But I’m still left wondering about the forgetting part of forgiving and forgetting. When I took a tour of Liberty Jail one in our group asked about the blood stain that used to be on the floor. The tour guide told us that when Pres. Kimball was visiting there and looked at the blood stain, he said it was time to wash it away in a symbolic, bury-the-hatchet type of act (I’d love to know if there’s a more veritable version of this story somewhere; I’d be esp. curious if Pres. Kimball said “it’s time…” or simply “we should…”). I think this is also related to the the reason that church members traditionally don’t where crosses. I know it’s like comparing fields of watermelons to one or two peas in mentioning one or two deaths/martyrdoms in a discussion about the Holocaust, I’m just trying to give Mormon examples that suggest forgiving means forgetting in some sense to think more carefully about the tension here….

My post, however, is to highlight the function of the temple in finding peace, whatever the torment we carry in us. My post attempts to better understand the atonement, redemption, expiation, and the healing that comes from reconciliation with oneself and through others. It also tries to open our hearts for those who suffer from their past without us realizing it, because of our own insensivity or ignorance. It tries to convey the message that the unspeakable in us can be spoken if needed for our salvation.

Still, to briefly answer your comment: of course the evil in Nazism and the Holocaust were, in their essence, not a limited phenomenon. In my post on Auschwitz, this is precisely what I stressed once the facts of the period had been reminded. I quoted Schroeder: “The evil of Nazi ideology did not come from a void. The brutalization of thought and the demise of moral inhibitions had a history…” Indeed, antisemitism, or any form of racism, comes from far. But my aim was not to go into that long and complex history, but to broaden to the present and the future, apply it to us, and to illlustrate how close the Beast, in various forms, is still with us. It could be helpful to reread the last part of that post.

annegb, just to clarify, Spiegelman isn’t Mormon.

When remembering Auschwitz in another post I found it useful to ask myself the question “Could I have been a Nazi?” As I tried to show, it is easy to imagine one could have become a Nazi, like in the early thirties in Germany, at a harmless level first, given the right circumstances and the right propaganda. But then the next level could follow, because most of us, if not all, carry the Beast in us, eager to be awakened. I felt that this consciousness of our dangerous potential helps to be on guard and to remember how the temptation of extremism looms. At the same time this consciousness helps us to understand the past and show compassion, and hopefully forgiveness, for those who fell in the trap. Indeed, I could have been one of them, now pleading for forgiveness.

The rest of you, my dirty little secret. :)

I didn’t know the guy who wrote it was a Mormon. I thought Maus was a German word for mouse, which weren’t the Jews mice?

Wilfried, I love what you say about taking God out of it for awhile. I think He’s totally okay with that. I think He understands that some things take time to deal with and understand. I would, if I were God.

Q: is “if I” always subjunctive, or am I driving everybody crazy? Thus were, I mean. Not was.