The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

by Simon Wiesenthal

  The Germans looked on many of the overseers and foremen as second-class citizens. The ethnic Germans were better treated, but the Poles and Ukrainians formed a special stratum between the self-appointed German supermen and the subhuman Jews, and already they were trembling at the thought of the day when there would be no Jews left. Then the well-oiled machinery of extermination would be turned in their direction. The ethnic Germans too did not always feel comfortable and some of them betrayed their uneasiness by behaving more “German” than the average German. A few showed sympathy toward us by slipping us pieces of bread on the quiet and seeing to it that we were not worked to death.

  Among those who demanded a daily stint in cruelty was an elderly drunkard called Delosch, who, when he had nothing to drink, passed the time by beating up the prisoners. The group he guarded often bribed him with money to buy liquor, and sometimes a prisoner would try to enlist his maudlin sympathy by describing the fate of the Jews. It worked when he was sufficiently “under the influence.” His bullying was as notorious in the works as his pet witticism. When he learned that some prisoner's family had been exterminated in the Ghetto Delosch's invariable response was: “There will always be a thousand Jews left to attend the funeral of the last Jew in Lemberg.” We heard this several times a day and Delosch was immensely proud of this particular wisecrack.

  By the time the various groups had formed up on the command to fall in, we who longed for outside work had already resigned ourselves to the prospect of remaining in the camp. In the camp construction work went on without interruption, and every day there were deaths in the camp; Jews were strung up, trampled underfoot, bitten by trained dogs, whipped and humiliated in every conceivable manner. Many who could bear it no longer voluntarily put an end to their lives. They sacrificed a number of days, weeks, or months of their lives, but they saved themselves countless brutalities and tortures.

  Staying in camp meant that one was guarded not by a single SS man but by many, and often the guards amused themselves by wandering from one workshop to another, whipping prisoners indiscriminately, or reporting them to the commandant for alleged sabotage, which always led to dire punishment. If an SS man alleged that a prisoner was not working properly, his word was accepted, even if the prisoner could point to the work he had done. What an SS man said was always right.

  The work assignment was almost finished and we from the Eastern Railway works stood around despondently. Apparently we were no longer wanted on the railway. Then suddenly a corporal came over to us and counted off fifty men. I was among these, but Arthur was left behind. We were formed up in threes, marched through the inner gate where six “askaris” were assigned us as guards. These were Russian deserters or prisoners who had enlisted for service under the Germans. The term “askari” was used during the First World War to describe the Negro soldier employed by the Germans in East Africa. For some reason the SS used the name for the Russian auxiliaries. They were employed in concentration camps to assist the guards and they knew only too well what the Germans expected from them. And most of them lived up to expectations. Their brutality was only mitigated by their corruptibility. The “kapos” (camp captains) and foremen kept on fairly good terms with them, providing them with liquor and cigarettes. So outside working parties were thus able to enjoy a greater degree of liberty under the guardianship of the askaris.

  Strangely enough the askaris were extremely keen on singing: music in general played an important part in camp life. There was even a band. Its members included some of the best musicians in and around Lemberg. Richard Rokita, the SS lieutenant who had been a violinist in a Silesian café, was mad about “his” band. This man, who daily slaughtered prisoners from sheer lust for killing, had at the same time only one ambition—to lead a band. He arranged special accommodation for his musicians and pampered them in other ways, but they were never allowed out of camp. In the evenings they played works of Bach and Wagner and Grieg. One day Rokita brought along a songwriter called Zygmunt Schlechter and ordered him to compose a “death tango.” And whenever the band played this tune, the sadistic monster Rokita had wet eyes.

  In the early mornings, when the prisoners left the camp to go to work, the band played them out, the SS insisting that we march in time to the music. When we passed the gate we began to sing.

  The camps songs were of a special type, a mixture of melancholy, sick humor, and vulgar words, a weird amalgam of Russian, Polish, and German. The obscenities suited the mentality of the askaris who constantly demanded one particular song. When they heard it broad grins came over their faces and their features lost some of their brutal appearance.

  Once we had passed beyond the barbed wire, the air seemed fresher; people and houses were no longer seen through wire mesh and partly hidden by the watch towers.

  Pedestrians often stood and stared at us curiously and sometimes they started to wave but soon desisted, fearing the SS might notice the gestures of friendliness.

  Traffic on the streets seemed uninfluenced by the war. The front line was seven hundred miles away, and the presence of a few soldiers was the only reminder that it was not peacetime.

  One askari began to sing, and we joined in although few of us were in the mood for singing. Women among the gaping passersby turned their heads away shamefacedly when they heard the obscene passages in the song and naturally this delighted the askaris. One of them left the column, ran over to the pavement to accost a girl. We couldn't hear what he said, but we could well imagine it as the girl blushed and walked rapidly away.

  Our gaze roamed the crowds on the pavements looking anxiously for any face we might recognize, although some kept eyes on the ground, fearing to encounter an acquaintance.

  You could read on the faces of the passersby that we were written off as doomed. The people of Lemberg had become accustomed to the sight of tortured Jews and they looked at us as one looks at a herd of cattle being driven to the slaughterhouse. At such times I was consumed by a feeling that the world had conspired against us and our fate was accepted without a protest, without a trace of sympathy.

  I for one no longer wanted to look at the indifferent faces of the spectators. Did any of them reflect that there were still Jews and as long as they were there, as long as the Nazis were still busy with the Jews, they would leave the citizens alone? I suddenly remembered an experience I had had a few days before, not far from here. As we were returning to camp, a man whom I had formerly known passed by, a fellow student, now a Polish engineer. Perhaps understandably he was afraid to nod to me openly, but I could see from the expression in his eyes that he was surprised to see me still alive. For him we were as good as dead; each of us was carrying around his own death certificate, from which only the date was missing.

  Our column suddenly came to a halt at a crossroads.

  I could see nothing that might be holding us up but I noticed on the left of the street there was a military cemetery. It was enclosed by a low barbed wire fence. The wires were threaded through sparse bushes and low shrubs, but between them you could see the graves aligned in stiff rows.

  And on each grave there was planted a sunflower, as straight as a soldier on parade.

  I stared spellbound. The flower heads seemed to absorb the sun's rays like mirrors and draw them down into the darkness of the ground as my gaze wandered from the sunflower to the grave. It seemed to penetrate the earth and suddenly I saw before me a periscope. It was gaily colored and butterflies fluttered from flower to flower. Were they carrying messages from grave to grave? Were they whispering something to each flower to pass on to the soldier below? Yes, this was just what they were doing; the dead were receiving light and messages.

  Suddenly I envied the dead soldiers. Each had a sunflower to connect him with the living world, and butterflies to visit his grave. For me there would be no sunflower. I would be buried in a mass grave, where corpses would be piled on top of me. No sunflower would ever bring light into my darkness, and no butterflies would dance above my dr
eadful tomb.

  I do not know how long we stood there. The man behind gave me a push and the procession started again. As we walked on I still had my head turned toward the sunflowers. They were countless and indistinguishable one from another. But the men who were buried under them had not severed all connection with the world. Even in death they were superior to us…

  I rarely thought of death. I knew that it was waiting for me and must come sooner or later, so gradually I had accustomed myself to its proximity. I was not even curious as to how it would come. There were too many possibilities. All I hoped was that it would be quick. Just how it would happen I left to Fate.

  But for some strange reason the sight of the sunflowers had aroused new thoughts in me. I felt I would come across them again; that they were a symbol with a special meaning for me.

  As we reached Janowska Street, leaving the cemetery behind us, I turned my head for a last look at the forest of sunflowers.

  We still did not know where we were being taken. My neighbor whispered to me: “Perhaps they have set up new workshops in the Ghetto.”

  It was possible. The rumor was that new workshops were being started. More and more German businessmen were settling Lemberg. They were not so anxious for profits. It was more important for them to keep their employees and save them from military service which was comparatively easy in peaceful Lemberg, far from the front line. What most of these enterprises brought with them from Germany was writing paper, a rubber stamp, a few foremen, and some office furniture. Only a short time ago Lemberg had been in the hands of the Russians, who had nationalized most of the building firms, many of which had previously been owned by Jews. When the Russians withdrew, they were unable to take the machines and tools with them. So what they left behind was taken to a “booty depot” and was now being divided among the newly established German factories.

  There was no trouble in any case about getting labor. So long as there were still Jews, one could get cheap, almost free labor. The workshop applying had merely to be recognized as important for the war, but a certain degree of protection and bribery was also necessary. Those with connections got permission to set up branches in occupied territory, they were given cheap labor in the shape of hundreds of Jews, and they also had an extensive machine depot at their disposal. The men they brought with them from Germany were exempt from active service. Homes in the German quarter of Lemberg were assigned to them—very nice houses abandoned by wealthy Poles and Jews to make room for the master race.

  To the Jews it was an advantage that so many German enterprises were being started in Poland. Work was not particularly hard, and as a rule the workshop managers fought for “their” Jews, without whose cheap labor the workshops would have had to move further east nearer the front.

  All around me I heard the anxious whispers: “Where are we going?”

  “Going” means to carry out with the feet a decision which the brain has formed, but in our case our brains made no decisions. Our feet merely imitated what the front man did. They stopped when he stopped and they moved on when he moved on.

  We turned right into Janowska Street; how often had I sauntered along it, as a student and later as an architect? For a time I had even had lodgings there with a fellow student from Przemysl.

  Now we marched mechanically along the street—a column of doomed men.

  It was not yet eight o'clock, but there was already plenty of traffic. Peasants were coming into the city to barter their wares; they no longer had confidence in money as is always the case in war time and in crises. The peasants paid no attention to our column.

  As we moved out of the city the askaris, having sung themselves hoarse, were taking a rest. Detrained soldiers with their baggage hurried along Janowska; SS men passed, looking contemptuously at us, and at one point an army officer stopped to stare. Around his neck hung a camera, but he could not make up his mind to use it on us. Hesitatingly he passed the camera from right to left hand and then let it go again. Perhaps he was afraid of trouble with the SS.

  We came in sight of the church at the end of Janowska Street, a lofty structure of red brick and squared stone. Which direction would the askari, at the head of our column, take? To the right, down to the station, or to the left along Sapiehy Street, at the end of which lay the notorious Loncki Prison?

  We turned left.

  I knew the way well. In Sapiehy Street stood the Technical High School. For years I had walked along this street several times a day, when I was working for the Polish diploma.

  Even then for us Jewish students Sapiehy Street was a street of doom. Only a few Jewish families lived there and in times of disorder the district was avoided by Jews. Here lived Poles—regular officers, professional men, manufacturers, and officials. Their sons were known as the “gilded youth” of Lemberg and supplied most of the students in the Technical High School and in the High School of Agriculture. Many of them were rowdies, hooligans, antisemites, and Jews who fell into their hands were often beaten up and left bleeding on the ground. They fastened razor blades to the end of their sticks which they used as weapons against the Jewish students. In the evenings it was dangerous to walk through this street, even if one were merely Jewish in appearance, especially at times when the young National Democrats or Radical Nationals were turning their anti-Jewish slogans from theory into practice. It was rare for a policeman to be around to protect the victims.

  What was incomprehensible was that at a time when Hitler was on Poland's western frontiers, poised to annex Polish territory, these Polish “patriots” could think of only one thing: the Jews and their hatred for them.

  In Germany, at that time, they were building new factories to raise armament potential to the maximum; they were building strategic roads straight toward Poland and then were calling up more and more young Germans for military service. But the Polish parliament paid little heed to this menace; it had “more important” tasks—new regulations for kosher butchering, for instance—which might make life more difficult for the Jews.

  Such parliamentary debates were always followed by street battles, for the Jewish intelligentsia was ever a thorn in the flesh of the antisemites.

  Two years before the outbreak of war the Radical elements had invented a “day without Jews,” whereby they hoped to reduce the number of Jewish academics, to interfere with their studies and make it impossible for them to take examinations. On these feast days there assembled inside the gates of the High Schools a crowd of fraternity students wearing ribbons inscribed “the day without the Jews.” It always coincided with examination days. The “day without the Jews” was thus a movable festival, and as the campus of the Technical High School was ex-territorial, the police were not allowed to interfere except by express request of the Rector. Such requests were rarely made. Although the Radicals formed a mere 20 percent of the students, this minority reigned because of the cowardice and laziness of the majority. The great mass of the students were unconcerned about the Jews or indeed about order and justice. They were not willing to expose themselves, they lacked willpower, they were wrapped up in their own problems, completely indifferent to the fate of Jewish students.

  The proportions were about the same among the teaching staff. Some were confirmed antisemites, but even from those who were not, the Jewish students had trouble getting a substitute date for the examinations which they missed because of the “day without Jews” outbreaks. For Jews who came from poor families the loss of a term meant inevitably an end to their studies. So they had to go to the High School even on the antisemitic feast days and this led to grotesque situations. In the side streets ambulances waited patiently and they had plenty to do on examination days. The police too waited to prevent violence from spreading outside the campus. From time to time a few of the most brutal students were arrested and tried but they emerged from prison as heroes and on their lapels they proudly wore a badge designed as a prison gate. They had suffered for their country's cause! Honored by their comrades, they
were given special privileges by some of the professors, and never was there any question of expelling them.

  Such memories crowded into my mind as, under the guard of the askaris, I marched past the familiar houses. I looked into the faces of the passersby. Perhaps I would see a former fellow student. I would spot him at once because he would visibly show the hatred and contempt which they always evinced at the mere sight of a Jew. I had seen this expression too often during my time as a student ever to forget it.

  Where are they now, these super-patriots who dreamt of a “Poland without Jews”? Perhaps the day when there would be no more Jews was not far off, and their dreams would be realized. Only there wouldn't be a Poland either!

  We halted in front of the Technical High School. It looked unaltered. The main building, a neoclassic structure in terra-cotta and yellow, stood some distance back from the street, from which it was separated by a low stone wall with a high iron fence. At examination time I had often walked along this fence and gazed through the railings at the Radical students waiting for their victims. Over the broad entrance gates would be a banner inscribed “the day without Jews.” From the gate to the door of the building armed students forming a cordon would scrutinize everybody who wanted to enter the building.

  So here I was, once again standing outside this gateway. This time there were no banners, no students to make the Jews run the gauntlet, only a few German guards and, above the entrance, a board inscribed “Reserve Hospital.” An SS man from the camp had a few words with a sentry, and then the gate opened. We marched past the well-kept lawns, turned left from the main entrance and were led round the building into the courtyard. It lay in deep shadow. Ambulances drove in and out, and once or twice we had to stand aside to let them pass. Then we were handed over to a sergeant of the medical corps, who assigned us our duties. I had a curious feeling of strangeness in these surroundings although I had spent several years here. I tried to remember whether I had ever been in this back courtyard. What would have brought me here? We were usually content to be able to get into the building and out again without being molested, or without explaining the topography.