The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

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