Response to The Sunflower

Jim McGivern has sent the following response:

Peter ... you have given me food for reflective thought. From a personal perspective I do not think Weisenthal had the right to forgive Carl. Only God if you believe in the notion has that right in my view. I think Weisenthal's behaviour in the circumstances was dead right. With regard to the mother he should have told the truth; for the world got to the holocaust by nations not telling or indeed facing the truth. But it is a real quandary and I can never know what I would have done nor can any of us. I will however give this matter more thought.


I feel exactly as Jim does about the matter. As far as forgiveness goes, the victims of murder — being dead — can never forgive. And why should they? The crime is too monstrous. All of us, from time to time, do things for which we need forgiveness. But, even when we are forgiven, I find myself thinking nonetheless that I still cannot — and do not believe that I should — forgive myself in entirety. We have to live in the realisation that we are flawed, and have in the past caused some degree of misery to some people. Anyway, I was reminded of G M Trevelyan’s words in his England under the Stuarts. In his chapter on the Gunpowder Plot, he writes, ‘It is difficult to detect any stain upon their conduct, except the one monstrous illusion that murder is right, which put all their virtues at the devil’s service.’ This is clearly not a motto for the extremists and terrorists, but it seems to me to ring true for all eternity. The Holocaust, Omagh, 9/11, 7/7 — all evil: utterly evil.