Forgiving Mengele
Victim of Angel of Death forgives those who tortured her and twin sister
According to the head of an American organization called C.A.N.D.L.E.S., an acronym for Children of Auschwitz Nazi's Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors, the answer to both questions is a resounding "yes."
Eva Mozes-Kor says she "forgives Mengele and all the other doctors that conducted appalling experiments on me and my twin sister Miriam.
"I forgive those who killed my parents," she says, "(the ones) who stole my family from me, who took away my childhood and turned my life into hell. I exonerate those who did the things that have been with me, night after night, for the past 60 years."
I speak only for myself, but I forgive them for all these terrible things."
Only by a survivor
The words could only have been spoken by a survivor. Mozes lost her entire family at Auschwitz, and was only saved by virtue of being a twin.
Mengele noticed them on the platform as they got out of the cattle car and pulled them out of the line headed for the gas chambers. Screaming, they were taken from their mother, who was condemned to stay in the line.
In the years that followed, the girls underwent horrible experiments, including virus injections, colored dye injections into their eyes, and other inhuman tests.
Next Monday, Kor will address a special gathering called "Science, Law and Ethics," hosted by the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa.
After the war
Kor came to Israel following the war, served seven years in the IDF Engineering Corps before leaving for the United States.
For the first time, she is publicizing her unprecedented call to forgive the Nazi "doctors" for what they did.
"I have felt that my whole life reverberates with what I experienced at Auschwitz. I have fought against it my whole life, until I was able to reach a place of forgiveness.
Only then could I manage to return to life."
Meeting Munch
In 1993 Kor initiated a meeting, carried by German television, with a former Nazi doctor named Hans Munch.
He agreed to meet her at his home: "I was very worried about it, and asked myself how I could deal with it all, what I would do if he treated me the way they treated me at Auschwitz," she says now. "But I had to do it."
She says Munch treated her "with the utmost respect," and said his participation in the Holocaust "(is) a nightmare I live with every day!"
Munch told Kor how the chambers worked, and how he had to sign death certificates for everyone afterwards.
"I asked him to come with me to Auschwitz in January 1995 marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation, and to sign a public statement documenting what he told me," she said.
Forgiveness at Auschwitz
Kor and Munch did visit Auschwitz together and signed the above mentioned document. She says the letter has been very useful to combat Holocaust deniers.
Following their initial meeting, Kor says she wanted to thank Munch for his candor, and thought about an appropriate way to do so. It was then she began to entertain the idea of forgiving her former tormentors. She decided to write him a letter, to be read and signed on their visit to Auschwitz.
"When we traded letters, I felt a huge burden lifted from my shoulders," she says. "I was no longer an Auchwitz survivor, but rather in that minute I broke away from my tragic past and became free."
Key to peace
Mozes also tells other victims to forgive their tormentors.
"It will do wonders for your inner soul and set you free," she says.
She also says countries have failed to make peace because they have not encouraged enemies to forgive one another in order to heal themselves. She says that without such a move, future peace moves will also fail.
Most governments push only for justice. But by doing this, they are condemning the victims to suffer forever.
Tell me, young man - how many Holocaust survivors have gained any peace from trials of former Nazis? Revenge may be good for lawyers, but it does nothing help the victims.
With regard to the Holocaust and to the conflict with the Palestinians, I often hear the Biblical phrase "remember what Amalek did to you."
But forgiving does not mean forgetting. I dream of a world in which leaders work to pass laws require forgiveness rather than justice.
"We must put an end to this vicious circle."
