Analysis Of What Would I Have Done By Simon Kondahal

“What would I have done?” This excerpt from the memoir of Simon Wiesenthal reveals a difficult time in his life when he was forced to make a difficult choice about the telling the truth and forgiving someone who has done wrong. He ends the excerpt by leaving the reader with a profound moral question: what would we have done? I would like to think of myself as a kind and forgiving person because no one has wronged me so severely that I felt I could punish them forever. However, if I were to mentally switch places with Simon Wiesenthal, and it was me that Karl was confessing his sins to, then I don’t know if I would have said anything to him either. Even though he was on his deathbed, asking for absolution and confessing his sins, how does being …show more content…
I may be cold about my decision, but I would not be able to look that boy in the face and honestly say I forgave him. I would not forgive him about the innocent lives he took, even if it wasn’t by his gun. Wearing the SS uniform and turning his back on the teachings that he received as a child are enough to make him guilty. He might not have killed anyone, but by going along with the Hitler Youth and the SS made him just like the ones who did inflict the horrific pain on innocent people. Forgiveness is excusing a fault or offense. If someone were to bump into you in the hallway, you might be upset, but you come to a point where you forgive them for the incident. You will probably, at the end of the day, forget that someone even bumped into you because it wasn’t important enough to remember. But would you remember if the offense was the murder and torture innocent people? Simon Wiesenthal asks in The Sunflower, “Moreover, when the killing has stopped, how can a people make peace with one another who moments before were their mortal enemies? What are the limits of forgiveness, and is repentance-religious or secular-enough? Is it possible to forgive and not …show more content…
Even after I knew all the corrupt crimes he had committed in his lifetime, I doubt I would be able to tell his mother the truth. I might be harsh with Karl, but how could I ever look a mother in the eye and tell her that her son was a murderous monster? I could never be able to tell a mother that her son, whom she had brought to church and taught to believe in God and His grace, had been a part of the genocide of the Jewish population. The woman who brought an innocent boy into a world of hate should not have to bear the weight of the destruction her son caused. Though the whole German race should know and bear the ugly truth of their history, I would not want to be the person to tell the truth. I think, at the end of all this, I would, like Simon, remain silent. There will never be the right formation of words to explain my justification or my feelings about the choices that Simon or I would have made, but I can start by asking the same morally profound question: what would you have