The conditions are extremely difficult: they have little food and are forced to do hard labor for the Nazis. The SS officers brutalize them, and if they refuse to work or cannot work, they are shot. Simon feels that he is no longer treated like a human being. Arthur and Josek often have disagreements, because Josek remains steadfast in his faith in God, while Arthur and Simon question what kind of God could allow the atrocities occurring around them.
To resist this logic is no simple matter. After, the narrator will testify that the interview had laid a heavy burden on him. Flags in Hong Kong. Lemberg was annexed by the Soviets in September with the partition of Poland! What alone matters, over and over again, time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him.
Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings. The Sunflower by Richard Paul Evans. A Holocaust survivor's surprising and thought-provoking study of forgiveness, justice, compassion, and human responsibility, featuring contributions from the Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Cynthia Ozick, Primo Levi, and more.
While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew.
Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing?
What would you have done in his place? In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past. Faced with the choice between compassion.
This book describes my experiences being subjected to and living with abuse during my childhood and early adult years in the Lubavitch-Chabad community, in Brooklyn, New York. I discuss the effects this physical, emotional and psychological abuse had on my development and life, which resulted in my leaving this community and lifestyle. What would you have done in his place? In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions.
They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet.
Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past. Often surprising and always thought provoking, The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility.
From the Trade Paperback edition. But when Jack Frost steals their magical petals, there's trouble in Fairyland. Help save Fairyland's flowers! Every flower is bright and blossoming, thanks to the Petal Fairies! But when Jack Frost steals their magical petals, the fairies are in trouble.
The published text includes their responses. Throughout this essay, I cite from the English translation and modify it where it is misleading. When modifying or when the German text is not translatable without remainder, I also include the German in brak- kets. I regularly cite page numbers from both editions. The Survival of the Question claimed that questions of forgiveness in relation to the Holocaust are politically irrelevant, and moreover, have no personal inter- est to someone who does not share a religious viewpoint or faith.
What alone matters, he said, is that what happened to him and others does not happen again. Would I, would anyone, have permission to forgive him? Today the world demands of us that we forgive those who through their stance continue to provoke us. The world demands that we close the account and draw the line, as if nothing essential happened. Many of us who fought in that terrible time, and who still sometimes in their thoughts feel imprisoned by that hell, become silent when faced with this demand for forgiveness.
This question will survive all trials and will continue to remain rel- evant when the crimes of the Nazis belong the distant past. Therefore I address it to people, who I believe have something to say about it. It should serve as an appeal Aufruf. For the events that have given birth to this question can happen again.
For one simple reason, what you and I went through must not happen again, never, nowhere. Therefore I refuse any reconciliation with criminals. What connection did he see between the survival of the question of for- giveness and the possibility of repetition of these crimes? Reading closely the citation above from the end of The Sunflower, one can note that the narrator refers to two different, yet relat- ed requests for forgiveness.
The first, which forms the climax of the foregoing narrative, was made by a dying SS-man during the war, i. Sie soll als Aufruf dienen. Denn das Geschehen, das sie hervorgebracht hat, kann sich wiederholen. The Survival of the Question of forgiveness, a statement from a representative of the victims, which would presumably mean that he has been absolved of his crimes and can die in peace.
While the narrator questions the logic which made of him, a prisoner chosen more or less at random, the one charged with the burden of representing the dead victims, and of forgiving on their behalf, he never questions the request for a word of forgiveness as such, i. For an appraisal of the different responses in English, see John K.
London: Vallentine Mitchell, Because of this silence, which is indeed unchangeable, irreparable, another deeper possibility of forgive- ness, one that would take place under other conditions, and on the basis of different philosophical and religious presuppositions, may perhaps survive. And perhaps the adult I am now cannot forgive even in the name of the child I was then.
This was not a free decision, I would explain: it was simply not in my power to grant the kind of absolution that is implied in the plea or demand for forgiveness. But, of course, nothing is resolved through this refusal, and it is understandable that you were left with doubts. His name is Bolek. In the last days of the war he shared a wooden plank Pritsche with the narrator in the death block at Mauthausen.
If the offender has shown such repentance, his or her request for forgiveness should be granted, even if it is not ad- dressed specifically to the one who has been wronged by the of- fender. On the con- trary: Bolek began to falter in his original opinion that I ought to have forgiven the dying man, and for my own part I became less and less certain as to whether I had acted rightly. Nevertheless, the dis- cussion was rewarding for both of us Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone trans.
Theodore M. Hudson with John R. Silber New York: Harper Torchbooks, She dare not forgive him! But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive However, his faith remained unbroken. In so doing, the wrong is not only not forgiven, but becomes irreparable. Forgiveness accuses before it forgives. It carries the blow all the way to culpability.
Thus, all becomes irreparable; giving and forgiving cease to be possible.
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