially in the cities I agree that is for sure and you know much like you know Nazism it's become a state religion

1:49:03well man it's getting laid down to a burnout yeah it's getting laid I got to go close the chickens up I was just looking at the time I'm like oh crap it's almost nine o'clock oh I don't have to chase any possums out of that damn cook sounds good my brother all right man well I appreciate you coming on I'm gonna stop the recording and then we will in the live thank you for having me yeah always man