Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, tells of his story about the decision of forgiveness in his book the Sunflower. Wiesenthal had the experience of being picked to listen to the confession of an SS officer just because he was a Jew. The SS officer, named Karl, told Wiesenthal on his deathbed of his horrible crime of murdering a Jewish family of three. As Karl made his confession he asked for the forgiveness of Weisenthal for his crime. Weisenthal ends up not granting the dying man’s last wish and let's Karl die in misery and not peace because of his crimes to the Jews. After telling his story Weisenthal says to his audience, “You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question: ‘what would I have done?’” In this paper I will explore the essence of forgiveness and the different perspectives on the decision of granting forgiveness in Wiesenthal's situation.
The Argument Not To Forgive
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Mary looked at the situation the same way Simon did. She felt that Simon did not have the right to forgive Karl for those people. That was not the only comment that Mary had. Mary also defended her argument to not forgive because she thought that if Karl really understood all the wrong that he did, then he would have not asked to be granted peace. I liked her statement that if Karl was really sorry for what he had done, he should have asked to die in the death camps like his victims would have lived in. That way, his pleading for forgiveness would be justified and maybe would be right to ask for if his victims were there. There arguments are very persuasive, but next we will look at the Catholic perspective on the