Political Economist

Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower - On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, New York: Schocken Books, 1998.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805210601/qid=1121705319/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-4647197-6902411

This book is based on the real experiences of the author. It is a story of a Jew (Simon) who has been forced into a concentration camp in Nazi’s era. Under the cruel surveillance, Simon and other Jewish prisoners had no other options but to comply with Nazi soldiers’ brutal maltreatments and humiliations as their common fate.

The story proceeds along with time sequences. But the plot is not chronological, because the author sometimes overlaps his past memories and episodes with the present. The title, “Sunflower” originated from Simon’s observations on a military cemetery in which each grave was surrounded by planted sunflowers. On his gaze, the flower “seemed to absorb the sunshine and draw it down into the darkness of the grounds.”(14) With the help of the flower, even the dead were receiving sun lights and messages from the living world. Even dead soldiers were blessing with living things’ commemoration! In this sense, the sunflower is not a simple flower; it represents the connections between the dead and living world; it may be used to symbolize desperate hope to survive in the camp.

However, the main theme of the book is not limited by the author’s pathetic personal experiences; the book raises significant questions related with human existence. One day, Simon was brought to a wounded SS soldier, Karl, who had murdered Jewish people in one village. Karl wants to die in peace by confessing his previous crimes to Simon. He requests Simon to forgive him.

But how can Simon forgive this SS soldier? Even though he himself is wounded seriously and dying, his colleagues are still slaughtering a lot of innocent Jewish people. Furthermore, Simon is not free from the concentration camp; he is under the persistent threats of death by the same German soldier as this wounded SS personnel. If you were in that situation, could it be possible for you to forgive him and his crimes? How and in what way? If not, how would you behave? This book poses these difficult questions.

In front of the dying SS soldier’s deathbed, the author, Simon, kept silent because he did not know how to respond to Karl’s confession and his request for forgiveness. He walked out of the hospital without answering the request. However, Simon could not easily put down the burdens Karl left on him. Thus, he asked to his closest colleague prisoners in the concentration camp.

One of his friends, Josek, who had strong religious faith, told Simon that he had no rights to forgive the dying SS soldier’s crimes on behalf of other Jews. On the other hand, Authur, a man of cynicism, did not mind the Simon’s dilemma seriously because he took it for granted that Simon did not forgive the dying SS man. Even though their responses were based on somewhat different reasons and personalities, they showed the same responses. Unfortunately, Simon could not be content with their conclusion.

However, Simon and his companions could not have enough times to discuss about and reach to any conclusion on the problem, because they are all under continuous threats of death in the camp; “it was luxury,”(75) as Authur said, for them to discuss the question of forgiveness. Someday, if they survive the camp, there will be plenty of times to discuss the question, and there may be different viewpoints on the questions, even though nobody except them can understand fully the situations where they have been forced into.

Two years later, only Simon survived the camp. Even after his closest friends were dead, he never ceased to be thinking about the question of forgiveness. One day in another Nazi concentration camp, Simon had a chance to talk about his dilemma with Bolek who had been once a priest in Poland. According to him, every religion has the same attitudes toward the question of forgiveness in principles: even though there might be some controversies whether or not someone can forgive wrongs that have been done to others, not to him or her directly, on behalf of others, if the sinner is truly repentant he or she deserves to be forgiven. “Repentance is the most important element in seeking forgiveness,” said Bolek (83).

However, his response was not enough for Simon to resolve his dilemma, even though he realized that he felt some pity for the dying SS man. Simon realized that the feeling of pity might be different from forgiveness, even though pity could be a significant step toward forgiveness. And he also cast doubt on the religious principles Bolek said. Even though true repentance may be a necessary condition for forgiveness, it is surely not sufficient because nobody can forgive crimes done to others without delegated authorities from the victims. In this respect, the dead Josek was right; Simon had no rights to forgive Karl on behalf of other victimized Jews by Karl’s bullets.

Soon after the liberation from the camp, Simon joined a commission for the investigation of Nazi crimes, “not only because it was impossible for him simply to restart his ordinary life, but also because he thought the work of commission might help him regain his faith in humanity.”(84) After years, by chances on a journey, he could remember the whole memories of sunflower which had been ingrained in his deep unconsciousness. “I remembered the soldier’s cemetery at Lemberg, the hospital and the dead SS man on whose grave a sunflower would now be growing…”(84)

One day in the summer of 1946 Simon took a chance to visit to Stuttgart where the dead SS man was born and raised. He decides to visit to Karl’s family. “I wanted to see the SS man’s mother. If I talked with her, perhaps it would give me a clear picture of his personality. It was not curiosity that inspired me but a vague feeling of duty...and perhaps the hope of exorcizing forever one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.” (84-85)

However, once he met Karl’s mother he realized that her husband was dead as his son was during the war. Even though Simon wanted to talk with Karl’s mother to confirm whether what Karl told him about his childhood and family was true or not, and by doing so, Simon secretly hoped that he might be able to be free from the moral dilemma Karl had left on him, he was not able to find proper ways of talking about the dead Karl’s story with Karl’s mother. Instead, Simon found that he had no other options but to be listening to this grief-stricken widow’s memories of good son. She was living on and “only for the memories of her husband and her son.”(89)

Contrary to his original secret hope – “But was I not secretly hoping that I might hear something that contradicted it [what Karl told me]?,” Karl, the dying SS man was sincere in his death chamber. What Karl told him was true: Karl was such a good boy in his family; he was influenced by religion and faithful to God when he was a child; but one day he joined the Hitler Youth. After the war begins, he volunteered as the SS military personnel. From then on, he became a beast-like murderer. Finally, on his death chamber, Karl wanted to confess his crimes that he committed against innocent Jewish people and to die in peace through repentance.

Thus, unlike his expectation, Simon found that “the solution to his problem was not a single step nearer…” (94) Rather, while listening to Karl’s mother, her innocent memories of good son and family, Simon had to contemplate another uneasy question which was related to the conditions and the possibilities of collective guilt. As Simon repeatedly reminds us, Hitler and the Nazis seized the political power not by the threats of gun and knife but by ordinary German’s political approval through representative election. If ordinary German citizens protested against their government, or at least if they did not approve the legitimacy of the regime, was it possible for a handful of Nazi military soldiers to commit genocides? “Accumulation of mistrust” and “fears” cannot be an excuse at all. Then who are responsible for war crimes against the Jews? Are only military soldiers to be blamed for?

Instead of relieving his heavy burden from his shoulders, he was reflecting that “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.”(91) More precisely, he says, “even if he [or she] has no personal guilt, he [or she] must share the shame of it. As a member of a guilty nation [community or country,] he cannot simply walk away like a passenger leaving a tramcar, whenever he chooses. It is the duty of [nations or countries] to find out who was guilty. And the non-guilty must dissociate themselves publicly from the guilty.”(93)

Simon did not tell Karl’s mother about her son’s crimes. He, once again, kept silent. He left “without diminishing in any way the poor woman’s last surviving consolations – faith in the goodness of her son.”(94) Perhaps, it might be better for him to tell Karl’s mother the truth of her son, because “perhaps her tears might help to wash away some of the misery of the world.” (94) But, perhaps not.

In the end, Simon confesses to us that he still does not know how to behave under such circumstances. He still does not know whether his silence was right or not, whether his passive response can be justifiable or not. However, instead of carrying this profound moral question alone, he seems to decide to challenge the conscience of broader audiences by way of writing. That may be the reason why this book ends with the same question, but shared with readers, “What would I have done?” if I were Simon.