The Sunflower free essay sample

A fact which we all have to emit is that humanity existence always creates conflicts and fighting which we call WAR. In war, people kill each others for many reasons - resources, personal benefits, territories, powers, revenge, etc. In war, one becomes a hero for killing human lives and eventually he gets honored and well-known in peoples heart. The Holocaust, according to Germans, was the war between Germans and Jews. Approximately six million Jews included 960,000 innocent children died during Hitlers regime called Nazism. Unlike the hero(s) whom people honor, the Holocaust was a hideous crime and the participants were bloody murderers. Today people are taught about the Holocaust and learn how to avoid it. Many books written about the Holocaust have published and people read and respond. Written by Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, The Sunflower has challenged many readers throughout the world about human responsibility, compassion, and justice with the question about forgiveness, You are a prisoner in a concentration camp. We will write a custom essay sample on The Sunflower or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness. What would you do? I have thought about the question and seek for the answer for a long time. Finally I find myself in the position that compassion is more important than justice under such a circumstance. I would forgive the dying SS soldier because I feel like nothing is more important than his repentance. There are two other major factors that help me to decide to forgive the dying SS soldier which are peer pressure and his naiveness. I am just a normal person who does not believe in any superhuman being. However I have learned about different religions and they share the same common lesson about compassionmercy is sometimes more important than justice. They forgive sinners who genuinely repent. I would forgive Karl because he finally showed repentance before he died. In our religion repentance is the most important element in seeking forgivenessAnd he certainly repented said priest Bolek to Simon Wiesenthal (The Sunflower 83). Karl was a good person; he was not born a murderer. According to his mom, he was always a good man who never done anything wrong. And that was basically what Karl said before his deathI was not born a murderer (The Sunflower 31). Facing the death, a person would never tell a lie because there is nothing to lie about and there is no need to lie. Karl recognized his crime while he was in hospital and he knew that he was guilty. His dilemma comes not only because the dying SS man asks for forgiveness, but also because he genuinely seems to recognize his crime and guilt. This recognition, if nothing else, is an important first step. says Sven Alkalaj (The Sunflower 103). Everyone makes mistake but not all recognizes his/her guilt. For me, Karl is deserved to be forgiven because he makes mistake and he repents (for some people Karls mistake was unforgivable). Simon Wiesenthal did not full believe that the dying soldier was confessing. Was he better than othersor did the voices of SS men change when they were dying? he wondered. As I mentioned earlier, a dying person can only tell the true and Karl was truely confessing as he said Look, those Jews died quickly, they did not suffer as I dothough they were not as guilty as I am. Karl believed that God was punishing him because he was so much guilty. That was why GOD did not let him die (as quick as the Jews) but made him suffered. Simon Wiesenthal left the room without saying a single word because part of his heart was not certain how to answer the dying SS man. I sense that Mr. Wiesenthals silence meant to forgive Karl. Cardinal Franz Konig, a responder in The Sunflower, also states, Even though you went away without formally uttering a word of forgiveness, the dying man somehow felt accepted from you; otherwise he would not have bequeathed you his personal belongings. Mr. Wiesenthals compassion wanted to forgive the dying man but he thought he didnt have the right to grant forgiveness in the name of other dead Jews. In other words if Karl wanted to be forgiven, he then must ask the Jews, who were killed, for absolution. But who was to forgive him? I? Nobody had empowered me to do soI have no power to forgive him in the name of other people said Mr. Wiesenthal (The Sunflower 82). However, Karl seemed like treating Mr. Wiesenthal as a representative of Jews. He wished forgiveness from a member of Jews community and thats enough for him to leave the world in peace. Those Jews who were killed would not be able to answer Karl. So it must depend on people who are still alive to grant forgiveness for Karl. Death is the end; a murderer is human. Let me forgive the dying repented soldier so he could rest in peace. Karl voluntarily joined the Hitler Youth because he was naive and lack of life experience so that he was convinced by false information provided by the Nazis easily. Karl joined the Hitler Youth when he was twenty one years old. Before that he did not care much about the world around him. As he mentioned, Otherwise all I knew about the Jews was what came out of the loudspeaker or what was given us to read. We were told they were the cause of all our misfortunesThey were trying to get on top of us, they were the cause of war, poverty, hunger, unemployment (The Sunflower 40). Radio news, propagandas, newspapers provided false information about the Jews so that the Germans will treat the Jews badly because they all believed that Jewish success was the reason why Germany went down. It was Karls fault to join the Hitler Youth and became a murderer. People also blame him because he did what he knew was wrong. Yet he was just a young soldier without knowledge about the Jews; and a soldier must follow the orders. Let people blame the leaders instead of the soldiers who did not even have the right to refuse orders. Eventually Karl confessed with the images of the mother and the father jumped out with their child from a building which was set on fire. Again confession should deserve absolution. Peer pressure is another important element that brought Karl into Nazi regime. Karl was young high spirit and wanted to be part of the country, so he simply joined the army with his friends and other youths. Actually Karl was force do to something that he didnt want to do. The Platoon leader and his comrades had the tendency to know what they should do, and Karl should do what they were doing. You and your sensitive feelings! Men, you cannot go on like this. One must be hard! They are not our people. The Jew is not a human being! The Jews are the cause of all our misfortunes! And when you shoot one of them it is not the same thing as shooting one of usits doesnt matter whether it is a man, woman, or child, they are different from us. Without question one must get rid of them. If we had been soft we should still be other peoples slaves,(The Sunflower 49) There was no way for Karl and his comrades go against the orders. Some might force themselves to believe what the leader said because these soldiers are patriot to their country. They just did what the leader said without knowing that they were used as tools for killing. Naiveness and peer pressure can be forgiven because. Let think in other way that Karl was also a victim of Adoft Hitler when he became a murderer because it was not what he wanted to do in the Nazi. In other words, Karl and other soldiers were trapped to become soldiers. Most of them were brainwashed. Many people blame Karl for keeping being a murderer, didnt stop the crime. It was too late for him to quit by the time he knew what he was forced to do. He already joined the army and even his life or his parents lives might be threatened if he did not obey the orders. Karl did not think cleverly because of his naiveness and he chose a wrong way to go with other Germans youths even though he didnt want to go. Those leaders were actually true murderers. People should blame these leaders but not soldiers. Dith Pran was a survivor in the Cambodian Holocaust. He related the Cambodian Holocaust as same as the Germany Holocaust. I could never forgive and forget what the top leaderships of the Khmer Rouge had done to me, my family, or friendsI blame the dozen leaders, the brains behind a sadistic plot, who orders the death of millions of people, including the disabled, children, religious people, the educated, and anyone who they thought was a threat to their ideasPulling away from the Khmer Rouge leadership, I can forgive the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge, those who actually did the killing, although I can never forget what they did. Placed in Simon Wiesenthals position, I would have forgiven the soldier. Dith Pran explained that the soldiers were taught to kill. Most of them were uneducated or poor. They were brainwashed. Their lives, even their families lives, would be in danger if they didnt follow the orders. They were forced to kill (The Sunflower 230). The sunflowers grew on graves of those SS murderers were symbol of forgiveness. Each sunflower heads up toward the sun represented the SS soldier seeking for a brighter future (maybe the future in Karls). Forgiveness is the willingness to overcome the past and accept confession to show mercy. I think the key to forgiveness is understanding. said Dith Pran (The Sunflower 232). Forgiveness comes from peoples heart, from the compassion. It doesnt mean to forget because if people forget the atrocities, it might happen again in the future. The Dalai Lama also stated that people should forgive the person who committed the crime but dont forget about it. The dying SS soldier in The Sunflower was deserved to forgive because he genuinely repented. It is not quite right to blame him for his action because he was young, naive, and he was under peer pressure. He finally paid for his action. Newtons third law states that for every exerted force, there is always an equal reaction force. Let me rel ate this law to the fact that Karl killed Jews (exerted force) and he eventually died in his young age (reaction). People should open their heart to accept Karls repentance and give him a chance to make up in his other world. Let the compassion remains forever. Word Cited The Sunflower free essay sample A novel is formed and influenced by the way in which it is written. In The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, the structure of the novel dictates the way in which we process our thoughts and emotions about the novel and helps us to better understand the complexities in the novel by having multiple ‘voices’ explain the various aspects of the novel to us from various points of view. In the first part of the novel, we have the story about Simon Wiesenthal’s journey through the Holocaust and after that we have the symposium, a collection of entries by acclaimed people around the world who give their input on the novel and how they view the issues and moral dilemmas which are faced in the novel. This structure and point of view helps us to better understand the novel in terms of what Simon Wiesenthal believes about forgiveness, the views of three others in the symposium and how they help us to make an informed decision about forgiveness. We will write a custom essay sample on The Sunflower or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The first part of the novel is the story of what Simon Wiesenthal went through in the Holocaust and builds us up to the point at which the Nazi, Karl, asks him for forgiveness, at which point we can make our decision about what he could have or should have done in this situation. As it is in his point of view, we could see this as having bias on the novel, but it also helps us to better understand the context of the novel. The context helps us to make an informed decision about forgiveness. As Simon Wiesenthal explains, he was moved around from place to place, and while having to deal with the physical labour of what he would go through day-to-day with sheer amount of work that is required at a work camp as well as having to deal with the psychological and mental burden of the situation he was in. He would often listen to his campmates who would talk about their dire situation such as when he felt that everyone had lost hope as he said â€Å"but I knew that he would not go, he too had lost all feeling for death† when he asked a doctor to look at a dying prisoner, but the doctor would not go and he lost hope for himself and for everybody in his situation because he showed that everyone was immune to death and thus were not afraid of it and wouldn’t feel bad if they succumbed, because they felt that they were in such a tragic position, as shown by his thoughts about a doctor not helping som eone because he thought that it was hopeless. This illustrates the dark theme and context of the novel as it is shown to set up a scene of hopelessness and this relates to his attitude towards forgiveness in the novel. He purposefully displays his  apathy towards giving a pardon towards the Nazi soldier as he is called over to supposedly give him his last wish. This is shown by him saying that â€Å"Of course it is soon to die I thought, but did the Nazis ask whether our children whom they were about to gas had ever had anything out of their life?† He displays his attitudes towards absolving the Nazi as he questions whether or not remorse was ever shown both ways and not just in this situation, which ultimately lays an undertone for his response, which was to say neither sorry, nor I can’t apologise to you, as he both feels he cannot say sorry, as for the aforementioned quote and that because of his situation in that he was dying he felt that he couldn’t not apologise. The introduction and first part of the novel provide us with the setting and context of the novel, as it is a hopeless time for people like Simon Wiesenthal and for him, he is questioning his existence as well as the right for him to absolve a person whose comrades would not have thought twice about killing an innocent person. This predicament is explained by entries in the symposium, the second part of the novel. The three entries into the symposium that help us to make decisions about the novel, among others, are The Dalai Lama, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Primo Levi. The Dalai Lama believes that one should forgive the person or persons who have committed atrocities against oneself and mankind. He believes that we should forgive but not forget. He also relates an example of his experiences that are almost perfectly relatable and comparable to Simon Wiesenthal’s story and experience. I think it has value, especially not-forgiving part, but the fact that the experiences correlate, we appreciate his contribution more. I would ask if there were any limits to this and what he would do if he knew someone was unforgiving. This point of view is about forgiving and not forgetting and suggests that everyone should be absolved of their crimes. Abraham Joshua Heschel’s views are almost aligned with mine as I feel that forgiveness can only be between the perpetrator and the victim. This has value because it is like Simon Wiesenthal’s case, in that he tells a story of a salesperson who offends a common man, who turns out to be a rabbi, so when the man asks for forgiveness, the Rabbi tells him to apologise to a common man and not him because he only offended a common man. In summary of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s point, he says â€Å"No one can forgive crimes committed against other people. It is therefore preposterous to assume that anybody  alive can ext end forgiveness for the suffering of any one of the six million people who perished.† Abraham Joshua Heschel views forgiveness as something that cannot be given when the necessary parties are not present. Primo Levi says that an act of violence is forever irreparable and that the Nazi soldier, Karl, probably only asked for forgiveness due to his impending death and not out of his heart. This therefore raises the question of the Nazi soldier’s credibility and Levi says that Wiesenthal would have been wrong to forgive a man whose apology was insincere. I agree because I think that Karl was taking advantage of his situation, and we will never know whether it was just to clear his existential conscience or actually because it questions the Nazi’s motives for asking for forgiveness. It is a question of whether or not he meant the apology or just to have peace of mind when the opportunity presented itself as he could give the order for a Jewish person could be given to him in order to facilitate an apology. Primo Levi asks if there was actually a basis of whether or not forgiveness was warranted and how the apology would have been misguided if it was given to an insincere person. Although these three symposium contributions appear to not directly contradict each other, they do entice thought that is not just on one level, but appeal to questioning the affect and effect of an apology. While the Dalai Lama says that you should forgive and not forget, whereas Abraham J. Heschel argued that only certain people can be in an apology, and Primo Levi asks if an apology should have ever been given, they all give arguments to different specific moral questions in the text. They argue whether or not an apology was or wasn’t needed, the purpose of the said apology and how the apology could have been conveyed in a logical and moral manner. This of course does not give a succinct answer but rather a range of answers in which we can take away points from the arguments that we like and disregard other views that we see as irrelevant or immoral. The symposium helps us to gain a better understanding of the issue by presenting different subthemes all under the umbrella of forgiveness. We have gone from getting the sole point of view of Simon Wiesenthal to the many views of the symposium which allows us to understand the story with the thought-provoking entries that are provided. It is with this that the structure is important to the novel as it follows the introduction which sets up the story and helps the reader make an informed view of the book while in first-person,  and the symposium introduces new people to give their input, which is shown above with the various arguments towards the same issue, but in different ways, which enables you to gain a clearer understanding of the text. Now that the first and second sections of the novel have enabled us to see how to make an informed decision about Simon Wiesenthal’s response and our hypothetical response if we were in that situation, which is based on both the context of his situation and the importance of the situation. It has been shown above that simply having one part of the novel, either the first or the second is not complete without the other, as they both help us to understand the novel, with the context and attitudes of the times allowing us to empathise with Simon Wiesenthal in the first section and the varied knowledge and point of views of the symposium helping us to dissect specific moral judgements of the situation and together help us to make a decision of the importance and the limitations of forgiveness. By the fact that we have 53 different points of views in the symposium, we can hone in on our exact sentiment and feelings towards the issue facing Simon in a precise and logical manner. The book is structured in a way that at first we empathise with Simon and try to gain a better understanding of his situation and then we analyse the responses objectively of many scholars and academics which helps us to make an informed decision about the limits of forgiveness. The beauty of this enables us to establish that events like this are not limited to the past as explained by the Dalai Lama as he talks about genocide in Tibet. The parallel of his experiences to Simon’s reinforces some points such as not forgetting about what has happened, but also makes us think about whether or not Simon Wiesenthal should have forgiven the soldier as the Dalai Lama forgive his captors and oppressors, which only occurs because the stories are similar and they allow for interesting and thought provoking reading. The point of view of the novel enables us to first get the view and thoughts of Simon Wiesenthal where we subjectively judge his decision based on his thoughts and his words, afterwards we read through the symposium and further refine our judgements from multiple sources in an attempt to eliminate bias and come up with a more clear and concise conclusion about the possibilities and limits of forgiveness, justice and human responsibility. The structure of novels helps us to better understand them. In the novel The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, he details his experiences  and situation first-hand which is followed by various entries about the morality of what he did and whether or not he was right in doing so. In the novel we first get introduced to Simon, a Jew who is in dire straits, working at a labour camp and is told to visit a Nazi who asks for Simon to forgive him. Simon ends up saying nothing and following this is a collection of thoughts on the issue called the symposium. This enables us to informed decision about the morality behind forgiveness and its limitations. It is with this that we get exposed to more than one point of view which helps us to debate the issue and come up with a conclusion about forgiveness. The structure of the novel enables us to formulate our arguments as does the various point of views presented to us, which helps us to determine for ourselves the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. The Sunflower free essay sample The Sunflower and having mixed emotions during this book I made my decision. â€Å"What would I have done? † I would have done the same thing you did. Just walk away from all of it. I believe it would be a tough situation to think about and have a response to right then and there. Like Deborah says in her essay, The question to be asked is not should the prisoner have forgiven the SS man but could the prisoner have forgiven him? This is obviously saying that no one has the right to forgive anyone on behalf of another. This request brings up several moral questions like, Is it alright to forgive someone who has done no harm to you? Can a person forgive someone on behalf of others? Can anyone really forgive anyone else, or is forgiveness in the hands of a higher power? The soldier asked you for his forgiveness just because you are a Jew, and in the soldiers mind, all Jews are equal. We will write a custom essay sample on The Sunflower or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Even though you weren’t burned alive, shot dead, or in any other heinous acts in the concentration camps. How could his forgiveness, had he granted it, put the soldier at rest about the hundreds of Jews he has been a party to the murder of? I think you had no right to forgive the soldier. The soldier didn’t commit a crime against you personally, and for you to forgive him would have been an empty phrase with no meaning. The soldier should have asked for forgiveness between himself and all the Jews he murdered. Sven Alkalaj I like that Sven included in his essay what he went through in Bosnia. I agree with Sven that Simon made a good decision not forgiving the soldier. Just as Sven asks in his essay, Who is entitled to speak on behalf of the victims? Simon didn’t have much of a say just because they didn’t torture him. Just like Sven says, Simon was unsure if his response to the dying soldier was okay. It was hard for Simon to get over his response and wanted other peoples opinions on his decision. When the nurse attempts to give Simon some of the soldiers possessions. Simon refuses the package. It obviously shows that he didn’t want to do much with the soldiers. The holocaust was a horrible thing, and the killing of thousands of Jews was not okay. Forgetting the crimes would be worse than forgiving the criminal who seeks forgiveness† It is such a atrocious thing, its hard to forget and Sven said it would be bad to forget everything that happened. The Dalai Lama I don’t agree with Lama. He says â€Å"one should forgive the person or persons who have committed atrocities against oneself and mankind. † I am t otally against what he says because forgiving the soldier would mean that Simon is okay with what he did. The soldier didn’t really care if the Jew was tortured or not because he just asked the nurse to find a random Jew. I felt like the soldiers apology was a lie and he just wanted to die in peace. But he doesn’t really deserve it after everything he did. Lama also says â€Å"but that is not the Buddhist way,† Lama’s culture is different and believes that forgiveness is okay. But if Simon was to forgive the soldier, it wouldn’t bring back any of the people he killed. The Jews he killed are piled up dead and accepting his apology isn’t going to change a thing. All the awful things that happened will always be in Simon’s mind. Melissa Torres Period: 6 The Sunflower In The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal the main character, Simon is put in an awkward situation and doesn’t really know how to deal with it. His development from the beginning of the book to the end of the book is kind of crazy. Towards the end of this book he realizes he made the right decision. Simon just needed a little bit of extra help to decipher if what he did was right. With condoning factors supporting the Nazi in The Sunflower is asking for forgiveness both out of guilt and amends, there is no possible way to decipher if he should or should not be forgiven. Simon was asked to go clean at a hospital. When he arrived at the hospital the nurse asked him if he was a Jew. Simon said yes and the nurse took him to the bedside of Karl, a 21-year old dying Nazi soldier. Karl was covered in bandages with openings only for his mouth, nose and ears. Karl wanted to tell Simon his story. Karl talked about his childhood and then the conversation came up to him being a Nazi. Karl admitted to shooting a mother, father and their two kids. Karl felt guilty about the hundred of Jews he killed and he didn’t want to die without coming clean to a Jew. Karl asked for forgiveness, he knew he was asking for too much from Simon but without his answer Karl couldn’t die in peace. Simon left the room without a word. When he returned to the hospital the next day, the same nurse came to Simon and told him that Karl had died. Over the next years of the war, time and time again, through all his suffering, Simon thought of Karl and wondered if he should have forgiven him. Over the years, every time Simon would enter a hospital, see a nurse, or a man covered with his head bandaged, he recalls Karl. Many years later Simon questioned whether he had done the right thing. He asked many people about his actions. A few of these people included Jews, Rabbis, a Catholic Cardinal, Christians and even an ex-Nazi. They all had different opinions and different reason of forgiveness. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Simon said nothing. Simon always wondered if he had done the right thing. As the book was coming to an end, Simon started noticing that he did the right think not forgiving Karl. Forgiving him wouldn’t bring back any of the people he killed. The Jews he killed are piled up dead and accepting his apology isn’t going to change a thing. Karl didn’t commit a crime against Simon personally, and for Simon to forgive Karl would have been an empty phrase with no meaning. Karl should have asked for forgiveness between himself and all the Jews he murdered. The main character’s development throughout the book showed that at first Simon wasn’t confident with his decision and always had the situation on the back of his mind. But towards the end of the book, Simon notices he did make the right decision to just get up, walk away without saying a word. Simon basically needed other peoples opinions to see that he had done the right thing.