My immediate reaction to the author’s question was one of dumbfoundedness. The sheer volume of context that goes into such a scenario is enough to make me take quite a few steps back and really think about this. At first, I didn’t know what to say for one obvious reason: I am not a Jew. Nor was my family or I personally involved in or affected by the Holocaust in any way other than the emotional impact from learning secondhand about these horrors from books and other sources. Thus, it was hard for me initially to even put myself in his shoes. So I first went about pondering this question as if it were myself under normal circumstances. When I meet a stranger, I make no presumptions about that person’s character, regardless of what I have heard about said person from others. In my mind, if a person has done me no wrong, then I have no right to judge him or her based upon their interactions with others. Besides, people often present a biased opinion of someone’s entire character when they’ve had bad experiences with that person, which isn’t fair to base my own opinion on. Following this everyday logic, I would forgive this dying stranger who seems truly remorseful for what he has done.
However, since this is not an everyday scenario, I believe it calls for something other than everyday logic. If I were to completely switch places with the author, a number of factors would come into play. First of all is the current situation: the war is still going on and my people are still being murdered daily. It’s not as if this question came years after the war had ended and the healing process could begin. The man asks for forgiveness and meanwhile his fellow SS officers are committing the same heinous acts he is confessing to me. This brings up another key factor in making this decision. Can SS officers really be separated as individuals or have they, through these shared atrocious experiences, simply become one soulless entity? Can one officer really be forgiven without somehow unconsciously forgiving the others as well? Finally, I add in the last key factor in my decision: Did this man have a choice or was his hand forced to throw a grenade into that crowded building of innocent Jews? In my mind, there is always an alternative to acting a certain way. That is what defines free will, the option to take another path. And I believe there was another path to be taken. Even if it meant that he must die by the hands of his fellow officers, that man could have refused to throw his grenade, or better yet he could have thrown it at the man who ordered this mass murdering. It all comes down to whether or not you believe in determinism (that we are all predetermined by fate to live our lives a certain way) or free will, where for every choice to be made there is always an alternative. As for me, I believe in free will and that is why I would not forgive this man.
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