week 2 journal 3

I believe I would have not granted the man sympathy. It was not the author’s right to do so. He is not an ordained minister or even a representative of his people he was a random guy chosen. Forgiveness is one thing; you can forgive someone for stepping on your shoes or spilling a drink on you. Telling someone that it was okay that they murdered people is a whole other situation. I do however can justify killing someone. If it is either your life and your family or theirs then one must do what they must do. It’s like if you asked Albert Einstein when he was working on the atomic bomb if he thought it was okay to use it to kill hundreds of thousands of people, what would he have said? The way he justified it was that it was a means to an end. If the atomic bomb was not created millions more people would have died as a result of the war. As I stated in class it all depends on your particular ideology. While others in my class may have sympathized with the man in the room of death; I do not. It is a true statement that he was given an order and he had to carry it out. Although as he stated he volunteered to be in the SS. He was not forced to join, although he did not know what exactly he would have to do. He had a good idea that he would be going to war. There is a saying that comes to mind in this situation, “War is hell”. If the man was not prepared to go to hell then he should have not signed up to go to war.