The Sunflower By Simon Wiesenthal

When it comes to the topic of Simon Wiesenthal not forgiving a dying SS soldier for his crimes, most of us will readily agree that it’s a debatable topic. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of if Wiesenthal should have forgiven the soldier. Whereas some are convinced that he made the right choice in not forgiving the soldier, others maintain that he should have let the soldier die peacefully, guilt free, and forgiven. I agree with Wiesenthal’s decision to not forgive the dying SS soldier because he cannot speak for all the other Jews who have been killed by this man. In Simon Wiesenthal’s book, The Sunflower, he asks the reader what they would have done in his position with the SS soldier. If I was Wiesenthal, I wouldn’t have forgiven the man as I cannot make decisions for others and because the soldier was not sincere in his apology for the crimes he was involved in.

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.

After reading The Sunflower, I’ll admit I had a lot of questions. When I started reading some of the response essays, I saw some of the same questions asked that I had. One that stuck out to me the most was the essay by Alan L. Berger. Berger’s reason for writing his essay was the issues being inflexible and his students questioning them. What was very evident to me about his essay was how he questioned why was Simon silent, If Karl was sincere, If Simon was the one to answer Karl’s response, and was Simon scarred by the interaction with Karl?

After reading, The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal, towards the end Simon asked what I would do if I were him. This question is something I cannot answer right away. I do agree that Simon does not have the right to forgive the SS soldier for his crimes, but I do not agree how Simon walked away from him without a simple response.

Night is an non fiction, dramatic book that tells the horrors of the nazi death camps all around Europe. The book is an autobiographical account of what happened, so the main character is the author. The author is Elie Wiesel who was only 14 year old when Nazi Germany came through his town of Sighet, Transylvania. This is story is set between the years of 1944 and 1945. Elie and his family of 4 are optimistic when Germany begins to take power. Germany invades Hungary, then arrives in Elie’s town. The Nazi’s begin to take over the Jews by limiting their freedom. Jews are eventually deported. The Jewish people are crowded into wagons where they are shipped to Auschwitz. He is separated from his mother and sister. Over the course of the book,

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

In all actuality is forgiveness more of a resolution for one person to move forward, or does it fix the situation as a whole. The Sunflower, is a book that presents an idea of forgiveness and others opinions on what should happen in this case of events. Karl a dying SS man, brings in Simon a prisoner in a concentration camp to his hospital room, and asks Simon for forgiveness. Karl is guilt ridden for his killings during his time as a soldier, and wants to die confessing and seeking forgiveness from Simon. Simon however has never known Karl before their meeting, and Karl has never committed anything towards Simon. Simon struggles and is indecisive on whether he should forgive Karl or not. Saying sorry for murdering people during the Holocaust, is impossible given the damage of the event, but for Karl he searched for forgiveness through Simon. Simon being imprisoned in a concentration camp and brought to Karl, a dying SS man, Karl wanted to seek forgiveness for his actions. Being in the position Simon was in he was not entitled to take the apology on behalf of others, when he was not wronged against by Karl.

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.

Edward H. Flannery states that The Sunflower presents “an important moral question” (Flannery 135). Flannery argues in favor of forgiveness. He states that Karl, the dying SS man, could had asked for forgiveness for what “he had done” (Flannery 137) not forgiveness on the behalf of others. Flannery states that

Steven Pinker implied that, “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to the mass murder of people” (1). Steven Pinker revealed an interesting side to the controversial topic of mass murders and the causes of them. He revealed that as long as people in this world believe that they are better than other due to their race, religion, and everything else that defines a group of people as different from another group of people. People are and have been wrongfully treated differently due to the incompetence of some to realize that everyone is equal. They often believe that they were superior to others because of their physical attributes and beliefs that they had. The

Man loves to kill. In response to the question asked, man will continue to commit such atrocities as a genocide. Man will never learn from past mistakes or all of a sudden stop mass killings or genocides. Humans have always killed and they will continue to do it. Humans will not all of a sudden be pacifists and stop killing. This has happened with the Rwandan genocide and with the Holocaust in Night by Elie Wiesel. Man will not stop committing such atrocities and have a brighter future and these are only a few reasons why.

To sum things up in the Sunflower Karl wanted to forgive Simon and all the Jews but he didn’t respond to him. If I were Simon I would forgive Karl just to make him feel a little better before death... Then I again changed my opinion, to stage where I thought I would forgive him, but only by words, not actually in my mind. I changed my first opinion because of Josek, in the story he said one can forgive someone else only when the person did wrong to him, not to the

So he mustered a great deal of courage to apologize to Simon. After that happen, Simon wrote The Sunflower, the book is to discuss the possibilities of forgiveness because he is not sure whether he should accept Karl’s apology and forgive Karl, the dying soldier. The difference between Hanna and Kal, Hanna is women who afraid to be humiliated at illiteracy directly admit the crime, she spends rest of the time to understand herself in prison, to reflect on her crime. Karl is a soldier dying because of the war, At the last minute of life, he realized the sin he committed and seeks

Sacrifice can come in many different ways, and for many different desires. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, the book gives the readers the experience of the time during World War Two, when the Holocaust was occurring. Never seen his mother and sisters again, he goes on this strenuous and relentless journey in Auschwitz, along with his father, where they both endure through the true harsh trial of the holocaust. During this grim time, people sacrifice themselves for those they love because sacrifice express love as its strongest, shows loyalty to others, and speaking out for others is shown as a sign of kindness.