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Mothers Who Think image
Furrow's people
At a compound in Idaho, Nazis explain that they're not about hate -- they just love their own kind.

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By Amy Benfer

August 12, 1999 | On July 10, I interviewed five Nazis at the Church of Jesus Christ Christian Aryan Nations compound in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The Nazis liked me. I was polite; I was white; I listened to their jokes -- even the ones about gas ovens.

Exactly a month to the day after I interviewed the Nazis, Buford O. "Neal" Furrow shot five people, including three children, at a Jewish Community Center in suburban Los Angeles. The connection with my interview was about more than just the date: On the very same Nazi compound I visited, Furrow was married to Debbie Mathews, the widow of Robert Mathews, who founded the Nazi paramilitary organization the Order in 1983. Early news reports identified Furrow as head of security for the compound, but it turned out he was just a lowly volunteer.

Richard Butler, the founder and pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ Aryan Nations, officiated at Furrow and Mathews' wedding, although he claims not to remember. But Aryan Nations leaders frequently do not remember much about their current or former members after they have gone off and done something stupid with a weapon.

Furrow's vicious deed will now have the world swarming to the Coeur d'Alene compound again. Reporters will hear what I heard: that being a Nazi is not about hate. "It's about love of your own kind," they told me. "That is the derivative of the word kindness." They said that Benjamin Smith, the lone white supremacist sniper who went on a killing spree in the Midwest last month, would not be welcome on the compound. "Killing yourself," Christian Teague told me, "is a sin."

Today, Christian was on NBC. She says the word on Furrow is that he was a quiet guy they barely knew. Butler, who also barely knew Furrow, still said he understood what made him do it: "It's the rage of the white man."

. Next page | The Nazis as victims



 

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