The Sunflower

“So that’s the news; we live in a world that God has abandoned?” 

Simon says this to his friends after they have heard a woman state that the reason things are so bad for Jewish people is that God is on leave. Wiesenthal goes on to say that, during this time, he witnessed many people lose their faith in God. Under the circumstances where people were treated as sub-human, over a period of time, people begin to think that God has forsaken them. He says that, during this time, he felt the woman’s words to be true. 

“Did any of them reflect that there were still Jews and as long as they were there, as long as the Nazis were still busy with the Jews, they would leave the citizens alone?”

Wiesenthal is describing the experience of being a part of a work detail, parading to the worksite outside the concentration camp through the streets of the town where he once lived. When the free citizens—Polish people now under German occupation—would see them, sometimes there would be recognition between individuals. Wiesenthal recalls one incident where a fellow colleague saw him and had a look of surprise, as if he had assumed Simon to be already dead. This statement points out the fact that, between the Nazis and the Jews, there were various other strata within the Holocaust experience. There were other victims and potential victims of the regime, and there were anti-Nazi citizens who were nonetheless reticent in the face of the treatment of Jewish people.  

“Suddenly I envied the dead soldiers. Each had a sunflower to connect him with the living world, and butterflies to visit his grave. For me there would be no sunflower. I would be buried in a mass grave, where corpses would be piled on top of me.” 

Wiesenthal is describing a military cemetery, in which the grave of each soldier has a sunflower growing. He sees the sunflowers as being the means by which the dead were “receiving light and messages” (14). He sees the flower, one for each individual, as a measure of the value of these dead people, and he contrasts this with his own condition, still alive but doomed to die in a mass grave with no gestures or symbols of remembrance.  

“‘Look,’ he said, ‘those Jews died quickly, they did not suffer as I do—though they were not as guilty as I am.’”

These words are spoken by Karl during his confession to Simon. They reveal that, in spite of Karl’s sense of guilt for his participation in the murder of Jewish people, he still does not completely grasp the extent of his crimes. In his self-pity, he views his suffering as being more extreme than that of his victims, and he continues to view his victims as having some measure of guilt. 

“In each person’s life there are historic moments which rarely occur—and today you have experienced one such.” 

These words are spoken by Josek, Simon’s friend in the concentration camp. He is referring to Simon’s story of having just listened to the confession of the dying Nazi. Simon is asking whether he should not, on behalf of his Jewish community, have forgiven the man. Josek is acknowledging that the decision of whether to forgive is a question full of responsibility, not just to himself, to but to the murdered victims who can no longer speak for themselves. Josek’s response carries a further level of significance when one considers that the event to which he is referring is a moment in Simon Wiesenthal’s life that will lead to his life’s vocation.

“I do not know who you are, I only know that you are a Jew and that is enough.” 

These words are spoken my Karl, as he expresses his regret to Simon for his part in murdering other Jewish people. As Wiesenthal recounts this portion of the story, he insists that Karl was truly repentant for his actions. Yet many of the people who respond to Wiesenthal’s question point out that Karl’s belief that any Jew would do to receive his confession is an indication that he continues to see Jewish people as interchangeable and not individual people. 

“He, a candidate for the Catholic priesthood, and I, a Jew, had exposed our arguments to each other, and each had a better understanding of the other’s views.”

Wiesenthal is speaking of his discussion with Bolek as to whether or not he should have granted Karl forgiveness. While their discussion comes to no final resolution, Wiesenthal gains some sense of satisfaction from their having opened up to one another about their beliefs. As readers, we get the sense that this conversation may be the seed of what becomes The Sunflower, the collection of many voices, may different individual perspectives on the question of forgiveness.

“There were millions of such families anxious only for peace and quiet in their own little nests. These were the mounting blocks by which the criminals climbed to power and kept it.” 

Wiesenthal makes this observation as he is talking with Karl’s mother in Stuttgart. He sees that she wanted only peace within her family and that she was troubled by the rift that developed when her son volunteered for the SS and her husband refused to speak with him again. Wiesenthal suggests that it was this desire for domestic peace—the willingness to tolerate the minor injustices—that empowered the Nazis to create the massive system of murder and mistreatment that would become known as the Holocaust.

“Repentance is formulaic: a learned ritual which soothes the troubled soul of the murderer, but does nothing for those who were murdered.” 

Alan Berger believes that Simon could not have given Karl forgiveness, because he was not one of Simon’s murdered victims. This is a point within Jewish teaching, that only the direct victims may forgive for the crimes committed against them. He goes on to question whether Karl’s repentance was sincere, which is to say, whether it met the requirements for the Jewish concept of teshuvah. He concludes that Karl had no opportunity to demonstrate a material change in his attitude through changed behavior. Therefore, to forgive Karl would have been to give the criminal what he wanted, while dishonoring those whom he murdered.

“For me, Karl dies unforgiven. God have mercy on my soul.” 

This statement, in form, is a play on the traditional words said at a person’s death: “God have mercy on his soul.” But, in this case, Cargas turns the statement from the dead and focuses it upon himself. Cargas begins his response to Wiesenthal’s question by saying that he feels forgiveness is an imperative for him, because he needs to receive forgiveness for himself. He goes on to explore the conditions under which man may not be forgiven, discussing the Christian notion of the unforgivable sin. He also suggests that there are sins that only God can forgive. This statement, the final word in his response to Wiesenthal’s question, is his final word with regard to whether he would have forgiven the dying Nazi. While he believes forgiveness is imperative, he does not believe he could have forgiven this particular man. 

“To forgive without justice is a self-satisfying weakness. Justice without love is a simulation of strength.”

Hans Habe’s statement demonstrates the paradox of healing the world through love rather than hatred. His argument is that both forgiveness and justice are aspects of God. He believes that healing can only take place in the world where people can, without being motivated by hatred, be both forgiving and just.

“I would have forgiven, as much for my own peace as for Karl’s.” 

José Hobday is responding to Wiesenthal’s question from his perspective as a man of Native American heritage. He explains that, according to the teachings of his family, forgiveness is the means by which balance is restored to the universe after someone has upset the balance through their wrongdoing. Forgiveness, according to Hobday, is not intended to condone the criminal’s behavior, but is the means by which healing takes place after the injury is inflicted.

“Forgiving is not something we do for another person, as the Nazi asked Wiesenthal to do for him. Forgiving happens inside us.”

Kushner believes that forgiveness is the means by which the victim sets himself free from the crime that was committed against him. It is not an act of acceptance; on the contrary, it is the process by which the victim rejects the wrongdoing and severs the bond between himself and the criminal. 

“Ironically, in asking forgiveness of a Jew, the SS man transfers the weight of moral decision from himself to one of his potential victims.” 

Lawrence L. Langer is concerned both with the immediate question of whether Simon should forgive Karl and with the historical implications of the question of forgiveness. He believes that the request for forgiveness is one more violation against the victim, calling on him to make an impossible moral choice. Langer extrapolates this theory to the question that has arisen in the decades since the Holocaust, that of whether Jewish people should forgive the Germans for what was done during that time. He believes that the entire question of forgiveness serves to obscure the seriousness of the crimes, and he urges that people remember the horrors plainly in order that they not be repeated.

“If God was silent, dare any of us speak?” 

Hubert G. Locke observes that Wiesenthal’s account is full of examples in which the act of remaining silent was a conscious, positive choice. He points out that not only was Simon silent when asked for forgiveness, but he was also mercifully silent when Karl’s mother asked for more details about her son. Locke points out that silence can sometimes be the only means by which truth is revealed, that in a world where so much is achieved through discussion and explanation, sometimes silence is more godly. His statement also echoes the idea raised in Wiesenthal’s story that perhaps God might be “on leave,” suggesting that if God had chosen not to intervene, a human being could do no more. 

“Is anyone justified, entitled to forgive?”

Marcuse states succinctly that, on principle, forgiveness is merely a perpetuation of the crime. He applies this belief to all circumstances in which people kill one another.  

“To say that all persons in a people must act a specific way is to routinize them, to program them, to deprive them of elements of their humanity.” 

Martin E. Marty acknowledges that there is the temptation to understand Wiesenthal’s question as “What should I have done?” Marty points out that the question must have many answers, because every individual has the basic right to choose for himself how to respond. Implied in this response is the idea that Wiesenthal should not have been treated as any Jew, just one of many, and representative of the many unique individuals who were murdered. 

“The Second Commandment is more explicit than the Sixth, which tells us simply that we must not kill; the Second Commandment tells us we must resist especially that killing which serves our belief.” 

Cynthia Ozick looks to the Judeo-Christian teachings of the Ten Commandments to explore the nature of the crimes of the Nazis. The Second Commandment states that we should not have false idols, and the Sixth Commandment is the prohibition against murder. Ozick observes that the Holocaust was a contravention of the Second Commandment, in that the German people allowed Hitler to become a false idol. She suggests that the crime was greater than simply murder; in fact, it was murder in the service of a false god. 

“We need to learn to separate the true culprits from the pawns, the evil masterminds from the brainwashed.”

Dith Pran, responding from his experience as a victim of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, suggests that there is a difference in the nature of guilt between the soldiers who carried out the orders and the leaders who first conceived the plan and issued the orders. Pran suggests that many of those who carry out the directives are themselves victims of brainwashing and are therefore not as culpable as their actions would first seem. 

“Everywhere, one senses the no, and the necessity of finding a yes.” 

Dorothee Soelle addresses the perplexity in Wiesenthal’s question of whether to forgive the dying Nazi. She acknowledges that, while forgiveness for such atrocities is unthinkable, there persists a need to find resolution in the face of the crimes. Speaking from her own faith as a Christian and from what she has learned of the Jewish concept of teshuvah, Soelle suggests that perhaps repentance and forgiveness are in fact part of the spiritual nature of humanity. 

“Must one forget before one can forgive?”

Sperber’s question raises the question of whether forgetting is a function of, or prerequisite for, forgiveness. He points out that, often, the perpetrator of the crime may forget the heinousness of his acts even before forgiveness is given. In such cases, the forgiveness has little value, and the criminal is at risk of committing the same offences again. On the part of the victim, forgetting is sometimes a tragic condition of moving forward, a means of avoiding further victimization. 

“We must stop dictating moral postures to the survivors.”

André Stein points out the moral conundrum inherent in the request for forgiveness. Ostensibly, for Simon to forgive Karl would have been an act of graciousness. Viewed in the light of the many victims on whose behalf he would be forgiving, however, the act of forgiveness would be an act of brutal disregard for the pain and suffering of the murdered. Simon is a survivor who is also a victim. It is incorrect to place him in the position of having to decide whether or not to forgive the murderers on behalf of the murdered. 

“We know that he voiced regret over his murderous deeds; unfortunately, that is all we know.” 

Telushkin calls into question the sincerity of Karl’s repentance. While he seems to be truly troubled by his memories of having partaken in the murder of certain Jewish people, his words reveal a failure to grasp the full extent of his guilt. He still views his own sufferings as a young man as unjust, in spite of the fact that he actively inflicted such sufferings on others much younger than himself. Karl continues to view Jewish people as guilty, even if less guilty than he is. Telushkin concludes that, because sincere repentance requires a tangible change in behavior under the same circumstances as the original crime, Karl is beyond being able to demonstrate the sincerity of his repentance.