I believe that the link between Sunflowers and Jewish survivors of the holocaust is linked to Simon Wiesenthal's book titled "The Sunflower". The book is really about Simon's exploration of the issue of forgiveness of the Nazis for their terrible crimes against the Jewish people during World War II.

The link to the Sunflower comes from the fact that graves of Nazi soldiers outside the concentration camps had sunflowers planted on them. This is in striking contrast to the unmarked graves that were used to bury prisoners of the concentration camp. The Sunflower is a symbol of how even in death the Nazi prisoners retrieved better treatment than Jewish prisoners.

The link to forgiveness comes from a true story in the book where Simon Wiesenthal is called to the bed of a dying Nazi solider who want to confess his crime of killing over 150 men, women, and children by herding them into a house and setting it on fire. He wants to confess his crime and ask for forgiveness. Simon Wisenthal responds a certain way and the story is really a mirror that people can hold up to themselves to see how they would have reacted.

I don't know why sunflowers are given to Jewish survivors but I guess it's given to them in honor of the book which explorers the issues of forgiveness that every Jewish survivor needs to confront. It could be a symbolic gesture that reminds them that they have to decide what the right moral choice should be when dealing with their past.

The book I think that answers this question is The Sunflower: On The Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal. If you haven't yet, I suggest you borrow it from the library or buy it. From the reviews, it seems like a great read and I might even pick it up and read it!

http://www.amazon.com/Sunflower-Possibil...

From http://www.remember.org/imagine/limits/w...

"Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower is a true story of Simon as a Jewish prisoner and his journey through one of history's most difficult and trying events, the Holocaust. This book deals with the "possibilities and limits of forgiveness." I support Simon's judgment in walking away from the dying SS man without saying a word. I feel that it was not his place or even his right to forgive someone for their crimes against others.

Simon is in a Nazi concentration camp with his companions, Arthur and Josek, during the Holocaust. One day, Simon was taken on a march with other camp members. As he walked through a ghetto towards a hospital, Simon notices some sunflowers in the German graveyard. Each grave had one "..as straight as a soldier on parade" (Wiesenthal 14). In Simon's eyes, it seemed as though the flowers took in sun rays and pulled them down into the dark ground where the soldier lay. He also mentions that butterflies traveled from flower to flower, perhaps carrying messages from grave to grave. Simon immediately realized that there would be no sunflower on his grave, where corpses were piled on top of each other. There would be no sunflower to connect him with the world or bring him light, no butterflies to visit his grave. This here shows that when Simon and other Jews die, they will be inferior to the Germans. Perhaps Simon is directing this symbolism towards God and heaven as well. At the beginning of the novel, Simon and his friends, Josek and Arthur, are talking about God being "on leave" (8). They feel that God is absent and not looking on his earth or after the Jews. I feel that the sunflower can symbolize the Nazi's relationship with God in the eyes of the Jewish population, in that when the Nazis die, they each have a sunflower. Simon sees this sunflower as drawing in or collecting sun rays from the heavens and lighting their dark grave. When the Jews die, the sunflower is absent. They will be in their dark graves, lying on top of one another with no light shining in on their dark world. This is related to their fear that God is absent in their world.

In the face of such difficult moral judgment, there are some scholars who believe that Simon should have forgiven the dying soldier and granted his last wish for forgiveness and repentance. In some instances, these scholars display a great capacity for compassion and love. However, in this particular situation, I do not feel that forgiveness by Simon on behalf of the Jews was correct.

Collectively, these scholar's reasons for forgiveness can be summed up in the following principles. The first reason for forgiveness is because of death. The scholars who mention this reason could see forgiveness as filling a dying man's last wish. There is also forgiveness because of religion. Simon should have forgiven the dying soldier because "we have Jesus as a great forgiver" (Hesburgh 169). We should take after God and show the same mercy that God shows us (169). Most Christians believe that Jesus was born to die on the cross for our sins. The purpose of this was for us to be forgiven for our wrong doings so we could go to heaven when we die.

Another reason for forgiveness that these scholars point out is freedom. "Forgiveness happens inside us. It represents letting go of the sense of grievance, and perhaps most importantly the role of the victim" (Kushner 186). Because of being able to forgive, the person can free himself from the burden of hate and victimization. The victim is able to move on and heal himself.

I feel, however, that with such a horrific and brutalizing event, it would be impossible to fully be able to heal and move on. Such an incomprehensible event can leave a long term negative effect on the subconscious and emotions of a person. It was not unheard of that Jewish prisoners in the Holocaust literally ripped themselves apart--despite the fact that they were already torn--after the event because of what they saw. Perhaps not forgiving is the victim's assurance that the murderers and brutalizers will be brought to justice. Maybe it gives them a sense of relief and control over an otherwise uncontrollable situation and their uncontrollable feelings. It is their security.

The final reason for forgiveness is true repentance. Some scholars believe that Karl experienced true contrition and, thus, should be forgiven. Edward H. Flannery, a Roman Catholic priest, says that one should be forgiven if he sincerely repents. However, this man is a priest and has the power to forgive on behalf of God. He is God's verbal forgiver for sins. Thus, Karl should have sought forgiveness from a priest. If Karl truly wants repentance, he should have sought it from someone who could actually have the authority to forgive him. Some scholars mention that "anyone willing to ask for forgiveness should be forgiven" (Hesburgh 169). They also mention that if Karl is truly sorry and asks for forgiveness then he is experiencing true repentance and should be forgiven. However, no one is absolutely positive that people who ask for forgiveness are truly sorry for what they have done. I feel that Karl on some level or another was sorry for his sins and crimes. As for knowing what his heart and soul feels, only God knows that and, therefore, only God has the ability to truly forgive him. I admire these people's hearts in a way because they have such a deep capacity for love. However, in the case of millions of Jews and their brutal torture, quick forgiveness is not justifiable."

The link is through the book"The Sunflower" written by Simon Wiesenthal.

The revised and expanded edition of The Sunflower has sparked a new round of discussion in academia across the country, aspects of which should be germane to every high school student who completes Holocaust studies. As the book’s subtitle suggests, Wiesenthal’s seemingly surreal encounter with a dying SS man raises speculative questions about post-Holocaust redemption and ways in which perpetrators and victims can coexist in the same world. Students are given a chance to line up morally (and physically as well, if the teacher wishes) in a vengeance-to-forgiveness gradation line, as exemplified by the extremist entries of Cynthia Ozick and The Dalai Lama. The tough question, though, is why you, the reader, choose to stand where you do.
In 1943, Lemberg (Lwow, Austria) Concentration Camp prisoner Simon Wiesenthal is summoned to the bedside of a dying Nazi. This SS man, after confessing to a horrific crime against Jews, seeks Wiesenthal's, "a Jew's," forgiveness. Wiesenthal, deeply troubled by the request, turns the forgiveness request back to his fellow victims, and, ultimately, to the reader. One critical passage: (end of Book One, page 98) "You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, 'What would I have done?'"

For Wiesenthal, the encounter was unexpected and unnerving. Taken from the Lemberg Concentration Camp in a workers’ group to the town’s army hospital in 1943, Wiesenthal was suddenly summoned, as a singled-out Jew, to the bedside of a mortally wounded SS man, Karl Seidl. The man seized Wiesenthal’s hand and confessed to helping destroy, by fire and armaments, a house filled with more than 150 Jews. When Karl Seidl finished his story, he begged the Jewish forced-laborer to forgive him. Wiesenthal, however, rose and walked out. During the next two years, Wiesenthal shared this story with fellow camp mates, ending each time with: “Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong?” The incident and question so troubled Wiesenthal that, in 1946, he visited Karl Seidl’s mother in Stuttgart but left without telling the bereaved woman about her son’s misdeeds.

Wiesenthal, as his 1989 memoirs suggest (Justice Not Vengeance), does not offer his forgiveness to mass murderers; he trades it against appropriate punishment. Yet, the question The Sunflower poses has eventually become a moral survey of some of the leading authorities of our time. This second edition quizzes 53 experts: 39 new responders, 10 retained, one revised, and three from translation. These distinguished men and women include theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, and Tibet.

If a calculus alone could determine correct responses to moral questions, this writer’s tabulations would run as follows: 12 essayists espouse forgiveness, 16 are against forgiveness, and 25 cannot say. The problem with such statistics is that the latter category would have to include “does not say”; “cannot tell”; “sides with Wiesenthal’s ‘inaction’ “; or “reformulates Wiesenthal’s question.” In other words, every one of the moral pundits interprets the event in an often cultural and personally experiential way.

A number of essayists chose to respond to Wiesenthal’s question thusly: “What would I have done [in Simon Wiesenthal’s place]?” Although Wiesenthal acceded to such a “paraphrase,” this writer agrees with responder Lawrence Langer that such role-playing about Holocaust reality trivializes the serious issues of judgment and forgiveness that The Sunflower raises. Forgiveness is, indeed, the essence of the debate that high schoolers should enter into. Nowhere is the dichotomy regarding the possibility of Wiesenthal’s forgiveness so great as it is between the Jewish and Christian scholars. Students could be exposed to the Christian rationale of, say, John Pawlikowski’s conception of repentance, contrition, acceptance of responsibility, healing, and finally reunion. This should be contrasted with Deborah Lipstadt’s teshuvah (repentance, from “to return”) -- asking forgiveness from the aggrieved, expressing regret verbally to God, choosing not to repeat the sin when in that situation again -- plus kaparah (atonement), bearing punishment. Paired essays (most are two to four pages long.) could also include those most diametrically opposed on the subject of forgiveness. The language and ideas of the essayists are rich in probes that lead directly to a discussion about human responsibility.

Pawlikowski, in his essay, also reflects upon Divine Responsibility when he remembers Simon Wiesenthal’s discussion with his friend Arthur early on in Wiesenthal’s account (which occupies nearly the first 100 pages of the book).

“What do you think of that, Simon?” [Arthur] asked. “God
is on leave.”
“Let me sleep,” I [Simon] replied. “Tell me when He gets back.”

Wiesenthal’s statement brings rare laughter to his friends. Arthur’s statement is merely what Wiesenthal long had felt was true. Fellow survivor, Elie Wiesel, suggests, too, in Ani Maamin, that God’s deliverance comes too late -- six million deaths too late -- and such a God seems powerless to be more than a remorseful deity who can endure but not enable. For some teachers such speculations may seem too far removed from secular school curriculum. Still, the constant Wiesel question of : Where is God in all this? must, ultimately, give way to: What is there left for us to do?

Essayist Robert McAfee Brown seizes upon this latter question, and most of The Sunflower’s symposium writers, if not responding to Wiesenthal’s framed question, speculate about the role of human responsibility during the Holocaust. One, Arthur Waskow, notes that Karl Seidl shattered the Ultimate Unity, the four Worlds of the Kabbalists: Doing, Relating, Knowing, and Being. The physical damage, emotional upset, and spiritual dislocation of the Jews, he says, have irreparably alienated any Holocaust victims and their perpetrators. The World of Knowing, however, contains the lessons that sadism can be technological and mass produced, can poison our ecology, can propagandize for destruction, and can usurp God-like powers. The essence of these lessons gives us and the students much to think about and answer to.

And what of The Sunflower? Wiesenthal acknowledges, as does virtually every essayist, that only the victims can truly forgive their perpetrators, a physical, if not metaphysical, impossibility. Wiesenthal temporarily envies the dead SS, like Karl Seidl, though, for each Nazi grave in the Lemberg Military Cemetery has a sunflower standing on it as straight as a soldier on parade, bringing light into the darkness. The Wiesenthals, who lost 89 family members to the Nazi murderers, seemingly faced only a mass grave, where victims would be stacked anonymously, bereft of even symbolic remembrance. This multi-page, paper Sunflower, however, filled with thought provoking challenges to humanity, helps to give assurance that Wiesenthal’s life and death will indeed be memorialized.

As others have pointed out, the giving of Sunflowers to Jewish Holocaust survivors stems from Simon Wiesenthal's book of the same name.

In the book, the Sunflower is used a metaphor on many levels. The great thing about using the Sunflower is that it can be adapted to mean many things. The fact that a Sunflower faces the Sun is a statement that we should face the brighter things in life. Yet a night, the Sunflower retreats into the darkness to examine itself. When the Sun comes up again, the Sunflower faces the Sun again and enjoys its warmth.

You can also make the link to forgiveness with the Sunflower because even after the dark night, the Sunlflower will face the Sun again. This could be considered a metaphor for forgiveness since to forgive is to dwell on the positive side of things and move on.