As I stared out at the corn fields from the middle of our charter bus, a light rain danced and wiggled down the window. We were less than 100 minutes away from meeting an actual survivor of the Holocaust. I was anxious, and didn’t quite know how to feel about meeting her. Should I be sad? Excited? Humbled? Honored? It’s like watching a disaster unfold on television: you know you feel sickened by all the pain being experienced, but you can’t quite pull yourself away from the fascination of it all.
Survivor of Auschwitz
As a child, Eva Kor was detained in Auschwitz, the most deadly of the prison and death camps in the Nazi conquest of Europe. Perhaps even more significantly, Eva was an identical twin, and this made her and her sister extremely interesting in the eyes of the Nazi scientist, Joseph Mengele. In order to assist the Nazi army, Mengele was tasked with doing experimentation and research on the limits of the human body.
Using pressure chambers, ice water tanks, and various poisons, this mad scientist tried to mimic battle conditions to discover the precise point in which a body would fail. As soon as the tested twin died, the other twin would have an autopsy performed on them, often while still alive, to compare the differences between the two.
While Mrs. Kor obviously survived, she was starved, tortured, stripped naked, and injected with more chemicals than she can even remember. All of this was due to the fact that she was Jewish, and that she was an identical twin. Even though the experiments were extremely painful and inhumane, her life was probably saved because of her status as a twin.
Her genes led her to the face of death (because she was Jewish), and still, her genes also saved her life (because she was an identical twin).
Studying History, Then Touching History
All of our high school history courses ended up studying World War II at the same time this year. One of the teachers discovered this opportunity to meet Mrs. Kor, which he then shared with the rest of the staff, and eventually to the entire high school. So as we concluded our studies of World War II and the Holocaust, we loaded up a couple of charter busses to meet Eva Kor and hear her story first hand.
This is where the wondering out the window comes in. What do you ask somebody who has been tortured as a child, watched her sister be tortured, and watched as her parents, aunts, and uncles were taken away from her, never to be seen again? I didn’t know what to say.
Actually, I really knew what I wanted to ask her, but I just couldn’t figure out if it was appropriate or not. I like to talk about forgiveness and healing, but I don’t know anyone who has gone through quite as much as this woman. Ultimately, I decided not to ask her anything. I just wanted to sit at her feet, and listen.
And that’s exactly what I did.
We gathered into the main room of the museum she recently founded in Terre Haute, IN. This spunky, curly haired, colorful scarf wearing, 76 year old woman was ready for us. She asked us to sit, and instead of sitting in chairs with the rest of the adults, I sat cross-legged on the floor with our students.
When she began speaking, the room went silent. We hung on her every word. When she pointed to the picture of the boxcar that she stood in for 3 straight days on her way to Auschwitz, we all understood that we had no right to complain of discomfort for sitting on a floor for two hours. When she described the train platform where her mother was separated from her and her sister, never to see each other again, we wondered how we could complain about any frustrations with our own parents. And when she described the piles of dead bodies that acted as a constant reminder of what was threatened with every day, we felt shame for much of the self pity we had allowed ourselves to swim in within our middle-class American lives.
As she spoke, it was clear that this was a woman who spirit was not broken by the Nazis. This was a woman who held a real power. The power to command a room is valuable. The power to expose injustice is greater. But, at the end of her story, Eva Kor revealed a specific power that she had only discovered in the last 20 years. It was the answer to the question that I had wondered the entire time. Eva Kor discovered the power that comes from forgiveness.
Forgiveness, Eva Kor style
Unbeknownst to us, Eva Kor is one of the world’s leading proponents of the power of forgiveness. While many people have found strength in hating and despising those who have grievously wronged them, she has found the opposite. Her incredible belief in the power of the human spirit to survive under torture only took her so far. Over 40 years after she had left Auschwitz, she still felt it’s claws grasping hold of her. It was only after she chose to forgive Mengele, that she felt truly free.
While Mengele showed some of the depths of human depravity and evil, Eva recognized an opportunity to show the very best in human potential for goodness and grace.
In fact, a documentary film about her forgiveness of Mengele has been made. You can view the short trailer here:
As you can see, her forgiveness is not without controversy. Many do not understand the meaning or usefulness of forgiving someone who is dead, and who never asked for forgiveness. I invite you to learn more about Eva Kor and her story of forgiveness at her website.
As we filed out of the room on our way back to the busses, I shook her hand and thanked her for inspiring us. Believing I was a student, she smiled and thanked me for coming.
As I was rounding up the last students from the building, I noticed Mrs. Kor emerging from a room with a brochure and bookmark to hand to this last group of students from our group. As she put the brochure in the girl’s hand, Mrs. Kor said: “Give this to your teacher, he will know what to do.” The student immediately looked at me and said: “Here you go Mr. Parsons.”
On the cover of the brochure was an acrostic of the word FORGIVENESS. Freedom Over Revenge Glad In Victory Everlasting Nurture Enjoyable & Surprising Serenity.
This woman is the answer to my question. Not only is is possible to forgive heinous crimes, it may be the key to ultimate healing from them.
