The Sunflower (book)

The Sunflower is a book on the Holocaust by Simon Wiesenthal re-tracing his steps to a personal question of forgiveness. The book recounts Wiesenthal's experience in the Lemberg concentration camp and discusses the moral ethics of the matter. The title comes from Wiesenthal's observation of a German military cemetery, seeing a sunflower on each grave, and fearing his own placement in an un-marked, mass grave.The book's second half is a Symposium of answers from various people, including Holocaust survivors and former Nazis. The book was originally published in France.

Dilemma

At the Lemberg Concentration Camp in 1943, Wiesenthal is summoned to the bed-side of the dying Nazi soldier Karl Seidl. The soldier tells him he is seeking "a Jew's" (Wiesenthal's) forgiveness for a crime that has haunted him (Seidl) his entire life. The man confesses to him having destroyed, by fire and armaments, a house full of 150 Jews. He also states that as the Jews tried to leap out of windows to escape the burning building, he gunned them down. Wiesenthal was so troubled he simply walked out of the hospital room silently. Later, he re-counted the tale to other prisoners in the camp and asked them if he was justified in his silence, getting varied responses.

Responses

In the current edition of the book, there are 53 responses given from various people, up from 10 in the original edition.[1] Among respondents to the question are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Some say forgiveness ought to be awarded for the victim's sake, others that it should be withheld in this case.

References

• Book Review
• Book Review