Forgiveness is a long process that one must go through in order to come to the right decision. People have different perspectives on different situations where some may forgive and other may not forgive. While reading Simon Wiesenthal's experience in his novel The Sunflower, it makes you really question what the limits are in order to forgive a person. For one to make a decision, one must know the factors that have contributed to their own case. Simon's case involves dealing with many difficulties that influence his answer in silence. Simon Wiesenthal walked away in silence after being told a Nazi solder's story about the entirety of his life. Silence isn't necessarily a bad thing; Simon listened to the SS man named Karl and was told what ever truth Karl wanted to share. This story seemed sincere due to his lack of time and "when one is face to face with death one doesn't lie" (82). And his honest confession allowed himself to know someone heard it, someone was there to witness his truthful thoughts about his mistakes as a human. Humans make mistakes, it's part of our …show more content…
I believe that Karl could have had better timing in terms of confessing his sins, but I guess it's better late than never. It sounds suspicious to why he was so eager to apologize to a Jewish man at the very last possible moment, which it makes it sound not so sincere. It makes one think if he would have confessed if nothing tragic happened to him, or if he would just continue to kill otherwise. If this lies the truth, Karl could have been trying to find a way to forgive his actions in order to make peace with himself and have a good afterlife. Under these circumstances, I do believe at some extent Simon shouldn't have forgiven him, but still stand with my original conscious where Karl should have been granted
The author of my essay is Simon Balic and he is a historian and culturologist. The title of the work is, Sunflower Symposium (109-111). Balic wrote this essay thirty years after The Sunflower was written. Balic argues that he does not forgive the sufferer, although he does feel some remorse. The author supports and develops the thesis in a chronological order in order to take the reader through exactly what was seen, heard, and thought of during this time. Both Weisenthal and Balic had a liable reason to not forgive the soldier, “There are crimes whose enormity cannot be measured. Rectifying a misdeed is a matter to be settled between the perpetrator and the victim” (Wiesenthal 54). Through this, Balic was trying to speak to his audience of fellow historians.
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.
The Art of Forgiveness Most runaway youth are homeless because of neglect, abuse and violence, not because of choice. Lily Owens is the protagonist in the novel, Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk. Kidd, is no different. Lily is a fourteen year old girl still grieving over her mother's death. T. Ray, a man who has never been able to live up to the title of a father, due to years of abuse, has not made it any easier.
Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness spoke to me about the question of forgiveness and repentance. Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He experienced many brutal and uneasy experiences that no human being should experience in their lifetime and bear to live with it. Death, suffering, and despair were common to Simon Wiesenthal that he questioned his own religious faith because he asks why would his God allow the Holocaust happen to his people to be slaughter and not do anything to save them. During Simon Wiesenthal time as a Jewish Holocaust, Simon was invited to a military hospital where a dying Nazi SS officer wanted to have a conversation. The Nazi SS officer told Simon his story of his life and confesses to Simon of his horrific war crimes. Ultimately, the SS officer wanted forgiveness for what he done to Simon’s Jewish people. Simon Wiesenthal could not respond to his request, because he did not know what to do with a war criminal that participate in mass genocide to Simon’s people. Simon Wiesenthal lives throughout his life on asking the same crucial question, “What would I have done?” (Wiesenthal 98). If the readers would be on the exact situation as Simon was
A person can never be too far beyond forgiveness. Everybody makes mistakes in life and deserves another chance to do what is right. When Rake’s players were with him on the team, they hated him at some point and were miserable with him coaching. He treated his players like dirt to make them the best that they could be. The players did not realize it then and hated him for it. After their glory days were long gone, Rake’s drive and cruelty had a reason that they could finally see. Many times Rake crossed the line with his practicing techniques and pushed his athletes to the edge. In John Grisham’s Bleachers, Rake’s players all forgave him at the funeral when they had their sense of closure. Forgiveness is the hardest thing that one may face
As strong, independent, self-driven individuals, it is not surprising that Chris McCandless and Lily Owens constantly clashed with their parents. In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, Chris was a twenty-four-year-old man that decided to escape the materialistic world of his time for a life based on the simplistic beauty of nature. He graduated at the top of his class at Emory University and grew up in affluent Annandale, Virginia, during the early 1980’s. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily was a fourteen-year-old girl who grew up in the 1960’s, a time when racial equality was a struggle. She had an intense desire to learn about her deceased mother. Her nanny, Rosaleen, with whom she grew very close over the years, raised Lily with little help from her abusive father. When her father failed to help Rosaleen after three white men hospitalized her, Lily was hysterical. Later, Lily decided to break Rosaleen out of the hospital and leave town for good. While there are differences between Chris McCandless and Lily Owens, they share striking similarities. Chris McCandless’ and Lily Owens’s inconsistencies of forgiveness with their parents resulted in damaged relationships and an escape into the unknown.
Forgiveness is not an action that should be taken for granted. Nor should it be easily accepted without a second thought. It was strong of Simon to refuse to give Karl an answer to his request. “Possibly, there are circumstances in which forgiving is a temptation, a promise of relief that might be morally dubious. Indeed, the refusal to forgive may represent the more demanding moral accomplishment” (Brudholm 2). Simon did not give into the temptation to give a dying man the easy answer he sought and say that he forgave him without thinking it over. Karl assumed that he would be forgiven, even though he did not express much remorse about what he had done. Because he did not automatically tell Karl that he forgave him, Simon never had ...
The position to choose between forgiving one’s evil oppressor and letting him die in unrest is unlike any other. The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal explores the possibilities and limitations of forgiveness through the story of one Jew in Nazi Germany. In the book, Wiesenthal details his life in the concentration camp, and the particular circumstance in which a dying Nazi asks him for forgiveness for all the heinous acts committed against Jews while under the Nazi regime. Wiesenthal responds to this request by leaving the room without giving forgiveness. The story closes with Wiesenthal posing the question, “What would you have done?” Had I been put in the position that Wiesenthal was in, I would ultimately choose to forgive the Nazi on the basis
The essay "Forgiveness," written by June Callwood, explores the concept of forgiving and how it influences people's lives for the better. Her work describes many components of forgiveness, such as how difficult it can be to come to terms with, why it is such a crucial part of humanity, and how it affects all people. Her essay aims to prove that forgiveness is the key to living peacefully and explains specific examples of people who have encountered extremely difficult situations in their lives- all of whom found it within themselves to forgive. To clearly portray this message in her writing, Callwood uses several strategies. She includes fear inducing statistics, makes many references to famous events and leaders, and uses a serious convincing tone, all of which are very effective.
In Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower on the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness the author is asked to fulfill a dying solider last wish to forgive him because of the crimes he has committed against the Jewish people of the Holocaust. When Wiesenthal is asked for forgiveness, he simply leaves the room. Wiesenthal states that the encounter with the dying man left “a heavy burden” (Wiesenthal 55) on him. The confessions in which he admitted to have “profoundly disturbed [him]” (Wiesenthal 55). As Wiesenthal tries to make sense of what he has encountered he begins to make excuses for why the man might have done what he did. He say...
The truth is, he took a vow of silence about what had happened in the concentration camps. Actually, he had not spoken about it for ten years (Elie Wiesel Biography). Maybe not talking made it easier to not think about the horror. People tend to not talk about what they want to forget. Then, for those who believe in fate, Elie Wiesel was scheduled to interview Francois Mauriac. According to the forward written by Francois Mauriac in Night, their conversation went from work to personal. Mr. Mauriac was expressing how horrible it must have been for the Jews crammed in the cattle cars, and Elie Wiesel decided to break his silence and said, “I was one of them.” As a result of this conversation, Mr. Mauriac convinced Mr. Wiesel that his story was important and needed to be told, “he could put a face to the suffering of the Holocaust”. (The Life and Work of Wiesel). During a lecture upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize he reminded everyone that while they were prisoners, they were stripped of everything human. As a result, they lived in a complete void. They were constantly told to forget everything, forget where they came from, and to forget who they were. Mr. Wiesel described how the memory protects its wounds by trying to forget painful events. More importantly, Elie Wiesel stated that, “For us, forgetting was never an option.” Those that survived felt that they needed to document what they had witnessed.
“I am obsessed with silence because of the silence of the world. I do not understand why the world was silent when we needed its outcry. I always come back to that problem. Where were the humanists, the leaders, the liberals, the spokesmen for mankind? The victims needed them. If they had spoken up, the slaughtered would not have succeeded in his task.” - Elie Wiesel
While reading “The Sunflower,” by Simon Wiesenthal, I had many mixed emotions and reactions to his story as would many other readers. One of the most reoccurring thoughts that I would have is to feel truly sorry for Simon. In Simon’s story, he tells us how he was a randomly picked Jew and heard a dying Nazi soldier named Karl confess his sins to him. After the confession of the soldier, Karl asked Simon for forgiveness for his wrongdoing to the Jews and any other sins he may have had. Simon had forgiven him, but many other Jews seemed to disagree with Simon’s call on whether or not Karl should have received forgiveness. I for one would have forgiven him also. I do realize that I really do not have in a say in this or not, but there are many
Simon Wiesenthal life and legends were extraordinary, he has expired people in many ways and was an iconic figure in modern Jewish history. Szyman Wiesenthal (was his real named and later named Simon) was born on December 31 in Buczacz, Galicia (which is now a part of Ukraine) in 1908. When Wiesenthal's father was killed in World War I, Mrs. Wiesenthal took her family to Vienna for a brief period, returning to Buczacz when she remarried. The young Wiesenthal graduated from the Humanistic Gymnasium (a high school) in 1928 and applied for admission to the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov. Turned away because of quota restrictions on Jewish students, he went instead to the Technical University
Simon was just a random kid who was grabbed from the street and was put in a room to listen to a man. Simon’s tone throughout the interaction was very opposed to being in the guy’s presence. Simon even said that at points he wanted to leave but Karl kept saying to stay with him. Karl just wanted to say what he had to and then Simon could leave. Asking a stranger, the question of forgiveness shows that Karl wants an answer for his conscience.