It would not be easy and that’s how it should be. Fr. Neuhaus in his book Death on a Friday Afternoon writes about how forgiveness that comes too easily minimizes the pain and seriousness of sin. I knew a priest, long since deceased, who spent nearly six years as a prisoner in Dachau and saw all those things and more. It was perhaps only in the last 10 years of his life that he came to terms with what had happened to him and this was a man who had a rich and almost mystical prayer life.
One of the hardest things for my friend and many other survivors–and this is perhaps true of any victim of sin–is to come to terms with one’s self. Any victim of a serious crime or sin wonders (openly, in the dark of night, or even subconsciously) whether in fact they did something to deserve this. Others die around them: friends, strangers or people who they consider better or more worthy. Why was I spared when these others died? Did I take an extra piece of bread, could I have helped but did not?
My priest friend had a friend Fr. Steven who volunteered to help prisoners in a typhoid quarantine block of Dachau. Fr. Steven died of typhoid shortly before the liberation of the camp, helping fellow prisoners until he grew too weak to stand. Although he never said it, having read my friend’s memoirs I know he asked himself many times “why wasn’t I there too?” In many ways this is so much harder than forgiving the camp guards and some impersonal group of dead Nazi leaders.
jb
