The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (Newly Expanded Paperback Edition)

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. This encounter and the moral dilemma it posed raise fundamental questions about the limits and possibilities of forgiveness. Must we, can we forgive the repentant criminal? Can we forgive crimes committed against others? What do we owe the victims? Thirty-five years after the Holocaust, Wiesenthal asked leading intellectuals what they would have done in his place. This revised edition includes 46 responses from theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and survivors of genocides. Their answers remind us that Wiesenthal's question is not limited to events of the past.--From publisher description.