It is World War II. Simon Wiesenthal is living in a Nazi-controlled concentration camp. While working one day, Simon is sent to clean medical waste at an army hospital for wounded German soldiers. Suddenly, Simon is whisked away by a nurse from the hospital, who informs him of a patient in the building. This patient is a 21-year-old dying Nazi soldier named Karl—and he is asking for forgiveness. In this biography, Simon retells the story of his encounter with Karl and the difficult decision he was forced to make at the soldier’s bedside.
Karl’s story left Simon speechless. Karl described being a naïve child and joining the Hitler Youth. He fought in Russia and then took part in horrible atrocities against the Jews. Karl’s most vivid memory involves him and his fellow soldiers throwing grenades into Jewish homes and watching their burning victims stagger out into the frigid night, confused and clutching infants and children in their arms. Those who did not perish in the flames were shot instantaneously. It was the image of a mother and child jumping from one of the burning buildings that embedded itself in Karl’s memory.
As Simon hears the story, he remains silent until, finally, Karl asks for forgiveness for the sins he has committed. “The pains in my body are terrible, but worse still is my conscience . . .,” Karl pleads, “I cannot die . . . without coming clean . . . In the last hours of my life you are with me. . . I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace.” Simon does not answer Karl’s question, but instead leaves the room. This is not a yes, or a no. Just silence.
The following day, Simon returns to the hospital with his labor group and discovers that Karl has died.
Simon is perplexed by the situation and raises an important question: “What would you do?” Simon sticks by his lack of response to Karl. Apologizing to one Jew for the deaths of millions seemed too extreme. If Karl had felt true remorse, he would have stopped partaking in the killings long ago. But instead, he waited until he was on his deathbed, where the only enemy he faced was his conscience. Karl’s request was a selfish one, something not fully understood. While Karl slipped away to death, Simon would still be enduring the inhumanity left by his superiors and fellow soldiers.
As Simon observes a military cemetery near the hospital, he acknowledges the true divide between the Germans and the Jews. “On each grave, there was planted a sunflower…I stared spellbound…Suddenly I envied the dead soldiers. Each had a sunflower to connect him with the living world and butterflies to visit his grave. For me there would be no connection. I would be buried in a mass grave, where corpses would be piled on top of me. No sunflower would ever bring light into my darkness, and no butterflies would dance above my dreadful tomb.”
Karl would always maintain his honor. He died serving his country for a cause the Nazi’s believed was correct. A confession to Simon would do nothing to tarnish that honor. The sunflower remains a symbol of remembrance to Simon. Who will remember him? What will they remember him for? What is worth remembering about a person; their actions or their words?
After the war ends, Simon continues to think of Karl and wonders whether he should have forgiven him. To this day, Simon does not have a clear answer, but believes he could not have answered it any other way.
“Ought I to have forgiven him? Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong? This is a profound moral question . . . The crux of the matter is, of course, the question of forgiveness.” This is ultimately an issue of forgive and forget. One cannot be given without the other. And while one may forget things in due time, forgiveness is a choice—a choice that Simon Wiesenthal made and still questions.
