Book: ’06 shootings left Amish boys with guilt

Although the Amish
immediately forgave the shooter, some are having trouble coping.

NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) — A year after 10 of their female classmates were shot, some of the boys who escaped unharmed from West Nickel Mines Amish School are tormented by guilt, according to the author of a new book about the massacre.

Four of the five surviving girls have long since returned to classes in a new schoolhouse, but the community is also concerned about the lingering effects on the boys, said Elizabethtown College professor Donald B. Kraybill.

“They have survivors’ guilt, some of them, saying, ‘What should we have done?’” Kraybill said. “It’s actually pretty serious in one or two cases.”

Gunman Charles C. Roberts IV sent the boys and adults outside before he tied up the girls and began shooting them inside the heavily barricaded one-room schoolhouse Oct. 2. He shot and killed himself as police closed in.

The Amish were widely praised and admired for their immediate words and gestures of forgiveness, but that has not insulated them from the longer-term effects.

Along with the boys’ misguided guilt over their inaction, those affected by the attack also have encountered difficulty coping with reminders of the shooting, such as helicopters overhead, vehicles that resemble Roberts’ pickup and even the presence of strangers, Kraybill said.

Not a simple process

The book, “Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy,” recounts how the Amish immediately assured Roberts’ family they held no grudges, comforted his widow at his burial ceremony and set aside some of the donations they received for Roberts’ widow and children.

The story of forgiveness inspired people around the world, but the book describes a process that was not as simple as it may have seemed.

“I talked to some people recently: ‘Well, we’re still working at it.’ It’s not a done thing,” Kraybill said. “[They said], ‘We made the commitment, and we expressed the words and did the deeds.’ And they would underscore the deeds are more important than the words.”

Kraybill and his two co-authors, academic researchers who specialize in Amish life and culture, are donating royalties to the Mennonite Central Committee to help children around the world suffering from disease, poverty, war or natural disaster.

The Amish deeply believe that people must be forgiving toward one another in order for God to forgive them. As a result, soul-searching introspection is not a prerequisite for forgiveness — not even for a man who shot 10 schoolgirls.