Forgiving is to excuse for a fault or offense. If someone bumps into you and makes you spill your coffee, even if you are mad you can come to a point where you don’t care anymore and forgive them. You may even forget it ever happen because it just was not that important. But what if the offense was torture and murder? The question Simon Wiesenthal asks in his book The Sunflower is, “Moreover, when the killing has stopped, how can a people make peace with one another who moments before were their mortal enemies? What are the limits of forgiveness, and is repentance -religious or secular - enough? Is it possible to forgive and not forget? How can victims come to peace with their past, and hold on to their own humanity and morals in the process? “(XII).
We often hear about the family of a murder victim going to the prison to forgive the murder. This is taken as the family excusing the act of killing their family member. In reality what they are doing is excusing the pain that person caused them from losing someone they loved. When someone takes a life I do not think it is ever something they can be forgiven. Deborah Lipstadt wrote an essay explaining the Jewish religion’s process of being forgiven. She writes, “If I sin, I cannot go to someone else who has some remote connection with the person I have harmed and ask that third party for forgiveness” (194). If the person is not alive to grant the person forgiveness then it is something that cannot be forgiven.
In The Sunflower, the Nazi soldier wanted Simon to forgive him for brutally taking the lives of many Jewish people. There were many problems with what this man wanted from Simon. First he wanted to speak to any Jewish prisoner. The idea that just anyone would do makes it clear that he seen them all the same. One Jew would be no different than another. The man then goes on and on about his suffering and him dying at a young age. He forces Simon to hold his hand and comfort him from death. Then he tells Simon a horrific story that will scare him for life. From the soldier’s actions, I see a man who is scared because he knows he has made mistakes and is scared of dying and going to Hell. I think he felt bad about what he did because he believed he was about to be judged for his sins. The soldier tells Simon, “I am resigned to dying soon, but before that I want to talk about an experience which is torturing me. Otherwise I cannot die in peace” (27). This statement could be taken as, I did this horrible thing and if you tell me it is ok then I can be let off the hook and not be so scared to die. I strongly believe the soldiers actions were completely selfish and his last action of torture before he left the world.
Simon leaving the room silent after the story seemed to be more of an impulse decision but a good one. If he would have told the man that he didn’t or couldn’t have forgave him then the dying soldier would have went on about himself and how tried harder to convince Simon that he deserves forgiveness. This was the best way for Simon to escape another horrible situation that the Nazi’s forced him into. His silence was the best way to say, you made decisions and now you have to live with them until you die. After death, if there is an afterlife, then he can ask forgiveness from God.
I do not actually believe that any serious offense can be forgiven. When a person abuses someone in a way that they lose their life or the experience will change their life forever then there cannot be a point where there is forgiveness. The victim may get to a point where they are no longer haunted by the situation but they never forget. In order to forgive someone would have to forget and that is not possible. It can never be taken back and can never be excused.