The Sunflower

Can you forgive someone who has caused unthinkable harm—not just to you, but to millions of others? Can forgiveness stretch far enough to encompass genocide? These questions strike at the heart of Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Within its pages, Wiesenthal asks not only what forgiveness means, but whether it is ever truly possible after humanity has crossed the threshold into mass cruelty.

The story begins in a concentration camp, where Wiesenthal—an Austrian-Jewish architect turned prisoner—finds himself summoned from his suffering to the bedside of a dying SS soldier. The young man, named Karl, is consumed by guilt. He recounts a horrifying massacre in which he helped set fire to a building filled with Jewish families in Ukraine, shooting those who leapt from the windows, including a father holding a child. Now, tormented by the memory and by his approaching death, Karl begs Wiesenthal—any Jew—to grant him forgiveness so he can die in peace.

Wiesenthal’s response is silence. He listens, rises, and leaves the room without uttering a word. This silence becomes the foundation for one of the most profound moral questions of the twentieth century: Was his silence right or wrong?

A Living Dilemma

What differentiates The Sunflower from typical Holocaust testimonies is its philosophical depth. Wiesenthal doesn’t only recount a moment of moral confrontation; he invites readers into it. He asks, “What would you have done?” The reader becomes his moral companion, forced to face the same impossible question: can we forgive evil so immense that it defies comprehension?

In Book One, Wiesenthal narrates the encounter—the detailed path of Karl's confession, the flickering humanity between them, and his own internal turmoil. Book Two turns the story into a symposium: theologians, survivors, and philosophers from around the world—such as Jean Améry, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Cynthia Ozick, and Mary Gordon—grapple with the dilemma. Each brings their own moral lens: Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, secular, philosophical.

Forgiveness and Its Boundaries

Wiesenthal’s silence embodies the book’s central theme—the collision of compassion and justice. His act challenges the very idea of forgiveness detached from responsibility. Forgiveness, according to Jewish ethics, is not a passive release but an active moral transaction. A person wronged must be asked for forgiveness directly, and only they may grant it. But what happens when the wronged are dead, when millions have been obliterated? For Wiesenthal, it wasn’t within his power to forgive crimes committed against others. His silence, though painful, was morally coherent.

The book juxtaposes this Jewish view with Christian theology, which often emphasizes unconditional forgiveness. Many Christian voices, like Father Theodore Hesburgh and Cardinal König, suggest forgiving as an act of divine grace—a reflection of God’s mercy that transcends human limits. Others, like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Cynthia Ozick, reject this as dangerous moral indulgence. Forgiveness without justice, they argue, risks sanctifying evil itself.

The Symbol of the Sunflower

The titular sunflower becomes Wiesenthal’s haunting metaphor. On the march through the city, he sees graves of German soldiers adorned with sunflowers, reaching toward light—symbols of connection between the dead and the living. He imagines butterflies carrying messages between heaven and earth. He realizes that no such flowers will ever bloom above Jewish mass graves. For him, there will be no sunlight, no remembrance, no voice reaching up from the earth.

This absence becomes the emotional counterpart to his silence. Just as the sunflower links the Germans to life and mourning, Wiesenthal’s silence reflects the void between victims and humanity—the moral dead zone created by genocide. The sunflower thus comes to symbolize impossible reconciliation: even death itself is not equal.

Why It Still Matters

Half a century later, the book’s questions illuminate modern conflicts—from Bosnia to Rwanda to apartheid South Africa. Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama remind readers that forgiveness can be a tool not just for spiritual peace but for societal renewal—but only when truth and justice accompany it. Jeanne Améry, a Holocaust survivor tortured by Nazis, insists that forgiveness without justice only perpetuates the crime. Cynthia Ozick warns that pity for perpetrators can turn brutal toward victims. Desmond Tutu adds that forgiveness is “not facile or cheap. It is a costly business.”

Wiesenthal’s question resonates today because it reveals how forgiveness depends on the moral balance between justice and empathy. Can we forgive if doing so erases accountability? Can humanity survive without learning to forgive, even imperfectly? The answers divide the contributors—and perhaps the readers themselves.

Ultimately, The Sunflower is not about whether forgiveness is possible—it is about the kind of world we create when we decide who deserves it. Wiesenthal’s silence lingers as both judgment and mercy, reminding us that how we respond to atrocity defines not just the perpetrators or victims, but the moral boundaries of our civilization itself.

Simon Wiesenthal’s silence at the bedside of the dying SS man is the most charged moment in The Sunflower. It is not the silence of indifference, but of moral confrontation. Through this silence, Wiesenthal refuses to condone evil, yet he also refrains from vengeance. His silence operates on two levels—personal and philosophical—as both self-protection and ethical assertion.

The Ethics of Speech Versus Silence

When asked for forgiveness, Wiesenthal could have said yes or no. Saying yes might have felt humane; saying no might have felt just. But any verbal response would have implicated him. In the camps, words had become dangerous currency—twisted by propaganda until they lost meaning. By choosing silence, Wiesenthal rejected the Nazi manipulation of language that had turned killing into bureaucratic action and genocide into legality. Silence became his last defense of moral truth.

“There are many kinds of silence,” Wiesenthal observes. “Indeed it can be more eloquent than words.”

His silence was not passive—it was active resistance to complicity.

Psychological Dimensions

Wiesenthal’s inability to speak reveals the trauma of survival itself. After years of dehumanization, silence becomes both shield and scar. To speak forgiveness would be to imagine himself morally equal to the killer—to bridge a gap that history had carved too deep. Desmond Tutu later called forgiveness “a costly business,” but for Wiesenthal, the cost was too high. His silence preserved the dignity of the murdered and protected himself from betraying their memory.

Hubert Locke (in his response) notes that Wiesenthal’s silence resonates with “the silence of God” during the Holocaust—a theme echoed by Arthur’s comment, “God is on leave.” The absence of divine response mirrored mankind’s moral paralysis. In retaining silence, Wiesenthal seemed to echo that divine void—acknowledging that there were moments too profound for words.

Philosophical Implications

For writers such as Cynthia Ozick, silence preserves the possibility of justice. Forgiveness, she argues, bestowed too readily, would “forget the victim” and become “pitiless.” Wiesenthal’s silence refuses to erase evil under the comforting veneer of mercy. It honors the dead through the refusal to grant moral closure to the perpetrator.

This silence is not empty. It reverberates with doubt, empathy, anger, and restraint—an acknowledgment of our human limits. In the end, it forces the reader not to ask whether forgiveness is right, but to confront the terror of not knowing. Wiesenthal thus turns silence into a mirror reflecting humanity’s uneasy conscience, leaving us to realize that sometimes, the absence of words is the only truthful response to unspeakable sin.

Few books examine forgiveness with such precision as The Sunflower. Through the dying SS man’s plea, and through the responses of dozens of moral thinkers, Wiesenthal exposes how forgiveness is not simply a feeling—it’s a moral structure with boundaries, responsibilities, and consequences.

Forgiveness Versus Justice

Forgiveness is often seen as the opposite of punishment, but in Wiesenthal’s view—and in Jewish tradition—it cannot replace justice. Jewish ethics (as expressed by responses from Heschel, Tec, and others) hold that crimes against people require asking those people for forgiveness. Since the victims of genocide are dead, no one can forgive on their behalf. “No one can forgive crimes committed against other people,” Heschel wrote. “Even God Himself can only forgive sins committed against Himself.”

By contrast, many Christian contributors argue for mercy beyond justice. Cardinal König and Father Hesburgh suggest that forgiveness transcends moral boundaries because humans should imitate divine compassion. Yet others like Robert McAfee Brown and Mary Gordon emphasize that true forgiveness must come with repentance and public confession—without these, mercy becomes “cheap grace.”

Repentance and Responsibility

In Jewish theology, repentance (teshuvah) involves not only regret but restitution. The perpetrator must make amends directly and demonstrate transformation. Deborah Lipstadt explains that genuine teshuvah demands facing the same situation again and choosing differently. Karl, the SS man, never had the chance to do that—his remorse arrived on his deathbed, when consequences no longer applied.

“Even if the prisoner had offered the soldier verbal forgiveness,” Lipstadt wrote, “that would not have resulted in an automatic cleansing of the slate.”

Collective versus Individual Guilt

There is a crucial distinction between individual guilt and collective responsibility. Jean Améry, himself a survivor, insists that “politically, I do not want to hear anything of forgiveness.” The crimes of Nazism were systemic—too massive to reduce to a single sinner’s conscience. Forgiving one man risks diminishing the magnitude of the historical wrong.

Wiesenthal’s question—“What would you have done?”—thus becomes a way of testing where forgiveness collapses under the weight of justice. To forgive Karl would have soothed an individual conscience, but possibly betrayed millions of dead. To remain silent preserved justice, but denied comfort. Forgiveness, Wiesenthal suggests, is moral balance—possible only when repentance restores the order broken by wrongdoing. Without that, it becomes moral amnesia.

Throughout The Sunflower, the question of forgiveness intertwines with the crisis of faith during the Holocaust. When Wiesenthal’s fellow prisoner recalls a woman saying, “God is on leave,” it transforms personal grief into theological rebellion. How can faith survive in a world where divine justice seems absent? This question echoes through the responses from both believers and skeptics.

The Silence of God

Arthur, Wiesenthal’s friend, interprets “God on leave” as a sign that even heaven has turned away. For Wiesenthal, this becomes a metaphor for moral isolation—the idea that humans must act without celestial guidance. Scholars like Hubert Locke and Martin Marty expand this silence as a mirror of moral uncertainty: if even God is silent, perhaps humanity must speak where divinity does not.

The Faithful Responses

Both Abraham Joshua Heschel and his daughter Susannah Heschel ground their answers in Judaism’s deep moral structure. Susannah writes that “there are sins that can never be forgiven: murder and destroying someone’s reputation.” Absolution cannot undo annihilation. For her, the failure of Christian forgiveness during the Holocaust is theological—the attempt to forgive the unforgivable desecrates divine justice.

Meanwhile, Father Hesburgh and the Dalai Lama embody a more transcendent faith: forgiveness as a spiritual liberation from hatred. The Dalai Lama argues that to forgive does not mean to forget; remembering prevents repetition. Forgiveness cleanses the heart, not history. For Buddhists, even the murderer deserves compassion because cruelty arises from ignorance.

God’s Presence in Human Action

John Pawlikowski extends Wiesenthal’s question into theology: the Holocaust redefines divine presence as “moment faith”—a rhythm of absence and presence. Humanity must embody God through responsibility and conscience. The divine is no longer the arbiter of morality but the echo of human choice. This evolution of faith moves from reliance to responsibility.

In the end, Wiesenthal’s silence stands as theological witness. He cannot forgive on God’s behalf, but neither can he condemn entirely in God’s absence. Like Job, he accepts that the human struggle for justice may occur in a world where even heaven withholds its verdict. Faith, then, becomes not a sanctuary but a burden—one that must coexist with the silence of both man and God.

Forgiveness without action is empty. That is why The Sunflower insists that repentance must lead to restitution and moral change. The dying SS man’s confession is heartfelt but incomplete; he seeks peace, not justice. Wiesenthal’s story reminds you that remorse alone does not repair harm—it must be followed by concrete accountability.

The Nature of Repentance

Deborah Lipstadt and Moshe Bejski highlight the difference between acknowledgment and transformation. Bejski, himself a survivor and judge, argues that Karl’s remorse came “only because he was about to die.” Had he lived, he would likely have continued serving the Nazi regime. Repentance motivated by mortality lacks moral weight—it escapes the risk and sacrifice that genuine change demands.

Restitution and Responsibility

True repentance also demands restitution—efforts to undo harm where possible. Wiesenthal’s later visit to Karl’s mother embodies this tension. He chooses not to reveal her son’s crimes, preserving her final comfort. This act parallels what Boaz and Arthur in the camp warn: mercy cannot replace justice, but compassion can prevent cruelty. To forgive or to conceal both carry moral risks: protecting the innocent may mean distancing truth.

Transformation After Evil

Albert Speer’s personal reflection decades later exemplifies transformation through long-term accountability. Unlike Karl, Speer lived to confront his complicity in the Nazi regime. His conversation with Wiesenthal shows how confession evolves through sustained remorse. Speer felt “moral guilt that cannot be erased in his lifetime.” Wiesenthal responded without hatred—proof that justice and mercy can coexist when repentance endures.

Through these contrasts, the book argues that repentance is not a confession before death—it is a lifelong confrontation with evil’s consequences. Only when memory and responsibility persist beyond convenience can forgiveness become a credible moral act.

Forgiveness in The Sunflower cannot be separated from justice. Wiesenthal reminds you that mercy without accountability erodes moral order. Franklin Littell argues that political justice is the necessary counterpart to moral guilt—a lesson embodied in international trials from Nuremberg to modern war tribunals.

The Necessity of Justice

Jean Améry’s searing essay insists that the pursuit of Nazi criminals is not vengeance but moral reconstruction. “Only if Nazi crimes like the genocide of European Jewry are not subject to a statute of limitations,” he writes, “will future murderers be prevented.” For Améry, forgiveness detached from justice becomes forgetfulness—a moral danger that enables repetition.

Memory as a Moral Act

Littell extends Wiesenthal’s insight into collective ethics: societies must remember atrocities to structure laws that prevent them. Forgetting is complicity. He sees a continuum between guilt, repentance, and jurisprudence—each stage translating moral knowledge into civil responsibility. Justice is how humanity answers God’s silence.

This idea resonates with Primo Levi’s reflections that forgiveness without remembrance is “a new wound to justice.” Levi warns that repentance born from fear of death rather than moral awakening corrupts both individual and communal conscience. justice must be enduring, not circumstantial.

In essence, Wiesenthal’s story teaches that law and morals are inseparable. Crimes against humanity must remain prosecutable precisely because they shatter shared standards of human dignity. To forgive without enforcing justice is to allow evil to endure as truth. By remembering, humanity both punishes and protects—an act of conscience that bridges the living and the dead.

What does forgiveness look like after large-scale trauma? The Sunflower expands beyond the Holocaust to explore this through voices like Dith Pran, Sidney Shachnow, and Desmond Tutu—each survivor of different atrocities. Their reflections transform Wiesenthal’s dilemma into a universal meditation on postwar healing.

Survivors and the Weight of Memory

Dith Pran, survivor of Cambodia’s killing fields, refuses to forgive the Khmer Rouge leadership. “It’s impossible,” he says, “I blame the dozen leaders who ordered the deaths of millions.” Yet he can forgive the soldiers who followed orders out of fear. Like Wiesenthal, he distinguishes between deliberate cruelty and coerced participation. His forgiveness becomes understanding—a moral empathy without pardon.

Forgiveness as Liberation

Desmond Tutu frames forgiveness as the only path to communal survival. Chairing South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Tutu witnessed victims forgiving those who murdered their families. “Forgiveness is not facile or cheap,” he wrote. “It is a costly business that makes those who are willing to forgive even more extraordinary.” Like Wiesenthal, Tutu links forgiveness to truth—not to forgetting but to transformation.

The Soldier’s Perspective

Sidney Shachnow, a Holocaust survivor turned U.S. General, views forgiveness through military ethics. War, he argues, “endangers our humanity.” Soldiers train to suppress empathy, yet moral absolution cannot erase intentional cruelty. For him, forgiveness cannot apply to those who “stepped over the boundary where forgiveness is possible.”

Across these accounts, forgiveness after atrocity becomes not a single act but a spectrum—from refusal in Cambodia, to conditional mercy in South Africa, to permanent moral boundary in Auschwitz. Wiesenthal’s question—“Can we forgive the unforgivable?”—thus becomes the defining question of humanity’s recovery after every war.

Ultimately, Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower is not about Nazis or Jews alone—it is about the fragile boundary between morality and survival. Through its layers of confession, silence, and dialogue, it sketches a map of human conscience tested by extreme evil. What it teaches you is how choices—spoken or unspoken—carry ethical weight.

Moral Courage Beyond Words

Wiesenthal’s silence embodies moral courage that transcends ideology. It proves that human decency can persist even in infernal conditions. His refusal to answer is an act of witness: peace cannot follow injustice without truth. Every contributor—Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and secular—grapples with this paradox, creating a mosaic of ethics that spans centuries.

Forgiveness and the Future

Taken together, The Sunflower argues that forgiveness must serve humanity’s renewal, not its escape from history. As Desmond Tutu writes, “Without forgiveness, there is no future.” Yet Jean Améry warns that forgiveness without punishment assures repetition. Between these poles lies Wiesenthal’s silence—neither condemning nor absolving, but remembering. Forgiveness becomes the discipline of remembrance.

Half a century later, the sunflower that Wiesenthal saw still stands as a symbol: the longing for light after darkness, the tension between life and death, remembrance and renewal. His question remains unanswered—and that is its power. It makes each of us its respondent, reminding us that ethics is not found in absolutes but in the struggle between empathy, memory, and justice that binds all human beings together.