Simon Wiesenthal has written a forthright and compelling book, in The Sunflower: On the Possibility and Limits of Forgiveness, which gives one intense questions to ponder. But, the answers to these questions don’t come lightly, if at all, as the reader is swept back and forth, and caught up within the labyrinth, gravity and seriousness of the issue at hand.

Wiesenthal is remarkable in his ability to foster deep thinking and thought-provoking thoughts to the reader. the book is a complex blend of so many issues and trains of thought and religion. What is forgiveness? What does redemption symbolize or mean to a Holocaust Survivor? What about the one who was the perpetrator? Can victims and those that inflicted pain, atrocities and extreme horror exist in the same world?

Wiesenthal was a Holocaust victim, imprisoned within the Lemberg concentration camp, in Austria. One day he was taken by guards to the bedside of a Nazi SS Officer, who was dying. The SS officer reveals his crimes against humanity to Wiesenthal, in particular crimes against the Jews. When he has finished with his revelations, he asks Wiesenthal to forgive him. The request is his last and dying wish.

Wisenthal was decent and sympathetic enough to listen to the man, and once he did, he left the room, without uttering a word of forgiveness. Herein lies the quandary and the complexity of his story.

Wiesenthal leaves us to wonder what we, as Jews, would have done under similar circumstances. Would we have understood his (Wiesenthal’s) dilemma? Would we have been sympathetic? Would we have forgiven the deathbed confession of the SS officer? How do other religions view the same circumstance? Would they forgive? Why? Why not?

There are questions that abound, and bounce back and forth, and Wiesenthal himself, asks and wonders where G-d was throughout all of the nightmarish and horrific events. He wonders why it appears to be left to him to forgive this person who was part of a master plan of genocide. Is it his moral responsibility to forgive the SS officer’s perpetration against humankind? How can he, one person, be the redeemer and the one to forgive such actions, and erase them as if they never occurred? How can one human being forgive the murder of all of the Holocaust victims? How can one Jew, forgive a crime or crimes committed against another human being, and not against himself? Complicated questions are copious.

Jews are not responsible for forgiving an act committed against others, but are only able to forgive acts committed by man against themselves. We are not the collective whole, or the collective spine in the area of forgiveness. Simon Wiesenthal brings that realm of thought to the forefront in bold discussion and brutal honesty, and appears to wrestle with his own decision. The fact that he didn’t fulfill the last request of a dying man haunted him throughout his years. Yet, as a Jewish individual, was forgiveness of acts against another person an expectation of him in the Jewish community? Questions and more questions penetrate the pages, and the Jewish ethics and morals resound through the silence of The Sunflower.

Who are we to judge Wiesenthal? What would you have done under a similar circumstance? Can you definitely say? Would you forgive a person who wronged so many, but did not wrong you? Are you, as a Jew, responsible for the dying man’s last wish and redemption? Thought provoking is the understatement, when reading this intensely written book. It is profound on so many levels, and will stay with me for quite some time to come.

The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, by Simon Wiesenthal is compelling, harsh, yet filled with the brutal reality of the testing of the morals and ethics of Judaism.

To learn more about Simon Wiesenthal, visit the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

I personally own and have read this book.
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Jew Wishes…Peace to you all.
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Monday January 12, 2009 – 16th of Tevet, 5769