Buying The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

"who can be indoctrinated with evil. Mankind is ostensibly striving to avert catastrophes; medical progress gives us hope that one day disease can be conquered, but will we ever be able to prevent the creation of mass murderers?"-Simon Wiesenthal

The Lord loves justice Isaiah 6:18

All people who call themselves christians should read this book because christianity is under attack and for good reason many times. I grew up in the bible belt; you were extremely weird if you didn't go to church and there are churches on every corner practically in this part of the country. Christian Germans, continental europeans had their faiths tried by fire in this last century, it is not so obvious in America, but I believe we are standing at the edge of a cliff in so many ways and we have choices to make and those choices will save or condemn your soul; no matter how many apostles creeds you say, the choices you are making today will determine your salvation or not.

This book is probably the best book I've ever read. I love Simon Wiesenthal not just for his books' content but because Simon understood G-d's demands for justice; he then tracked down the Nazi killers who took millions of lives and not only jews. Forgiveness is a hard thing to do but Christ commands christians that if they don't forgive others their sins that G-d can't forgive them. Christ told his followers to pray more than 70 x 7 times until they could truly forgive those who persecuted them. However, in the case Mr. Wiesenthal places before us, the crimes possibly committed by the dying Nazi soldier are much more than what he mentions, but we simply don't know all the details. Simon of course has seen this scene of slaughter so many times, jews rounded up, jews crowded into kerosene laced buildings and set on fire. And then the dying Nazi soldier begs him to stay and hear his confession instead of from a priest. Simon stayed there for hours and though Karl wanted to hear Simon forgive him and though Simon really sensed that Karl was sincere, he simply could not utter the words, but rendered what little comfort he could muster by holding his hand, by swatting away flies from Karl's infected, rotting face, the whole time though wanting to flee. The whole story affected Simon so much for days afterwards he had nightmares and would wake screaming back in the death camp; it greatly alarmed his friends because the Nazis would usually respond to such disturbances by shooting or hanging them. His friends finally silenced his screams by having talks with him about this strange encounter: "it was not your place to forgive him because you were not his immediate victim" and "how could you forgive on the part of the whole jewish nation", "we all will probably not survive this death camp".... All of those friends later died within the camp, from malnutrition, infectious disease, gun shots. Somehow Simon was miraculously spared and he dedicated the rest of his life to bringing to justice the Nazi murderers from some of the remotest, wild corners of the world.

What can I say but I place this book on the same pedestal as my bible. Clearly putting away criminals who take the lives of innocent millions and not only jews is just and understood by most cultures. It was stipulated in the books of Moses: for blood pollutes the land and NO atonement can be made for the land except by the blood of him who shed it. Is it not significant that one of the first stories in the bible, in christian, jewish, and even muslim bibles is the story of the killing of Able by Cain and G-d hearing the voice of Able crying from the ground?

There are two versions of this book, but I recommend this last version over Wiesenthal's first; the additional perspectives from 53 persons that Wiesenthal posed his question to adds more insight to the problem of forgiveness. All of their answers are slightly different, all equally thought provoking. Most believed Simon behaved rightly in his response to Karl, it was not his place to offer forgiveness because he was not the injured party and Simon acted UBER princely given the circumstances by what little he did and mostly by what he didn't do. "He could have smothered him with a pillow to put Karl out of his misery," one of the respondents noted. He could have choked him if he was consumed by a rage for vengeance, but true to G-d's word left the vengeance part to G-d. 'Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay.' What does G-d promise? Vengeance is mine, I WILL REPAY. G-d is just and cannot tolerate evildoers. Evildoers will be punished if not in this lifetime, surely in the world hereafter.

So, herein, you will find responses from the most unlikely of characters, the Dalai Lama, various christian theologians, of course, other jews, some concentration camp survivors, teachers and most surprisingly an answer from Albert Speer, who was the only Nazi to declare his guilt at the Nuremberg trials. My favorite responses were from the Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Dith Pran and a jewish teacher. The Dalai Lama asked a buddhist monk what did he fear most after years of brutal torture by the chinese; the monk told him that his biggest fear was that he would lose compassion for the Chinese. Dith Pran, a survivor of Pol Pot's murderous rampages saw and understood how the soldiers were duped and deceived by these murderous despots as Hitler youths were manipulated by the Nazis. He wrote: "We need to learn to separate the true culprits from the pawns, the evil masterminds from the brainwashed." The jewish teacher posed Simon's predicament and question to her students who were studying The Sunflower. Nearly all christians said they'd forgive Karl, nearly all jews said that they wouldn't. I think her observation is significant. And as someone who's been raised as a christian and trained in the bible, I think that the jews' thinking/logic on this issue is incredibly wise and worth examining.

Harry Wu's experience of nearly 20 years in chinese prison gave him a slightly different perspective: "In regard to Mr. Wisenthal's story and in comparing his story to my own, I must first state that it is inconceivable for me to believe that anyone in the People's Republic of China would ask for such forgiveness as the Nazi soldier did to the jewish prisoner. In China, there was no understanding that what the communists did to their own people was in any way morally wrong....They had no regard for an individual's well-being. There was no value put on a human's life because, quite simply, the leaders of the country placed no value on human life. In order to survive in China during these times, one had to give up one's own conscience and humanity....Instead, the society that the communists founded was designed to drain any remnants of humanity out of a person. Like Mr. Wiesenthal, I would not have forgiven the Nazi soldier, but I would have been able to say to him: "I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you.""

The only comment I took offense to was one by a christian speaking of Christ and His disciples welcoming Judas Iscariot back into their midst. In the account of John, son of Zebedee, Jesus says about Judas after he left to betray Him for 30 pieces of silver, "it would have been better if he had never been born." In John also, Christ said that His father gave all judgement to Him and so Christ's words to a christian should be more true than other apocryphal writings as "The Judas Gospel". It's so easy for false truths to be believed and lies disseminated.

Theologians don't have a clear handle on what the blasphemy of the holy spirit is, what the only sin is that G-d will never forgive, but I have no doubt that it would surely be found in the many evil acts against humanity, against the sanctity of human life that was to be unveiled from these true stories of the holocaust. (Jews prefer the word Shoah rather than the holocaust. Shoah in English means calamity. Holocaust has twisted christian connotations of whole burnt offering as if there was something holy in the jews' sacrifice which I totally agree is extremely abhorrent.) But the world knows of these tribulations as the holocaust so I use that term here.

This book is one of the most important books I've ever read. It is so thought provoking and there are really no easy answers to Simon's question. I found myself as I am here, thinking of so many arguments. It is a subject of universal appeal because forgiveness is truely hard when one has been subjected to such uncomparable persecution and suffering. And even christians should grasp that G-d understands our difficulty with this issue, to truely forgive 100% may not even be achieved in one's lifetime and doesn't negate one's salvation (my thoughts). But after the 490 or 4900 time of trying to forgive a heinous crime all one may be able to do is say, I CANNOT DO IT, BUT I HAND IT OVER TO YOU TO ADJUDICATE. And I think G-d probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

I have so many pages marked; my hope and prayer is that whoever reads this review will want to read the book themselves. I couldn't find this edition anywhere in the greater Atlanta area, universities included. You can get it through interlibrary loan, but better to have the book on hand as I do.

I must temper my criticism of christianity with these thoughts from Dennis Prager: "I am a religious Jew who has come to admire many christians and to appreciate Christianity....I deeply fear the consequences of a de-Christianized America."Get more detail about The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness.