On his first trip to the Twin Cities, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa honored an American family that has contributed to peace in South Africa. He gave a posthumous humanitarian award on Sunday to Amy Biehl, a 26year old Fulbright scholar killed by a mob in South Africa five years ago.

Before more than 300 people in Minnetonka, Tutu recounted how Biehl's parents, Linda and Peter Biehl, publicly forgave their daughter's killers.

"They said far from opposing amnesty, we support their application. We support the process," Tutu said. "When you encounter such unbelievable forgiveness, the only response that is appropriate is to do what Moses was asked to do, take off your shoes because the ground on which you are standing is holy."

With these words, Tutu presented the Biehls with the firstever Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity.

The award honors those who have risked their lives to protect and serve others of different races or religions. It is named after four U.S. Army chaplains who died Feb. 3, 1943, when their ship was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk just off Greenland.

The chaplains  a Jew, a Catholic and two Protestants  spent their last minutes comforting panicked soldiers. Then they gave away their life jackets and stood arm in arm in prayer as the troopship Dorchester went down. They were among 672 men who died.

David Fox of Hopkins, the nephew of one of the chaplains, the Rev. George Fox, worried that their story would be forgotten. So he contacted the ship's survivors and chaplains' family members. With their support, he established a foundation, the Immortal Chaplains Foundation, and an annual prize to commemorate their sacrifice.

Fox felt he needed an internationally known figure to lend the prize credibility. So he wrote to Tutu to ask if the Anglican cleric would become the foundation's patron. Tutu was moved by the chaplains' story and quickly agreed.

"It was the wonder of human beings going against what appears to be a law of our nature, self preservation," said Tutu, who is currently teaching at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. "They didn't seem to even give it a thought. They did what they did instinctively. And that makes you proud that you are a human being, and you hope that in a similar situation you will be able to respond in a similar way."

The four-hour award ceremony was held at Adath Jeshurun Congregation, a synagogue in Minnetonka.

It opened with prayers from representatives of the Lakota, Dakota, Onondaga and Annishinabe, who presented Tutu with gifts, including a peace pipe. The first U.S. Army Muslim chaplain gave the invocation. Two Tibetan monks closed with a chanted prayer.

Another award also was given posthumously to Charles W. David, an AfricanAmerican mess attendant aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Comanche, which helped rescue survivors of the Dorchester. David caught pneumonia and died after diving into the freezing sea to save a Coast Guard officer and others.

The Biehls came from the Los Angeles area to receive their daughter's prize. Amy Biehl had been in South Africa helping with voter registration for the nation's first allraces elections in 1994 that ended apartheid and researching what later became the country's first Bill of Rights. On the day before she was to come home, she was dragged from her car by a mob chanting antiwhite slogans. They stabbed and beat her to death with bricks.

Her killers recounted their crime in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was headed by Tutu. After they were sentenced, they applied for amnesty under the commission's provision for politically motivated crimes. Peter Biehl said his daughter believed in the commission's work and would have wanted her parents to support the amnesty.

"To us it is liberating to forgive," said Peter Biehl. "It takes an awful lot of energy to be angry and vengeful, and we don't choose to spend our lives that way."

The Biehls now spend half their time in South Africa. They created a foundation to run schools, job training and other programs for the people who live in the township where their daughter was killed

David Fox presents the Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity to Linda Biehl on behalf of her daughter Amy Biehl, who was killed by a mob in South Africa five years ago.

The Foundation Board 

A Minnesota Non-Profit Organization
Not Affiliated With the Chapel of  Four Chaplains, PA