Analysis Of Alan L. Berger's The Sunflower

Simon was an architect and many other things before he entered the ghetto. In the ghetto, he was simply just a Jew. Like so many other humans during world war two and the holocaust, Simon was reduced to one word, Jew. Simon paints a scary sadly realistic portrayal of the ghettos from a prisoner perspective with his words. Out of the many moving quotes Simon gives us throughout the sunflower, this one stuck with me the most, he writes “ I once read somewhere that it is impossible to break a man’s firm belief . If I ever thought that true, life in a concentration camp taught me differently. It is impossible to believe anything in a world that has ceased to regard man as man...So one begins to doubt, one begins to cease to believe in a world order in which God has a definite place. One really begins to think that God is on leave” (Wiesenthal, 9). In my opinion, this must have been how most prisoners felt while enslaved in concentration camps. This also makes it difficult to understand why Wiesenthal did not just flat out say he does not forgive the soldier. When you go as far to believe God is not present in your life how does one not be resentful toward forgiveness of a nazi soldier?

Vince Lombardi, an American football player, and a coach, once said, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” With these words, Lombardi highlights that people are nurtured to become a leader and a follower. For instance, Lombardi asserts that a person is trained, whether to be a leader, or a follower, through eagerness and determination. The book, The Sunflower, written by Simon Wiesenthal, an author and a Jewish holocaust survivor, who focuses on one of the most controversial topics during and after World War II, forgiveness. In this book, Weisenthal talked about a questionable case in which Karl, an SS soldier who murdered plentiful of people, asked Weisenthal for forgiveness for all the pain he had done towards all the people that were affected by him. When it comes to the topic of whether people are born to become leaders or followers or is one trained by the environment, most people will readily agree that people are conditioned to become a leader or a follower, where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of, “What makes a person a leader?” Whereas some are convinced that people are natural born leaders. Becoming a leader consists with a few reasons such as developed leadership skills, the bystander apathy, and the diffusion of responsibility.

What happens to a person who has no identity at a time when identity can be one’s last hope – their salvation or a mark for death. In his novel Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli invites readers to experience the Holocaust through the eye of a young boy who misunderstands everything except the love of family and the different forms it can take. Misha, an orphan boy is taken in by a young group of Jewish thieves. He is simple minded of his own identity because Misha adopts the identity of the people around him in his life, first as a gypsy, then as a Jew when he follows his friend’s family into the ghetto. Readers are forced to focus on the simple acts of caring that takes place in a time of suffering because Misha is unable to understand what is really going on around him. Hope and selfless acts of love still exists during a time of havoc in the Warsaw ghetto, is shown through the innocent eyes of Misha. By using techniques such as dramatic irony, revealing characters’ emotion, and a unique choice of a narrator, Spinelli successfully makes his readers to feel empathy.

It caused him to write a book about the experience and for him to ask every single reader of the book what he or she would do if he or she had been in his place. However, if he had forgiven him, Simon would have regretted his words for just as many years because Karl did not deserve any comforting words from Simon to ease his conscience. Just as Primo Levi put it in his response: “…you [Simon] would have been at fault in absolving your man, and you would perhaps today be experiencing a deeper remorse than you feel at not having absolved him” (191-192).

Alan L. Berger, a Professor of the Holocaust and Religion, expresses in The Sunflower that Simon even though being an imprisoned jew could not take the apology on the behalf others. He refers to Judaism that there are two types of sins; one against god and one against another human. Berger states about forgiveness that ‘I may forgive one who has sinned against me. I may

In FYS we were taught many ways to live in the world through the stories we read, speeches we listen to, and the projects we did. In the book, Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger, The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, and Destiny of The Republic, by Candice Millard, I saw a few prominent themes of how one should live. In these three books I learned about the author 's voice through their writings. I saw how one should live their life. In these books the authors shared common themes through their writings. The authors showed how to live life with forgiveness and live life with faith. Krueger and Potok both showed me through their novels how to forgive someone and they did this by showing that there is a bigger picture in

He says, “ It is also a question of how much, how quickly, how easily can any individual forgive a mass murderer”(Sven 102). This quote emphasis that it is not that much easy to forgive someone. By forgiving them, they bring down the values of the crimes that were committed. If they bring down the value of the crimes, it would mean it was okay to kill a person’s family or friends. This would result in more crimes, murdering people's family and friends. This was another reason why Simon wouldn't forgive Karl because he didn’t want to make it seem like it was okay to be a part of mass genocide. Moshe Bejski discussed in his essay why people shouldn't be forgiven of their crimes. Forgiving someone is very hard even when regret is involved, “No matter what, regret never pardons crimes…” (Moshe 117). As he says, even after committing the crimes and thereafter regretting it, it’s not okay to forgive someone. Forgiveness is hard because it would betray the memory of millions of innocent victims who were murdered, and it would question the validity of what happen. Forgiving someone who committed the crimes would be a crime

The moral issues of the movie question the concepts of what we believe in to be right and wrong, sin and benevolence. In Karl's position did he even know what was right and what was wrong?

Berger to learn how to express his emotions outwardly, but in a healthy manner, his mother, Beth did not express the need or the want to attempt to feel her demanding emotions. On the surface for Beth, everything was okay and that is exactly what she told everyone. She refused to feel her emotions. She often acted in violent manners that revolved away from the true conflicts in front of her. For example, she seemed to refuse to internally accept the mental condition that her son was living and fighting internally in. When she found out about Conrad quit the swim team, her first thought was the embarrassment she expressed due to the ignorance her face showed to her friend when hearing the unexpected news. Revenge was the thought that popped into her mind to fill the void the followed the question as to why her son would have done such a thing. She acted in means of attacking. Rather than attacking, a healthy way of dealing with the situation would have been to avoid assumption all together, and express her emotions outwardly in order to have the ability to listen to her son and what his true intentions were. Listening before reacting would have saved the family from an attack not only in this situation, but also in many

"Where there 's a will, there 's a way" is a phrase often used here in America and it holds true to all walks of life including migrant workers. The desires range from the simple want to make an honest living to wanting to support the family to just wanting to live the American dream. However, the "way", does not always possess the same innocent light of the optimistic saying. In Eric Schlosser’s article, “In the Strawberry Fields” he discusses exactly that. Immigrants often end up doing the laborious farm work most Americans are unwilling to do with good reason. More specifically, he discusses the working conditions of migrant workers in strawberry fields, one of the most difficult row crops to grow. This work is largely done in California where the farming industry is allowed to bend laws as they please, routinely exploiting the vulnerability of immigrants’ legal states. Though, the concepts of small fruits and workers ' rights are not completely relatable to one another until we move past the happy connotation of the vibrant red, juicy fruit and into the grittier efforts that go into making them what we know in grocery stores. Many of us have the pleasant memories of the cool fruit on warm summer days but this image is quite the opposite to its production. Bent at the waist, hundreds of migrant workers, pick fruits under the sweltering summer sun and it would seem like a way a farming that vanished long ago but it is most certainly here. Though the conditions are worsened

Genre: The book “Milkweed” by Jerry Spinelli is a realistic fiction story. I know the book is realistic fiction because it tells the story of a boy that lived in a time when the Jews were mistreated by the German Nazis in the 1940s during World World II. The story takes place in Warsaw (the Ghetto), Poland, and is about real life tragedies that happened during World War II.

The conversation between Wiesenthal and Bolek is another example of forgiveness is necessary. When Wiesenthal tells Bolek of what he experienced in the dying SS man’s room, Bolek says he describes it as a man who showed signs of “repentance, genuine, sincere repentance” (Wiesenthal 82). He means that Wiesenthal believes the dying SS man’s apology was sincere. He believes that Wiesenthal seen his apology as genuine and that he deserved the “mercy of forgiveness” (Wiesenthal 82). Wiesenthal spots a sunflower behind a bush, he takes it as the sunflower has come to “remind [him]” (Wiesenthal 84) of what he describes as a “feeling of duty” (Wiesenthal 84). Wiesenthal “duty” (Wiesenthal 85) and his planning on visiting the mother of the deceased SS man show that he is beginning to realize that he needs to come to terms with his experienced at the hospital in Lemberg. He visits her for closure and ultimately to decide within himself if he should finally forgive the man responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent Jewish people.

Berger, "She loved my brother, too.  It's just me"(120).  He concluded that Beth could not love him because there was something wrong with him.  After the big fight that Conrad had with his parents, he revealed to his father his opinion of Beth's feelings for him. Conrad tells him, "All right, then.  She hates me"(114).  Because Conrad felt that there was something wrong with him, he did not know how to react to situations nor did he know when to express his feelings.  For his Christmas present, Conrad's parents and grandparents bought him a car.  His response to this extravagant present was, "Yeah, okay… Thank you both, it's beautiful really.  It's terrific"(126).  He was not overly excited, as one should be, on receiving such an extraordinary gift.  He was not quite sure how to act, so he repressed all of his feelings.  In an early conversation with Berger, Conrad said, "What I'm doing here is that I had to come"(41).  This proves that Conrad was in denial of his psychological state and foreshadows Conrad's severe state of depression.  Conrad repressed all of his feelings and emotions.  He told Berger, "I don't feel anything"(98). Later on in the conversation, Berger told Conrad that the "Only way you're ever gonna get to know him [the guy in the closet] is to let him out now and then."(100)  This alludes to the fact that Conrad repressed his feelings and was extremely depressed.  All of these factors led to

Berger also helped reduce Conrad’s feelings of remorse. Conrad felt a lot of guilt for attempting suicide because he felt his mother, Beth would never forgive him. They had a very rocky relationship due

Out of the twenty experts that were presented their opinions on The Sunflower differ from each other. Out of all the experts, there is only two female. Jose Hobday and Mary Gordon both have different opinions and expertise. Hobday is a nun and she said she would forgive the dying soldier. On the other side for Gordon, she is an author and she said she would not forgive the soldier. There is four male white who were in the symposium part of the story. Harold Samuel Kusher, Matthie Ricard, Tzvetan Todorov, and Herbert Marcuse put their thoughts on forgiving the soldier or not. Kusher is a motivational speaker and he didn’t really state if he would forgive but he does agree with Simon that silence was acceptable in the situation. Ricard is a monk