THE SUNFLOWER: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

You are a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. You are sent on a work detail to a hospital. A nurse brings you to a mortally wounded German soldier. He tells you that he has committed terrible atrocities against your people and asks you to forgive him. What do you do? This was the question faced by renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and is the focus of his autobiographical novel, The Sunflower. A harrowing, …

…the very different way Christianity and Judaism approach forgiveness. For the Christian, forgiveness lies with God. If true repentance is given, the sinner will be forgiven. For the Jew, only the aggrieved individual can offer forgiveness. Since a dead person can't forgive, murder is unforgivable. The Sunflower leaves us with a central dilemma. Is forgiveness possible without forgetting? Can we ever forgive and not forget? Wiesenthal leaves the question for us to decide. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**