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Simon Wiesenthal The Sunflower

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The Sunflower is a memoir of Simon Wiesenthal’s experience in a Polish concentration camp and his internal conflict of whether he did the right thing by remaining silent when a dying SS man asked him for forgiveness. Wiesenthal wrestles with this choice and at the end of his memoir, he extends the question “What would you do?” to the readers. Drawing my own opinion from a number of people including “theologians, writers, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, political leaders, and victims of attempted genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet” whom have responded to this question. I personally would have been just as conflicted as Wiesenthal was, but ultimately I would have chosen to forgive him. It is easier for me to look at …show more content…

He was not wrong to respond to the SS man’s wishes with silence. Wiesenthal was placed in a difficult situation in which he was not directly harmed by Karl, but he was still connected to the events that occurred and the deaths caused by the hands of the Nazi regime. There is truly no way to tell if Karl was sincerely remorseful for his endeavors. If he somehow lived, would he still be overcome by his guilt or would he return to his sadistic ways? There is no way of knowing. Every person is responsible for his or her actions. As Smail Balic said in his response essay “No soul carries the burden of another.”(110) Only the guilty can absolve their guilt, but sometimes it takes the acknowledgment and words of another human to reach this release. This can be as small as a person who makes a rude remark to another then someone else steps in and calls them out. The “perpetrator” then reflects on their comment and feels guilty for it then transforms their attitude so they aren’t the “bad guy” anymore. I believe that forgiveness allows the perpetrator a chance for inner transformation and “to escape the whirlpool of wrongdoing” (Matthieu Ricard- 236)that they may feel caught

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399 Words | 2 Pages

In December 1939, Poland was being torn apart by the savagery of the Holocaust. Oskar Schindler took his first faltering steps from the darkness of Nazism towards the light of heroism. “If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car,” he said later of his wartime actions, “wouldn't you help him?” Poland had been a relative haven for Jewish people and it numbered over 50,000 people, but when Germany invaded, destruction began immediately and it was very harsh. Jews was forced into crowded ghettos, randomly beaten and humiliated, and continuously murdered for no reason.

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351 Words | 2 Pages

I believe Karl's primary motivation for confessing to Simon was that for Karl's own sake, and peace of mind, he wanted to see a "Jew", any Jew, so that he could die in peace. Karl is unable to see the suffering of others due to fact he is blinded by his own suffering, he is unable to see the suffering of the Jewish people he participated in murdering and the ones that still haunt him. He confessed because he wanted to be at peace with himself, I see that as his prime motivation for telling Simon what he did. I interpreted Simon's silence as he was having an internal moral struggle with himself, unsure of whether or not his silence was right or wrong since the Nazi whose bedside he was at was dying. I don't think Simon had the authority to

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831 Words | 4 Pages

The book The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal is about a Jew in a concentration camp in the height of World War II in Germany. One day when he is working in a hospital, Simon is asked to forgive a dying Nazi soldier, Karl. He is faced with a dilemma that everyone has to encounter at some point in their life, but this is different than forgiving a family member for lying to you. Simon has to decide right then whether or not to forgive a murderer of many innocent Jews. Simon Wiesenthal wrote this book because he wanted to reach out and find closure for his actions.

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557 Words | 3 Pages

For the rest of Simon’s life he remains tormented by Karl’s apology and even asks his readers at the end of The Sunflower to ask himself: “What would I have done?” (98) When we respond to this question, we have to keep in consideration the amount of atrocities and suffering the Jewish population went through. I feel that it is not our right to deeply forgive another for their sins. To forgive by word of mouth seems to me to be so superficial. A deeper forgiveness does not come from us but from God.

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704 Words | 3 Pages

Although her altruistic nature and spirituality enable her to consider the perspective of others, she fails to consider the impact of remorse. Her response to The Sunflower is one of the many influential works with multiple interpretations. It addresses the Jewish Holocaust and a specific problem faced by Simon Wiesenthal, an extremely devout survivor of the Holocaust who sought consolation by writing about forgiveness. The Holocaust was devastating to the Jews and remains one of humanity's deepest scars. As Simon Wiesenthal says, “The Holocaust was not only a Jewish tragedy, but also a world

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1818 Words | 8 Pages

In The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, we follow his personal experiences in a concentration camp. In his time there, he meets a dying SS officer named Karl who begs him for forgiveness. As his recollection progresses, Simon is posed with a burdening question; should and can he forgive the desperate officer for his heinous crimes? Despite being a Nazi prisoner himself, Simon’s understanding of both the suffering that he had caused as well as the power and benefits of forgiving Karl made the decision a heavily moral one. In the end, though, he decides to make the call to not forgive Karl, walking out of the room after hearing his story.

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651 Words | 3 Pages

“Bit your lips, little brother... Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. They day will come but not now… Wait.

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967 Words | 4 Pages

In a span of 10 years, the Holocaust killed over 7 million people, that’s just as much as the population of Hong Kong. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel shares his experience on how he survived the Holocaust and what he went through. How he dealt with the horrors and even to how he felt of his dad’s death and how he saw himself after it was all over. As he tried to publish it he was constantly turned down due to the fact of how horrid and truful it was. He still tried and tried until it was finally published.

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759 Words | 4 Pages

In Night by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel says, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed….Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.” (Wiesel, 2006, pg. 34) Eliezer perseveres not simply in light of the way that he his related Jews murdered before his eyes, additionally he feels that his God was slaughtered. The concentration camp experience pounds his chastity and his trust in a reasonable and revering God. Another evidence is shown in Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, in which he says, "Human rights are being violated on every continent….

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1129 Words | 5 Pages

Elie Wiesel’s somber speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, demonstrated the harsh reality of the numerous evils harvesting in the world. The main evil though was simply indifference, or a lack of concern. As a young Jewish boy, he faced the wickedness of the Holocaust, imprisoned at Buchenwald and Auschwitz and also losing both his parents and younger sister. The speaker saw atrocious horrors and suffered for a prolonged amount of time. Why was this permitted?

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661 Words | 3 Pages

He knew he was dying and he wanted to confess to a crime he had committed to a Jew (Wiesenthal, 1998). Wiesenthal does not call him by his name in the book when he speaks or thinks of him; however, for the purpose of this book review his birth name will be used. He had grown up in a religious household, however, when he joined Hitler’s Youth that was the end of the significance of the church for Karl. His parents never accepted his decision, but dared not to speak against it. Karl spent much of their time

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130 Words | 1 Pages

The ability to forgive is entirely based on the ones involved in the incident that requires forgiveness. Some people choose to live by the policy of “forgive-and-forget.” In the book Sunflower, the main character, Simon, is unable to forgive a dying SS soldier for his actions, because the SS soldier was involved in numerous antisemitic actions throughout the war. The claim that Simon did the right thing by not forgiving him is understandable, as Simon was just like the people that the SS soldier was trained to hate. It is arguable that he could have forgiven him, as he did show genuine remorse and regret.

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1198 Words | 5 Pages

Forgiveness in The Sunflower Forgiveness is a prudence yet the way individuals see it is very relative. A few people think that specific activities are trivial while others are definitely not. A few people feel that forgiveness urges the offender to perform sick deeds over and over. Forgiveness is subjective and the demonstration of forgiveness can have numerous implications. Wiesenthal was a Jewish victim in “The Sunflower” and was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.

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1707 Words | 7 Pages

In “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” by Nancy Sherman, one has done no wrong, but still has guilt, even in situations that are unexpected, as this happens way too much, and that those who have done wrongdoing should be feeling guilty. She states, “We often take responsibility in a way that goes beyond what we can reasonably be held responsible for. And we feel the guilt that comes with that sense of responsibility. Nietzsche is the modern philosopher who well understood this phenomenon: “Das schlechte Gewissen,” (literally, “bad conscience”)-his term for the consciousness of guilt where one has done no wrong, doesn’t grow in the soil where we would most expect it, he argued, such as in prisons where there are actually “guilty” parties who should feel remorse for wrongdoing”(Sherman 154). Illustrating, this proves that we take the responsibility for actions that we did not do, and should not feel any remorse, but that the people who have done wrongdoing, should have this feeling of guilt.

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1916 Words | 8 Pages

In the case of the story the parents of those 5 young girls killed forgave the murder and his family, without holding a grudge against his, without nursing bitterness against his, without seeking revenge by killing the murder’s children. Don’t hold them in resentment, release them from your heart, don’t hurt yourself, don’t hurt your health, depression, stress, heartaches some even grow mad and begin to hate everybody associated with the offender or the person involved. It is not easy to do that, it takes a lot of courage and prayers to do

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