I wrote this essay for English and decided to put it up on the blog. We read a book called The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal. A dying Nazi soldier asks Simon to forgive him. Simon struggles answering the question and his answer troubles him. He asks the reader what they would do. Page numbers follow this book.
The Significance of Silence
by Spencer B.
Simon Wiesenthal asks a difficult question at the end of his book The Sunflower. It is a question of moral and religious significance. Should Wiesenthal, a concentration camp victim, forgive a dying Nazi soldier? Would I in his place? There are no easy answers to these questions. Removed from the situation in time and place, I cannot attempt to put myself in Simon Wiesenthal’s position. What he went through is unimaginable and I cannot presume to tell him what he should have done. Instead of answering the question, I will show why in the context of Simon’s experience he made the right choice by remaining silent.
Simon’s experience before his encounter with Karl, the Nazi soldier, helps explain his silence. The image of the sunflower plays an important role in understanding Simon’s view of humanity and death. The sunflowers that mark the graves in the cemetery mesmerize Simon as he marches to the hospital for work duty. Upon first seeing the sunflowers, he remarks, “I stared spellbound” (14). He envisions the sunflowers enabling the dead to receive “light and messages” (14). Through the sunflowers, the dead Nazi soldiers were able to maintain a connection to the living world. Simon holds this in contrast to the way the Nazi soldiers treated the Jews. Each death is equally horrible. They receive no unique attention or lasting connection to this world. Their captors treat their lives as meaningless. The people perpetrating these evil deeds do not deserve a sunflower on their graves, while they toss the people they murder into a mass grave.
The experience walking by the cemetery frames Simon’s view of the soldiers in terms of the sunflowers. He looks at a Nazi and thinks, “This vile creature would one day have a sunflower planted on his grave to watch over him” (22). These feelings about death extend to Karl in the hospital room. Simon is envious because a sunflower will “sustain his [Karl’s] connection with life” after he dies (30). The symbol of the sunflower in Simon’s mind shapes how he reacts to the dying Nazi.
In the hospital room, Simon has three choices. He can forgive, scold, or remain silent. Karl tells Simon that without acceptance of his apology he “cannot die in peace” (54). By remaining silent, Simon puts Karl’s fate in limbo. God may ultimately forgive him, but this remains uncertain. Vocalizing forgiveness or scolding Karl would be akin to planting a sunflower on his grave. Like the sunflowers, it would provide closure to Karl’s death. An answer would also forever attach Simon’s decision to the outcome. The silence leaves the question unanswered and the decision up to God, effectively severing Simon’s connection to Karl’s fate.
The unique circumstances of the hospital room are the ways in which Karl’s own humanity has been degraded. The most obvious loss that Karl has experienced is his ability to move. Being a mobile, independent person is an important part of being human. The Nazis took away the Jews’ independence and in every meaningful way their ability to move freely. On this level, Karl’s humanity was coming closer to the place he had forced the Jews to be. On a more significant level, Karl had lost his ability to see (28). Throughout the apology, Simon could not make eye contact with Karl. Some people view the eyes as a window to a person’s soul. On a less religious level, it is clear that maintaining eye contact is an essential part of communication and understanding. Karl could only use the grip of his hand as “a replacement for his eyes” (33). In a way, Karl had lost a vital aspect of his ability to connect with other human beings. The explosion brought his humanity closer to the level that the Nazis brought the Jews to. The Nazis’ systematic torture and murder was unquestionably more damaging to the Jews’ humanity, but during his time in the hospital Karl began to understand what he and the Nazis had done.
The moral dilemma of The Sunflower is whether a Jew should forgive a Nazi during the Holocaust. I cannot answer this question, but the context of the book makes it clear that Simon should have no qualms about his decision. Karl’s experience in the hospital eroded his humanity to the point where he could better understand his role in an atrocity. By remaining silent, Simon allowed him to reach this point. The Nazi deserves no connection to the living world, not a sunflower and not an answer from Simon Wiesenthal.
-If for whatever reason you are using this response to help inform your response to The Sunflower, as you would with any response in the book, please cite mine appropriately.
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