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2006 Archive: About The Book & Author 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. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place? In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past. Often surprising and always thought provoking, The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility. - Courtesy of Random House It is our pleasure to honor Simon Simon Wiesenthal was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer who became a Nazi hunter after surviving the Holocaust. Following four and a half years in the concentration camps of Janowska, Plaszow and Mauthausen during World War II, Wiesenthal dedicated his entire life to gathering information and tracking down fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Simon Wiesenthal continued to actively hunt down Nazi war criminals for nearly 55 years. The governments of Italy, the Netherlands, Israel and the United States honored him for his unceasing efforts. Simon Wiesenthal died in Austria in September 2005.
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