Can the Holocaust be forgiven?

Refusing to forgive the Holocaust gives more power to the oppressor

Question: Can the Holocaust be forgiven?
Position‹2 of 2: The Holocaust can be forgiven
Argument‹2 of 3›: Refusing to forgive the Holocaust gives more power to the oppressor

It is far more empowering to forgive someone by your own choice rather than waiting for the perpetrator to ask for forgiveness. By doing so, this puts the victim's healing in their own hands.

The argument

When a person does not forgive the person that has wronged them, they are continually allowing the perpetrator to have control over their life. It allows that person to control the victim’s happiness. By not forgiving, they hold onto that trauma and anger, letting it fuel their life. Therefore, they should forgive those involved in the Holocaust. According to Jewish traditions, the person that was wronged should not forgive the offender. This puts the power of forgiveness in the wrongdoer’s control rather than the person they harmed. This places a continual reigning power over a victim and their trauma. Although it is an extremely difficult decision for a survivor of the Holocaust to come to, it is more empowering to chose to forgive the perpetrator rather than wait for the perpetrator to ask for forgiveness.

Premises

[P1]Withholding forgiveness keeps the perpetrator in control of the victim's happiness and prolongs their trauma. [P2] Choosing to forgive, rather than waiting for the wrongdoer to seek forgiveness, returns power to the victim. [C] Therefore, the Holocaust can and should be forgiven, because forgiveness empowers survivors and removes the oppressor's lingering control.

Counter-arguments

A perpetrator must show remorse and repent for their actions in order to be forgiven. This should not have any bearing on how a Holocaust survivor lives their life. Choosing not to forgive puts the power in the victim's hands because they can decide that they do not have to give peace to the person that harmed them in the past. In addition, if a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust desires to honor their traditions in forgiveness, they should have the power to do so. In not forgiving the Nazis that show no remorse for their actions, the survivor is abiding by their religious statutes. This is even more empowering than forgiving because the survivor as the full power to exercise their Jewish traditions without fear.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The counter reverses the direction of control: withholding forgiveness is presented not as leaving the perpetrator in charge but as the survivor exercising a decision that is theirs alone — that a wrongdoer who has shown no remorse is not owed peace. [Rejecting P2] The premise treats forgiveness as the empowering option, but on the counter's account the requirement of remorse and repentance is a condition on forgiveness rather than an obstacle to the survivor's agency, and a survivor who declines to forgive in keeping with their own religious tradition is acting on that tradition freely, which the counter reads as the fuller exercise of power.