The Sunflower is a book on the Holocaust by Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....

 re-tracing his steps to a personal question of forgiveness. The book recounts Wiesenthal's experience in the Lemberg concentration camp and discusses the moral ethics of the matter. The title comes from Wiesenthal's observation of a German military cemetery, seeing a sunflower on each grave, and fearing his own placement in an un-marked, mass grave. The book's second half is a symposium

Symposium

In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...

 of answers from various people, including Holocaust survivors and former Nazis. The book was originally published in France.

Dilemma

At the Lemberg Concentration Camp in 1943, Wiesenthal is summoned to the bedside of the dying Nazi soldier Karl Seidl. The soldier tells him he is seeking "a Jew's" (Wiesenthal's) forgiveness for a crime that has haunted him (Seidl) his entire life. The man confesses to him having destroyed, by fire and armaments, a house full of 300 Jews. He states that as the Jews tried to leap out of windows to escape the burning building, he gunned them down. After Seidl finishes his story, he asks Wiesenthal to forgive him. Weisenthal records his response and poses the dilemma to the reader.

Responses

In the current edition of the book, there are 53 responses given from various people, up from 10 in the original edition. Among respondents to the question are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, former Nazis and victims of attempted genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

s in Bosnia

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

, Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

. Some say forgiveness ought to be awarded for the victims' sakes, others that it should be withheld in this case.