“Die Furche” 1Note 1 : HandwrittenVienna, 24. April 1971

Of Guilt and Forgiveness

The above title is the subtitle of a new book by Simon Wiesenthal: "The Sunflower". That Wiesenthal is able to say something about human guilt will be conceded even by those who resent him precisely because of the activity from which he has derived such a claim to competence in the course of the last 24 years. In the present book he now deals with the motive of forgiveness on the basis of his own experience. The experience consisted in the fact that forgiveness was demanded of him – in his worst time, when he was imprisoned and as a forced laborer in Poland, had to reckon with physical annihilation daily, even hourly – by one who could easily have been his murderer. He could have been, if an artillery shell had not severely wounded him at the front and brought him to the military hospital, where, as he died, he asked for a Jew to absolve him for all the atrocious things he, an SS man, had done to other Jews. Wiesenthal could not absolve him. He lacked both the "distance" and, as he states, the competence in his whole situation at that time.

His argument for this may seem a bit calculating to some: forgiveness could only be given to those on whom the guilt had been committed; but since they had died as a result of the latter, they could not do it. Wiesenthal himself is not satisfied with his argument, and so he passes the question of what he should have done on to others, today, who he believes have the legitimacy to answer it. Their answers fill the second half of the book.

Jews and Christians, former victims and those who were never persecuted, priests, philosophers, writers and politicians all have their say. And just as different are their answers, which, whatever they were, none of them found easy to give.

Because what happened at that time was so terrible, so impossible, so without precedent, that it is difficult to talk about it and to decide, if one wants to avoid putting oneself on the same level of that guilt. And that is why – to come back to those who are sorry for Wiesenthal here in Austria – no one should presume to condemn him for not being able to forgive before he has fulfilled the task he set himself and which can never be completely fulfilled: to seek out the guilty and to establish their guilt before this and future generations.

Joseph Toch

THE SUNFLOWER. By Simon Wiesenthal. Published by Hoffmann und Campe,Hamburg. 248 pages.