Simon Wiesenthal Quotes

In The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, a wounded soldier asks Simon for forgiveness for a terrible crime he committed during the Holocaust. He is on his deathbed, and asks a nurse to bring a Jewish person to him. The nurse brings Simon and Simon doesn’t forgive him, instead walking out without saying anything. After reading The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal along with multiple essays responding to it, I believe Simon should have forgiven the man because he was manipulated into thinking what he was doing was right.

In the memoir, "Night" by Elie Weisel, Elie's father had just found out he didn't make it through selection, the process of separating inmates from those who are strong and worthy or those who should be executed. Before Elie left for work, his father said, "Here, take this knife,' he said. I don't need it anymore. You may find it useful. Also take this spoon for a treat.

Fire represents a lot of the things in this novel. A woman name Mrs. Schachter was howling, pointing through the window. “Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!” (pg 25) Elie said him and the other saw a real fire this time. “This time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky.” (pg. 28) Elie said they stared at the flames, “We stared at the flames in the darknes, A wretched stench floated in the air.” (pg. 28) And in front of them the the flaming smoke was the smell of burning flesh.

In Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, he recounts his incidence of meeting a dying Nazi soldier who tells Simon that he was responsible for the death of his family. Upon telling Simon the details, Karl asks for his forgiveness for what he helped accomplish. Simon leaves Karl without giving him an answer. This paper will argue that, even though Karl admits to killing Simon’s family in the house, Simon is morally forbidden to forgive Karl because Karl does not seem to show genuine remorse for his committed crime and it is not up to Simon to be able to forgive Karl for his sins. This stand will be supported by the meaning of forgiveness, evidence from the memoir, quotes from the published responses to Simon’s moral question, and arguments from

What would you do if you were in a family crisis and given a 10,000 for your family member passing away? In the play Walter Younger goes through many different moral problems and has bad ego due to the money that has been given to the family. In this play during the late 1950s, there was a lot of racial problems, black skin color was discriminated and abused. Walter younger shows that he cares more about money rather than caring about his families care and well being. He rather open up a liquor store to get more money and keep his family living in the ran down apartment not thinking about all of the bad stuff that can possibly happen to his kin. Throughout this book making this a great mood changing book to read many sequal of events happen throughout the book.

Vince Lombardi, an American football player, and a coach, once said, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” With these words, Lombardi highlights that people are nurtured to become a leader and a follower. For instance, Lombardi asserts that a person is trained, whether to be a leader, or a follower, through eagerness and determination. The book, The Sunflower, written by Simon Wiesenthal, an author and a Jewish holocaust survivor, who focuses on one of the most controversial topics during and after World War II, forgiveness. In this book, Weisenthal talked about a questionable case in which Karl, an SS soldier who murdered plentiful of people, asked Weisenthal for forgiveness for all the pain he had done towards all the people that were affected by him. When it comes to the topic of whether people are born to become leaders or followers or is one trained by the environment, most people will readily agree that people are conditioned to become a leader or a follower, where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of, “What makes a person a leader?” Whereas some are convinced that people are natural born leaders. Becoming a leader consists with a few reasons such as developed leadership skills, the bystander apathy, and the diffusion of responsibility.

The Holocaust was a genocide that occured from 1933-1945, and one of its survivors was Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal was an architect before he was captured by the Nazis. After he was set free, he dedicated his life to finding Nazi war criminals and persecuting them in court. Later on in his life, he wrote a memoir, The Sunflower. It was about one of his many experiences at the Lemberg concentration camp where he got roped in to listening to a dynig SS soldier, Karl. Right before, Wiesenthal leaves Karl’s room, Karl asks for Wiesenthal, on behalf of all the Jews he persecuted, for forgiveness. Wiesenthal left Karl’s room without forgiving him, and then asks the readers, “ What would I have done?” At the end of The Sunflower, people who Wiesenthal picked to respond to his question, had their answers published. The most interesting response was Jose Hobday’s. Hobday believed that Wiesenthal should have apologized to Karl because it would have given Karl a sense of peace, making it easier for him to pass on. Hobday has the correct answer to Wiesenthal’s question because even though all of the Jews that Karl persecuted are dead and will not be able to apologize to him in person, Karl just wants someone to know that he is sorry for his actions.

The word of Wiesel was taken for granted to the highest degree possible, in which we wish to leave the past behind us and start a new. Nevertheless, we are humans that will always have the need to show no signs of remorse towards genocide that may not involve are well being due to showing differences being painless then taking action.

The conversation between Wiesenthal and Bolek is another example of forgiveness is necessary. When Wiesenthal tells Bolek of what he experienced in the dying SS man’s room, Bolek says he describes it as a man who showed signs of “repentance, genuine, sincere repentance” (Wiesenthal 82). He means that Wiesenthal believes the dying SS man’s apology was sincere. He believes that Wiesenthal seen his apology as genuine and that he deserved the “mercy of forgiveness” (Wiesenthal 82). Wiesenthal spots a sunflower behind a bush, he takes it as the sunflower has come to “remind [him]” (Wiesenthal 84) of what he describes as a “feeling of duty” (Wiesenthal 84). Wiesenthal “duty” (Wiesenthal 85) and his planning on visiting the mother of the deceased SS man show that he is beginning to realize that he needs to come to terms with his experienced at the hospital in Lemberg. He visits her for closure and ultimately to decide within himself if he should finally forgive the man responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent Jewish people.

Wiesel gave this speech with a purpose to challenge perspectives of inattention towards other’s suffering to maintain sanity and inspire others to instead avoid the temptation of indifference. He argued that “to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes human being inhuman”(Wiesel 311). Although his speech may have been hard to hear, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel used his speech to create an “opportune moment in time” (Longaker and Walker 9) to persuade the American audience to make a change through the use of the events of his past. In doing so, he evoked strong responses from the audience through rhetorical appeals as an attempt to encourage them to reflect upon the difficult questions he poses throughout the speech and make more of a conscious effort not to be indifferent.

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, he tells his story of the Holocaust and how the Nazis tried to destroy the jewish race.. In the Holocaust, the Nazis thought the Jews were less than them. Elie tells the story of how the Nazis tried to eliminate the Jews. . The Naizs treated the Jewish people badly because they dehumanized them, they treated them as they were nothing, and the Nazis destroyed the Jews from the inside out.

In the text, ‘Night’, Elie survives because he keeps alive the hope of survival. An example of this is when he lies about his age and his occupation. “’I’m eighteen’. My voice was trembling” (page 33), this quote is evidence that Elie lied about his age so he does not get thrown into the crematorium, for being too young. Another example of Elie keeping the hope of survival alive is when he outcasts his father and decides to eat his rations. Elie does this because he knows that his father is sick and dying and he cannot help him besides watching him slowly die. Because of this his father has become a burden for Elie, lowing his chances of survival, and when Elie’s father dies Elie feels free from that burden. “And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!” (Page 112), this quote evidence

Victims in large scale crimes have observed that most perpetrators show no remorse or regret for their evil actions when they are carrying them out, even justifying them at times. This attitude can drastically change when the person is on their deathbed. Harry James Cargas is a scholar and author best known for his research on the Holocaust and Christianity, and he wrote an essay in response to Wiesenthal’s questions in The Sunflower. He touches on this subject of repentance coming too late, saying, “Deathbed conversions are dramatic but in many instances they are too easy” (Cargas 125). In other words, Cargas is saying that a person can participate in horrible crimes in their lifetimes, and then quickly have a change of heart on their deathbed. Some say that sort of conversion is too easy and does not show genuine remorse. Moshe Bejski is another author who responded in The Sunflower and would agree with Cargas on this matter. Bejski was an Israeli judge and a Holocaust survivor himself. At one point in his essay, he is discussing some of the crimes that Nazis committed against humanity, using methods of extermination that had never been thought of before. He then speaks directly of the SS soldier that asked Weisenthal for forgiveness, writing, “Only the awareness of imminent and certain death induced Karl to think that his actions had been crimes against both humanity and God” (Bejski 113). In this passage, Bejski is explaining his belief that only fear of impending death moved Karl to confess his sins and seek forgiveness. He even goes on to say that had Karl not been wounded, he would have continued to participate in murdering millions of innocent people, just as his fellow soldiers did. When faced with the prospect of death, it is natural for many people to desire forgiveness for the wrongs they have committed in order to find inner peace

Alongside with witnessing the death of his father and wrath of the SS officers, Wiesel also experienced the evil of other prisoners. Within the community of the concentration camps, stealing was not uncommon. For example, after it was revealed that he had a golden tooth, Wiesel’s foreman at Buna, Franek, made many attempts to steal it. “'Let me have your crown, kid.' I answered that I could not because without that crown I could no longer eat.... 'If you don't give me your crown, it will cost you much more!' All of a sudden, this pleasant and intelligent young man had changed. His eyes were shining with greed” (“Night” 55). This quote reveals the time Wiesel had first-hand encountered the greed of others. Franek could care less if Wiesel could not eat; he wanted to

Good triumphs over evil because the prisoners never think to get revenge on the Nazis. In the last few pages of the book, Elie’s camp, Buchenwald, is liberated by the Americans. He explains what everyone does immediately following liberation and how no one speaks of violence towards the Nazi regime. “And even when we were no longer hungry, not one of us thought of revenge. The next day, a few of the young men ran into Weimar to to bring back potatoes and clothes… But still no trace of revenge” (Wiesel 115).