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"Forgiveness: it's more complex than we think" written by: Stephanie W. Forgiveness. What is it really? It's so complex and complicated that sometimes people can't make up their mind whether or not they should forgive somebody. What I'm trying to say is that we all want to live in a world were there's forgiveness, right? We've all needed it at one point or another. Maybe we've asked for it or someone asked us to give them forgiveness, but still most all of us have needed forgiveness. The only thing is,we've probably done minor things that can easily be forgiven, but what happens when we run into those tougher predicaments were we cannot be easily forgiven or you can't forgive someone else. Take for example that someone had asked you for your forgiveness. Would you forgive them? Even if they killed your family and everyone else you know? That's what Simon Wiesenthal had to go through. Simon Wiesenthal was asked by a man by the name of Karl if he would forgive him. Forgive him for what you ask? Karl wanted Simon to forgive him of all the Jewish people he had killed when he was with the Nazis. The catch is that Simon was too a Jew and he was asked by an S.S. Officer (who could have left the Nazis' cause anytime he wanted by the way) if he would forgive all of those wrong and sinful acts that he had committed against the Jews. Karl had just wanted at least any one Jew to forgive him. Karl was dying and he knew that he would only have a couple hours to live at the most and he insisted he told Simon what was bothering him. Karl's cold and clammy hands grasped Simon's hand as he told him his story. Karl was a part of the Eizengroupen which when it's translated into English, it means the killing machine. They could do whatever they pleased and they could even leave at their own free will yet Karl decided to stay. Karl told him his gruesome story about all the people he had killed. One of the familiar routines that Nazis everywhere did was to pack literally hundreds maybe even thousands of Jews into a house and blow it to smithereens. He told Simon how he could never forget the faces of the people he shot that day, especially a child and their parent's. Simon was so sick and disgusted with Karl that he just wanted to leave that room no matter what. It was all to familiar to him. He withdrew his hand but Karl grasped it again as if he needed Simon's support just to go on. When Karl had finished telling his awful story to Simon, Simon had a choice to make. He could either forgive Karl and let his guilty soul rest in peace or he could deny Karl of his forgiveness and let him die a troubled man. Instead Simon got up and just left the room where the dying S.S. Officer lay in bed waiting to die. Do you think Simon did the right thing to get up and walk out on Karl? Me, I don't really know yet. Maybe if I knew more about this story I could make up my mind, but so far I don't really know. What do you think Simon felt about all of this? His whole family was gone and now he was left working in a hospital cleaning up after operations... with his bare hands. He couldn't even wash his hands and would you believe that he had to eat with his bare hands too? Gross huh? About sixty people shared one bowl of food that had to last the whole day while the germans had plates after plates all full with food. Since Simon worked in the hospital, he had watched his friends being eaten alive by dogs. The German's cigarette trays were even made out of human bone! All of this was the cause of the Nazis. How so you think Simon felt about all of this? Was he really going to forgive the very people who had taken away his family and his life that he had once known it to be? Was he really about to forgive Karl the S.S. Officer, the man who had killed so many people when he could've quit anytime he wanted? Why hadn't he quit sooner? At least Karl did quit. Did you know that the room where Karl lay dying used to be the room where Simon had studied engineering? How do you think Simon felt that day? There's more to the story though, Karl point of view. He had grown up and lived among jews all his life. He even had Jewish friends. Not only was his friends Jewish but many of the bankers were and so was his mother's doctor was Jewish. You would probably think that Karl was forced to join in the Nazis' cause but to tell you the truth, he had joined willingly. Was it Hitler's persuasiveness or did Karl just despise the Jews so much? Who knows why Karl joined but the fact is, he did join and he did kill many innocent lives. The German used the jews as a scrape goat for all of their problems. Hitler had even claimed that the Jews were not even human! Why Karl joined the Nazis we don't know but the only reason he was laying in bed, on the very verge of death itself was because he quit. While his comrades were doing their thing in the next town, Karl stood alone in the middle of who knows where when a stray rocket had hit him. His clothes were torn and his body limp. He was practically torn to shreds by that rocket. One of the reasons he quit was because many of the people in his regiment had started getting nightmares about what they had done. Many of my friends though say that Karl only turned back because the Russians were knocking at their door. None of the Russians were going to take prisoners... My friends also say that only after his friend die did he realize that maybe this wasn't what he should be doing and to turn back. No one really knows why Karl did things like join the Nazis. Maybe it was a fad and the thing to do. Even now whenever there's a war and we, the US goes into battle, there are always people standing up to this and saying that this is all wrong, but no one listens. Their majority is so small compared to everyone else and most people just follow the popular thing to do. But even so, is the majority always right? Maybe Karl got swept up into this and we'll never know if this is truth but the truth is, killing people is still killing people. At least Karl before he got even more involved. I don't know if I could really, truly forgive Karl for what he did, but isn't that what most people are taught as they are growing up? Forgiveness I mean. Everyone is taught different values when they are growing up. In fact, there are three main things that make up the core of a human being. There's your faith, family and experience. If your faith and family has taught you to forgive someone no matter what the case and if your experience with forgiveness tells you this too, you will most likely forgive someone. I mean, for me, I was taught to forgive and I have enough experience to tell me that forgiving is the right thing so my natural choice is to forgive Karl. My faith and family have just an equal say just as much as my experience which makes this easier to decide but on the other hand, Simon had grown up seeing and experiencing things that most people now don't go through. If you were to take a look at Simon's core being, you would see that he had way more experience than anything else so he relied on that to make his decision ignoring what his faith and family had taught him. If you think about it, Simon didn't really have an ideal childhood because his parents were killed and he was held imprisoned in a concentration camp. You can probably imagine how much this has changed his life. Isn't forgiveness just so complex? If I were in Simon's shoes, I wouldn't know what to do to tell you the truth. I would have probably forgiven him but that would've needed time and that wasn't something Simon had had at the time. I wouldn't be able to forgive the fact that he had killed countless amounts of people but I could forgive the fact that he knew he had done something wrong and had realized that. Who knows if Karl died in peace, that secret vanished when Karl had died. But really, could you actually forgive somebody who has done something like this? Isn't the saying forgive and forget true? Because the way some of my friends see it, if you forget what they did, it might happen again and again and so forth. But what you're probably wondering is what I think forgiveness is huh? Okay, this is what I think. I agree that if you forget an incident, it'll happen over and over again but if you remember that incident its like you've never really forgiven them. I think that the saying forgive and forget means that when you forgive people, you shouldn't bring up that incident because you've already forgiven that. So, in a sense, you're actually forgetting what happened by not talking about it but remembering what happen so that it'll never happen again. Like learning from your mistakes. People should always deserve a second chance no matter what the deed, shouldn't they? My heart tells me to forgive Karl but my mind tells me something else. How could anyone ever forgive a murderer who has probably killed thousands of innocent people. But then, all of the information that Karl had received and had based his actions upon had all come from the Nazis. If you think about it, if you only had one source of information to rely on, wouldn't you think it was probably true? The Nazis had told their troops and everyone in Germany a lie that favored them. A teacher could probably teach students something wrong and they would eventually believe that was true. That's exactly what the Nazis had done. Maybe Karl had fallen for these lies but the most important thing to remember is that he had quit and he had truly wanted to be forgiven. When Karl had asked for a Jew to forgive him, he didn't really care who it was just as long as it was a Jewish person. Does this imply that Karl didn't really think that the people of the Jewish faith were actual humans? He had told Simon that he was suffering far worse than the Jewish had. What a lie. The Jewish were far, far worse off than Karl. Jewish children were being pulled from their Kindergarten classes and into a gas chamber, people were packed into houses left there to burn to death, innocent people being tortured in the concentration camps and being eaten alive by dogs. That is far worse than Karl's condition. His predicament was not the same than the Jewish. Karl had said that they were killed quickly and without pain. Yeah right. What the Nazis were doing to the Jews was far worse than what Karl was going through. Karl shouldn't have asked Simon for his forgiveness, he should've asked all of the people that he hurt, but you know what, He can't do that now since he killed them. That's right, Karl killed innocent people who can't and probably wouldn't forgive Karl of his sins. Maybe my friends were right when they said that Karl ran away from his fears and that he was nothing but a coward. But then again, if you truly want to be forgiven, wouldn't you remember everything that had happened in detail? Especially if it bothers you? That's what Karl did. He remembered everything from the color of the child's eyes to the intense heat of the flames. Hey, don't we always remember the bad things that have happened in our lives, so vividly? Most people don't really remember the good stuff because its not as heart breaking as the bad stuff. People should always deserve a second chance no matter what the deed shouldn't they? I know that throughout this whole paper I've been saying that I would forgive Karl of his sins but is that really up to me to decide? It's the people that have been killed by Karl that should decide to forgive him. I think that Simon actually did do the right thing that day by walking out on Karl. I really want to forgive him but I know that in my heart, I could never really forgive him. I've been showing compassion for someone who was hurt and in need all of this time wanting to make someone feel better by saying yes. I know now that if it was me in that room listening to Karl's story, I would've done the same thing. Forgiveness is a serious thing not to be taken lightly. Someone said that they wouldn't forgive anybody unless they looked her in the eyes and admitted that they were feeling an emotion that they have never felt before. If they said they wanted to be forgiven but their reason was that they were guilty, she wouldn't forgive them. Didn't Karl look Simon in the eyes while he was asking for forgiveness? But then again, did Karl actually forgive himself first? Without first forgiving yourself, someone else's forgiveness would just be a thin mask that really means nothing. I've been taught to forgive people and I can't deny that, even if I thought otherwise. All in all, I'm giving Karl my forgiveness now, even when I know what he has done against humanity. I don't really care what people say about me making the wrong choice by forgiving Karl. Everyone is taught differently and this was how I was taught. The most important thing though is whether or not Karl was forgiven by god and\or the people that he has killed. I might stand alone but I even so, I'm still going to forgive him. A couple years after the war, Simon had kept Karl's uniform that was torn to shreds and a letter that he had written to his mother before he had died. Here was a man that could write to his mom while Simon was left all alone without a family or friend and was left to start his life over again. He took that letter and Karl's uniform and traveled all the way to Karl's mom's house. When he got there, he told Karl's mom that he was a good man. Does this mean that Simon finally decided to forgive Karl? That's up to you to decide. |
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"Forgiveness: it's more complex than we think" -rewritten written by: Stephanie W.
Forgiveness is a very complex and complicated thing. We�d all like to live in a world where there is forgiveness, right? Just think about it, if you pulled even the smallest prank on your friend, and yet they never forgave you.. well, life wouldn�t be all that great. No matter what we�ve done, we�ve all needed to be forgiven at one point or another, but what would you do if someone asked you for forgiveness? Would you forgive them? I mean, sure. Why not? It�s no problem right? But what happens when we run into those tougher predicaments? One that cannot be easily forgiven. Would you eventually give in and let it go? Forgive and forget they say� But, would you be able to forgive someone even if they had killed your family and everyone else you held dear? What would you do then? Personally, I couldn�t even imagine myself going through this sort of predicament.. It�s so mind boggling. They killed everyone you loved in cold blood. Being faced with this choice would devastate me. Unfortunately, this is what Simon Wiesenthal had to go through.
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