Symply Amazing

After reading The Sunflower, I have gained an interest in the Holocaust. The harsh conditions that the victims had to live through are terrible, and cannot be fathomed. The second half of The Sunflower is made up of a symposium or a collection of reflections on the dilemma that the author of the book faces. For those who haven't read The Sunflower the conflict of the novel is about the soldier who wants forgiveness, from a Jew, for the actions he had done during the Holocaust. The second half of the novel is a Symposium. A Symposium is a collection of reflections. In this case, there are 53 entries from people about their opinions of how ethical they thought the situation was. The symposium is a very interesting part of the book as it gives many, a total of 53, point of views on the major issue.
On to my take......

STEVEN ANDREW COHAN
12th Grade Student

Dear Simon Wiesenthal,
Your last question posed to me, the reader, "What would I have done?" is very thought provoking (Wiesenthal 98). I could not imagine being put in the situation you were put in. I think I would have acted the same way you did. I would have sat in silence and made the dying SS soldier think long and hard about the question he had asked. As a young Jewish man, I am able to feel for you and our people. The Holocaust was terrible and to this day if the same question was asked, I would still hold a grudge. If I had the opportunity, I would have punched the dying soldier in his face; how dare he ask for forgiveness after being part of an organization that was responsible for the death of over six million Jews and up to twenty-one million people total? The Nazis involved in the Holocaust should never be forgiven for their terrible acts. I agree that forgiving is the right thing to do, but there is a point where forgiving in not always acceptable; this is one of those cases and I agree fully with how you handled it.

For more on The Sunflower, and about forgiveness on such a high level, check out this
article by Kelly Sawyer. Her take on how far forgiveness can go is very interesting. It is tough to determine "the capacity to forgive someone of a crime as atrocious as genocide" but I think that there is no way forgiveness is possible when the crime is as bad as playing a role in the destruction of a human race.