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Simon WiesenthalA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Deborah E. Lipstadt begins with a few words about the Jewish concept of teshuvah, or repentance. She quotes a passage from the Talmud that indicates that God desires the return of the sinner more than he welcomes the righteous one. She acknowledges the difficulty of this idea. She goes on to establish a series of steps required for teshuvah, as a means of evaluating whether the dying Nazi meets the criteria.
“First one must ask forgiveness of the aggrieved party” (194). She states that this must take place before a person can ask God for forgiveness, and adds that it must be “a face-to-face encounter with the aggrieved party” (194). Therefore, it is not sufficient to ask a third party to forgive. Once the repentance is expressed toward the victim, then the sinner can appeal to God for forgiveness, by confessing verbally his sins and then resolving never to commit the act again. But, Lipstadt says, there is yet a higher level, known as teshuvah gemurah, or complete teshuvah, which is “achieved when the individual is in the same situation in which he or she originally sinned and chooses not to repeat the act” (195). Further than teshuvah is the concept of kaparah, or atonement, which takes place “after one bears the consequences of one’s acts” (195).
Based on these criteria, Lipstadt concludes that the question is not whether Simon should have forgiven Karl, but rather whether he could have done so. While he may have given him personal forgiveness, he could never have provided atonement. This soldier’s crimes were not against Simon personally, and Simon had not been appointed by Karl’s victims to represent them.
Lipstadt goes on to point out the modern-day implications of this problem, in the form of non-Jewish people suggesting that it’s time for Jews to forgive and forget what happened in the past. She states that she has “yet to encounter a perpetrator who is actually seeking forgiveness” (196).
Franklin H. Littell addresses the concept of genocide as a historical phenomenon. He explores the development, most specifically through the Geneva Convention, of attempts to criminalize the act of nationally sanctioned, race-based killing. He suggests that politicians are more likely to denounce such acts than are religious leaders. He charges the Christian church, saying that its “doctrines of Sin and Guilt are . . . whittled down to the relatively painless pagan idea of error or mistaken judgment” (199). He points out that the Holocaust was a point in history when Christian words and Christian actions became shamefully separated, and holds Christian people who were reticent in the face of such atrocities to the same account as the Nazis who perpetrated the crimes.
Hubert G. Locke observes that much of Wiesenthal’s story focuses on silence, the silence in the room where Karl was dying and Simon’s own silence, both in response to Karl’s request and as a gesture of kindness toward his grieving mother. Locke suggests that silence is perhaps the best response also for the respondents to Wiesenthal’s question, “in the hope that by listening quietly and more closely to [Simon’s] experience, we might learn from it, rather than moralize about it” (201). He suggests that there ought to be certain questions that cannot be answered, because through the persistence of the unresolved, “we concede that we are not gods and that we lack . . . the capacity to provide understanding and assurance for every inexplicable moment in life” (202).
Locke suggests a second reason for not giving an answer, which is that “an answer involves our willingness to attest to or affirm, by our personal involvement and commitment, the genuineness of our assertion” (202-03). He believes that to give answer this moral question without being prepared to act upon it would be incorrect.
Erich Loewy begins by expressing his belief that it would be an act of hubris to pass judgment on Wiesenthal’s actions in those circumstances. He goes on to examine the dynamic of the situation in the room where the SS man was dying, pointing out that this is not “a relationship of former victim to former aggressor with strength and weakness of each having, so to speak, changed places” (204). Although Karl is dying, Simon is still at the mercy of the brutal forces that are within Karl’s command, and so Simon is not entirely free to choose whether or not to grant the requested forgiveness.
Loewy draws attention to the fact that Simon stays in the room as long as he does, touches the man, brushes a fly away, stating that such actions constitute an acknowledgement of the man’s basic humanity. Loewy says, “That is a form of acceptance . . . of common humanity if not forgiveness or even understanding” (205) then goes on to suggest that even this is more than the man deserved. He states that Wiesenthal could neither have forgiven on behalf of Karl’s victims, nor could he have forgiven on behalf of God, as a priest or rabbi might have done. Therefore, according to Loewy, “ignoring such a request is all that Wiesenthal could do” (206). He acknowledges as well, that Simon’s decision not to tell the whole truth to Karl’s mother was a further act of compassion.
Loewy’s assessment, based on his decision not to give forgiveness to Karl and subsequently to spare Karl’s mother the truth, is that Simon exercised an ideal combination of compassion and rationality. He says, “Reason prevented the sentiment of compassion from degenerating into sentimentality and compassion prevented unmodified reason from prompting a less humane act” (207).
Herbert Marcuse’s brief response expresses the idea that he too would have refused to forgive the dying Nazi, stating that it is “inhuman and a travesty of justice if the executioner asked the victim to forgive” (207-08). He concludes by saying that such a practice of forgiveness simply serves to perpetuate the crimes.
Lipstadt raises the idea of collective guilt and victimhood, which earlier respondents have addressed, when she discusses whether the contemporary Jewish community should forgive and forget the crimes of the Holocaust. She says that current citizens of those countries, most of whom were not alive at the time, are not individually responsible for the crimes, even if they belong to nations where such crimes were sanctioned. Further, she believes that as an individual who was not directly victimized by the Nazis, it is not for her to forgive on their behalf.
Many respondents examine the details of the situation for nuance in the question of whether or not Simon should have forgiven Karl. Loewy—and others before—have pointed out that Simon is not one of the direct victims of Karl’s crimes, and therefore not able to forgive on their behalf. Nor is Simon a cleric, qualified to offer forgiveness on behalf of God. These details of the situation make forgiveness a relative matter, dependent upon the circumstances. Other respondents discuss forgiveness as a rational matter of principle, independent of the particular circumstances. For example, José Hobday advocates forgiveness under all circumstances, because, according to his cultural teachings, forgiveness is the means by which the universe remains in balance. Herbert Marcuse provides the counterpoint to this argument, stating that, on principle, forgiveness is incorrect because it “perpetuates the very evil it wants to alleviate” (208).