Analysis Of The Sunflower By Simon Wiesenthal

When it comes to the topic of Simon Wiesenthal not forgiving a dying SS soldier for his crimes, most of us will readily agree that it’s a debatable topic. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of if Wiesenthal should have forgiven the soldier. Whereas some are convinced that he made the right choice in not forgiving the soldier, others maintain that he should have let the soldier die peacefully, guilt free, and forgiven. I agree with Wiesenthal’s decision to not forgive the dying SS soldier because he cannot speak for all the other Jews who have been killed by this man. In Simon Wiesenthal’s book, The Sunflower, he asks the reader what they would have done in his position with the SS soldier. If I was Wiesenthal, I wouldn’t have forgiven the man as I cannot make decisions for others and because the soldier was not sincere in his apology for the crimes he was involved in.

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.

The Nazi Party considered the youth of Germany as an important component for the future. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazi Party) wrote in his autobiography Mein Kamp (My Struggle), “whoever has the youth has the future” . Hitler considered the Germany’s youth and the treatment of the youth to be an imperative aspect to guarantee a secure future for Germany and Nazi party and he aimed to create a nation dedicated to the Nationalist Socialist view. In order to achieve this, Hitler exploited the education system and took control of the Youth movement. The Reich Ministry of Education took power of the schooling system permeated it with propaganda to indoctrinate the youth. The majority of the young people in Germany participated in youth groups such as the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls which trained them for military service and motherhood.

In Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, he recounts his incidence of meeting a dying Nazi soldier who tells Simon that he was responsible for the death of his family. Upon telling Simon the details, Karl asks for his forgiveness for what he helped accomplish. Simon leaves Karl without giving him an answer. This paper will argue that, even though Karl admits to killing Simon’s family in the house, Simon is morally forbidden to forgive Karl because Karl does not seem to show genuine remorse for his committed crime and it is not up to Simon to be able to forgive Karl for his sins. This stand will be supported by the meaning of forgiveness, evidence from the memoir, quotes from the published responses to Simon’s moral question, and arguments from

Hitler isolated the youth from the rest of Germany to be able to easily manipulate their beliefs. In 1926 the Hitler Youth was founded and was made for the purpose to train boys to enter the SA (Storm Troopers), a Nazi Party paramilitary

In The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, a wounded soldier asks Simon for forgiveness for a terrible crime he committed during the Holocaust. He is on his deathbed, and asks a nurse to bring a Jewish person to him. The nurse brings Simon and Simon doesn’t forgive him, instead walking out without saying anything. After reading The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal along with multiple essays responding to it, I believe Simon should have forgiven the man because he was manipulated into thinking what he was doing was right.

The Hitler Youth, also known as the Hitlerjugend, was designed specifically for young Germans who wanted to fulfill their duties to the Fatherland and its leader, Adolf Hitler. Founded in 1926, this helped Hitler gain support from children throughout the entire country. Children as young as 6, with good records could join and become apprentices. By 1933, there were 100,000 members of the Hitler Youth and by 1940, 90% of all German children were members of the organization. Children were encouraged directly, mostly through school teachers. Parent permission was not necessary, making it easier for children to join. There were different sections of the Hitler Youth, based on age. It also had several divisions much like a real army. The boys were treated much like real soldiers at Hitler Youth training camps. They practiced military marching daily, strengthened their bodies, and had their hair shaved in military

Then the Nazis had to prepare for the future and the future of Germany was the youth. Many organisations like the Hitler youth and the league for German Maidens were set up to teach the youth to follow the Nazis. In the Hitler youth they were taught like the military, neat, tidy and organised. The youth saw Hitler as a father figure in the fatherland and obeyed him. Then Hitler used indoctrination in the education system to recruit them into the army as loyal Nazis. There were subtle Nazi views added into all school work to brainwash the youth, as they were naive and didn’t see the wrong side of the Nazis true nature. The future of the people’s community was successfully secure and the Nazis would keep control for years to come.

In other words if Karl wanted to be forgiven, he then must ask the Jews, who were killed, for absolution. "But who was to forgive him? I? Nobody had empowered me to do so...I have no power to forgive him in the name of other people..." said Mr. Wiesenthal (The Sunflower 82). However, Karl seemed like treating Mr. Wiesenthal as a representative of Jews. He wished forgiveness from a member of Jews community and that 's enough for him to leave the world in peace. Those Jews who were killed would not be able to answer Karl. So it must depend on people who are still alive to grant forgiveness for Karl. Death is the end; a murderer is human. Let me forgive the dying repented soldier so he could rest in peace.

The Holocaust was a genocide that occured from 1933-1945, and one of its survivors was Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal was an architect before he was captured by the Nazis. After he was set free, he dedicated his life to finding Nazi war criminals and persecuting them in court. Later on in his life, he wrote a memoir, The Sunflower. It was about one of his many experiences at the Lemberg concentration camp where he got roped in to listening to a dynig SS soldier, Karl. Right before, Wiesenthal leaves Karl’s room, Karl asks for Wiesenthal, on behalf of all the Jews he persecuted, for forgiveness. Wiesenthal left Karl’s room without forgiving him, and then asks the readers, “ What would I have done?” At the end of The Sunflower, people who Wiesenthal picked to respond to his question, had their answers published. The most interesting response was Jose Hobday’s. Hobday believed that Wiesenthal should have apologized to Karl because it would have given Karl a sense of peace, making it easier for him to pass on. Hobday has the correct answer to Wiesenthal’s question because even though all of the Jews that Karl persecuted are dead and will not be able to apologize to him in person, Karl just wants someone to know that he is sorry for his actions.

The Holocaust was a genocide that occurred from 1933-1945, and one of its survivors was Simon Wiesenthal. After he was set free from the concentration camp, he dedicated his life to finding Nazi war criminals and persecuting them in court. Later on in his life, he wrote a memoir, The Sunflower. It was about one of his many experiences at the Lemberg concentration camp where he got roped into listening to a dying SS soldier, Karl. Right before Wiesenthal left Karl’s room, Karl asked Wiesenthal, on behalf of all the Jews he persecuted, for forgiveness. Wiesenthal left Karl’s room without forgiving him, and then asked his readers, “What would I have done?” At the end of The Sunflower, people who Wiesenthal picked to respond to his question, had their answers published. The most interesting response was Jose Hobday’s. Hobday believed that Wiesenthal should have forgiven to Karl because it would have given Karl a sense of peace, making it easier for him to pass on. Hobday had the correct answer to Wiesenthal’s question because even though all of the Jews that Karl persecuted are dead and will not be able to forgive him in person, Karl just wanted someone to know that he was sorry for his actions.

In the Age of War and Displacement is characterized by imperialism, nationalism, racism, and power. In an era of both freedom and confinement, Simon Wiesenthal describes his experience of the Holocaust, which is used to analyze, what it means to be human. After World War One (WWI), the Germans lost, “Hitler assumed authority and began to blame the Jews for what happened in WWI” (Bingle). Within a few months, Germans started to believe Hitler that they were the master race or supermen, and had no trouble committing genocide of any group Hitler labeled as “bad” or “subhuman”. The Sunflower, address the nature and task of human but also gives a Jewish perspective of “Humanness”. Wiesenthal asks, “Were we truly all made of the same stud? If so, why were some murderers and other victims? Was there in fact any personal relationship between us, between the murderers and their victims, between our camp commandant, Wilhaus, and a tortured Jews (Wiesenthal 7)?

Edward H. Flannery states that The Sunflower presents “an important moral question” (Flannery 135). Flannery argues in favor of forgiveness. He states that Karl, the dying SS man, could had asked for forgiveness for what “he had done” (Flannery 137) not forgiveness on the behalf of others. Flannery states that

“The Hitler Youth was founded in 1926” (“The Nazi Party”). As stated by Meinecke, “The Hitler Youth is not a boy scout or a girl guide organization… it is a compulsory Nazi formation which has consciously sought to breed hate, treachery, and cruelty into the minds and souls of every German child. It is in the true sense of the word education for death” (Conley). Hitler “based the Hitler Youth on anti-intellectualism, focusing on military training in preparation for becoming a soldier at 18” ("The Nazi Party”). The Hitler Youth was split up throughout the world, with some of the groups sent as far away as South America. “Baldur von Schirach was appointed the Reich Youth Leader” (“The Nazi Party”). There were age restrictions for the German Youth under Hitler. “German Youth could join the Hitler Youth beginning at the age of 10” (“The Nazi Party”). Hitler thought that the Hitler youth would help the “Third Reich last 1000 years” (Conley). The Hitler Youth played a major part in Hitler’s ultimate plan to eliminate the Jews, the

In the Hitler Youth movement, created in 1922, each child born had to join an extremely tough military training in preparation for any kind of war. Many children did not know why they were training in that way. Yet for them just the feeling in being proud and brave was enough to continue in their tasks. They enjoyed being the center of attention and the object of the adult desires. We can say that the Nazis system in