The Sunflower Dilemma - Could you forgive?

[Az]

Why will forgiving the man make you feel bad, Azazel?

forgiving is not punishing someone who has committed a crime, be it physical punishment of any sort, or a mental one, that is in your own mind. By not punishing it, it is directly implied that either the crime is not actually something immoral, i.e. not a crime at all, or that it's is of such low importance, that punishing it would not improve the situation at all, but worsen it, and thus would be immoral itself.

Therefore, If I forgive it, I will make the horrors that I, my family and my people have passed, to be small in importance, but since this lowering of the magnitude of the pain would be totally artificial, I would feel myself to be a lesser human being.

I, personally, don't like quantifying emotions, but this is something that has to be done.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by obiwan18
what makes the Nazi worse than the Jew?

If you can ask this question, you have a serious flaw.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel
I think you're too harsh, che.

I don't think it's possible when it comes to war criminals. I don't spend my days thinking about how much I hate them, but I think genuine hatred is what I feel. I fully admit I'm not rational when it comes to Nazis. I'm torn between making them feel what they did to others, and simply hanging them and forgetting about them.

[Skanky Burns]

I think in this case, silence was the best answer - the only answer.

[Ben Kenobi]

how about the Nazi being a hateful murderous bigot, and the Jew being a member of a certain nationality?

Not trolling Azazel. Look at my second question.

"Are they any good people in today's world?"

You need to give me your standard of what makes a good person.

Therefore, If I forgive it, I will make the horrors that I, my family and my people have passed, to be small in importance, but since this lowering of the magnitude of the pain would be totally artificial, I would feel myself to be a lesser human being.

Forgiving this man does not condone what he has done. You are not letting him off the hook, instead you are releasing yourself. You only forgive when you believe the man has truly repented.

What does it mean for the Nazi to repent? It means confessing that what he has done is wrong. It means apologising for all the harm he has done to you and your family. It is a humiliating submission to the truth, and to his former victims. What has it cost this man to submit to his former enemies?

Look at it this way. You cannot bring your family back from the dead. You cannot revive those lives lost in the Holocaust. The only ones who are alive are you and this Nazi.

Forgiveness, to give and to receive is hard because we are proud people.

I would feel myself to be a lesser human being.

[Skanky Burns]

You need to give me your standard of what makes a good person.

Not participating in systematic murder is a start, no?

[Ben Kenobi]

Skanky Burns,

I agree.

Now what about the Jew. Is he also justified? What makes him a good person? What sets him above the mass-murderer.

Che, what about my second question:

Are they any good people in today's world?

To answer the first, you must also answer the second.

[Boris Godunov]

From the text of the novel. I have greatly paraphrased, citing relevant passages from Karl's confession while still trying to maintain the feeling of the meeting.

-------------

Hesitatingly, I sat down on the edge of the bed. The sick man, perceiving this, said softly: "Please come a little nearer, to talk loudly is exhausting."

I obeyed. His bloodless hand groped for mine as he tried to raise himself slightly in the bed.

"I have not much longer to live," whispered the sick man in a barely audible voice. "I know the end is near."

Then he fell silent. Was he thinking what next to say, or had his premonition of death scared him? I looked more closely. He was very thin, and under his shirt his bones were clearly visible, almost bursting through his parched skin.

I was unmoved by his words. The way I had been forced to exist in prison camps had destroyed in me any feeling or fear about death.

"I know," muttered the sick man, "that at this moment thousands of men are dying. Death is everywhere... I am resigned to dying soon, but before that I want to talk about an experience which is torturing me. Otherwise I cannot die in peace."

"I heard from one of the sisters that there were Jewish prisoners in the courtyard. Previously she had brought me a letter from my mother... I have been here for three months. Then I came to a decision..."

"...I asked [the nurse] to help me. I wanted her to fetch a Jewish prisoner to me."

His hand groped for [his mother's] letter and drew it towards him, as if he hoped to derive a little strength and courage from contact with the paper. I thought of my own mother who would never write me another letter. Five weeks previously she had been dragged out of the Ghetto in a raid.

Time seemed to stand still as I listened to the croaking of the dying man.

"My name is Karl...I joined the SS as a volunteer. Of course, when you hear the word SS... I must tell you something dreadful... Something inhuman. It happened a year ago... A year since the crime I committed. I have to talk to someone about it, perhaps that will help."

"I must tell you of this horrible deed--tell you because you are a Jew."

"I was not born a murderer..." he wheezed... "I come from Stuttgart and I am now twenty-one. Tat is too soon to die. I have had very little out of life."

Of course it is too soon to die, I thought. But did the Nazis ask whether our children whom they were about to gas had ever had anything out of life? Did they ask whether it was too soon for them to die?

"I know what you are thinking, and I understand. But may I still not say I am too young...?"

"My father...was a convinced Social Democrat. After 1933 he got into difficulties, but that happened to many. My mother brought me up as a Catholic, I was actually a server in the church and a special favorite of our priest who hoped I would one day study theology. But it turned out differently; I joined the Hitler Youth, and that of course was the end of the Church for me. My mother was very sad, but finally stopped reproaching me. I was her only child. My father...was afraid I should talk in the Hitler Youth about what I had heard at home...Our leader...told us that if we heard anyone abuse [the cause] we must report to him. There were many who did so, but not I. My parents were nevertheless afraid and they stopped talking when I was near..."

"In the Hitler Youth, I found friends and comrades. My days were full...My father rarely spoke to me, and when he had something to say he spoke cautiously and with reserve. I know now what depressed him..."

"When the war broke out I volunteered, naturally in the SS... Almost half [of his Hitler Youth group] joined the forces voluntarily--without a thought, as if we were going to a dance... My mother wept when I left. As I closed the door, I heard my father say, 'They are taking our son away from us. No good will come of it.'"

"Those were the last words I heard my father speak...Occasionally he would add a few lines to my mother's letter..."

"We were first sent to a training camp at an army base where we listened feverishly to the the radio messages about the Polish campaign...and dreaded that our services might not after all be needed. I was longing for experience, to see the world...

I sat like a cat on hot bricks and tried to release my hand hand from his. I wanted to go away, but he seemed to be trying to talk to me with his hands as well as his voice. His grip grew tigher...as if pleading with me not to desert him...

"[My mother] used to read my letters out to all the neighbors...and the neighbors all said that they were proud I got my wound fighting for the Fuhrer and the Fatherland...you know the usual phrase..."

His voice grew bitter as if he wanted to hurt himself, give himself pain.

"In my mother's memory I am still a happy boy without a care in the world...Full of high spirits. Oh, the jokes we used to play..."

As he recalled his youth and comrades, I too thought back on the years...But what had my youth in common with his? Were we not from different worlds? Where were the friends from my world? Still in camp or already in a nameless mass grave...

And now I began to ask myself why a Jew must listen to the confession of a dying Nazi soldier...a priest should have been sent for... And anyway I would not have as much time as this man had. My end would be violent, as had happened to the millions before me...I still clung to the belief that the world one day would revenge itself on these brutes... The day would surely come when the Nazis would hang their heads as the Jews did now...

All my instincts were against continuing to listen to this deathbed disavowal... They dying man must have felt this, for he...groped for my arm. The movement was so pathetically helpless that all of a sudden I felt sorry for him. I would stay, although I wanted to go. Quietly he continued talking.

"When the war with Russia began, we listened over the radio to a speech by Himmler... He spoke on the final victory of the Fuhrer's mission...On smoking out subhumans... We were given piles of literature about the Jews and the Bolsheviks, we devoured the 'Sturmer,' and many cut caricatures from it and pinned them above our beds... You can see for yourself on what sort of career my life was launched."

"At the end of June we joined a unit of storm troops and were taken to the front... On our endless journey we saw by the wayside dead Russians... And there were the wounded Russians, too, lying there helpless, with nobody to care for them; all the way we could hear their screams and groans. One of my comrades spat at them and I protested. He simply replied with a phrase that our officer had used: 'No pity for Ivan...' His words were parrotlike, unthinking. His conversation was full of stupid phrases which he had taken from newspapers."

"The fighting was inhuman. Many of us could hardly stand it. When our major saw this he shouted at us: 'Believe you me, do you think the Russians act any differently toward our men? You need only see how they treat their own people. The prisons we come across are full of murdered [Russians]. They simply mow down their prisoners when they cannot take them away...'"

"One evening a comrade took me aside to express his horror, but after the very first sentence he stopped. He did not trust me."

"One hot summer day we came to Dnepropetrovsk... Houses were burning and the streets were blocked by hastily erected barricades, but there was nobody left to defend them.... When the order came to fall out we leaned our rifles against the house walls, sat down and smoked. Suddenly we heard an explosion and looked up...a whole block of houses had blown up."

"Many house blocks had been mined by the Russians before they retreated and as soon as our troops entered, the buildings blew up..."

"Suddenly a staff car stopped near us. A major climbed out and sent for our captain. Then came a number of large trucks which tooks us to another part of town... In a large square we got out and looked around us. On the other side of the square was a group of people under close guard... And then the word ran through our group like wildfire: 'They're Jews' ... In my young life I had never seen many Jews...for the most part they had emigrated when Hitler came to power. The few who remained simply disappeared later... My mother sometimes mentioned our family doctor, who was a Jew and whom she mourned deeply. She carefully preserved all his prescriptions... But one day the chemist told her that...he was not allowed to make up the prescriptions of a Jewish doctor. My mother was furious but my father just looked at me and held his tongue."

"I need not tell you what the newspapers said about the Jews. Later in Polan I saw Jews who were quite different from ours in Stuttgart. At the army base...some Jews were still working and I often gave them something to eat. But I stopped when the platoon leader caught be doing it. The Jews had to clean out our quarters and I often deliberatley left behind on the table some food which I knew they would find."

I noticed that the dying man had a warm undertone in his voice as he spoke about the Jews. I had never heard such a tone in the voice of an SS man. Was he better than the others--or did the voices of SS men change when they were dying?

"An order was given and we marched toward the huddled mass of Jews. There were a hundred and fifty of them or perhaps two hundred, including many children...mostly women and graybeards. As we approached I could see the expression in their eyes--fear, indescribable fear...apparently they knew what was awaiting them..."

"A truck arrived with cans of petrol which we unloaded and took into a house. The strong men among the Jews were ordered to carry the cans to the upper stories... Then we began to drive the Jews into the house. A sergeant with a whip in his hand helped any Jews who were not quick enough. There was a hail of curses and kicks...after a few minutes there was no Jew left on the street."

"Then another truck came up full of more Jews and they too were crammed into the house with the others. Then the door was locked and a machine gunwas posted opposite."

I knew how this story would end... we had heard of similar happenings in Bialystok, Brody and Grodek. The method was always the same. He could spare me the rest of his gruesome account.

So I stood up ready to leave but he pleaded with me: "Please stay. I must tell you the rest."

"When we were told that everything was ready, we went back a few yards, and then received the command to remove the safety pins from our hand grenades and throw them through the windows of the house. Detonations followed one after another...My God!"

"We heard screams and saw the flames eat their way from floor to floor... We had our rifles ready to shoot down anyone who tried to escape from that blazing hell... The screams from the house were horrible. Dense smoke poured out and choked us..."

"Behind the windows of the second floor, I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were alight...With his free hand he covered the child's eyes...then he jumped into the street. Seconds later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies... We shot... Oh God!"

"I don't know how many tried to jump out of the windows but that one family I shall never forget--least of all the child. It had black hair and dark eyes..."

Up to this moment my feelings toward the dying man had tended towards sympathy: now all that was past. The touch of his hand caused me almost physical pain and I drew away.

"Perhaps they were already dead when they struck the pavement. It was frightful. Screams mixed with volleys of shots. The shots were probably intended to drown the shrieks. I can never forget--it haunts me. I have had plenty of time to think, but yet perhaps not enough..."

"Shortly afterwards we moved on. On the way we were told that the massacre of the Jews was in revenge for the Russian time bombes which had cost us about thirty men. We had killed three hundred Jews in exchange. Nobody asked what the murdered Jews had to do with the Russian time bombs."

"In the evening there was a ration of brandy. Brandy helps one to forget... Fired by the brandy we sat down and began to sing... Today I ask myself how I could have done that. Perhaps I wanted to anesthetize myself. For a time I was successful... But during the night [the events] came back..."

"A comrade who slept next to me...was restless in his sleep, tossing to and fro and muttering. I sat up and stared at him... I could only hear him saying, 'No, no,' and 'I won't.' In the morning I could see by the faces of some of my comrades tha they too had had a restless night. But nobody would talk about it. They avoided each other. Even our platoon leader noticed.

"'You and your sensitive feelings! Men, you cannot go on like this. This is war... They are not our people. The Jew is not a human being! The Jews are the cause of all our misfortunes! And when you shoot one of them it is not the same as shooting one of us...they are different from us. Wihout question one must get rid of them. If we had been soft we would still be other people's slaves..."

"We were approaching Taganrog, which was strongly held by Russians... We cowered in our trenches and tried to conquer our fear by drinking from brandy flasks... We waited for the order to attack. It came at last... but suddenly I stopped as though rooted to the ground. Something seized me... In that moment I saw the burning family... And they came to meet me. 'No, I cannot shoot at them a second time.' The thought flashed through my mind... And then a shell exploded by mys side. I lost consciousness."

"When I woke in a hospital I knew that I had lost my eyesight... The pain became more and more unbearable...but they never sent me home. That was the real punishment for me. I wanted to go home to my mother..."

Once again he groped for my hand, but... I did not want to be touched by the hand of death. He sought my pity, but had he any right to pity? Did a man of his kind deserve anybody's pity? Did he think he would find pity if he pitied himself...

"Look, those Jews died quickly, they did not suffer as I do--though they were not guilty as I am."

"All the time I have been lying here I have never stopped thinking of the horrible deed at Dnepropetrovsk. If only I had not survived that shell--but I can't die yet, although I have often longed to die... Sometimes I hoped that the doctor would...put me out of my misery... But he has no pity on me although I know he has released other dying men from their sufferings... Perhaps he is deterred by my youth... So I lie here waiting for death. The pains in my body are terrible, but worse still is my conscience. It never ceases to remind me of the burning house and the family..."

"I cannot die...without coming clean. This must be my confession..."

But what could I say? Here was a dying man--a murderer who did not want to be a murderer but who had been made into a murderer by a murderous ideology. He was confessing his crime to a man who perhaps tomorrow must die at the hands of these same murderers. In his confession there was true repentance, even though he did not admit it in so many words. Nor was it necessary, for the way he spoke and the fact that he spoke to me was a proof of his repentance.

"Believe me, I would be ready to suffer worse and longer pains if by that means I could bring back the dead... In the last hours of my life you are with me. I do not know who you are, I only know you are a Jew and that is enough."

"I want to die in peace, and so I need... I know what I told you is terrible. In the long nights... time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn't know whether there were any Jews left... I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace..."

Here lay a man in bed who wished to die in peace--but he could not, because the memory of his terrible crime gave him no rest. And by him sat a man also doomed to die--but who did not want to die because he yearned to see an end to all the horror that blighted the world.

Two men who had never known each other had been brought together for a few hours by Fate. One asks the other for help. But the other was himself helpless and able to nothing for him.

At last I made up my mind and without a word I left the room.

--------------

All of the above is taken from pp 25-55 of The Sunflower by Simon Weisenthal

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I disagree. I don't believe you are the most compassionate. Your compassion is for a monster who committed a crime against humanity, not for the humanity which this monster helped destroy.

I would have told the man, "I will not forgive you, and God will not forgive you either." I would also have told his mother what her son had done. When it comes to the Holocaust, "Never forgive. Never forget."

I don't know whether I would forgive the man or not, I don't think so. I'm not his priest and he didn't do these things to me. I may have compassion for a dying man and still not forgive him.

BUT.

What does telling his mother have to do with "Never forgive. Never forget"?

You are showing that you have little compassion in yourself. Seems to me that you want to punish the mother for the sins of the son, and that's wrong.

I also think that Weisenthal should never have gone to the mother's house. It seems to me he is asking for forgiveness from her, for not showing his son compassion. Telling the mother the truth may gain him peace, but it shows little compassion for a woman that has done no wrong.

[Sava]

obiwan, there's a difference between genocide and the ***-for-tat string of violence in Israel. And BTW, the Palestinian terrorists started this most recent infatada after Israel all but bent over backwards at the Oslo accords. And comparing "Jews" to Nazis is just despicable. And you call yourself a Christian?

I wouldn't forgive, but I wouldn't engage in revenge, either. That's the difference between good and not good (I won't say evil because there are shades of gray). I actually admire the person who could forgive in the face of that evil... and if I thought for a moment that such a repent was genuine, and not fueled by fear, then I might consider forgiveness. But I've recently experienced a situation like this where a loved one passed away. This individual suddenly felt compelled to confess and apologize on his deathbed... but what was funny was that his actions that he was asking forgiveness for had taken place even after he knew he was going to die within a few years. When you're hours away from death, fear takes hold and suddenly the reality that you might have to pay the consequences of your actions fuels these "confessions". A genuinely sorry person doesn't wait until hours before death to confess.

[Tuberski]

From what I just read, I don't see where the man is asking for forgiveness, he is confessing a crime. To someone that may have been affected by the crime.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Tuberski
From what I just read, I don't see where the man is asking for forgiveness, he is confessing a crime. To someone that may have been affected by the crime.

"I want to die in peace, and so I need... I know what I told you is terrible. In the long nights... time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn't know whether there were any Jews left... I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace..."

Sava:

I also look at deathbed confessions quite dubiously, but this young man makes it clear his remorse existed before he was wounded. He would not have had an opportunity to make any such confession until then, being knee-deep in combat in Russia surrounded by his SS unit.

But is there a point of no return? Should a deathbed repentance automatically be dismissed because of the circumstances, even if it is heartfelt and genuine? How could you know it was simply out of fear? Surely, if he believes in God, he would realize an insincere repentance would get him nowhere once he died. And if he didn't, why would he bother if he didn't really mean it?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


"I want to die in peace, and so I need... I know what I told you is terrible. In the long nights... time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn't know whether there were any Jews left... I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace..."

Okay, so I Didn't read word for word.........

[Zero]

Originally posted by Azazel

Sava, what makes the Nazi worse than the Jew?

erm, how about the Nazi being a hateful murderous bigot, and the Jew being a member of a certain nationality?

I wont stereo-type Jews in general but one Jew I knew long time ago used to hate Nazis with such a passion, he himself became sort of Nazi hating the Jew kinda relationship. In that case, I would say he is no better than a "hateful murderous bigot".

Originally posted by Azazel
I don't think it's possible when it comes to war criminals. I don't spend my days thinking about how much I hate them, but I think genuine hatred is what I feel. I fully admit I'm not rational when it comes to Nazis. I'm torn between making them feel what they did to others, and simply hanging them and forgetting about them.

Then you have a qualified personality to become something as evil as the nazis.

[Ben Kenobi]

obiwan, there's a difference between genocide and the ***-for-tat string of violence in Israel. And BTW, the Palestinian terrorists started this most recent infatada after Israel all but bent over backwards at the Oslo accords. And comparing "Jews" to Nazis is just despicable. And you call yourself a Christian?

Sava, and to che as well.

I never brought the intifada into this discussion. Would it make you more comfortable to talk about a Nazi and an atheist? I use these only because they are the ones in Boris' example. I do not intend to compare Jews as a whole to Nazis as a whole, merely these two individuals.

I know there is a difference between the Nazi who has killed in Boris' example and the Jewish person. I don't believe the two are the same. I believe the murderer is a much worse person.

Yet, the question I asked is why do I believe this? Would God look at things the way that I do? How can God forgive a murderer, to allow him the same reward as anyone else?

That is why I asked the question of who is truly good. From a Christian perspective, the answer is Christ. How do we, as moral beings stack up to Christ? The answer is that we fall very short. This is the standard that Christians use to evaluate our actions.

Returning to the question of forgiveness. Yes, we may be better off than the murderer. However, are we closer to the murderer or to Christ? CS Lewis uses this illustration:

"Suppose we place Mother Teresa on a mountain, and someone like Hitler at the bottom of the sea. As people on the shore, we can easily see the difference between the two people.

Now what about God? If we place God on the moon, the difference between Hitler and Mother Teresa is negligible. To us, it seems a vast cavern, but to God, we are a long ways down. "

If the gulf between the best of us and Christ is close to the distance between the Earth and the Moon, how much harder is it for Christ to reach those at the bottom?

Therefore, how much better are we than this Nazi? Not much. Are we any more deserving of God's love and forgiveness? No. We only forgive, because we have been forgiven ourselves.