The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness Author: Visit Amazon's Simon Wiesenthal Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0805210601 | Format: EPUB
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness Description
Amazon.com Review
Author Simon Weisenthal recalls his demoralizing life in a concentration camp and his envy of the dead Germans who have sunflowers marking their graves. At the time he assumed his grave would be a mass one, unmarked and forgotten. Then, one day, a dying Nazi soldier asks Weisenthal for forgiveness for his crimes against the Jews. What would you do? This important book and the provocative question it poses is birthing debates, symposiums, and college courses. The Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Primo Levi, and others who have witnessed genocide and human tyranny answer Wiesenthal's ultimate question on forgiveness.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this 1976 volume, divided into two sections, Wiesenthal tackles the question of the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. The first part relates the story of how Wiesenthal, as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, was brought before a dying SS trooper, who explained his actions and asked for forgiveness, which Wiesenthal could not bring himself to bestow. In the second section, Wiesenthal presents the story to an array of leading intellectuals and asks, "What would you have done?" This edition contains all the original responses plus additional ones from Primo Levi, Cynthia Ozick, Albert Speer, and others. Heavy stuff.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Schocken; Rev Exp Su edition (April 7, 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0805210601
- ISBN-13: 978-0805210606
- Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I am writing this review the day after Shimon Wiesenthal died. He was ninety- six years old. Thousands of words have been written about him and his life- task. Certainly one of the major contributions he made was to make people aware of the enormity of the crime which was the Holocaust. After the war many wished to forget, but he out of a strong sense of duty to those who had died, to those who had been murdered and suffered so much , made it his business to make the world remember. And he too made his business to bring to justice those who committed the crime. And as he said many times he did this not only for the victims, but for the future generations of mankind so that such an evil would never come again not only to Jews but to all of humanity.
He personally made a major contribution to bringing to justice more than one thousand war criminals, including Eichmann,Stangl , and the Nazi who took Anne Frank from her home and sent her to her death.
In this work he ponders the question of forgiveness . He is asked by a Nazi who repents of his crimes for forgiveness. And the question the book asks is whether such forgiveness should be given. It seems to me the answer to this question is given by something which Wiesenthal himself wrote. He wrote that while it might be possible to forgive someone for an injury done to oneself, one has no right to forgive for others. It is those who have been murdered who need to be requested forgiveness of. But one and one half - million Jewish children were not given the chance to answer. I think that no one has the right to answer in their name.
Wiesenthal was after the war urged by his wife to take up his profession as architect . He could not . He dedicated himself to the memory of the victims, and to having justice done.
Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the war had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place?
The first time I read this book I struggled with the questions of what I would do in Wiesenthal's situation. Reading all of the views of the contributors did not resolve this matter in my mind. Subsequently to reading this book, I purchase a copy of the book An Encounter With A Prophet which favors forgiveness and gives a unique prayer to achieve forgiveness even when you do not want to forgive. This author made sense but I still could not answer the questions in Wiesenthal `s book.
Then one night walking home from work, I was attacked by a mugger. Coming up from behind me, out of the shadows, the mugger managed to hid me twice on the back of my head before I knew what was happening. Due to space limitations I will skip the details of what followed suffice it to say when the ambulance picked me up off the street , I was drenched in my own blood.
On the way to the hospital my mind started to race. Having grown up as a fighter, I vowed to find this man and evoke some Charles Bronson style justice. As I engaged in this type of thinking, in my mind's eye I could feel and see the mugger sneaking up behind me getting ready to hit me - something they call a flashback a frightening experience to say the least.
As this flash back phenomena continued, it occurred to me to pray the unique prayer suggested in that book An Encounter With A Prophet, I started saying this prayer repeatedly. The flashback dissolved. However, every time I stopped praying, my mind immediately started planning more Bronson style justice and the flashback phenomena would returned.
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