The Sunflower

Eugene J. Fisher begins by reiterating the expression of many earlier respondents to Wiesenthal’s question, stating that it is difficult to know what one would have done under those particular circumstances. Because Fisher is a new addition to the group of respondents to the question—this edition of The Sunflower having added new voices to the original group—he takes the opportunity to reflect on those who responded in the first edition. He acknowledges that while “repentance and reconciliation are liturgically central to both traditions” (131), both Christian and Jewish, there has, in the decades since the Holocaust, arisen a notion on the part of Christians that Jewish people cannot forgive what happened in the past. Fisher suggests that “the question so presciently raised and profoundly framed by Simon Wiesenthal has emerged as critical to Jewish-Christian relations” (132).

Fisher makes a case against the idea of collective forgiveness on two counts. First, he argues that it would take at least a generation to investigate and uncover as fully as possible the extent of the crimes committed during the Holocaust. Therefore, to forgive without full knowledge of the evil would be premature. Second, he argues that “it is the height of arrogance for Christians to ask Jews to forgive them” (132).