In “The Sunflower” by Simon Wiesenthal the roles and relationships between justice, forgiveness, confession, judgement, compassion, and morality play a big part in discovering who we are as a person. “The Sunflower” recalls an incident that occurred during the second World War in the concentration camp, a 21-year old dying Nazi soldier calls on a Jew, Simon Wiesenthal, to confess all of his wrong doing and ask him for his forgiveness. When the Nazi soldier, Karl, asked Simon for forgiveness, Simon left the room without a word and left him with all the weight of his wrong doing to die in agony and regret. The next day, Simon was informed that Karl had died. During the remainder of the next years of the war, Simon would recall Karl and wonder …show more content…
Both parties are aware of the fact the the person that is in the position to forgive holds more power than the other party, but they do not abuse this power. They are aware of the fact that the other party needs to offer atonement, but does not push them to do things just because they believe that the party owes them something. They are aware that they are humans and are susceptible to making mistakes, just like them. They expect something, but nothing that is over the top and destroys the relationship even more, compassion helps they become aware of the limits of their power over the other party. The way they handle their power with compassion also exhibits what their moral character is like. They believe that there must be some kind of justice for their wrong doing, but keep themselves aware of what is still at stake— their relationship with the other party. This shows that justice is not always linked to the “eye for an eye” theory because compassion exists in the world. Forgiveness is not about getting even, it is about repairing a relationship that was damaged and making it better or putting it back to its previous