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The importance of forgiveness Essay
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The importance of forgiveness Essay
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Sunflower Reflection The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal shares many valuable lessons about life. Along with these lessons it gives the perspective of a holocaust survivor. The main idea throughout the book is the concept of forgiveness. Given that the author, Simon, is a Jew trapped in a German work camp is put in a unique situation when a SS officer asks him for forgiveness. This leads to the moral question of whether he should be given forgiveness for his actions and why this story has been written. While reading the story of what Simon had to endure and the story that troubled his conscience for the rest of his life makes the reader stand in his shoes. The most significant part of the book is after the entire story is told and the reader …show more content…
is asked the question, “What would I have done” on page 98. After all that he has been through it is easy to understand why he would not forgive the soldier. Simon had given up all hope that God would save them all when he says that God is on vacation during these troubled times. This lack of faith could have been what deterred Simon from his Jewish faith which teaches to forgive. The piece at the end of the book that truly challenged my thinking of the situation was on page 129 with The Dalai Lama.
He opens the piece by telling the reader that we should forgive each other, however we should never forget the crimes that have been committed. Even though The Dalai Lama may not have know what was going on in the situation he still feels that no crime should go unforgiven. After telling the story of the Chinese invasion of Tibet and how they were treated terribly his forgiveness policy never swayed. At the end of the passage he describes the life of a Tibetan monk who had served nearly two decades in a prison. Even after all that he had been through, he described that when asked how he felt towards the Chinese he felt …show more content…
compassion. When asked the same question as Simon, my first thought is to forgive because I have been raised with the idea of forgiveness similar to The Dalai Lama. However, it is easy for me to say this because I am not in a similar situation. Thinking back in my life to times when people hurt me, it always took me time to reflect the situation and then forgive them. Although I would have forgiven him it would have been after some time had passed. The guilt that I would feel would be similar to Simon’s and eventually lead myself to forgive him. This does not mean that I would forget though. The saying “Fool me once shame on you, but fool me twice shame on me.” holds true in this situation. In the world that we live people will always be hurting other people, it is just the way people act. If we forgive them then we can move on with our lives, however if we forget what they have done to us then we will continue to be hurt and bad things could happen that would cause future conflicts. Many of the other authors said that they would never forgive him because of the way he acted before he was hurt and because he asked for any Jew the nurse could find.
They felt that he was being inconsiderate to the race that he wished would forgive him. Although I agree he should not have said this in way I do not feel he was trying to be inconsiderate. If you do not know someone’s name then how can you ask for them personally? All he wanted to do was have a last confession with someone who would listen to him and many of the authors still considered this as a way of saying he was superior to the Jews. When we die it does not matter who is superior because we are all equal in the end. People will always think that they are better than others but really we are all blessed with unique traits and blessed lives. There is a quote by Camille Pissarro that reads, “Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.” Even the people who are not blessed with wealth and good fortune are blessed with the understand that living each day is a gift and nobody knows how long it will be until that gift is taken away from them. This is why we are all equal in the end the only difference between people is how they view different situations in their
lives. In conclusion, Simon is faced with a difficult situation. He reacted in a way that he thought was necessary but that still wasn’t enough to clear his conscience, so he asks what the reader would do in his situation. Many of the authors in the back of the book would refuse forgiving Karl for the things that he has done. They felt that he was still treating Simon as though he was superior and not as he should have. However, The Dalai Lama feels as though he should be forgiven even under these circumstances. After reading many of these passages I morally agree with The Dalai Lama. I feel that yes, Karl had done things he should not have done but was trying to make up for his mistakes. Everyone should at least be given a chance at forgiveness. If we were in Karl’s situation we would do the same thing in asking for forgiveness. So we should forgive him for his actions but at the same time never forget what he has done.
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.
He questioned his own religious faith because he asked why would his God allow the Holocaust to happen to his people to be slaughtered and not do anything to save them. During Simon Wiesenthal's time in the 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 the story of his life and confessed to Simon of his horrific war crimes. Ultimately, the SS officer wanted forgiveness for what he did 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 participated in mass genocide against Simon’s people.
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
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 Thomas Brudholm, Charles Griswold, and Trudy Govier. The possibly raised objection, for this particular modified situation, of forgiveness being necessary to move on from Desmond Tutu will be countered with the logic of needing to eventually find an end somewhere.
Thank you Mr. Wiesenthal for letting me be able to read and respond to your book The Sunflower. The Sunflower has showed me how ruthless it was for Jewish people in the Holocaust. In your book Karl, an SS solider, tries to get your forgiveness for the wrong he has done to the Jewish population. For a person to ask for forgiveness means that they have realized that they have done wrong and want to repent for their mistakes. The big question in your book was “What would you do?” I would’ve done exactly what you did I wouldn’t have granted the solider my forgiveness because he didn’t deserve it.
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 Dalai Lama” in The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. New York:
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is a memoir about his time as a Jewish child in multiple ghettos and death camps in and around Germany during World War II. The author shares about his reunions with family and acquaintances from the war in the years between then and now. Buergenthal wished to share his Holocaust story for a number of reasons: to prevent himself from just being another number, to contribute to history, to show the power and necessity of forgiveness, the will to not give up, and to question how people change in war allowing them to do unspeakable things. The memoir is not a cry for private attention, but a call to break the cycle of hatred and violence to end mass crimes.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed…“(Wiesel 32) Livia-Bitton Jackson wrote a novel based on her personal experience, I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Elli was a Holocaust victim and her only companion was her mother. Together they fought for hunger, mistreatment and more. By examining the themes carefully, the audience could comprehend how the author had a purpose when she wrote this novel. In addition, by seeing each theme, the audience could see what the author was attacking, and why. By illustrating a sense of the plight of millions of Holocaust victims, Livia-Bitton Jackson explores the powerful themes of one’s will to survive, faith, and racism.
Although our past is a part of who we are nowadays, we will never be happy if we can never let go of the painful feeling attached to our suffering. In addition, “suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us” (Wiesel 96). We should not be afraid to let go of our haunting past and grow closer to others because “man carries his fiercest enemy within himself. Hell isn’t others. It’s ourselves” (Wiesel 15). The wise advice this book gives its audience is one reason it won a Nobel Peace Prize. The books are also part of a very famous Holocaust trilogy, which is one reason it has been so widely read. In addition, it blends everyday stories with Holocaust stories.Therefore, readers are very compassionate towards the narrator and readers create a bond with this character due to his hardships and the similarities he shares with us. Lastly, Day speaks to the needs of the human spirit by intertwining a love story. Readers wonder if his girlfriend will change his attitude towards life because he tells the doctor, “I love Kathleen. I love her with all my heart. And how can one love if at the same time one doesn’t care about life” (Wiesel
Both Night and The Sunflower are works which must be spread to society as a whole. Night and The Sunflower must be read and comprehended because they provide lessons for the current society to utilize. Night and The Sunflower provide for society, a moving, descriptive, first-hand account of the inhumanity and atrocities committed during the Holocaust. The guiltlessness of the Jews allowed the German Nazis to decimate any trace of the culture. A better understanding of the causes, events, and results of the Holocaust allows society as a whole to discourage such genocides. Comprehending these two works will allow the current society to prevent such atrocities. Another Holocaust must never emanate again; spreading the works of Elie Wiesel’s Night and Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower will aid in the cause.
Any great novel seeks to explore human nature, our morality, our trust in each other, the delicate inner workings of our societies. A classic that does more than explore the ways of our world, it exposes them, down to the nitty-gritty bare bones. These books force us to look at the world around us and truly see everything that is happening around us, not just the outer layers.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The Symposium is the second part of the novel The Sunflower and is a collection of responses to the question Wiesenthal poses as a result of his real life experience. He interviewed fifty-three men and women to respond to what they would have done if they were in the same situation he was put through on that life-altering day. The first response to Wiesenthal’s question I found intriguing and chose to discuss was that of Alan L. Berger, who is the Raddock Eminent Scholar and Chairman of Holocaust Studies at Florida Atlantic University (Wiesenthal, 118). The second response I found interesting and chose to talk about was the Dalai Lama’s, who is the spiritual leader of the Buddhists (Wiesenthal, 129). Both of these responses were the ones I
I believe that there are many important events that tie to the main plot of the book, but there are definitely some that stick out more than others. One of the important events that occured was when Charlie woke up in a chair. Beside that chair was torture items. Charlie was terrified, and he had just heard someone order to kill him outside of the door. This is when Charlie proceeded to escape by knocking out two