Forgiveness vs. Atonement vs. Regret

Simon Wiesenthal's book, The Sunflower, includes some luminaries from the world of religion, philosophy, anthropology and ethics, voicing their opinions on Mr. Wiesenthal's dilemma about whether he was right in withholding his forgiveness of the dying SS officer.  One such opinion offers that the SS officer himself had no right to ask for forgiveness, as it appeared that what he wanted was absolution for his crimes, as if absolution would act like a magic eraser and would obliterate and cancel out the crime.  Indeed, the value in the exchange was the SS officer's ostensible remorse, his awakened conscience, his sentiment of regret for his acts.  When one says I'm sorry, that should be the end of the message.  Whether the recipient forgives or not should be irrelevant - the virtue lies in the acknowledgment of a wrong deed, a repentance and remorse, a recognition that injury has been done.  On Yom Kippur, the Jews fast as atonement for their sins over the previous year.  As a ritual, religious fasting is nothing more than that - a ritual.  True atonement comes from a personal realization that harm has been done.  The next step would be to express that realization to the injured party, if possible.  But the expression must be a one-way street; it does not obligate the injured party to "forgive," to erase the deed, to pretend that it did not happen, to deny it.