The Sunflower

By Simon Wiesenthal,

Book cover of The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

Book description

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.

You are a prisoner in a concentration camp. A dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness. What would you do?

While imprisonedā€¦

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Sunflower as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

If you think you know yourself, think again. The sole (or really soul) purpose of Simon Wiesenthalā€™s book is to reawaken the conscience: Would you offer forgiveness to a dying young Nazi SS soldier for the brutal murder of Jews in which he participated, and that was consuming his conscience?

This question, at the heart of this book, is one Wiesenthal faced when he was in the concentration campsā€”to which he responded no. For decades, he wrestled with conflicting feelings about his decision, and in this poignant page-tuner, he inspires readers to consider the same. 

What particularly grabbed me wasā€¦

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Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorā€”and only womanā€”on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route upā€¦

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