Hey there, my name is Stefan Heikens, I was born in Germany in 1979, where the death penalty has not existed since 1949 (although it was not abolished in the former East Germany until 1987). So why am I even concerned with this difficult topic, since it does not affect me at all?
The answer is complex, but can probably best be summarized by saying that I have always been interested in people on the margins of society. I have never been a fan of small talk, and unfortunately I get bored very quickly with topics such as the weather, football, or cars. On the other hand, I can listen for hours (much to the chagrin of my friends, but also talk) when it comes to psychology, the Third Reich, or the death penalty …
Not so funny fact: I come from a very dysfunctional family and unfortunately it took me many years to attribute the severe abuse I suffered as a child to my family’s generational trauma. One side had to flee from the Russians during the Third Reich, the other was in the SS; and I believe that BOTH sides suffered severe damage at that time! So I understood that there can be many different factors that can break a person, or at least drive them temporarily insane, and what it’s like to regret many of your own actions in retrospect. How stupid and controlled by parents and grandparents are you still at 18 or 19, the age most men are when they end up on Death Row? Back then, having just come of age, I thought I knew everything. It was only much later that I realized how little I knew then and (if I’m honest) still know today …
In my quest to understand myself better, I turned to the people who I thought would understand me best: Murderers! “Monsters”! Death Row inmates! As macabre as it may sound at first, who better to talk to about what it was like to have such a dark childhood, to make a mistake because of it, and then have to pay for it for the rest of your life? I have never forgotten the despair and fear I felt back then, and I still believe today that I was lucky not to have had easy access to weapons or to have fallen into really bad company. Who knows what would have happened otherwise?
This line of thinking was confirmed when I first met my first pen pal in the visitors‘ room at Polunsky Unit in Texas, whose address I had received from a German organization. Through luck and connections, I knew people in Texas where I could vacation, so it made sense to look for a source of information there. I never would have thought back then that years later I would spend a large part of my life campaigning against the death penalty! I just wanted to ask a few questions, perhaps feel understood for once, and learn more than what you see in the relevant documentaries! These men must have had a past, just as I did, so why didn’t anyone I knew asked them about it?
My pen pal and I sat across from each other and, due to special rules, had four hours for a conversation in which we exchanged experiences, and at some point he explained to me that many of those behind the bulletproof glass in front of me had a similar life story to mine. So I could be glad that I had taken a different path than them back then, I could just as easily have ended up on their side …
Whether this “different path” was a conscious decision or simply a lack of options, I can no longer say today. All I know is that I look back on the boy I was back then and shake my head, just as many of my friends on Death Row today look back on themselves in disbelief and sometimes anger! How many of them were simply unlucky, where I had been lucky?
Let’s be honest, none of us today are the same people we were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, but some people have to pay for the stupid things they did in the past for the rest of their lives, no matter how long that life may be …
Of course, I am also aware that not every inmate on Death Row was simply unlucky; some people are true monsters and must be kept as far away from society as possible. But if I have learned anything in recent years, it is that it often takes only a single moment of weakness or bad luck to turn a good person into a “bad” person. So when I see the arrogance and contempt with which some people place themselves above others without ever having been in their shoes, it often makes me feel almost physically sick …
At first, I observed this arrogance in people who believed that (without a doubt) they would have been part of the resistance in Germany during WW II, that they would not have gone along with it and would have courageously opposed everything, … because that was where my search began! I conducted countless interviews with eyewitnesses, perpetrators, and victims from that time, collected diaries and letters, and devoured every book I could find on the subject (until I started publishing them myself) …
Then I suddenly saw the same arrogance again in people who believed that drug-addicted parents, tough gangs, murdered siblings, and a criminal environment could never have influenced them to have a terrible, weak moment. Because people always believe only the best of themselves, and many die at an old age believing that they are truly good, because they were never really put to the test … But not all of us are that lucky!
However, I don’t presume to say what I would have done in these situations, because, as I said, history and destinies are complex. What I can say, though, is that few people have taught me as much about life as those who must expect that theirs will soon be ended violently and deliberately …
Since I started doing this work, I have made many friends, both on Death Row and among their families and activist circles, and I love every single one of them. I am grateful and humbled to be allowed to be a small part of their world, just as they will always be a big part of mine … THANK YOU GUYS!
It is understanding that will change the world, not hatred or revenge.
And in case anyone was hoping for bullet points: I love whiskey, steak, and hard rock, I am the property of a tomcat named ‚Lemmy‘, I collect soldiers‘ letters (WW II) and autographs, I am chronically depressed and still try to take life easy, I would love to go to a baseball game again in my lifetime, I feel most comfortable in a storm, I enjoy watching movies, and I speak relatively good English (nevertheless, I use DeepL as a translator for this site)!
Any questions? Fire away…