Over the past few weeks, a video has been circulating on Facebook of an elderly woman who tells her story about being a young twin at the Auschwtiz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland during the Holocaust. The video was posted by Buzzfeed roughly a month ago and now has over 158 million views.
There is a reason such an enormous amount of people have taken a break from scrolling to watch this 14-minute long video. Its message of liberation through forgiveness is one that rebukes the overwhelming feelings of revenge and anger usually characteristic of human nature.
In her testimony, survivor Eva Mozes Kor begins by recounting her arrival to Auschwitz and how she and her twin sister Miriam were selected from the crowd immediately and put under the care of Doctor Josef Mengele. Mengele was notorious for having performed horrific experiments on twins as part of his strive to understand “how to increase the birthrate of an Aryan master race.”
“I was used in two types of experiments,” Kor explained. “On alternate days, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, they would take us to a blood lab. They would tie both of my arms to restrict the blood flow, take a lot of blood from my left arm, and give me a minimum of five injections in the right arm. The contents of those injections, we didn’t know then, nor do we know today.”
Kor goes on to describe a time at the camp when the twins were separated, and she became ill almost to the point of death.
In January 1945, Kor and her twin sister were liberated from Auschwitz by the Soviets. The twins did not talk about their experiences in the camp until 1985. In 1993, Miriam passed away after many years of multiple health problems resulting from the experiments, including her kidneys inability to grow larger than that of a 10-year-old child.
“Months after Miriam died, I received a telephone call from a professor at Boston, who said he heard me speak and he would like me to go to Boston and speak,” Kor recounted. In addition to asking Kor to speak, the professor suggested that “it would be nice if [she] could bring a Nazi doctor.”
Following her initial surprise at the professor’s request, Kor remembered a Nazi doctor by the name of Hans Munch who she had heard of in a documentary issued by a German television station about the Mengele twins, and so she decided to seek him out.
When she found Munch alive, Kor compromised with the doctor and ended up meeting him at his own house in Germany in August 1993.
Unintentionally, Kor found herself asking the doctor pointed questions about his role at Auschwitz and in the gas chambers. He explained the nightmare he found himself in the middle of every day which included him signing the single death certificate after watching entire groups of people killed in the gas chamber.
After their conversation, Kor invited Munch to attend the commemoration of the 50th Year of Liberation at Auschwitz with her and asked him to sign a document there testifying to the horrific reality of the camp. Munch agreed immediately.
“I wanted to thank this Nazi doctor for his willingness to document the gas chamber operation. I didn’t know how to thank a Nazi,” Kor admitted. “I didn’t tell anybody about it, because even to me, it sounded strange. I didn’t want anybody to change my mind.”
Months later, Kor knew exactly what she could do to express her gratitude. She decided to send the doctor a letter of forgiveness. Though her intentions were directed at Munch’s feelings, Kor experienced a revelation for herself.
“I discovered that I had the power to forgive,” Kor revealed. “No one could give me that power, no one could take it away. It was all mine to use any way I wished.”
Over the next four months, Kor penned her letter of forgiveness. To perfect it, Kor met with an old English professor to have her letter edited. On her third meeting with this professor, Kor was surprised to hear her professor express her belief was that Kor’s problem was not with Dr. Munch but rather Dr. Mengele.
Kor acknowledged that she was not sure she was ready to forgive Mengele so her former professor gave her advice. The professor suggested Kor pretend Mengele was in the room with her at home and practice telling him that she forgives him.
“Interesting idea, I thought,” Kor said. “And when I got home, actually, I did something else. I picked up a dictionary and wrote down twenty nasty words which I read clear and loud to that make-believe Mengele in the room. At the end, I said, ‘In spite of all that, I forgive you.’ [It] made me feel very good.”
In 1995, Kor and Dr. Munch traveled to Auschwtiz for the 50th Year of Liberation where they both signed the Declaration of Amnesty. Kor described her feelings after this event.
“I felt free, free from Auschwitz, free from Mengele,” Kor explained. “So now that I have forgiven him, I knew that most of the survivors denounced me, and they denounce today also.”
Despite her knowledge of the anger her actions had invoked, Kor does not shy away from emitting the relief it has brought her. This attests to her awareness of the true power such an action can bring about.
“What is my forgiveness? I like it,” Kor said. “It is an act of self-healing. self-liberation, self-empowerment. All victims, all hurt, feel hopeless, feel helpless, feel powerless. I want everybody to remember that we cannot change what happened. That is the tragic part. But we can change how we relate to it.”
History should never be forgotten. For Christians, Kor’s story is an inspiring reminder to forgive others just as Christ forgives us. Like Kor, we can and should forgive those who have committed even the worst crimes against us. God does not intend for past damage to cause destruction in our present lives, but to testify of His love and mercy.
Let Eva Mozes Kor’s heart be an example to all, for every person has felt the sting of humankind in some way, shape, or form.
Comment by Pam Ray on November 5, 2017 at 5:39 pm
What a beautiful story of forgiveness and strength.