Who do you need to forgive Today?

“It’s a book called The Sunflower.”

Simon Wiesenthal is a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Tortured and submitted to horrible evils, Simon begins to believe that God is on leave. That God must be away. And that He has no deputy.

One day as the Jews are being driven like cattle along a street in Lemberg, Poland, Simon notices a military cemetery. On each grave there is planted a sunflower, as straight as a soldier on parade. Simon stares, spellbound. The flowers seem to absorb the sun’s rays and draw them down into the darkness. Butterflies flutter from flower to flower. How he envies the dead soldiers. He will be buried in a mass grave like so many of his friends and family. No butterflies will dance on his tomb. No sunflower will bring light into his darkness.

Suddenly a plump Red Cross nurse approaches Simon. “Are you a Jew?” she asks. The answer is obvious. She instructs him to follow her and leads him to Lemberg High School, where he once studied. The schoolbooks are gone now. Soldiers limp past on crutches. Wounded are brought in on stretchers.

Finally the nurse takes Simon by the arm and pushes him through the door to what was once the dean’s office. The desk is gone. Cupboards that once held students’ papers have vanished. There is only a bed holding a solitary figure wrapped in white from head to toe. “Please come nearer,” says the figure, “I can’t speak loudly.” Hesitatingly, Simon sits on the edge of the bed. “I am dying,” says the man. “There is nobody in the world to help me and nobody to mourn my death. I am twenty-two.” Haunted by the crimes he has committed, the member of the dreaded SS begins to tell his story.

The story of an idealistic young man turned murderer. The story of unspeakable atrocities committed against the Jewish people. Simon listens, unable to take his eyes off the man’s bandages, unable to tear himself away. As the story concludes, the truth begins to dawn on him. He knows why he has been summoned here. “I cannot die without coming clean,” says the Nazi, in an everweakening voice. “In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness. Only I didn’t know whether there were any Jews left…. I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you but without your answer I cannot die in peace.” Without saying a word, Simon stands to his feet. And walks out the door.

What would you do?