The Sunflower

By Simon Wiesenthal
Foreword by Os Guinness
(2000)

A Jewish concentration camp inmate is pulled from work detail at a makeshift hospital to listen to a dying Nazi soldier’s confession. The SS soldier asks him for forgiveness that he might die in peace. In the Jew’s place, what would have you have done?

In this Reading, Simon Wiesenthal gives his account of this incident that happened in Poland during World War II, challenging readers with the moral question of forgiveness. If a murderer is truly repentant, should he be forgiven? Are some actions too horrible to forgive? Can you forgive someone for something done to someone else? Or can you forgive, as a member of a larger community?

These tough questions are relevant for us today. Pope John Paul II publicly asked God’s forgiveness for sins committed by the Roman Catholic Church in history. “We forgive, and we ask forgiveness,” he said. Although obvious the sins he was referring to—the Crusades, the Inquisition, silence in the face of the Holocaust—some criticized the pope for not being specific enough. What would be enough?

As Senior Fellow Os Guinness points out in the foreword, forgiveness is tricky business, and should not be taken for granted or issued flippantly. Forgiveness too quickly given can easily become cheap grace, somehow dismissing the wounds of the inflicted or justifying the behavior of the wrongdoer. True forgiveness is costly, where the wronged relinquishes the right for retribution. And yet, through forgiveness, both the wronged and the wrongdoer find release, freedom, and the power to move on.

In an age of increasing violence and political unrest throughout the world, the issue of forgiveness is one that modern people need to consider and better understand.

Category: Readings (No. 25)