The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

In 1976, Schocken published the first edition of this book. In it, Wiesenthal (The Murderers Among Us) related an autobiographical incident and invited responses from a number of prominent thinkers. For this revised version, responses were solicited from 31 new personages; in addition, 11 of the old responses were retained and three included from the 1981 German edition. Among the new respondents, including intellectuals, writers, theologians, political dissidents and religious leaders from around the world, are the Dalai Lama, Robert Coles, Harold S. Kushner and Albert Speer. The book raises questions of ethics, responsibility, guilt, repentance and forgiveness as Wiesenthal recounts how, as a concentration camp prisoner, he was one day called to the bedside of a dying SS soldier. The terribly wounded young man had requested a Jew to hear his final confession, because of his guilt over vicious crimes against Jewish civilians. The SS man claimed that he was not anti-Semitic and had only followed the orders and lead of his officers and peers. In a few hours, the solider retold the story of his life, without rationalizations or excuses. Now repentant, he described his crime and asked Wiesenthal for forgiveness. The author has pondered his own response--silence--for more than five decades, and he asks his readers what they might have done in his place. In simple yet elegant prose, Wiesenthal recreates the grim reality of a time when Eastern Europe was hell. Never lapsing into the maudlin or self-pitying, his matter-of-fact realism makes the images all the more horrifying. The responses to the author's question are as varied as their authors. The mystery of evil and atonement remain, and the reader is left challenged on these most basic issues of meaning in human life. (May)