...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 Simon his activities against...
Words: 21575 - Pages: 87
...Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, wrote a narrative called The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. In this he writes about his experiences in concentration camps, as well as one, almost life changing question that was brought to him buy a Nazi soldier on his death bed. One day he was taken into a hospital room that occupied a wounded Nazi named Karl. Simon, worried and confused by the situation, remained silent as Karl proceeded to tell him about himself and a terrible crime that he had committed. He tells Simon about how one day he and his fellow comrades were out on the job and rounded up a large group of Jews and put them all in a house, where they were tightly packed together. The soldiers then threw in grenades that set the house on fire. Any Jew that tried to jump out of the house or to escape would be shot. After sharing the story with Simon, the soldier explained how guilty he felt and asked Simon for forgiveness. This was a question that Simon could not and did not know how to answer, so he walked out of the room. The question still harasses Simon, wondering what he should have done in that situation. In his narrative, he asked many different essayists for their thoughts, and with that he received many answers. Dith Pran, a witness and a survivor of the Cambodian killing fields, is one of many that wrote a response to Simon Wiesenthal. In his response, he says that the key to forgiveness is understanding. Pran believes that the soldiers...
Words: 806 - Pages: 4
...most prevalent, and where millions of innocent lives were taken in cold blood. It doesn’t matter whether your ancestors were involved, or if you were around to experience it, you only have to be human in order to feel for all of the people who were affected. Over the years studies like Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study have shed light on some of the basic roots of human evil, but these roots are not enough to pave the way for forgiveness of the events that occurred. Simon Wiesenthal’s story “The Sunflower” exploits these evils and presently brings us into the life and character of Simon, a Jew in a concentration camp in Poland, who has ultimately been sentenced to death for just being born the way he is. He is brought to the bed of a dying SS Nazi soldier named Karl, who after telling him of his life decisions, asks for forgiveness as his dying wish. Simon leaves the soldier in silence, and we never find out if he ever truly forgives him. But Wiesenthal does leave us all with the question of what we would do in his position. With such brutalizing and horrific events, the atrocities that Karl commits are unforgivable because he willingly participates to take the lives of innocent people, which are acts that cannot be undone. When brought to the deathbed of another man, it is hard to imagine not granting his last dying wish. On page 54 Karl says, “I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace”...
Words: 1414 - Pages: 6
...Name Tutor Unit Date of submission Simon Wiesenthal Acted Right by not forgiving the Nazi, Karl, for his for his crimes against the Jews The reality of forgiveness is one of the hardest things incomprehensible in the human life. Throughout our lives, we are faced with a number of challenging situations that understanding them goes beyond the conscience of our thoughts. The ease at which we forgive largely depends on the nature and the effect of the actions that require forgiveness. Simon Wiesenthal’s novel, The Sunflower is one of the narratives that leave us in dilemma on whether Wiesenthal should forgive the dying soldier (Nazi, Karl) or not. However, I support Wiesenthal’s act of moving away from the dying soldier rather than just forgiving him for his past deeds. Karl actions towards the Jews are an act of inhumanity that requires deep heart, mind, and soul searching. Despite the fact that Karl is dying, Simon should not forgive since the dying soldier is still better placed in the society as compared to the Jews. He will receive a decent burial, as he will be buried in a graveyard with sunflower lighting his dark grave. I believe that not forgiving Karl for his actions is better than forgiving him. Simon has acted to his level’s best by listening to Karl’s confession. Therefore, it is best for him to leave Karl face the consequences of his crimes, victims, and sins (Wiesenthal, Simon, Harry, Cargas, and Bonny 25). By doing this, it provides Karl with the best opportunity...
Words: 671 - Pages: 3
...Wiesenthal’s mother was sent to the Belzec death camp. By September, most of his and his wife’s relative were dead; a total of eighty-nine members of both families perished. With the help of the deputy director, Wiesenthal himself escaped the Ostbahn camp in October 1943, just before the Germans began liquidating all the inmates. In June 1944, he was recaptured and was sent back to the camp going by the name of Janowska where he would have been certainly killed if it wasn’t for the German eastern front collapsing under the Red Army which was apparently advancing and taking over German territory. Since his wife had blonde hair, it gave her a possibility of going as an "Aryan," Wiesenthal made an arrangement with the Polish underground. As an end-result definite graphs of railroad intersection focuses made by him for use by saboteurs, his wife was given false papers recognizing her as "Irene Kowalska," a Pole, and was able to get out of the camp in the autumn of 1942. She lived in Warsaw for a long time and afterward worked in the Rhineland as a forced labourer, without her true identity ever being discovered....
Words: 423 - Pages: 2
...The Sunflower is about a young Jewish man by the name of Simon Wiesenthal. He was placed in a Nazi concentration camp in Buczacz. One day his assignment or his work was to go to a hospital a few blocks away and help the nurses with the injured soldiers. He was one of many Jews there and was picked out the of crowd by a female nurse and was asked to come with her. He refused at first but then later was forced to follower her up to a room where she presented him before her dying brother, a SS Solider. This soldier’s name was Karl and he had something to ask of Simon. Karl was a Nazi soldier and was a part of the torturing and killing of Jewish people. He started to feel remorse for his grotesque actions and asked Simon a heart...
Words: 363 - Pages: 2
...Simon Wiesenthal author of The Sunflower and main character reflects on his time as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. The Sunflower depicts the inner self conflict of forgiveness. The Sunflower is very detailed placing reader alongside Simon and his journey through emotions that countless would not have thought twice about. Following the main characters, the plot and a personal response to the book will hopefully allow future readers to open their minds as well as allowing the reader to discover within themselves to ask what would you do? () The Sunflower explores the (feeling) of forgiveness. What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is a disposition or willingness to forgive. As humans, we have almost a reluctance to forgive. Allowing us to...
Words: 593 - Pages: 3
...In “The Sunflower” by Simon Wiesenthal the roles and relationships between justice, forgiveness, confession, judgement, compassion, and morality play a big part in discovering who we are as a person. “The Sunflower” recalls an incident that occurred during the second World War in the concentration camp, a 21-year old dying Nazi soldier calls on a Jew, Simon Wiesenthal, to confess all of his wrong doing and ask him for his forgiveness. When the Nazi soldier, Karl, asked Simon for forgiveness, Simon left the room without a word and left him with all the weight of his wrong doing to die in agony and regret. The next day, Simon was informed that Karl had died. During the remainder of the next years of the war, Simon would recall Karl and wonder...
Words: 1612 - Pages: 7
...When people hear the word “Nazi,” most people think of the words: evil, murders, horrible, or something along those lines. Most Nazis were murders and evil, but were they any Nazis that were not necessarily evil? The Sunflower shows us that maybe not all Nazis were evil killing machines. In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal shares his story with a dying Nazi. The Nazi tells Wiesenthal his story, and at the end of the story the Nazi asks Wiesenthal for forgiveness. Wiesenthal recalls multiple times that he thought the dying Nazi was being truly sincere about feeling horrible. The story could make someone question the possibly of a Nazi being regretful. Night is Elie Wiesel’s story of his experience when he was taken away from his home and was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Wiesel tells the reader the horrible suffering he was put through by the Nazis. He tells about how he was taken away from his home with only a few items. He describes being taken away from his mother and sisters, never to see them again. Wiesel gives description after description of all the horrible things he saw and went through. He sometimes describes...
Words: 998 - Pages: 4
...“For me the Holocaust was not only a Jewish tragedy, but also a human tragedy,” said Simon Wiesenthal. “After the war, when I saw that the Jews were talking only about the tragedy of six million Jews, I sent letters to Jewish organizations asking them to talk also about the millions of others who were persecuted with us together – many of them only because they helped Jews.” Mr. Wiesenthal was just one of the survivors from the brutal Holocaust who will forever remember the worst time of his life. How he was torn away from his family and was used as a slave for the Nazis. Yet he was still able to have sympathy and think about others. The Holocaust had a significant impact on America by giving lessons about genocides and preventing other genocides, how they punished war criminals after the...
Words: 1721 - Pages: 7
...The Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the Viennese Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, was established in Los Angeles in 1977 by its founder and dean, Rabbi Marvin Hier. As of 1989, it was supported by approximately 380,000 member families. In 1979 a museum developed by Holocaust historian Efraim Zuroff was opened. A year earlier, the center launched a national outreach project to provide educational programs for junior and senior high school students. During its initial decade of operation, the center's program reached hundreds of thousands of American teenagers. Since its establishment, the Wiesenthal Center has focused on political issues related to the Holocaust and has specialized in the use of mass media to educate the public about the events of World War II. Among its major campaigns were the efforts to cancel the statute of limitations on war crimes in West Germany, and attempts to force South American governments such as those of Paraguay and Chile to surrender leading Nazi criminals (Dr. Josef Mengele and Walther Rauff). The center has also played a key role in uncovering hundreds of Nazi collaborators of eastern European origin who escaped after World War II to Western...
Words: 441 - Pages: 2
...If I were a prisoner in a concentration camp would I forgive the soldiers? Simon Wiesenthal explains the reality of a fifty year old decision that continued to make him question his response to Karl’s plea for forgiveness. When Wiesenthal was throwing away rubbish at a hospital that was his old school, a nurse came up and asked him simply “Are you a Jew?”. He is then escorted to a young dying SS Soldiers bunk. The Soldier recalls all of the evil he has seen and committed and asks Simon to forgive him. Once done, Simon stands up and leaves Karl with silence to his question and reflects fifty years if he did the right thing. Comparing the responses of José Hobday, Hubert G. Locke, including my own to try to answer Wiesenthal’s question of “What would I have done?”. I would forgive but not forget....
Words: 608 - Pages: 3
...Charles Webb The Graduate Benjamin Braddock has graduated from a college in the East of the USA. On the evening after his return, a party is given for him by his wealthy parents. He tries to escape from the guests’ approving and congratulating comments. Benjamin opened the door leading into the living room. He walked through the room keeping his eyes ahead of him on the carpet until Mrs. Calendar took his elbow. “Ben?” she said. “I just think it’s too terrific for words.” He walked past her and into the hall. Just as he got to the foot of the stairs his father came up behind him. “Leave me alone.” “Ben, for God’s sake what is it.” “I don’t know what it is.” “Come here,” Mr. Braddock said. He took his arm and led him down the hall and into a bedroom. “Son?” he said closing the door and locking it. “Now what is it?” “I don’t know.” “Well something seems pretty wrong.” “Something is.” “Well what?” ‘I don’t know!” Benjamin said. “But everything — everything is grotesque all of a sudden.” “Grotesque?” “Those people in there are grotesque. You’re grotesque.” “Ben.” “I’m grotesque. This house is grotesque. It’s just this feeling I have all of a sudden. And I don’t know why!” […] “But I’ve got to be alone. I’ve got to think until I know what’s happening to me.” […] As a birthday present, Benjamin receives diving equipment from his parents. In the presence of their neighbors, Mr. Braddock makes Benjamin test it in their swimming...
Words: 1112 - Pages: 5
...hear on their televisions. We have chosen “The Production’s” of Simon Cowell. Simon Cowell is one, if not the most powerful man in the music business. Of all of Simon’s productions we have chosen to write about his X Factor franchise, Got Talent franchise and Pop Idol as this is the show to which he rose to fame and from this he got the idea to start his own shows. These programmes are all casting programmes. Millions of people on average watch these shows. On average ten million viewers watch X Factor UK each week, although this number is decreasing. Also when Ashleigh and Pudsey won Britain’s Got Talent in May 2012, an average of nineteen million people tuned into see the dancing dog. The shows are watched by both male and female and also the shows do not target any specific age group. Pop Idol first appeared on our screens in 2001. Simon was a judge on the first series. After surprising Simon Fuller the show producer, Simon then travelled to America to appear as a judge on the American version of Pop Idol. Pete Waterman a fellow judge on Pop Idol was furious when Michelle McManus won series two of Pop Idol in 2003. Pete believed Michelle did not look like a pop star even though she had an amazing voice. Many people watching this show would have been influenced by this as they would then feel that they could not follow their dream as they may not have been as small in sized like other pop stars. Simon did not agree with Pete though as he was behind Michelle from the beginning...
Words: 992 - Pages: 4
...Primer período general: La iglesia apostólica Desde la ascensión de Cristo: 30 d.C. hasta la muerte de San Juan: 100 d.C. I. La iglesia pentecostal (capítulo 2) Desde la ascensión de Cristo (30 d.C.) hasta la muerte de San Juan (100 d.C.) 1. Definición de la iglesia 2. Su principio: El día de Pentecostés (30 d.C.) 3. Su atributo: El Espíritu Santo a. Iluminó b. Le dio poder c. Moró internamente 4. Su localidad: La ciudad de Jerusalén 5. Sus miembros a. Hebreos b. Judíos-griegos o helenistas c. Prosélitos 6. Sus líderes: San Pedro y San Juan 7. Su gobierno: Por los doce apóstoles 8. Sus doctrinas a. Carácter mesiánico de Jesús b. Resurrección de Jesús c. Regreso de Jesús 9. Testimonio evangélico 10. Sus milagros 11. Su espíritu de fraternidad “Comunidad de bienes” a. Voluntario b. Comunidad pequeña c. Gente escogida d. Esperaban el regreso de Cristo e. Un fracaso financiero f. Produjo males morales 12. Único defecto de la iglesia pentecostal: falta de celo misionero II. Expansión de la Iglesia (capítulo 3) Desde la predicación de Esteban (35 d.C.) hasta el concilio de Jerusalén (50 d.C.) 1. Predicación de Esteban 2. Saulo persigue a la iglesia 3. Felipe en Samaria 4. Pedro en Jope y Cesarea 5. Conversión de Saulo 6. La iglesia en Antioquía 7. Primer viaje misionero a. Dos obreros trabajan unidos b. Un joven actúa como ayudante c. Grandes ciudades como campos de labor d. Comenzó en la sinagoga e. Visitar de nuevo las iglesias fundadas ...
Words: 432 - Pages: 2
