ABSTRACT
Mr Paul-Damascus was a Nazi in Adolf Hitler's army. Serving with pleasure, he was responsible for several hundred Jews being deported to their deaths, knowing full well that the trains were carrying the Jews to the death camps, Auschwitz or Treblinka. He was as proud of his atrocious deeds as any Nazi. Many argue that he should not be forgiven, because he was motivated simply by guilt to donate anonymously all his wealth to Jewish charities. If the Israeli Supreme Court or the International Court of Justice has the authority to punish or to pardon such a person, then absent other considerations the question of whether a Nazi could be forgiven has not been for ever rendered out of order on conceptual grounds. While humanitarian forgiveness is perhaps most closely associated with Christianity, it should be mentioned that Judaism can also be seen as embracing this form of forgiveness, or something close to it.
