The Sunflower

The narrator of the story, Simon, is in a Nazi concentration camp. His two closest friends in the camp are his old friend Arthur and a recent arrival, Josek. In his previous life, Simon was an architect, and Arthur was his closest friend and advisor. Josek is a businessman who has a strong sense of spirituality. They watch the daily deaths of fellow prisoners by illness, starvation, suicide, and the vicious whims of the armed guards, and they await their own seemingly inevitable deaths. The three have discussions about God’s role in their situation, with Josek attempting to take a philosophical view, believing that evil is a perpetual part of life. Arthur takes a more cynical view of the situation, yet he believes that one day the Germans will be destroyed for their crimes. Simon usually tries to referee the two sides when the discussions become heated.

Simon and Arthur are among a group of prisoners who are taken out of the camp during the day for work details. As the group is marched to the work site, they pass a military cemetery, and Simon notices that “on each grave there was planted a sunflower, as straight as a soldier on parade” (14). At the sight of these graves, Simon realizes that his own death will likely not be observed or marked in any way. The sight of the sunflowers also gives him a sense of hope, the sense that he “would come across them again” (15).

The procession moves through the streets of Lemberg in Poland, where Simon and Arthur once lived and worked, and they pass people whom they recognize from their past lives. Simon recalls how certain neighborhoods used to be dangerous for Jewish people because anti-Semitism was a problem in Poland even before the Nazis moved in. Simon takes heart in the hope that, now that the Polish people are also a target, they may see some benefit in keeping Jewish people alive, as a kind of buffer to protect them from the day when their race too may be annihilated by the Germans.

The working prisoners arrive at their worksite for the day, the former Technical High School, where Simon was once a student. The building is now being used as a hospital for wounded soldiers. As the prisoners are working their detail, a nurse approaches Simon, asking, “Are you a Jew?” (22). She then asks him to follow her inside the building. She leads him to the bedside of a man who is completely bandaged up, whom Simon knows to be a German. When the bandaged man first speaks, he says, “I have not much longer to live . . . I know the end is near” (26). Karl, the 21-year-old soldier, tells Simon that he asked the nurse to bring him a Jewish prisoner, so that he’ll be able to talk to the Jew about an experience that he’s had and so that he might die in peace.

When Karl’s letter slips from his hand and falls to the floor, Simon picks it up and gives it back to him. Karl explains it’s a letter from his mother. He grabs Simon’s hand to command his attention, and Simon feels revulsion. He begins by telling him about his youth. He grew up in a religious family and was a devout Catholic as a boy, but then he decided to join the Hitler Youth and later to volunteer for the SS, against the wishes of his parents. He tells Simon about his experiences as a soldier during the invasion of Russia. One particular event that haunts him is when they forced a group of Jewish people to carry cans of petrol into a house, then barricaded them inside and threw grenades into the house, following orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape through the windows.

Simon is reminded of a child, Eli, in the Jewish Ghetto where he lived before being taken to the concentration camp. Eli had seemed elusive to Nazis, as he was able to hide and forage for bread crumbs. As Karl is telling the story of children being killed, Simon imagines them as if one might have been Eli, “the last Jewish child that I had seen” (47).

Karl tells Simon how he was injured in battle and that he knows that he will soon die without ever getting to see his family again. He says that he is so tormented by the things he has done and that he feels he will not die in peace unless he can confess his sins and receive pardon from a Jewish person. Simon struggles with his sympathy toward the dying young man and realizes that his regret is sincere. Although the soldier is penitent, nothing has changed in Simon’s life; he and his friends are still prisoners, still doomed to death at the hands of soldiers like Karl. Simon leaves the room without saying a word.

Simon remains troubled by this encounter as he returns with his fellow workers to the camp. Later in the day, he recounts the story. Most who hear it respond with cynicism, happy to hear that a Nazi has died. Josek gives it more thought and then says that Simon was correct not to forgive him because he is not one of the individuals the soldier harmed directly. He says, “If you had forgiven him, you would never have forgiven yourself all your life” (66).

The next day, when he returns with the work detail to the Technical High School, the nurse from the day before asks to speak with him. She tells him that Karl has died and gives him a bundle that contains all the soldier’s possessions, with the exception of his confirmation watch, which is to be sent to his mother. Simon refuses to accept the bundle.

In the years that follow, Simon remains tormented by Karl’s request for forgiveness, even as he witnesses the disappearance of more of his friends. At the end of the war, he makes his way to Stuttgart to visit Karl’s mother. She is now a widow, living among the rubble of the city. The story she tells of her son matches that Karl told of himself. Instead of giving her the details of Karl’s death, he simply tells her that he was asked by her son to bring her greetings if he ever had the opportunity.

Simon ends the story by reflecting on the years since the war and how his life’s work has brought him into contact with many past-Nazis, few of whom have really shown remorse for their actions under the regime. He expresses his frustration that, so soon after the war, people were quick to urge the Jewish people to forgive the Germans for their crimes. On a personal level, he confesses that he remains tormented by his experience with Karl. He concludes by asking the reader to ask himself: “What would I have done?” (98)