In “The Sunflower” Simon Wiesenthal confronts the reader with a crisis that has been plaguing him since the 1940’s. Wiesenthal tells of a SS man who wants to escape his impending fate by putting the burden on a Simon who is part of the very group the SS man learned to hate. This SS man, Karl, is Simon’s dilemma. Wiesenthal proposes one question to his audience: Should he have forgiven Karl? Wiesenthal tells of a Karl, who is rapidly growing in maturity as well as independence due to his increasing knowledge and awareness of the world around him. This awareness comes from him joining the military and as a result further inflating his status in society making him a more favorable person. The knowledge and consciousness of his surroundings allow …show more content…
him to help enhance his nation and help his country reach their desired goal which altogether places him in an important and cherished place in society. At the same time, the fact that Karl is more knowledgeable and aware compared to the middle class society around him is the very factor that contributes to him becoming arrogant even though the knowledge he has is all purely propaganda making Karl a puppet to the Nazis.This arrogance takes a beating on his status as well as his relationships, which degrade him as a person and thus make him an individual of a lower status. Firstly, the reader can see that Karl is developing his knowledge and awareness of the real world around him.
This intensification or escalation in intellect enables Karl to further understand the things which were hidden to him before joining the military due to his rather closed off and immensely religious family. One can infer that since the very beginning of Karl’s life, his family and brought up was purely based upon religion as his parents did not want to dwell into the hectic and dangerous political life run by Hitler and his regime. Why Hitler’s regime was feared by so many is due to the fact that they did not support or tolerate any non-believers of their controversial system. Non believers were considered as those who did not think that Hitler’s actions and ways were necessarily correct or more truthfully, moral. Since Karl’s parents knew well enough of Hitler’s way of dealing with the impure and “hopeless cases” (Wiesenthal 28) they purposefully avoided any contact or connection with the “evil” (The Sunflower 266) political habits. However, Karl takes an independent decision to join the military and support his beloved nation. One would think that taking such vast measures and becoming a part of something so unknown at such a young age would destroy the individual due to their lack of experience. This factor of “experience” (Wiesenthal 74) means to already have a type of practical contact and observation of facts or events which in this case is the army, which Karl clearly lacks with no understanding or any insights on what so ever. But much to the contrary and quite ironically, Karl’s decision to join the military results in him being less dependant on his parents and the people older than him and in place making him self-reliant. Ultimately independence that comes with making crucial decisions leads to an increasing level of maturity bringing him a step closer to understanding his surroundings which all in all increase his status in society due to
his knowledge. This idea of understanding his surroundings is crucial to a person from the Fatherland as the ugly truth is hidden by a series of propaganda messages as well as beliefs. In Order for Karl to see past the distorted messages conveyed by the Nazis requires him to be independent, mature, and wise to make sense of ideas and connect them to the true reasons to why propaganda is being produced. Karl’s ever rapidly growing maturity, not only contributes to him becoming more aware, but also helps him with his activity in the military as well as contributing which yet again raises his place in his community. One example in which his maturity helps him in military related circumstances is when he applies or volunteers to be part of a more sophisticated and risky mission to help his country “progress” (Wiesenthal 66) and achieve their ultimate goals. His volunteering for a rather emotionally challenging mission helps him build a strong and important profile to the people in his community, therefore making people view him as a person with authority and importance resulting Karl being placed in a higher state in society. Going back to the goals of the military, which is the exorcising of the impure people, which are gypsies,homosexuals and most importantly jews, Karl is willing to put or give his all in order to achieve the so called utopia that Hitler demands and is highly adamant in attaining. The fact that Karl is ready to help or aid his country to achieve their goals once again places him in an important or high status in his community by showing that with his help the Nazis will achieve their “perfect” (Wiesenthal 22) idea of a society. These military progressions stimulate a passion towards helping his nation to advance and develop using his newly found confidence as well as his strong will thus create a model of an accomplished and determined individual which contain key factors which make a person admirable as well as significant. At the same time, the fact that Karl is more knowledgeable and of a higher status as well as his newly found fake knowledge is comparatively higher in Karl’s point of view to the middle class society around him is the very factor that contributes to him becoming arrogant even though the knowledge he has is all purely propaganda making Karl a puppet to the Nazis.This arrogance takes a beating on his status as well as his relationships, which degrade him as a person and ultimately make him an individual of a lower status. The reader can see that when Karl joins the military, he is completely under the spell cast by the initial propaganda that the he is brainwashed with. The reader can identify this by analysing his “parrot like words” (Wiesenthal 37) ingrained into his mind like a “memory” (Wiesenthal 266) by the cruel Nazi regime. Karl no longer is able to have his own opinions and peace mind due to him being so heavily influenced by the distortion conveyed by the Nazi regime. The things that they say about the jews make them sound like a powerful yet dangerous enemy when in reality they have “sickness, suffering and doom [as their] only companions” (Wiesenthal 27). Due to this Karl’s view of the Jews changes entirely from a group of people just like his own to “ [people] that want to [be a higher status] than [the Nazis]” (Wiesenthal 40). This propaganda leads Karl to participate in wrong actions such as harming the Jews for no appropriate reason. How this is affecting his relationship is by showing that he is no more than a puppet to a band of a inhumane group of people. These people in this case are the Nazis and mainly Hitler, which are making Karl do things that he normally would not have done prior to his extreme brainwashing. The reader can see from the very moment in which Karl decided to join the military against his parents wishes his father already had a sense or feeling that his son is being “taken away” (Wiesenthal 32). This idea of being taken away symbolises that Karl is going to lose himself as an individual and as a personality all due to the Nazi’s. Karl’s once humble ways are replaced with ego and arrogance because of a sense of power which is given by joining the military as well as taking part in risky decisions by harming those who are innocent and viewing it as a right thing to do or even helping his society progress. Karl thinks that by aiding his country to develop he is of more power and importance to those who do “simple things” (Wiesenthal 49) such as being a priest or a doctor. One can infer that the reason behind his way of assessing people of their social ranking is ultimately and purely based off of the false beliefs accumulated and conveyed by Hitler and his fellow believers. This is due to the fact that the brainwashing is highly convincing to not only those who are in the military, but even the everyday middle class citizens as the reader can clearly see through the descriptions given by Wiesenthal while marching towards the hospital. Ultimately at the time of his death, he comes to the realization of his sins and depends on a Jew in order to have a peaceful afterlife. Which quite ironically, is part of the same society he so badly discriminated without even giving a proper thought. Even when Karl is on his deathbed he is still arrogant towards the individual that he is depending on to escape from his sins. One example of his ego whilst he is going through deep pain is when he simply asks the nurse to “fetch a Jewish prisoner” (Wiesenthal 28). It did not matter who it was as Jews simply did not matter, and they were still regarded as just another group of cursed people in Karl’s view. This aspect of Karl shows utter selfishness as even though Karl knew that “people can never forgive murder, since the one person who can forgive is gone, forever” (The Sunflower 226). Karl feels the need to simply be forgiven of his partaking in killing and burning men, women, and even children in a small house as to him this still seems as if it is a right thing to do which is clearly shown through his arrogance towards the jews. By Karl telling Simon Wiesenthal of his unpardonable and foolish actions do not wash away his sins or create any form of sympathy towards Karl but rather make it another burden on Simon. This burden, although do for some odd reason contribute Simon to feel a need to be sympathetic towards the dying SS man, even though he has burned hundreds of his people without a hint of mercy nor remorse. This concept of remorse is supposed to come as a realization to karl as a sense of regret towards his prior action which he does falsely display while explaining his depressing story, although in reality he doesn’t feel a pinch of guilt as the people he killed were nothing compared to him which yet again shows his arrogance blind any glint of his humanity. This arrogance lowers his place in society like it did with his father who is no longer alive, but knows of his son’s atrocious actions, but this Karl does not see due to his ego and thinking that his father is less knowledgeable than himself and is clueless and is ultimately the reason his father views him as such. Karl’s new self which is filled with arrogance and no true personality is a whole other person from the Karl who is shown at the very beginning of Simon Wiesenthal’s story who was a humble and very much human character, but now is an egoistic and lost person due to his terrible actions and thus is viewed as a lower status person in his community.
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.
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.
The atrocities of war can take an “ordinary man” and turn him into a ruthless killer under the right circumstances. This is exactly what Browning argues happened to the “ordinary Germans” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the mass murders and deportations during the Final Solution in Poland. Browning argues that a superiority complex was instilled in the German soldiers because of the mass publications of Nazi propaganda and the ideological education provided to German soldiers, both of which were rooted in hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism. Browning provides proof of Nazi propaganda and first-hand witness accounts of commanders disobeying orders and excusing reservists from duties to convince the reader that many of the men contributing to the mass
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
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.
During this dark time in history, people like Miss. Breed from Dear Miss Breed took initial action on what she thought was right, and gave hope to Japanese Internment Camp children by supplying books and writing letters. What these heroes of the past have in common is that they took action for what they truly believe is right. The best way to respond to conflict is based on a person’s general judgment on what they think is right or wrong, this will show how they take action during conflict. In the story, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow, the thoughts of independence and judgement were shown by German student, Sophie Scholl.
middle of paper ... ... Works Cited “About Simon Wiesenthal.” – Simon Wiesenthal Center. N.p., n.d. Web.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.
Within the next few years, Wiesel’s simple Jewish life is snatched from his clutch and never seen again, the first crack in the glass of his fragile being. His humanity stripped from him and his mother and sister Tzipora taken, Wiesel becomes jaded and angered with his God. He became an “accuser, God the accused” (Wiesel 68), he could no longer think or speak of God without a question to follow it. One can feel powerful once he denounces his God. It is as if a veil is lifted and suddenly he can see.
When he killed his mother and her lover, he thought he was doing the right thing. Karl believed that if you have to sacrifice to do the right thing, then you should do it. Karl was locked away in a “nut house” for the next 25 years for rehabilitation and correction. After Karl’s release, he quickly made a new friend, Frank. The young boy accepted Karl without question because he seemed to be more childlike than a man.
In the memoir Night, the narrator Wiesel recounts a moment when he witnesses the most horrific actions done by men,”I pinched myself : Was I still alive ? Was I awake ? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent “ (Wiesel 32). Wiesel was thinking and questioning about his existence. While also caring for his father because that's all he has left. It's even more important because, what Wiesel experiences in camps has been near death and fight for survival. Two significant themes related to inhumanity discussed in the book Night by Wiesel are, loss in religious faith and father and son bonding.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
The Forgotten Soldier is not a book concerning the tactics and strategy of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Nor does it analyze Nazi ideology and philosophy. Instead, it describes the life of a typical teenage German soldier on the Eastern Front. And through this examined life, the reader receives a first hand account of the atrocious nature of war. Sajer's book portrays the reality of combat in relation to the human physical, psychological, and physiological condition.
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.