I would say that someone as an individual could forgive for the group in this situation, especially considering that the the soldier was dying and this man was the last Jew he would ever see. In this case the Jew, in the soldier’s eyes is the last representative and the only meaningful Jew on the planet simply because of his immediacy and because death has a totalizing effect on a persons subjective reality. Therefore, this one Jew acts as a proxy for the entire race, and he can and probably should issue forgiveness if he is able to summon the strength to do so.

If he was able to forgive one could make a bit of an allegory of it: this Jew enters the world of a dying sinful man and forgives him giving him peace and ultimately a quiet sort of redemption in calm, just death.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1103/perspectives.html#