The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (Newly Expanded Paperback Edition)

"who can be indoctrinated with evil. Mankind is ostensibly striving to avert catastrophes; medical progress gives us hope that one day disease can be conquered, but will we ever be able to prevent the creation of mass murderers?"-Simon Wiesenthal The Lord loves justice Isaiah 6:18 All people who call themselves christians should read this book because christianity is under attack and for good reason many times. I grew up in the bible belt; you were extremely weird if you didn't go to church and there are churches on every corner practically in this part of the country. Christian Germans, continental europeans had their faiths tried by fire in this last century, it is not so obvious in America, but I believe we are standing at the edge of a cliff in so many ways and we have choices to make and those choices will save or condemn your soul; no matter how many apostles creeds you say, the choices you are making today will determine your salvation or not. This book is probably the best book I've ever read. I love Simon Wiesenthal not just for his books' content but because Simon understood G-d's demands for justice; he then tracked down the Nazi killers who took millions of lives and not only jews. Forgiveness is a hard thing to do but Christ commands christians that if they don't forgive others their sins that G-d can't forgive them. Christ told his followers to pray more than 70 x 7 times until they could truly forgive those who persecuted them. However, in the case Mr. Wiesenthal places before us, the crimes possibly committed by the dying Nazi soldier are much more than what he mentions, but we simply don't know all the details. Simon of course has seen this scene of slaughter so many times, jews rounded up, jews crowded into kerosene laced buildings and set on fire. And then the dying Nazi soldier begs him to stay and hear his confession instead of from a priest. Simon stayed there for hours and though Karl wanted to hear Simon forgive him and though Simon really sensed that Karl was sincere, he simply could not utter the words, but rendered what little comfort he could muster by holding his hand, by swatting away flies from Karl's infected, rotting face, the whole time though wanting to flee. The whole story affected Simon so much for days afterwards he had nightmares and would wake screaming back in the death camp; it greatly alarmed his friends because the Nazis would usually respond to such disturbances by shooting or hanging them. His friends finally silenced his screams by having talks with him about this strange encounter: "it was not your place to forgive him because you were not his immediate victim" and "how could you forgive on the part of the whole jewish nation", "we all will probably not survive this death camp".... All of those friends later died within the camp, from malnutrition, infectious disease, gun shots. Somehow Simon was miraculously spared and he dedicated the rest of his life to bringing to justice the Nazi murderers from some of the remotest, wild corners of the world. What can I say but I place this book on the same pedestal as my bible. Clearly putting away criminals who take the lives of innocent millions and not only jews is just and understood by most cultures. It was stipulated in the books of Moses: for blood pollutes the land and NO atonement can be made for the land except by the blood of him who shed it. Is it not significant that one of the first stories in the bible, in christian, jewish, and even muslim bibles is the story of the killing of Able by Cain and G-d hearing the voice of Able crying from the ground? There are two versions of this book, but I recommend this last version over Wiesenthal's first; the additional perspectives from 53 persons that Wiesenthal posed his question to adds more insight to the problem of forgiveness. All of their answers are slightly different, all equally thought provoking. Most believed Simon behaved rightly in his response to Karl, it was not his place to offer forgiveness because he was not the injured party and Simon acted UBER princely given the circumstances by what little he did and mostly by what he didn't do. "He could have smothered him with a pillow to put Karl out of his misery," one of the respondents noted. He could have choked him if he was consumed by a rage for vengeance, but true to G-d's word left the vengeance part to G-d. 'Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay.' What does G-d promise? Vengeance is mine, I WILL REPAY. G-d is just and cannot tolerate evildoers. Evildoers will be punished if not in this lifetime, surely in the world hereafter. So, herein, you will find responses from the most unlikely of characters, the Dalai Lama, various christian theologians, of course, other jews, some concentration camp survivors, teachers and most surprisingly an answer from Albert Speer, who was the only Nazi to declare his guilt at the Nuremberg trials. My favorite responses were from the Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Dith Pran and a jewish teacher. The Dalai Lama asked a buddhist monk what did he fear most after years of brutal torture by the chinese; the monk told him that his biggest fear was that he would lose compassion for the Chinese. Dith Pran, a survivor of Pol Pot's murderous rampages saw and understood how the soldiers were duped and deceived by these murderous despots as Hitler youths were manipulated by the Nazis. He wrote: "We need to learn to separate the true culprits from the pawns, the evil masterminds from the brainwashed." The jewish teacher posed Simon's predicament and question to her students who were studying The Sunflower. Nearly all christians said they'd forgive Karl, nearly all jews said that they wouldn't. I think her observation is significant. And as someone who's been raised as a christian and trained in the bible, I think that the jews' thinking/logic on this issue is incredibly wise and worth examining. Harry Wu's experience of nearly 20 years in chinese prison gave him a slightly different perspective: "In regard to Mr. Wisenthal's story and in comparing his story to my own, I must first state that it is inconceivable for me to believe that anyone in the People's Republic of China would ask for such forgiveness as the Nazi soldier did to the jewish prisoner. In China, there was no understanding that what the communists did to their own people was in any way morally wrong....They had no regard for an individual's well-being. There was no value put on a human's life because, quite simply, the leaders of the country placed no value on human life. In order to survive in China during these times, one had to give up one's own conscience and humanity....Instead, the society that the communists founded was designed to drain any remnants of humanity out of a person. Like Mr. Wiesenthal, I would not have forgiven the Nazi soldier, but I would have been able to say to him: "I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you."" The only comment I took offense to was one by a christian speaking of Christ and His disciples welcoming Judas Iscariot back into their midst. In the account of John, son of Zebedee, Jesus says about Judas after he left to betray Him for 30 pieces of silver, "it would have been better if he had never been born." In John also, Christ said that His father gave all judgement to Him and so Christ's words to a christian should be more true than other apocryphal writings as "The Judas Gospel". It's so easy for false truths to be believed and lies disseminated. Theologians don't have a clear handle on what the blasphemy of the holy spirit is, what the only sin is that G-d will never forgive, but I have no doubt that it would surely be found in the many evil acts against humanity, against the sanctity of human life that was to be unveiled from these true stories of the holocaust. (Jews prefer the word Shoah rather than the holocaust. Shoah in English means calamity. Holocaust has twisted christian connotations of whole burnt offering as if there was something holy in the jews' sacrifice which I totally agree is extremely abhorrent.) But the world knows of these tribulations as the holocaust so I use that term here. This book is one of the most important books I've ever read. It is so thought provoking and there are really no easy answers to Simon's question. I found myself as I am here, thinking of so many arguments. It is a subject of universal appeal because forgiveness is truely hard when one has been subjected to such uncomparable persecution and suffering. And even christians should grasp that G-d understands our difficulty with this issue, to truely forgive 100% may not even be achieved in one's lifetime and doesn't negate one's salvation (my thoughts). But after the 490 or 4900 time of trying to forgive a heinous crime all one may be able to do is say, I CANNOT DO IT, BUT I HAND IT OVER TO YOU TO ADJUDICATE. And I think G-d probably wouldn't have a problem with it. I have so many pages marked; my hope and prayer is that whoever reads this review will want to read the book themselves. I couldn't find this edition anywhere in the greater Atlanta area, universities included. You can get it through interlibrary loan, but better to have the book on hand as I do. I must temper my criticism of christianity with these thoughts from Dennis Prager: "I am a religious Jew who has come to admire many christians and to appreciate Christianity....I deeply fear the consequences of a de-Christianized America."

I've used Wiesenthal's The Sunflower as a text in college courses several times. On each occasion my original high estimation of Wiesenthal's narrative grows, while my dissatisfaction with the chorus of responses that takes up nearly two-thirds of the latest edition deepens. Wiesenthal asks exactly the right questions that all of us need to confront about forgiveness. Is forgiveness always ours to bestow? Is it permissible or even possible to forgive on behalf of others? Should forgiveness be tied to repentance on the part of the transgressor? Should the transgressor try to atone for his/her wrongdoing? What if, as in the case of the dying SS-man Wiesenthal meets, the performance of overt acts of atonement are impossible? Are there certain actions that are unforgiveable, or is the philosopher Jacques Derrida correct when he insists (On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness) that the only kind of forgiving that makes any sense is the kind that forgives the unforgiveable? And in a godless world--a world where, as several characters in The Sunflower say, wickedness is so rampant that God seems to have gone on leave--is forgiveness necessarily a different kind of phenomenon than it would be in a Godded world? Weisenthal doesn't pretend to answer any of these questions, but he and the other characters in his memoir discuss them, presenting different perspectives and coming to different conclusions. The very real value of The Sunflower is that it encourages readers to think about the questions. Which brings me to the responses. Most are impressionistic, unanalytical, platitudinous, and hence totally out of step with the brutal authenticity of Weisenthal's text. A few stand out from the others: Robert Coles', Rebecca Goldstein's, Abraham Joshua Heschel's, Primo Levi's. But most can be given a pass. My suggestion would be to focus first and foremost on Weisenthal's text and forget about the responses. A nice cinematic complement to the book is the documentary "Forgiving Dr. Mengele."

Would you forgive the Nazi perpetrator? The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal The Sunflower is a philosophical narrative about moral responsibility and the possibility—and limits--of forgiveness of genocide. In this parable, the narrator describes his hellish daily existence in the Lemberg concentration camp. The story reflects, in some respects, Wiesenthal’s own experience in several Nazi concentration camps during WWII: including Janowska, Plaszow and Mauthausen. Although the narrative shies away from vivid descriptions of violence, it alludes to the sadistic mistreatment of Jewish inmates by SS officers as well as to the starvation, disease and constant threat of being shot or selected for the crematorium that were part and parcel of the daily horrors experienced by inmates. The book, originally published by Schocken Books in 1976, has been taught for decades in schools as an introduction to the Holocaust. Written in a simple yet elegant prose, The Sunflower has been especially popular because it raises the important questions about moral responsibility for national crimes and explores the victims’ capacity for forgiveness. The latter point was particularly relevant to Wiesenthal, who spent years of his life tracking down Nazi fugitives and bringing them to trial for their crimes against humanity. In a moment of rare beauty in his somber existence in the concentration camp, the narrator, a Jewish prisoner on his way to forced labor, sees a row of sunflowers planted on Christian soldiers’ graves. In a poetic scene, the narrator describes how he’s initially enthralled by the flowers’ beauty, only to be later struck by its implications: “I stared spellbound. The flower heads seemed to absorb the sun’s rays like mirrors and draw them down into the darkness of the ground as my gaze wandered from the sunflower to the grave… It was gaily colored and butterflies fluttered from flower to flower. … Were they whispering something to each flower to pass on to the soldier below? Yes, this was just what they were doing; the dead were receiving light and messages” (The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal, New York: Schocken Books, 1998, 14). As he overcomes his awe, he realizes that, as a Jewish prisoner, he’ll be deprived of dignity not only in life, but also in death. He’ll be shot and tossed into a mass grave or gassed and incinerated. For him, as for millions of other Jewish prisoners, “No sunflower would ever bring light into my darkness, and no butterflies would dance above my dreadful tomb” (15). When the narrator arrives at work, where he’s charged with throwing away medical waste, a nurse signals him to follow her to a hospital bed. There the narrator sees a man enveloped in bandages, pale and rail thin. As this man addresses him with great difficulty, the narrator realizes that the dying man is a young German SS officer: a mortal enemy. Astonishingly enough, the officer begs for his forgiveness for what he’s done to other Jewish people. He doesn’t excuse his behavior, but he describes some of its causes. He tells him about the Nazi indoctrination when he was in Hitler Youth. He speaks of the manuscripts and speeches that depicted Jews as a “subhuman race” and called for their annihilation, which he later encountered in his training as an SS officer. He also speaks of being subjected to tremendous peer pressure from fellow soldiers as well yielding to the pressure of following orders from his superiors. And yet, now that he’s about to die, he feels a sense of responsibility and guilt for his murderous acts against defenseless civilians. He confesses that he was part of an SS brigade that hunted Jews down, forced dozens of them—defenseless men, women and children--into a house, then tossed hand grenades into the windows to kill all of them. Some people jumped, while on fire, from the broken windows. Still haunted by this vivid memory, the SS soldier can’t expire in peace without some kind of atonement from a Jew: from a member of the group he and other soldiers victimized. The narrator is surprised by the request and paralyzed by indecision. He doesn’t know how to respond. When he returns to the camp that evening, he tells his friends about this strange encounter. Adam, an architect, finds the SS soldier’s request preposterous—and trivial—given that the Nazis were murdering millions of Jews. One less Nazi, he states cynically. Josek, a deeply religious Jew, maintains that he’d have refused the pardon with a clear conscience. How could his friend have forgiven atrocities of such a magnitude? And who was he to speak for millions of other victims? Both friends remain suspicious: Why would the “Aryan Superman” need the forgiveness of an “inferior” Jew? The narrator, however, sees the dying SS soldier as a fellow human being. “The SS man’s attitude toward me was not that of an arrogant superman. Probably I hadn’t successfully conveyed all my feelings: a subhuman condemned to death at the bedside of an SS man condemned to death…” (67). Of course, their circumstances were far from symmetrical. In fact, they were diametrically opposed. Still unsure of his own ethical stance, the narrator asks each of us, readers, to ask ourselves: If faced with the Nazi soldier’s dying request for forgiveness, “What would I have done?” (98) If we read the transcripts of the Nazi leaders put on trial, we see that this question of forgiveness doesn’t come up often for the perpetrators: at least not in the public trials. Adolf Eichmann or Rudolf Hoss, for instance, express no regret or compunction for their crimes. They deny all sense of personal responsibility and blame only the Nazi system and their superiors for their murderous deeds. Yet for the victims, the question is extremely relevant because it asks them to consider at least some of the perpetrators as human: as men capable of guilt and regret for their crimes. Wiesenthal’s simple moral parable shows the Nazis as a diverse group who nevertheless behaved the same way. Not every SS soldier hated Jews. Not every SS soldier was a ruthless sadist. Not every SS soldier gladly followed orders to butcher innocent people. Yet almost every SS soldier chose, like the man in The Sunflower, to follow such orders, to commit such crimes. Almost every SS soldier killed countless innocent Jews. How could this happen? Understanding what forces were at play to make genocide possible doesn’t mean forgiving perpetrators or exonerating them of blame. But without a sociological, and historical, understanding of how tens of thousands of German citizens—some of whom were ordinary men, like the soldier in this story--were capable of such atrocities, we are likely to overlook the vulnerability of our own times. Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

I was pleased to read this. This book is a favorite of mine, I have given as a gift. Recipients tell me that they are glad to have read it as well. Very worthy

You said Mr. Wiesenthal that the sunflowers stood straight as soldiers at attention on the graves of dead Nazis. Butterflies danced above their graves as the sunflowers soaked in the sunshine and brought light and life to the dead below. And this, you saw, you would never have. You, being a Jew, were in the eyes of the Nazi disposable garbage that one threw out on a pile when its usefulness had expired. Garbage doesn't need a proper burial, and you would be accorded no dignity in death. So, what should you have done when the SS soldier on his deathbed wants your forgiveness as a Jew so that he can die in peace? This man who tells you that he and his brutal brethren marched perhaps two hundred Jews, many of whom were small children, onto a truck. He saw in their eyes fear, and recalled their frantic cries when forced into a house that was to be burned down. And this Nazi watched the flames blaze like hell through the house. He tells you he saw a man, a child, a woman jump from the windows their burning bodies flying down. And, he says, he saw the child, "it" had black hair and eyes. It. And now, he bemoans his short life, tells you he was a Catholic, tells you he has a mother who loves him, and in soft tones, in a pleading voice wants your forgiveness. What is forgiveness? Christianity teaches, in the Lord's Prayer, "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." (traditional Matthean version). In Luke 23:34, "And Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Can one man forgive another for such a great sin as committed by the Nazi? Mr. Wiesenthal the position that you found yourself in is one which no man could imagine. But was forgiveness an option? Josek, your fellow prisoner and friend, tells you that he feared that you had forgiven the SS man. He said then, "You would have had no right to do this in the name of people who had not authorized you do so. What people have done to you yourself, you can, if you like, forgive and forget. That is your own affair. But it would have been a terrible sin to burden your conscience with other people's sufferings." Josek makes an important point. The dying SS soldier had sinned beyond the limits of human forgiveness. You were in no position to forgive him. You are not God, who is the final arbiter of judgment and redemption. And as Josek said, in the afterlife those who had died at the hands of this Nazi soldier would ask you, had you forgiven him, "Who gave you the right to forgive our murderer?" But, you had countered Josek that the soldier seemed repentant and was in torment. Moreover, as he was dying had no time left to repent or atone for his crimes. Here, Arthur's words are powerful. He, who also suffered and later died at the concentration camp, says to you, "A superman has asked a subhuman to do something which is superhuman. If you had forgiven him, you would never have forgiven yourself all of your life." Consider this, this Nazi if he had not been on his deathbed would have viewed you Mr. Wiesenthal, as less than a piece of excrement. Yet, in the throes of death, he a member of the Super Race, needs you, want you, a Jew-something less than human, to forgive his transgressions. Think of his selfishness. Even in the face of death his evil is still alive. He cloaks himself in a soft and sympathetic voice, grabbing your hand, treating with you with respect. That is how evil works, like a snake charming you as if it is a harmless rabbit. This Nazi should not have been asking for forgiveness. If he in the moments before he met his Maker had a stab of conscience, he the soldier should have said, "I have been nothing but evil, and I deserve every bit of torture in Hell that I am about to receive." That would have been repentance. One of your contemporaries and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's writes in his book, Man's Search for Meaning, that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living. Frankl states that life never ceases to have meaning even under horrific suffering. Maybe this is what you, Mr. Wiesenthal, were thinking of when you saw the dying man asking for your forgiveness. As Josek had told you "in each person's life there are historic moments which rarely occur-and today you have experienced one such." You were trying to make sense of, that is, form meaning from the surreal moment of being in your old high school, now a Nazi hospital, where you a Jewish prisoner are asked by a dying SS soldier to forgive him. And this is extraordinary. That you held onto your better self, that despite all the humiliation, torture, and deprivations you had suffered at the hands of the Nazis, you were still willing to contemplate forgiving this man. Your heart had the capacity to see him beyond the monster that he was. You saw his soul. Dan Smee Author "Totally American" Totally American: Harnessing the Dynamic Duo of Optimism and Resilience to Achieve Success

Good

Summoned to the bedside of a dying Nazi who had willingly participated in the systematic annihilation of Europe's Jews, concentration camp inmate Simon Wiesenthal found himself the captive, solitary witness to this 21-year-old SS man's confession of responsibility for committing acts of unspeakable cruelty. Kurt had asked a nurse to bring him a Jew (any Jew would do); quite by chance the nurse selected Wiesenthal from the work detail assigned to the hospital that day. Against his will, he listened to this man recount his experience of packing a house full of Jewish men, women, and children and then setting the house on fire while lobbing grenades into the inferno and shooting at anyone who had attempted to escape this hell. Kurt watched a father, mother, and small boy leap from a window to their certain death. Before the leap, the father had shielded the child's eyes. The image haunted Kurt, who was unable to fight again. Instead, he froze on the battlefield and suffered and injury that first cost him his sight and then took his life. Before he died, though, he wanted to confess his sins to a Jew that he might be forgiven and die in peace. Wiesenthal, who was about the same age as this soldier, heard him out but refused to forgive. Instead, he offered silence in response to the story and returned to the concentration camp. The experience haunted Wiesenthal; soon after it happened, he discussed it with his friends back at the camp, with a Polish Catholic seminarian. Much later, he presented the story to theologians, political leaders, Holocaust survivors, and victims of other attempted genocides and asked each of these persons what he or she would have done in the same situation. The story itself is first book of The Sunflower; the responses to the question, "The Symposium," are the text of the second book in this volume. Broadly grouped, the respondents are Jews and Christians, primarily. There are two Buddhist respondents and one Chinese respondent who makes no reference to religion though his response is in keeping with Buddhist thinking. Within these broad categories respondents reflect on different facets of the experience Wiesenthal describes and facets of their faith and life experiences and knowledge to make a response. The Jewish respondents point to the fact that only the person against whom a sin has been committed has the right to forgive the sinner. Therefore, Kurt cannot be forgiven; his victims are dead. The Christian respondents point out, first, that they feel they have no right to address the question because they have never been on the receiving end of genocide. Then they point out that God alone can forgive and that it is incumbent on each of us sinners to find forgiveness in our hearts for others. The Buddhists respond, as Buddhists do, in the present tense and with an eye on enlightenment--a release from suffering. Each perspective reflects a different concept of individuality and therefore of the nature of accountability. For this reader, The Sunflower accomplishes the important task of bringing the reader into the concentration camp alongside one of its victims, into the hospital room of the dying SS man, and into the heart of the questions the Holocaust raises about responsibility, accountability, forgiveness, restitution, and grace. These are questions that refuse pat answers and therefore remain alive and active in our minds. Wiesenthal's book challenges our ability to empathize with those who suffer and our ability to think about how and why we believe what we do about ourselves and each other. It is a humble and beautiful tribute to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. We too can honor their memory by participating in the conversation this book presents.

Our priest referenced this book in a recent sermon about the nature of forgiveness. He piqued my interest, so I bought the book. It begins with a remembrance of an unimaginable tragedy in the author’s life and recounts his continuing uncertainty about whether he should have forgiven an indirect agent of his abuse. It is a most important book on what is entailed in the act of forgiveness, and addresses the act by giving a series of short responses from a variety of people, some well known (the Dali Lama) some not (one of my former colleagues). I am giving it only 3 stars, because there are TOO many voices and their competing clamor drowns out the issue. Each reader should take the unspeakable horror of the author’s original anecdote as an opportunity to examine their soul and arrive at their own conclusion. According to the book, this volume is a revised version. The original book did not include all the many conflicting ideas from others who had no connection to the author’s experience. To me their many responses seemed like an academic attempt at cleverness to the very challenging question the author poses in the first 90 pages. Purchase it and skip the newer responses. Let it challenge you to confront your concept of forgiveness.

I bought this book for a book club, and have read it a second time within a year. The theme of forgiveness is something that merits further exploration, due to its ubiquitous existence in our lives. The experience Wiesenthal recounts is poignant, thought provoking and evokes myriad emotions. The writing is bold, yet the nuances of the tenderest small details are presented in a gentle and careful manner. This deeply personal story is told candidly with grace, examining the challenging notion of forgiveness for extreme actions. It leaves the reader's head and heart full of challenging thoughts and emotions, not shy about tugging at the heartstrings. The second part of the book consists of wonderful essays in response to the book by notable and highly regarded individuals. These essays challenge our own perspectives and sometimes our belief systems. I thoroughly appreciated these thoughtfully presented pieces and the plethora of things I learned while reading them. In all, this is an important book, a great read for a group discussion or book club. The message is essential food for thought. Enjoy!

Beautiful healing book

This book is not a summer read, it is too deep to be absorbed lightly but, I think it is an important book to read. Wiesenthal first relates his experience of being a prisoner in a concentration camp and having a dying Nazi soldier ask him for forgiveness for his crimes against the Jews. Wiesenthal then proposes the question, under the circumstances, "What would you have done?" What would I have done? That is an impossible question to answer.

While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing.

Can we possibly forgive everyone and for everything? This book is about answering that. I used to think that one can forgive but not forget. After reading this book, I am now asking myself if forgiveness is all that possible or easy. There are some wrongs that are hard to let go and be pushed aside as if nothing dramatic ever occur. forgiveness is a sensitive topic that needs lots of sensible debates to explain it.