...The Sunflower is a first person account of a Jew living in a concentration camp during the Holocaust confronted with the question, when such an atrocity has been committed is it possible for a person to forgive? Throughout Simon flashes between the present in the concentration camp, back to his recent past, even further to his time as a youth. Selected to work outside of the camp one day Simon and others were marched through the town. Along the way he noticed a graveyard for Nazi soldiers and above each grave, a sunflower, had been planted. Upon seeing this, he experienced envy for the soldiers who were still connected to “the living world”(Wiesenthal, 1998, p. 14). Simon indicated his desensitization to death, but upon seeing the graves with flowers and knowing when he died, he would be placed in an unmarked grave with no flowers to tie him to this world, he felt bitterness along with a small hope that he “would come across them again; that they were a symbol with a special meaning”(Wiesenthal, 1998, p. 15). Arriving to the work site, Simon is approached by a nurse inquiring if he was Jewish. Acknowledging this, she took him to a room that had been transformed into a sickroom for Karl, a dying SS soldier. Karl’s story began with his youth and Catholic upbringing and he joined the Hitler Youth and SS willingly. He then gave his account of the crime he committed and was so desperately seeking forgiveness for. Simon listened silently to the murder of more Jews and walked...
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...Sold to joezayed7@gmail.com THE SUNFLOWER SIMON WIESENTHAL THE SUNFLOWER SUPERSUMMARY 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS PLOT OVERVIEW 3 CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSES 5 Chapter 1 Chapters 2-5 Chapters 6-10 Chapters 11-15 Chapters 16-20 Chapters 21-25 Chapters 26-30 Chapters 31-35 Chapters 36-40 Chapters 41-45 Chapters 46-50 Chapters 51-54 5 8 12 15 20 23 26 29 33 36 39 42 MAJOR CHARACTER ANALYSIS 45 Simon Karl Josek Arthur Adam Bolek Karl’s Mother 45 45 46 46 47 47 47 THEMES 49 SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS 51 COPYRIGHT 2016 THE SUNFLOWER SUPERSUMMARY 2 IMPORTANT QUOTES 53 ESSAY TOPICS 61 COPYRIGHT 2016 THE SUNFLOWER SUPERSUMMARY 3 PLOT OVERVIEW The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal is a book of non-fiction. The first section, also titled “The Sunflower,” is an account of Wiesenthal’s experience as a concentration camp prisoner under the Nazi regime. In the account, Wiesenthal describes his life in Poland prior to the German occupation, his experiences of anti-Semitism within the Polish culture, and his life as a concentration camp prisoner. He describes life in the concentration camp, the continuous humiliations, the hunger, the illness, and the constant threat of death. Central to the narrative in “The Sunflower” is the story of Simon being summoned to the deathbed of a young Nazi soldier whom Simon calls Karl and who has been wounded in combat. Karl confesses to...
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