Simon Wiesenthal The Sunflower

On December 17, 1942, several countries, including the United States and Great Britain, identified the law as an avenue for pursuing justice on behalf of individuals persecuted in the Holocaust, resolving to prosecute war criminals responsible for the mass murder of civilian populations (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). From 1945 to 1946, the Allied powers sentenced 22 war criminals for their actions, yet the process of understanding crimes against humanity and empowering their victims extends beyond legal ramifications (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Labeling the Holocaust as a stain in human history is an understatement; the massacre of 6 million individuals, each bearing a story, familial lineage, and personal aspirations, …show more content…
Likewise, Wiesenthal’s actions provide the basis for describing and evaluating how he acted given his experience as a concentration camp worker and victim of Nazi hatred. Expunging upon one victim’s experience consensus about what should be ethically commendable is unreasonable. With good reason, Wiesenthal’s conscious is clouded with self-doubt. Human forgiveness is often made incomprehensible given the unique defining properties of the individual; one individual may act in complete contradiction from another in the same situation where the question of forgiveness and finding an adequate resolve persists. Moral reasoning and judgment, determinants of how an individual may act in a given situation, are nurtured and instilled through social and cultural value systems that often manifests themselves in religion. Accordingly, an explicit resolve on how an aggrieved or wronged party may or may not behave may not exist. Forgiving is an act of human consciousness that involves an intimate relationship between the victim and persecutor, and the degree to which either party feels ethically compelled to interact with the other in seeking forgiveness