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Works cited for the sunflower on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness
Works cited for the sunflower on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness
Works cited for the sunflower on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness
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While reading “The Sunflower,” by Simon Wiesenthal, I had many mixed emotions and reactions to his story as would many other readers. One of the most reoccurring thoughts that I would have is to feel truly sorry for Simon. In Simon’s story, he tells us how he was a randomly picked Jew and heard a dying Nazi soldier named Karl confess his sins to him. After the confession of the soldier, Karl asked Simon for forgiveness for his wrongdoing to the Jews and any other sins he may have had. Simon had forgiven him, but many other Jews seemed to disagree with Simon’s call on whether or not Karl should have received forgiveness. I for one would have forgiven him also. I do realize that I really do not have in a say in this or not, but there are many …show more content…
He should have asked for forgiveness from a minister or a priest, but he felt the need to confess to a Jew because his confession would mean more to himself and also Simon or any other Jew. Karl was a young Nazi Soldier who was in his early twenties. I think many people can agree that everybody wants to die with a clean sleight. No one wants to die a sinner so Karl had every right to ask for forgiveness, because if it was one of us, we would be doing the same thing and I guarantee none of us can say we wouldn 't. As a boy who is very young and in the military, how is he supposed to say no to his commanding officer? One could not simply deny his commanding officers orders. Still to this day, you do not deny your commanding officers …show more content…
I stated before about how I would have forgave Karl for his wrongdoing to the Jewish people and others. The Holocaust was a tragic thing and we can all agree to that. When I think of the military, I think about learning respect for your commanding officers and other soldiers and civilians. Karl was commanded to shoot anyone who was trying to escape from the burning house so he listened to his orders when a family did jump. If I was there in Karl 's shoes, I for one would have shot the family when they jumped even though it would have been wrong and I wouldn 't want too. In the symposium responses, Lawrence L. Langer stated, "When we call the murder of a helpless Jewish father and a child a 'wrong, ' we ease the crime into the realm of familiar and forgivable transgressions and relieve ourselves of the burden of facing its utter horror" (188). No matter what word we use to describe the killing of millions of helpless Jews, it will still feel like what Langer
Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness spoke to me about the question of forgiveness and repentance. Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He experienced many brutal and uneasy experiences that no human being should experience in their lifetime and bear to live with it. Death, suffering, and despair were common to Simon Wiesenthal that he questioned his own religious faith because he asks why would his God allow the Holocaust happen to his people to be slaughter and not do anything to save them. During Simon Wiesenthal time as a Jewish Holocaust, Simon was invited to a military hospital where a dying Nazi SS officer wanted to have a conversation. The Nazi SS officer told Simon his story of his life and confesses to Simon of his horrific war crimes. Ultimately, the SS officer wanted forgiveness for what he done to Simon’s Jewish people. Simon Wiesenthal could not respond to his request, because he did not know what to do with a war criminal that participate in mass genocide to Simon’s people. Simon Wiesenthal lives throughout his life on asking the same crucial question, “What would I have done?” (Wiesenthal 98). If the readers would be on the exact situation as Simon was
The author of my essay is Simon Balic and he is a historian and culturologist. The title of the work is, Sunflower Symposium (109-111). Balic wrote this essay thirty years after The Sunflower was written. Balic argues that he does not forgive the sufferer, although he does feel some remorse. The author supports and develops the thesis in a chronological order in order to take the reader through exactly what was seen, heard, and thought of during this time. Both Weisenthal and Balic had a liable reason to not forgive the soldier, “There are crimes whose enormity cannot be measured. Rectifying a misdeed is a matter to be settled between the perpetrator and the victim” (Wiesenthal 54). Through this, Balic was trying to speak to his audience of fellow historians.
Wiesenthal, Simon, the Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness Synopsis and book setting The story is a about a dying SS officer who asks for a Jew in his last moments so he can seek redemption. Simon Wiesenthal was called and he decided to become silent when the apology was delivered to him as the representative of his people. Some comment on the perpetuation of the crime through the ambiguous apology of the SS man. The reason why Simon did not comment was partly because of the offense that was caused considering the officer meant there was no individuality for the Jew and therefore any Jew would have sufficed for the entire apology.
As strong, independent, self-driven individuals, it is not surprising that Chris McCandless and Lily Owens constantly clashed with their parents. In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, Chris was a twenty-four-year-old man that decided to escape the materialistic world of his time for a life based on the simplistic beauty of nature. He graduated at the top of his class at Emory University and grew up in affluent Annandale, Virginia, during the early 1980’s. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily was a fourteen-year-old girl who grew up in the 1960’s, a time when racial equality was a struggle. She had an intense desire to learn about her deceased mother. Her nanny, Rosaleen, with whom she grew very close over the years, raised Lily with little help from her abusive father. When her father failed to help Rosaleen after three white men hospitalized her, Lily was hysterical. Later, Lily decided to break Rosaleen out of the hospital and leave town for good. While there are differences between Chris McCandless and Lily Owens, they share striking similarities. Chris McCandless’ and Lily Owens’s inconsistencies of forgiveness with their parents resulted in damaged relationships and an escape into the unknown.
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 Thomas Brudholm, Charles Griswold, and Trudy Govier. The possibly raised objection, for this particular modified situation, of forgiveness being necessary to move on from Desmond Tutu will be countered with the logic of needing to eventually find an end somewhere.
There are many heroic individuals in history that have shown greatness during a time of suffering ,as well as remorse when greatness is needed, but one individual stood out to me above them all. He served as a hero among all he knew and all who knew him. This individual, Simon Wiesenthal, deserves praise for his dedication to his heroic work tracking and prosecuting Nazi war criminals that caused thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other victims of the Holocaust to suffer and perish.
In The Sunflower while in a hospital, Simon Wiesenthal was approached by a nurse who leads him to a dying SS soldier named Karl who confessed to Wiesenthal of his heinous acts against Jews, He asked Wiesenthal for his forgiveness. Instead of replying Wiesenthal walked away and later that night the soldier passed away. Through Karl’s confession you could see that he was remorseful for the actions committed through his time as an SS soldier; therefore, Karl should be forgiven.
He told of being on a balcony, seeing people pass by, and wanting to have a machine gun to release his anger. His hatred for the Germans and what they had done to him and his family was very evident. On a personal level Thomas Buergenthal learned to forgive, because it benefited him more than staying bitter. He sums this up when talking about himself and his mother by saying, “ I doubt that we would have been able to preserve our sanity had we remained consumed by hatred for the rest of our lives.” The process of forgiving took a lot of time. He eventually realized “that one cannot hope to protect mankind from crimes such as those that were visited upon us unless one struggles to break the cycle of hatred and violence that invariably leads to more suffering by innocent human beings.” This realization lead Buergenthal to go to law school and work in multiple human rights organizations and courts. He felt fit to serve in such a place as he was a victim of the greatest infringement on human rights in
"While fighting for victory the German soldier will observe the rules for chivalrous warfare. Cruelties and senseless destruction are below his standard" , or so the commandment printed in every German Soldiers paybook would have us believe. Yet during the Second World War thousands of Jews were victims of war crimes committed by Nazi's, whose actions subverted the code of conduct they claimed to uphold and contravened legislation outlined in the Geneva Convention. It is this legislature that has paved the way for the Jewish community and political leaders to attempt to redress the Nazi's violation, by prosecuting individuals allegedly responsible. Convicting Nazi criminals is an implicit declaration by post-World War II society that the Nazi regime's extermination of over five million Jews won't go unnoticed.
Should the narrator of “The Seventh Man” forgive himself for his failure to save K? The narrator should forgive himself for not saving K because they would have probably both died if the narrator tried to save K. The narrator of “The Seventh Man” experiences survivor guilt for living through the disaster and his best friend K dying. He lives most of his life doubting his decision on not saving K but then learns to forgive himself towards the end of the story. In “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” it talks about how soldiers who have lived through the war but their friends have died, experience survivor guilt which is very depressing to see. Even though The Seventh Man Isn’t a soldier he still shares these same traits to soldiers because the have both lost close friends.
As humans, we are entitled to making mistakes in our lives, but by forgiving one free himself from anger. Marianne Williamson wrote this about forgiveness: “ Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” In the book The Glass Castle undergoes many difficult circumstances in which the act of forgiveness is the only way to be at peace with her family, but more importantly herself. But the real question is does she truly forgive them. Jeanette’s ability to constantly forgive her parents enabled her to have a positive attitude because the negativity was released when
...d decisions that were need to be met, most will lie to one another or to themselves. It becomes a time where everyone is on their own. It just will not work trying to help others and still help yourself. It has been shown that when in the heat of the moment, most will reveal sides of themselves that either oneself or others may not have even known to be there. Now, after realizing not only the physical, but emotional ties that came along with the Holocaust, do you think that it was right to come to an “every man for himself” type of survival or should have they stuck together. This leads to the other question of would there have been a different outcome if had done so? Lies and deceit has shown not only a change in people at this time, but how in the end decisions that were made because of the shift of the inmates had really instigated the situation versus helped.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” Forgiveness is a necessary attribute that everyone must acquire as they grow and mature. Lily Owens, the protagonist in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, exemplifies the need to forgive in order to find inner peace. Lily suffers many hardships and difficulties as she ages due to the faults and flaws of the people who surround her. Throughout the novel, Lily must learn how to forgive, accept, and love herself and
The act of forgiving a murder is out of the question for most people. Simon is confronted with this very dilemma in The Sunflower. Karl, a dying Nazi, is asking forgiveness from a Jew, the narrator. The narrator leaves the dying Nazi with no answer, leaving him with an agonizing thought of whether he did or did not do the right thing. Due to the fact both Karl and the narrator’s psychological well-being is affected by not only wartime but other extenuating factors, the narrator should grant Karl forgiveness, as this dying man is an individual who is genuinely repenting for the crimes he has committed. Forgiveness will allow Karl to die with piece of mind while the narrator will continue life with a stable and clear conscience.
To all of them? To the countless families and children. What right did he have to take their world and break it to shambles? They had no right. They had no reason. But still they did. Bertolt is resentful. Resentful to be German. To be associated with the name “Nazi.” To be part of a culture that took the lives of millions upon millions and even screwed with the lives of those who lived under Hitler’s reign. “Neither in the old days nor now did I wish to have my son’s imagination perverted for him.” They’ve corrupted the children. Turned them against their parents by influencing them to join “Hitler youth groups.” The words youth group and Hitler in the same sentence are pure