The Sunflower

by Simon Wiesenthal

  Even if Wiesenthal believed that he was empowered to grant a pardon in the name of the murdered masses, such an act of mercy would have been a kind of betrayal and repudiation of the memory of millions of innocent victims who were unjustly murdered, among them, the members of his family.

  Although Wiesenthal's reaction was instinctive and dictated by the deep suffering he was feeling for what he, his family, and an entire people had undergone, I doubt whether religious ethics (Jewish or Christian) or an altruistic conscience could lead to a level of self-sacrificing mercy beyond the ability of a human being, with the exception of saints and clergymen who act in the name of God.

  In fact, religious belief had declined a great deal in the face of God's silence. A very observant relative of mine who had been preparing himself for the rabbinate before the war was with me in the Plaszow camp. On the day of the selection in May 1944 when the last two hundred eighty children remaining in the camp were deported to Auschwitz together with the old people and the sick my cousin said: “I don't believe in God anymore.” Till the day he died he never regained his faith. Forgiveness could not be granted in the name of God either.

  At a certain point during my testimony at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, when I stood face to face with the embodiment of evil, I told the judges that I doubted whether the fear, pain, helplessness, depression, and hopelessness which we felt then could be reproduced now at a distance of so many years. This is certainly true with respect to the dilemma in question. Nevertheless, I exhorted myself to be faithful only to considerations, feelings, and behaviors that relate to the circumstances and conditions that existed then. In this way I was able to arrive at the above conclusion.

  We can only be thankful that the passage of time dulls the pain somewhat and heals the open wounds to a certain extent, so that we can look at the issues in a broader perspective. Yet the crimes committed by the Nazi regime were so barbarous and so destructive to the victims that those who somehow managed to survive have never been able to free themselves of the horrors they had to endure. Moreover, the few survivors found themselves with no families, and their children grew up without grandparents. Thus, in addition to all their other injustices the Nazis themselves have prevented their crimes from being forgotten. The survivors have been sentenced to bear their pain and sadness to the grave. Without forgetting there can be no forgiving.

  It is indeed true that not only the German people are interested in consigning the crimes of the Nazi regime to oblivion, the world has also begun to forget too soon. Even in the countries that suffered under the occupation of that sadistic regime, the number of Nazi criminals who have been found, brought to trial, and punished, even as a deterrent for potential criminals, is dwindling. Thus thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Germans who participated in and committed genocide and crimes against humanity returned to their homes and to quiet, peaceful lives, without their consciences ever bothering them, without ever feeling any remorse. Certainly these people do not need to be forgiven by anyone, not by the victims and not by God.

  Does repentance alone justify and bring about forgiveness and allow crimes to be forgotten?

  Even in normal criminology and penology only true regret accompanied by reformed behavior can be considered a justification for lightening a sentence, and even then not necessarily in the case of serious crimes. No matter what, regret never pardons crimes, except when the state declares an amnesty for certain crimes, generally for political reasons.

  We all remember the heated debate during the 1960s over the issue of establishing a statute of limitations for prosecuting Nazi criminals for the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity. At the time the opinion was that, since the crimes in question were so terrible that humanity has never known anything like them before, there was no justification for putting a time limit on their prosecution, allowing the passage of time to atone for crimes which cannot be forgiven.

  Another point about Wiesenthal's behavior, also in hindsight: I have already said that, by leaving the room after hearing Karl's confession, or more correctly, statement, Wiesenthal behaved in the only way he could have behaved, according to the reasonable feelings of an individual in his situation. He had no desire for revenge toward the person who had injured him and his people so cruelly nor did he feel any satisfaction about the circumstances. He went out of his way to visit Karl's mother, but refrained from telling her the truth about the crimes her son committed while he served in the SS, if only to help her preserve her image of a son she remembered as a good boy.

  It seems to me that this restraint goes beyond what a human being could be expected to do.

  Even considering the distance in time and the use of hindsight, I am certain that Wiesenthal's conscience should not be troubled by the manner in which he behaved during that macabre encounter.

  ALAN L. BERGER

  I have been teaching Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower for many years. The issues remain seemingly intractable. Students are struck by the notion of forgiveness. Was Simon right? What about the meaning of his silence? Was Karl's repentance genuine? Further, if the Holocaust was unique, how can traditional responses—including forgiveness—be applied to monstrous evil? We are engaged at the most profound levels of meaning and response.

  In literary terms, silence is the principal character of this morality tale. And Simon was twice silent: once in the death chamber of the dying Nazi, and once in the presence of the dead man's mother. Are the silences the same? Do they convey different meaning? The first silence is one of confusion. Stunned, frightened, overwhelmed, Simon does not know which way to turn. He is torn between the ethical teachings of Judaism and the harsh reality of the Holocaust whose only goal was the extermination of Jews. By way of contrast, the second silence is a conscious decision. It is taken out of kindness to the mother. What, it might be argued, would there be to gain by telling the mother the truth about her son? Preserving his memory was a true gift of grace, the only such gift to have a proper place in this story. To have forgiven her son would have been a desecration both of the memory of the Jewish victims and of the sanctity of forgiveness.

  In Simon's place, what would I do? This question raises a prior query. Am I entitled to forgive on behalf of the murdered? My response is, do not forgive someone for whom forgiveness is forbidden. Judaism teaches that there are two types of sins. One is that committed by humans against God, beyn adam le-makom. The second type consists of sin committed by humans against other humans, beyn adam le-adam. I may forgive one who has sinned against me. I may not forgive one who has taken the life of another.

  My own thoughts are firm. Simon should, and could, not forgive on behalf of those so cruelly murdered. Further, in asking for a Jew to hear his confession Karl perpetuated the Nazi stereotype. Jews were not individuals with souls, feelings, aspirations, and emotions. Rather, they were perceived as an amorphous, undifferentiated mass. Bring me a Jew, was the dying Nazi's request. Any Jew will do. Karl has learned nothing. His desire is to “cleanse” his own soul at the expense of the Jew.

  Was Karl's repentance sincere? Repentance in Hebrew comes from the word teshuvah, meaning a turning away from evil, a turning toward Torah. It is a process rather than a single act. When it mattered, when he shot Jews jumping from a burning house, Karl displayed no moral courage. Recent studies have demonstrated that there were those who disobeyed orders, took a moral stance, and were not punished. It is far more difficult to act morally than immorally. Repentance is formulaic: a learned ritual which soothes the troubled soul of the murderer, but does nothing for those who were murdered. Is it morally possible to say, “I am sorry for the Holocaust”? Or to apologize for individual acts of murder whose great aggregate yielded the murder of millions of Jews?

  The entire issue of cheap grace, forgive and forget, is raised here. Presumably, Karl, achieving forgiveness, would go to heaven. Whereas Simon and other Jews, including and especially the victims of the slaughter in the Polish town, would
not. If the teachings of the Catholic Church were so radically deficient as to be unable to hold Karl to moral accountability, then shame on the Church. Shame on the murderers. And shame on those who ask forgiveness thereby requiring from others the moral integrity which they themselves so sorely lack.

  Let us assume for a moment that Karl either was not wounded or did not die. Would he then have had pangs of conscience? After the war, would he be among the penitents? Or would he not have been among those Nazis who either gathered to reminisce about the “good old days” or simply resume his life: marrying, raising a family, prospering, and shaking his head over all the fuss Jews made over the Holocaust?

  A last reflection. Simon's Jewish conscience was deeply disturbed by the event. He spoke about it to his fellow prisoners, and clearly the matter still weighs heavily upon him. In reminding himself of the foul deeds of murder committed by the Nazis, and the indifference to Jewish suffering displayed by the Poles, it seems as though Simon must present this evidence before the courtroom of his own conscience which has become the scene of this titanic struggle. Is this not what Karl depended on? After all, Hitler blamed the Jews for bringing conscience to bear in history. Granting the murderer forgiveness would have been the final victory of Nazism. Had he spoken to Karl, Simon would have sealed his own guilt.

  ROBERT MCAFEE BROWN

  Warsaw, 1979. We are standing in front of the memorial to those Jews who lost their lives defending the Warsaw Ghetto. It is raining. A personal friend who survived that battle is giving an impassioned address. It is in Polish. Several days later he gives me a copy of the translation. The passion carries over into English. The theme is clear: Never forget, never forgive.

  That we must never forget is perhaps the clearest lesson of the Holocaust. For if we forget, a time will come when even worse atrocities will be committed against Jews, and any others whom those with power wish to destroy.

  That we must never forgive would seem to follow from the same stern logic. For if we forgive, it will be a sign to those in the future that they can act without fear of punishment, and that the universe has a moral escape valve labeled “forgiveness” that permits evil not only to survive but to thrive. On this reading, forgiveness becomes a “weak” virtue, one that Christians seem particularly prone to champion, and one that always carries the possibility of condoning, rather than constricting, the spread of evil.

  And yet, I remain uneasy with the second conviction.

  Consider the absolutely worst-case scenario. It is in Auschwitz on a day when the gas chambers are falling behind their quotas. To accelerate the pace, children are lined up and thrown upon the open flames. Those toward the back of the line know full well that in a matter of moments the fate of those up front will be their fate as well. And there is nothing they can do about it.

  This strikes resonating chords with the scene Simon Wiesenthal has created for us, in which Jews of all ages are locked in a house that is then set on fire.

  Both episodes strain to the breaking point any contention that forgiveness would be appropriate within such circumstances. If God forgives such deeds, does not that likewise strain to the breaking point any contention that the universe of God's creation is a moral universe? A malevolent deity might be placed in charge of such arrangements but surely not a god of mercy and compassion.

  And if God is not entitled to forgive, surely the same moral boundary is placed around God's children. To forgive the Nazis who threw children on the fire and locked them in houses to be incinerated is to become one with the Nazis, endorsing evil deeds rather than combatting evil deeds, and thereby becoming complicit in their actions.

  Jews and Christians usually cope with the dilemma by affirming that God, rather than being removed from evil, is found in the midst of the evil, identifying with the victims rather than the perpetrators. So the Jewish imagery of the “Suffering Servant” in the Book of Isaiah avers, and so the Christian imagery of Christ suffering on the cross likewise avers. But, as Elie Wiesel suggests in Ani Maamin, such a deliverance comes too late—six million deaths too late—and such a God seems powerless to be more than a remorseful deity who can endure but cannot enable.

  But perhaps there are situations where sacrificial love, with forgiveness at the heart of it, can make a difference, and can even empower. One thinks of Nelson Mandela, released after twenty-seven years in jail, patently entitled to wreak vengeance on his tormentors, and who responds by forgiving his jailers. Or one thinks of Tomas Borge, a Nicaraguan Sandinista fighter, captured by the contras and brutally tortured, confronting his torturer after the war had ended. The court entitled him to name the punishment appropriate for his torturer. Borge responded, “My punishment is to forgive you.”

  Such instances build up a moral capital on which the rest of us can draw: supposing, just supposing, that an act of forgiveness on our part could tip the scales toward compassion rather than brutality…

  We can propound these and other examples that might mitigate some of the harshness of the imperative Never forgive, but in all instances we are exploring only exceptions to the rule. One cannot allow, as a human axiom, a position such as that of the philosopher-poet Heinrich Heine, “God will forgive, that's what He's here for.”

  So, had I been in Simon Wiesenthal's position, fearful of denying too much or of promising too little, I think I would have urged the young man to address his plea directly to God, and throw himself on the possibility of Divine Mercy, something I am not permitted to adjudicate one way or the other.

  How could I justify such a response, refusing to grant either sentimentalized mercy or hard-nosed judgment? I return to Elie Wiesel, to offer two responses in the form of questions:

  I do not believe we can supply an answer to the first question, “Where is God in all this?”—a question on the lips of character after character in Wiesel's novels. The closer I come to what might be called an “answer,” the more circumspect I must become, although I must keep trying, keep trying to do so. I will always come up short.

  What we can do on the far side of such an impasse is to respond to another question and truly make it our own. In Wiesel's The Gates of the Forest, a rebbe, confronted with evil and God's transparent involvement in it, asks out of deep anguish, “What is there left for us to do?”

  This is what we must exhume from the debris of our inadequate “answers.” What “answers” there are will finally come not from the region of our minds, but from the precincts of our hearts. It will be in doing rather than in speculating that we will learn whatever it is permitted us to learn.

  “What is there left for us to do?” Only everything from doing justly, loving-kindness, and walking humbly with God, to standing with the victims and the oppressed. And if we do so, perhaps, just perhaps, a world will begin to emerge in which we do not have to ask unanswerable questions any longer.

  HARRY JAMES CARGAS

  I am afraid not to forgive because I fear not to be forgiven. At the time of Judgment, I pray for mercy rather than justice. Some theologians have it that in the last analysis, mercy and justice must exist side by side but who among us is so confident as to say “I can withstand the scrutiny of justice”?

  As we consider Simon Wiesenthal's dilemma let us carry it out to a kind of logical end—almost a reductio ad absurdum problem: Should Adolf Hitler be forgiven? Recall that for years, in Spain, an annual Catholic mass was celebrated (that's the word!) for the repose of the Führer's soul. One cannot help asking if this was done from the principle of charity or if this was a continuing act of antisemitism (oddly, in a nation whose fascist leader did not turn Jews over for deportation to the death camps).

  Forgiveness, like any apparently virtuous act, can be misunderstood, including by the forgiver. My act of charity might well turn out to be an act of arrogance if examined very closely. Perhaps when I forgive I raise myself above the other. I make that person beholden to me. It is appropriate to ask myself, “Who am I to forgive?”

  Yet forgiven
ess is a virtue, that cannot be denied. And it is necessary to spiritual wholeness. But is it required of us in all cases? In Christian Scripture there is a reference to an unforgivable sin. There have been various interpretations of this mystery, many of them unsatisfying or unclarifying.

  For me the question is not can we forgive Karl or should we forgive Karl, but dare we do so? If there are crimes in my lifetime which are unforgivable, certainly those of Hitler and his henchmen have committed them. I tremble with all of my being when I hold them fully responsible for their actions—but I do. Forgiveness is not something we may depend on others for. We must somehow earn it. Deathbed conversions are dramatic but in many instances they are too easy.

  If God chooses to forgive Karl, that's God's affair. Simon Wiesenthal could not, I cannot. For me, Karl dies unforgiven. God have mercy on my soul.

  ROBERT COLES

  We are told at the end of this powerfully provocative moral fable (dare I say the author's extended fantasy that became an apologia pro sua vita?) that the heart of the matter is “the question of forgiveness.” But forgiveness by whom?—so the reader is challenged: “Forgetting is something that time alone takes care of, but forgiveness is an act of volition, and only the sufferer is qualified to make the decision.”

  With that observation, of course, most of us who come upon The Sunflower will feel the obligation of a necessary, stunned silence—of a kind, one hopes and prays, that is not incompatible with ethical reflection. Yet, we are asked a question after being told the above; we are asked to put ourselves in the author's shoes: “What would I have done?” This request, that we exercise all the moral imagination we can summon, that we try to take a huge leap in the interest of a shared contemplation (as in Conrad's Heart of Darkness) of “the horror, the horror,” gives us sanction, encourages us to try, at least, for some sense of what, after all (and after all that took place in those unspeakable years that in their sum became the Holocaust) might be a fitting response to the moral challenge posed in this story.