As the Second World War came to a close, Elmer Friesen and his brother, Alvin, received a letter from their Mennonite church in Aberdeen, Sask.
They could return to the church, it said, but not without publicly apologizing to the small rural congregation. They had been expecting the ultimatum since first being given the choice at the outset of the war: Serve and renounce your membership to the church, or don’t participate at all.
But the appeal to pacifism – a core belief of the church – didn’t land with the Friesen brothers.
