Ex-Nazi "Bookkeeper of Auschwitz" Asks for 'Forgiveness'

[Errata]

I'm not saying it's probable. I'm saying it's the only way he's going to get forgiveness and feel forgiven. If he can manage it, I imagine he will feel better and stop bothering people about it who have been through enough. I doubt he can manage it. Most of us never do, with far lesser crimes on our conscience.

Asking for forgiveness is asking someone to tell you that you aren't a terrible person. Which is exactly the same as asking someone to tell you that you aren't ugly. It's a pit for others to fall into until you get your own **** together. Ever tried to convince someone they weren't ugly, or they weren't fat, or they weren't at fault for being a victim? It's like beating your head against a wall. And you are, because the wall is the absolute certainty of the other person that you are wrong. Maybe well meaning, but wrong. You can't fix it. At best you get them to shut up about it around you. They don't believe you until they start to believe it themselves.

So the only way a person is going to believe you when you tell them they aren't a terrible person is if they don't think they are a terrible person. And if they don't think they are, they don't need you to tell them that. Which is good because when you are talking about a presumably Ex Nazi, they may in fact be a terrible person. If he wants to feel better about what he did, there is only one way to do that, and it does not involve the judgement of others. If he feels just fine about it and wants forgiveness because he thinks it's going to help his case, good luck finding a favorable judgement from others. But no matter how you look at it, the lack of forgiveness from others is not his problem.

[Harry D]

The reason everyone focuses on the Holocaust is because it was the first time there was a white genocide.

The Holodomor pre-dates the Holocaust by almost ten years. Fundamentally there is little difference between the two. Both were the systematic destruction of a group of peoples, but as Graham said, how could the Allies be seen as a force for good when they were rubbing shoulders with their own genocidal dictator? History is written by the victors.

[Errata]

The Holodomor pre-dates the Holocaust by almost ten years. Fundamentally there is little difference between the two. Both were the systematic destruction of a group of peoples, but as Graham said, how could the Allies be seen as a force for good when they were rubbing shoulders with their own genocidal dictator? History is written by the victors.

Typically. And in this instance as well. And nations will take a PR bump where they didn't earn it, and salve their conscience by writing a doctrine for universal human rights they have no intention of implementing in their own country in order to placate their people who never read it to notice what they were promised.

Perception is king.