The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

ask forgiveness of, I might well have done it.
Having had these personal experiences, I have tried to find some kind of explanation,
justification, or rationale for why Karl deserved forgiveness. Many years have elapsed since
the incident occurred, and surely now we can examine it rationally, objectively, and
unemotionally. Karl was a soldier who, through conditioning and circumstance, was led to
commit an atrocity. But he proved himself to be human precisely by trying so desperately to
rescue his humanity through confession.
As a Holocaust survivor myself, I unfortunately cannot generate such magnanimity. I may
know something about combat training and about what war can do to a person, but I can also
testify that the misery this man inflicted on his victims defies claiming any extenuating
circumstance whatsoever. Karl managed to overcome the voice within him that said a person
cannot murder innocent men, women, and children and still call himself a human being. He
allowed himself to be changed into a foul beast who did the unforgivable. He gave up his
moral life—his soul—to his leader and his state. He believed it when he was told that his
victims were less than animals and that he was a superior being who was obligated to
torture and annihilate them. What he did was the ultimate and irreversible denial of his
humanity.
And now, at death's door, he pleads for forgiveness. That is, he asks for readmission into
the human race. But his appeal is addressed to the wrong party. Those who arguably could
grant forgiveness are no longer here; he murdered them. Other Germans of that era might
have the right to ask for forgiveness or even plead innocence. I do not believe in collective
guilt and have long ago learned to accept Germans as responsible and conscientious beings.
After all, I served a considerable part of my military career in Germany protecting them