Simon, The Sunflower: On The Possibilities And Limits Of Forgiven

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Wiesenthal, Simon, the Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness
Synopsis and book setting
The story is a about a dying SS officer who asks for a Jew in his last moments so he can seek redemption. Simon Wiesenthal was called and he decided to become silent when the apology was delivered to him as the representative of his people. Some comment on the perpetuation of the crime through the ambiguous apology of the SS man. The reason why Simon did not comment was partly because of the offense that was caused considering the officer meant there was no individuality for the Jew and therefore any Jew would have sufficed for the entire apology.
Simon was taken from Lemberg concentration camp. He was asked to attend the bedside of a dying Nazi in 1943 (Wiesenthal, 1998). The officer after confessing to a horrific crime against the Jews seeks Wiesenthal’s forgiveness. According to the text, Simon is deeply disturbed by the request and turns the request back t his fellow victims. In one of the passages at the end of book one, …show more content…

Analysis and explanation of Wiesenthal’s actions
When Simon was asked to forgive the SS officer, he blankly looked at the man, stood up, and left. One of the main problems that he faced is he definitely was not able to absolve the man of the crimes considering he could not speak for his entire people. Wiesenthal did not have authority to absolve the actions of those who were responsible for the holocaust nor did he want to in the first place. Different people have different ideologies about the way that one can accept forgiveness. Literature from the Jewish culture has a lot to say about this and understandably so. For one, it is clear they thought little about verbal apologies from the Nazis for the atrocities they had committed in the

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