Could you forgive a Nazi?
- cdisenberg
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Re: Could you forgive a Nazi?
First, I have learned working with at risk girls in a Behavioral Unit facility that forgiveness is not mainly for the other person, but for yourself. This helps the "victim" to heal. It also, does not mean that you accept or condone the actions of the person you forgive!lnygaard wrote:I was talking about this book the other day with my family and it ended up being a discussion on forgiving Nazis. In the book, Josef feels that Sage had the powere to forgive him because of her Jewish heritage---do you think he's right? If someone asked you to forgive them even if it didn't directly affect you, would you do it?
Personally, I think I wouldn't be able to do it. Since I wasn't directly affected by the holocaust or my family I would feel a little strange offering it. I don't think it would be my place... Then again can you hold one SS officer accountable for the entire genocide? What do you think?
In my mind not forgiving and moving on is still giving that person or group of people power over you. And you most definitely do not have to forget.
The freest a person that has been victimized can be is when they look their perpetrator(s) in the eye and tell them I forgive you and you have no more control over my life! I am not Jewish and can't say how they might feel, but I do know how hate, fear, and revenge can destroy a life! Unfortunately, I see it way too much as a MHT.
― Ernest Hemingway
- GKCfan
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- lnygaard
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This isn't a thread discussing "Should a victim of the Holocaust forgive a Nazi". Its "Could YOU forgive a Nazi". No one should feel pressure to do it one way or the other. We all have our own personal opinion's and backgrounds which would sway us one way or the other.
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- iprotestforlove
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letting
go.
Letting go of the anger and the bitterness that keeps you held captive. Letting go of the hate that keeps you in bondage, that keeps you up late at night wishing for revenge and thinking of nothing else.
Forgiveness is the invitation to a whole new way of life bursting forth right here in the midst of us-- and it's the best possible way to live.
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- Liot
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The woman in the title is one hundred and nine years old, the oldest surviving inmate of the concentration camps. She still has all her marbles. She lived in an apartment block in Prague when the Nazis took over. She played the piano. A Nazi in the block used to listen to her playing and when she was taken he managed to tell her how much she had helped him with her playing. She was a talented concert pianist and still plays. In the concentration camp she played in the orchestra that the Nazis set up for propaganda reasons. She even played a piece at the request of Dr Mengele. Through that she managed to survive although she suffered terribly and saw so much horror.
The word 'forgiveness' wasn't used but she was very forthright on not having hate. She refuses to hate her tormentors. This frail little old lady shines as a beacon to all of us who may have hate in our hearts for what may have been done in the past to ourselves or others. Of course she doesn't excuse what the Nazis did, but she seems to be saying that hate only destroys the hater not the hated.
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