Wiesenthal's The Sunflower

Wiesel pinpoints the indifference of humans as the real enemy, causing further suffering and lost to those already in peril. Wiesel commenced the speech with an interesting attention getter: a story about a young Jewish from a small town that was at the end of war liberated from Nazi rule by American soldiers. This young boy was in fact himself. The first-hand experience of cruelty gave him credibility in discussing the dangers of indifference; he was a victim himself.

Being the last sentence of the book, and out of all the passages I highlighted this one stood out to me and described Wiesel’s experience in just a few simple sentence. He looked at himself for the first time in many years, and did not recognize himself he saw a different person. This showed me that the concentration camps changed him he was a different person inside and out. The events that occurred to him had scared him so much that the man he saw in the mirror wasn’t him, but one who had been drained of life that looked lifeless from the events occurred in the concentration camps. He was weak and this whole passage embodies his weakness and the whole point of the concentration camps.

His first night in the concentration camp destroyed him, crumbling down the wall of innocence until there was nothing left. Everything he had once known and loved, taken away in the blink of an eye. As Wiesel put it, “Never

Wiesel's loss of faith was brought on by the absence of God. This resulted in him questioning why it was God's will to allow Jews to suffer and die the way they had. Another portrayal of religious confliction within Wiesel was the statement of his faith being consumed by the flames along with the corpses of children (Wiesel 34). Therefore, he no longer believed God was the almighty savior everyone had set Him out to be or even present before them. To conclude, his experiences within Nazi confinement changed what he believed in and caused him to change how he thought and began questioning God because of the actions He allowed to take

Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.

Elie Wiesel voiced his emotions and thoughts of the horrors done to Jewish people during World War II whilst developing his claim. Wiesel “remember[s] his bewilderment,” “his astonishment,” and “his anguish” when he saw they were dropped into the ghetto to become slaves and to be slaughtered. He repeats the words “I remember” because he and the world, especially those who suffered in the ghettos and camps, would never be able to forget how innocent suffered. Consequently, he emphasized that “no one” has the right to advocate for the dead. Like many other people in the world, he lost his family during the war.

The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history. It just so happened to be the cause of six million deaths. While there are countless beings who experienced such trauma, it is impossible to hear everyone's side of the story. However, one man, in particular, allowed himself to speak of the tragedies. Elie Wiesel addressed the transformation he underwent during the Holocaust in his memoir, Night.

His recollections about his experience as a young boy makes the horror real and urgent for the audience: “I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast.” (paragraph 4) The audience’s inevitable emotional response to these memories is one of deep sadness and empathy. The need for action instead of silence in the face of such horror is made even clearer.

I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time... I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me... This was towards the end of 1942”(7). The pattern of faith and belief in Elie Wiesel’s Night is intertwined with the pattern of denial the Jews have throughout the book.

If he did not feel sorry about what he did, found someone to confess his sin was absolutely unnecessary. According to The sunflower, there were some specific examples to show Karl’s repentance. For example, he said “I cannot die ... Without coming clean” (Wiesenthal 53). It indicates that Karl really sought for redemption before his final breathe.

To begin with, Wiesel could not believe what was happening. He didn’t believe how cruel the Germans were. Wiesel was living a nightmare and couldn’t escape it. For instance, Wiesel stated, “I pinched myself; was I still alive? Was I awake?

His head wrapped in bandages his body so thin his bones stick out, he reaches for Simon's hand and says, “I am resigned to dying soon, but before that I want to talk about an experience which is torturing me. Otherwise I cannot die in peace.” The member of the SS, tortured by his murderous crimes, seeks forgiveness from a Jew, any Jew. “I cannot die...without coming clean. This must be my confession.”

He felt it was important to relay the lessons he learned, so that others will not have to go through the same hardship, in the future. This reflects Moishe the Beadle’s struggles “Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns” (Wiesel, 6). These monstrous events are the result of not acting because they felt no personal connection. This resulted in not bearing witness, and the massive loss of life during The Holocaust. Making the choice to bear witness needs to be made before it is too late.

The book The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal is about a Jew in a concentration camp in the height of World War II in Germany. One day when he is working in a hospital, Simon is asked to forgive a dying Nazi soldier, Karl. He is faced with a dilemma that everyone has to encounter at some point in their life, but this is different than forgiving a family member for lying to you. Simon has to decide right then whether or not to forgive a murderer of many innocent Jews. Simon Wiesenthal wrote this book because he wanted to reach out and find closure for his actions.

The entire world was so ignorant to such a massacre of horrific events that were right under their noses, so Elie Wiesel persuades and expresses his viewpoint of neutrality to an audience. Wiesel uses the ignorance of the countries during World War II to express the effects of their involvement on the civilians, “And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation” (Weisel). To persuade the audience, Elie uses facts to make the people become sentimental toward the victims of the Holocaust. Also, when Weisel shares his opinion with the audience, he gains people onto his side because of his authority and good reputation.