pFew people know that in the face of his execution the notorious Rudolf Hss the Commandant for Auschwitz met with a Polish Jesuit priest Fr. Wladyslaw Lohn. Hss made a confession to Fr. Lohn for approximately four hours and from Fr. Lohn he received communion. This compelling account of a secret and sacramental meeting not only tells what happened but offers what amounts to either a critical challenge to or celebration of Christian notions of forgiveness. brp pWe have access to Hsss confession by way of selections from his published memoirs. Fr. Lohn said almost nothing about his encounter and certainly nothing about the confession itself. In addition to writing a thorough introduction to this encounter in order to contemplate the priests thoughts James Bernauer has composed a work of imagination a diary of how this Jesuit might have scrutinized this meeting. Bernauers hope is that in addition to giving a sense of a historical encounter the reader will perform their own imaginative reflection on the issues. Throughout the work the limitations on religious absolution of sin are heightened by recall of alternative Christian practices historical and contemporary as well as Dietrich Bonhoeffers warnings about cheap grace.p pp