Why us? Why anyone? We’ve seen film of Nazis on trial, proclaiming that they had no choice in what they did, that they were merely ‘following orders,’ as if, somehow, we’ll nod and agree and understand their actions. We presume that their punishment would have been so great as to negate any of their moral objections to the unthinkable atrocities they carried out, but what was the alternative? Death to all who refused? “There’s one major problem with this explanation—that in the hundreds of cases my husband and I have read, of the grisliest crimes ever recorded, not one defense attorney in any
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