Word: nazis
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Only seven days earlier, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had endured the strain of President Reagan's controversial visit to a military cemetery at Bitburg with its Nazi graves. Last week the Chancellor faced an ordeal that was, in terms of his political future, more significant. In the most important state election since Kohl's national victory two years ago, voters went to the polls in North Rhine-Westphalia, whose 17 million residents represent more than a quarter of the country's electorate. The result: a stinging setback for the Chancellor...
...past wars prove the point. We relive the painful memories of American soldiers torching a village but see no comparable footage of the North Vietnamese committing atrocities. The result is a distorting imbalance. So much around the world goes on out of sight. The horrors of the Nazi death camps, discredited as rumors at the time, became convincing, documented reality only when they came within range of cameramen advancing with the Allied troops...
...because it doesn't have the unpleasant personal connotations of Nazi Germany or Vietnams, colonialism offers some of the most exciting pop history. The characters are far enough away that we can empathize with either side; we can root for the Englishman in Lawrence of Arabia, the native in Gandhi...
...mercy and forgiveness, which are highly valued in Jewish teaching as well. But in Judaism, there are two conditions for repentance: one must go in genuine contrition to the person sinned against, and one must do one's best to compensate for the wrong done. But how can a Nazi, say, compensate a Jew for exterminating his entire family? In that sense, some crimes simply cannot be forgiven...
There is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, but the distinction between the terms never was very clearly made during the President's trip. Forgiveness implies a kind of moral embrace, a clearing of the books, that is difficult if not impossible in the context of Nazi Germany. Reconciliation is a transaction that can occur between two nations. But forgiveness is between individuals, or between an individual and God. Just as one rejects the notion of collective guilt, so one recoils at the idea of collective absolution. Deeds are done by individuals and must be judged individually...