Concentration Camp Forgiveness

In Nazi Hunter, Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Sunflower, he discusses a situation that occurred while he was in a Jewish Ghetto during the WW II. He was performing duties for the soldiers when a nurse came for him and took him to a hospital room where an SS officer named Karl lay dying. The officer stated he wanted to confess his sins to a Jew and proceeded to speak of his crimes. At the end, he asked Simon for forgiveness. Simon turned and walked away. The nurse implored him to return, but he continued to walk away. For years following the war, Simon asked himself and others, “Did I do the right thing?” I cannot say, but obviously Simon carried a burden the rest of his life for the decision he made or he would not continue asking the question. Conversely, Cory Tin Boon, a Dutch Reform Christian, the author of the “Hiding Place” who was sent to Ravensbrook Consentration camp for assisting Jews, where the rest of her family died, tells the story of giving a lecture in Munich after the war. She spoke of Christ’s love and forgiveness. After the talk she was approached by a man she recognized as an SS officer from the camp. She remembered the cruelness and mocking and the death of her family members. The one time guard extended a hand and stated, “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” Cory states, I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your Forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. Jesus nailed to a wooden cross cried out to God to forgive those who were killing him because they did not understand what they were doing.