Love to hear from and know who is listening
Simon Wiesenthal is a Jew that spent time in a Nazi concentration camp with his companions, Arthur and Josek, during the Holocaust. One day, Simon was taken on a march with other camp members. As he walked through a ghetto towards a hospital, Simon noticed some sunflowers in the German graveyard. Each grave had one. Simon immediately realized that there would be no sunflower on his grave, where corpses were piled on top of each other.
As he passed through the ghetto, a town in which he once lived, Simon comes across his old school. It had been turned into a hospital. When he arrived, a nurse approached him and asks him if he was a Jew. Simon answered yes and was taken to a room which used to be his Dean’s office. Simon finds himself at the bedside of a dying, Nazi SS soldier. Karl, was a 21-year old Nazi soldier. Karl's head was completely covered in bandages, with openings only for his mouth, nose and ears. Karl wanted to tell Simon his story.
The Nazi, haunted by the crimes he had committed, wanted to confess his crimes to a Jew in hopes of achieving forgiveness. The Nazi soldier said an order was given and we marched toward the huddled mass of Jews. There were a hundred and fifty of them or perhaps two hundred, including many children who stared at us with anxious eyes. A few were quietly crying. There were infants in their mothers' arms, but hardly any young men; mostly women and old men. A truck arrived with cans of gas which we unloaded and took into a house. Then we began to drive the Jews into the house. Then another truck came up full of more Jews and they too were crammed into the house with the others. Then the door was locked and a machine gun was posted outside. When we were told that everything was ready, we went back a few yards, and then received the command to remove pins from the hand grenades and throw them through the windows of the house. Behind the windows of the second floor, Karl saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were on fire. By his side stood the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child's eyes . . . then he jumped into the street. Seconds later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies... We shot them as they fell to the ground! I don't know how many tried to jump out of the windows but that one family I shall never forget - least of all the child, said Karl the Nazi Soldier."
Simon listened to the man’s story and then, he left the room without ever saying a word. Simon refused all other efforts by the nurse to go back and see the Nazi soldier. When he arrived back at the concentration camp, Simon told his friends what had happened and asked them if what he did was right.
Many years after the war, Simon was still bothered by the choice he had made. Keep in consideration the amount of atrocities and suffering the Jewish population went through. Simon decided that it was not his right to forgive another for his sins. A deeper forgiveness must come from God. Who was Simon to say that someone was truly forgiven of their sins?
An individual can personally forgive us if we've sinned against them, but we must remember our sin is also against God, so we must also seek His forgiveness. True healing comes from confessing our sins to one another.
Colossians 3:13 NIV Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
As Christians we are called to forgive those who hurt us, those who hate us, and those who plan evil against us. Why is it that we think we need to be forgiven by God, but we can’t seem to forgive another imperfect human who is a sinner just like us?
Matthew
