The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal

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+%%Formatting
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+\font\twelveit=ptmri7t at 12pt
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+%%Header
+\headline={\hfil\ifnum\pageno>1 Rohrer \number\pageno\fi} \nopagenumbers
+\vsize=9in
+{\obeylines\parindent=0in%
+Holden Rohrer
+Jones
+AP Lang
+27 Mar 2020
+\centerline{\fourteenrm The Sunflower}\baselineskip=35pt\par}
+
+\def\book{{\twelveit The Sunflower}}
+%%Content
+I, like many of the respondents to \book, struggle and hesitate to give 
+a definitive answer to the question ``Would I have forgiven the SS 
+man?'' Like Sven Alkalaj says, ``Nobody who hasn't bodily gone through 
+what [genocide victims] went through will ever be able to understand 
+fully.'' I fear that, in giving a definite answer, my viewpoint is so 
+uninformed as to be inapplicable or, worse, hold the eventual 
+implication that Wiesenthal has committed some great wrong by not
+forgiving Karl. This fear drives me to the conclusion that the 
+SS man should not be forgiven. At least and especially under  
+Wiesenthal's circumstances, I certainly would have done the same if I  
+had been so gracious to hear out the dying soldier as Wiesenthal had.  
+
+Before reading Cynthia Ozick's response, however, I relucted to wholly
+rule out forgiveness. She outlines, in great detail, that what the SS
+man did is not just unforgivable on some religious or metaphysical
+principle of the meaning of forgiveness ``in God's eyes,'' but for the
+legitimate setting of precedent against obtaining ``cleanliness of
+heart'' lightly. Despite the soldier clearly appearing to be genuinely
+remorseful, I can't believe that his record could be so lightly
+expunged.
+
+Some responses, like Robert Brown's attempt to draw a line between
+forgiving and forgetting, which is understandable, but in this case,
+Karl continues to commit grievances which undermine his repentance. The
+first of these is treating the Jews as a monolithic group: ``any Jew
+will do.'' The second is the selfishness of his repentance. He is sorry
+for his actions, but only to the extent it helps him ``die in peace.''
+I sympathize with Wiesenthal's disgust at the soldier, for it appears
+that no fundamental change occurred except that he seeks an easy way
+out---a ``moral escape valve'' as Robert Brown puts it. Karl is
+pitiful insofar as he cannot understand what he is doing, and he, in his
+distressed state, appears to miscomprehend his effect on Wiesenthal.
+Wiesenthal is clearly conflicted by his choice when confronted by Karl,
+and this is an undue burden placed on Wiesenthal. Karl doesn't
+demonstrate atonement in the shallow words of a deathbed conversation,
+so to forgive him, in this instance, would be to ignore the quality of
+his crimes.
+
+Karl killed dozens of families of Jews by fire, without immediate
+remorse. In some ways, this could be considered an act for which one
+cannot atone or be forgiven. But Albert Speer, a Nazi Minister, has felt
+great guilt for his wartime actions, and he has atoned by spending time
+in prison and has realized the deep err of his ways. Wiesenthal treated
+him with kindness, and I believe that this atonement is what separates
+Speer's worthiness of forgiveness from Karl's. Matthieu Ricard says it
+best with ``the perpetrator of evil will himself suffer\dots until he
+is ready for inner transformation.'' Karl had only taken the first step
+to deserving forgiveness, and even then it may have been corrupted.
+Terence Prittie notes that his dying means he may just be ``praying and
+promising ``to be good.''''
+
+\book\ has dramatically shifted my opinion on the possibility of
+forgiveness---to be more harsh. Before reading, I took a na\"\i ve
+and weak pro-forgiveness stance, loosely affected by a perception of
+nobility in Buddhist tradition and a misunderstanding of the ultimate
+theological and moral implications. I still believe that forgiveness is
+possible, but I think that vengeance is justified if not right in the
+immediacy of an event as terrible as the Holocaust, and that forgiveness
+requires sacrifice by both sides, because that proof of stake defines
+the value that forgiveness is able to create.
+
+\bye