The Sunflower

Matthieu Ricard responds from a Buddhist perspective, stating that, within his belief system, forgiveness is always possible and expected of believers. “In Buddhism,” says Ricard, “forgiveness does not mean absolution, but an opportunity for the inner transformation of both victim and perpetrator” (235). For the victim, forgiveness is the path to healing from the pain inflicted. For the perpetrator, forgiveness is the means by which he can be transformed, which means that he is no longer harmful to humanity.

Ricard suggests that Karl made a good first step by acknowledging his wrongdoing but adds that he might have gone further to establish his intention to change by directing his comrades to stop committing those crimes as well. 

Joshua Rubenstein makes reference to a speech by Heinrich Himmler, in which the head of the SS once acknowledged that it is natural for an individual Nazi to be revolted by the horrors he witnesses, that this revulsion is a sign that he is still a human being, but that his willingness to carry on killing on behalf of the Aryan race is a sign that he is a good Nazi. Rubenstein uses this point to establish that Nazis, the Catholic-raised Karl among them, were not without moral judgment, rather, they murdered willfully and with the knowledge that it was wrong. Rubenstein concludes that Karl’s “dying wish to beg forgiveness from a scared, vulnerable Jewish prisoner was as much an act of callous egotism as it was a misguided act of contrition” (240).

Sidney Schachnow identifies himself as a lifetime veteran of the Green Berets, a soldier who knows the experience of killing in battle. He qualifies this statement by saying “I had broken no rules of war, killed no one who was not trying to kill me” (241). Nonetheless, his experiences did bring him to a point emotionally where he would have asked forgiveness if he could have done so.

Schachnow also reveals that his experience as a Holocaust survivor leads him to believe that the perpetrators of those crimes—Karl, in particular—were aware of the immorality of their decisions and, therefore, should not be forgiven. He believes that German people were as moral and free to choose as any people anywhere; that the people who chose to participate in the Holocaust should be held accountable as morally competent human beings.

He concludes by saying that Wiesenthal should not forgive for two reasons: first, it is not for him to forgive the crimes committed against others, and second, this SS man “stepped over the boundary where forgiveness is possible” (243).

Dorothee Soelle begins by observing that the persistent question of whether Simon should have forgiven or not reveals both the impossibility and the necessity of forgiveness. She goes on to tell a story from personal experience of a professor of German literature who had been a Nazi, of his falling to the floor in contrition for his acts, and of how she and he prayed together.

She identifies as a Christian who is by necessity “an heir to the Jewish tradition” (245). Invoking the Jewish tradition of teshuvah, or repentance, she says, “there is no person, time or place where teshuvah is not possible” (244). She concludes by saying that forgiveness was possible for Simon, but acknowledges that, if she were in that position, she may or may not have given it.