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\headline={\hfil\ifnum\pageno>1 Rohrer \number\pageno\fi} \nopagenumbers
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Holden Rohrer
Jones
AP Lang
27 Mar 2020
\centerline{\fourteenrm The Sunflower}\baselineskip=35pt\par}
\def\book{{\twelveit The Sunflower}}
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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
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