The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

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had carried out the murders. On the other hand, when Simon Wiesenthal visited the dead soldier's mother in Stuttgart some months later, he was right not to deprive her of her illusions about her son. He did not visit his sins on her. Wiesenthal obeyed the biblical injunction that each of us dies for his own sins, and not even for those of our children or of our parents. He could not tell this mother the truth, for the truth would have destroyed her, even if she had continued to live on as a physical being. These reflections were not elicited from me only by contemplating the moving story that Wiesenthal has told. I was born in Lubaczów, Galicia, in 1921 and escaped the Holocaust because my family was in the United States by 1926. I cannot make peace with my own generation of Germans and their collaborators in the satellite countries, because my contemporaries could have refused to join the Nazis, but the majority hailed Hitler to the day of his defeat and death. I remember my own relatives—a grandfather, many uncles and aunts and their children—and I cannot fathom the mentality of those who murdered them for being Jews. Those who say that they are sorry and ashamed, I can only leave to their own guilt. I am just as pained by the attempts to “explain” the Holocaust. These writings may, sometimes, be full of historical insights, or even ingenious theology, but together they obscure and cover over a question that can never be answered: Why did man, and God, fail so horribly? Together with Simon Wiesenthal, who said nothing at the deathbed of the SS soldier, we can only be silent.
THEODORE M. HESBURGH Who am I to advise a person of another religion who has suffered incredibly more than I have? I would not ordinarily presume to do so, but I was requested to do so, so I do. My whole instinct is to forgive. Perhaps that is because I am a Catholic priest. In a sense, I am in the forgiving business. I sit in a confessional for hours and forgive everyone who comes in, confesses, and is sorry. I think of God as the great forgiver of sinful humanity. The greatest story of Jesus is the Prodigal Son. Can we aspire to be as forgiving of each other as God is of us? Of course, the sin here is monumental. It is still finite and God's mercy is infinite. If asked to forgive, by anyone for anything, I would forgive because God would forgive. If I had suffered as so many had, it might be much more difficult, but I hope I would still be forgiving, not from my own small position but as a surrogate for our almighty and allforgiving God.
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CONTENTS Preface BOOK ONE The Sun
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Edward H. Flannery Eva Fleischner M
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Cardinal Franz König Harold S. Kus
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Matthieu Ricard Joshua Rubenstein S
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PREFACE When the first American edi
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Holocaust, repeat many of its horro
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What was it Arthur said last night?
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they splintered into small groups,
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If so, why were some murderers and
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order in which God has a definite p
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always led to dire punishment. If a
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Our gaze roamed the crowds on the p
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last look at the forest of sunflowe
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We turned left. I knew the way well
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designed as a prison gate. They had
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The other soldiers didn't seem to s
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work with Derdacki—a design for a
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I obeyed. His almost bloodless hand
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“I heard from one of the sisters
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All the atrocities and tortures tha
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closed the door behind me I heard m
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spirits. Oh, the jokes we used to p
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see symbols in everything. It was a
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He took a deep breath. Then a sip o
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“As we approached I could see the
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forget—least of all the child. It
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constantly warned Eli's parents to
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monotone. Sick people when they are
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“Our rest period did not last lon
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“In that moment I saw the burning
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the fact that he spoke to me was a
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“I was beginning to think you had
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At the end of Grodezka Street we tu
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Luckily the commandant was nowhere
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was better to keep my mouth shut ab
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career when the war broke out. Duri
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He now had me where he wanted me: I
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His father brought him to me in his
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though the Poles were now themselve
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to prove they were earning their sp
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swallowed it ravenously. Soldiers s
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failed. Then one day the extra labo
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whole stock of drugs consisted of i
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“Bolek,” I insisted, “you who
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“Maybe. But had he come to the ri
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At that time the world was seeking
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confronted the mother I did not kno
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move to my sister's, but I don't wa
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She could not tell me enough. I had
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Germans to find out who was guilty.
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My picture of Karl was almost compl
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And later when I met his mother I a
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tool of war. Over 10,000 individual
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I explicitly and emphatically rejec
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JEAN AMÉRY My high regard for your
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part in the extermination, he knew
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SMAIL BALI Now that nearly thirty y
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shape the views of the masses. One
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epresentative of German Nazism, or
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Even if Wiesenthal believed that he
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except when the state declares an a
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forgiveness is forbidden. Judaism t
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ROBERT MCAFEE BROWN Warsaw, 1979. W
Page 132 and 133: after twenty-seven years in jail, p
Page 134 and 135: HARRY JAMES CARGAS I am afraid not
Page 136 and 137: ROBERT COLES We are told at the end
Page 138 and 139: inconceivable to us. Still, with ca
Page 140 and 141: THE DALAI LAMA I believe one should
Page 142 and 143: EUGENE J. FISHER Simon Wiesenthal's
Page 144 and 145: Secondly, I believe it is the heigh
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Page 148 and 149: Simon's sleep was not to remain so
Page 150 and 151: unanimity on such issues is rarely,
Page 152 and 153: course; it has invariably led to an
Page 154 and 155: elates to the concept of atonement,
Page 156 and 157: MATTHEW FOX Simon Wiesenthal is a t
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Page 160 and 161: allows these sins to take root and
Page 162 and 163: all-to-hell type, the Nazi beast. D
Page 164 and 165: increments in his humanity add up,
Page 166 and 167: the community that gives him that r
Page 168 and 169: Did the Germans actually feed into
Page 170 and 171: even saw one, and whatever atrociti
Page 172 and 173: HANS HABE On reading The Sunflower
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Page 178 and 179: those Jews who tried to isolate Ger
Page 180 and 181: ARTHUR HERTZBERG This personal hist
Page 184 and 185: ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL Over fifty y
Page 186 and 187: SUSANNAH HESCHEL I would have done
Page 188 and 189: JOSÉ HOBDAY The question, “What
Page 190 and 191: CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The Sunflower, w
Page 192 and 193: these are explanations. They are no
Page 194 and 195: confessing to an unknown Jew? The J
Page 196 and 197: had also reached the same point, th
Page 198 and 199: Archbishop of Vienna Reading about
Page 200 and 201: HAROLD S. KUSHNER I am not sure the
Page 202 and 203: while he's living it up with his ne
Page 204 and 205: Although many have hailed the since
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Page 208 and 209: in absolving your man, and you woul
Page 210 and 211: level: from within themselves, they
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Page 214 and 215: deathbed moment of crystal clarity.
Page 216 and 217: outsiders, cynicism and atheism hav
Page 218 and 219: e sure, the conviction that we gain
Page 220 and 221: ERICH H. LOEWY Anyone who has never
Page 222 and 223: Of course, Wiesenthal could not for
Page 224 and 225: HERBERT MARCUSE I think I would hav
Page 226 and 227: “What would I have done?” becom
Page 228 and 229: the cheapening of grace. A second f
Page 230 and 231: CYNTHIA OZICK
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2. THE SOURCES OF PITY Pity is not
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But that is a misunderstanding. Ven
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4. MORAL TENDERNESS, MORAL RESPONSI
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greatest moral philosopher of the a
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more complex process, especially in
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interventionist possibilities can n
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DENNIS PRAGER I am a religious Jew
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murderer, not his punishment (let a
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has been taken to mean “pray for
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Pulling away from the Khmer Rouge l
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TERENCE PRITTIE Men who are dying e
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MATTHIEU RICARD For a Buddhist, for
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JOSHUA RUBENSTEIN As we near the cl
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We know today, if Simon did not at
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SIDNEY SHACHNOW Having spent most o
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from communism. I was prepared to g
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extraordinary happened, something I
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human beings. And yet, those eyes a
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themselves into a collective and un
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mission. But if that young man had
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he have the right to ask for forgiv
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treat the man as a monster who had
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nasty lie. As a child survivor of t
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give up prosecuting those who have
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seems to be denying to the Jews the
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Forgiveness is not a simple, discre
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JOSEPH TELUSHKIN Was this young Naz
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that if a murderer accepts his puni
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specifically human activity which c
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What would I have done? Our preside
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left the Jewish people still strugg
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HARRY WU Reading Simon Wiesenthal's
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out of the barracks and braced ours
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CONTRIBUTORS SVEN ALKALAJ is the am
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volumes); The Moral Life of Childre
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ecipient of the Herzl Prize, his wo
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He has taught at the Jewish Theolog
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at the Catholic Theological Union i
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died in 1981. MANÈS SPERBER, Frenc
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A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR SIMON WIESE
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Other SCHOCKEN BOOKS of Related Int
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Available at your local bookstore,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-P
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