There are many different issues that people go through that they end up facing the question of whether to forgive or not to forgive. After reading the Sunflower it gave me the perspective of being a Holocaust survivor and made me feel as if I were in one of the Jews shoes. When the SS soldier is asking for forgiveness from the Jews I felt some remorse but then realized that there is no way in hell I would be able to forgive him for what he did to my family and fellow comrades. I would probably just walk away without saying a word just like Simon did himself. Within the Sunflower I read a short response by a man named Harry Wu, a survivor of the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970’s, who states this about the soldiers that murdered his fellow people, “I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you” (Wu 274). This statement makes us realize that no matter the situation everyone has a choice of what they do its either they follow through with it or they go against it. So overall he is implying that one cannot be forgiven since they control their actions even though they are a part of a society where they were taught that the Cambodians were different, the enemy of the country, and they needed to be eliminated. Now if I were a survivor of the Holocaust I would not be able to forgive the Nazis for what they done and probably would not ever think about forgiving them either.
“First, forgiveness. As Wiesenthal’s fellow sufferers and as a number of Jewish respondents noted in the first edition, the relevant Jewish view of forgiveness is that a person who hurts another person must ask for forgiveness from his victim and that only the victim can forgive him. God Himself does not forgive a person who has sinned against a human being unless that human being has been forgiven by his victim” (Prager 226).
With this quote it shows how forgiveness is a personal matter and must be handled personally for that person to be forgiven.
In today's society we need to have peace and unity between all cultures and different races, because if people are always going to be fighting with people who are different then themselves then we are fighting a never ending war. If people would forgive one another and put the past behind them then the world would become a more peaceful place. Even though the memories are always going to be there and the people are still going to be angry or upset about the incident, it will not make a difference for one cannot change the past. We cannot go back into time, so the best way to deal with it is to not look at what is behind us but at what is waiting up ahead and either forgive them or just have nothing to do with them. The limits of forgiveness are endless. People can forgive and forget continuously but it doesn't matter the number of times we forgive someone, it doesn't come to feel right. I believe that it is possible to forgive but not forget, because we will always remember what happened or have the memories burned into your memory where it will always remain no matter how hard one tries to get rid of it. Catastrophic incidents that occur take some much space of your temporal part of your head which are stored there and are hidden or forgotten. However, when you see a picture or hear someone talking about the incident it is triggered and reminds you of everything that happened and just replays in your head.
Overall, one can forgive another for what they have done but it’s going to be extremely difficult. Victims can come to peace with their past by basically overcoming their nightmares of what happened to them. Morals are pertaining to the principles or rules of right behavior or the distinction between right and wrong. The victims know what the difference is between right and wrong and what feels right and what feels awkward, but it's their decision to choose whether to forgive or not to forgive. It is possible to forgive somebody but most people will not forgive another person who done so much bad to them, their families, and their fellow people. People will never forget what happened to them and will remain with them for the rest of their lives.