Releasing burdens
This past week I read of a modest way-shower, Eva, and how she learned the power of forgiveness.
She died recently, but her legacy lives on in a Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Her name was Eva Mozes Kor. She and her twin sister, Miriam, were born in 1934 in a tiny village in Romania.
There they, their parents and two older sisters lived a pleasant but rustic life under the growing specter of the Nazis and prejudice against the Jews.
When the twins were 10 years old, however, their pleasant life ended.
The family was shipped to Auschwitz. Their parents and sisters were killed in the gas chamber while the twins were subjected to cruel pseudo-scientific “twin experiments” conducted by the German doctor, Josef Mengele.
Little was known of these experiments until after WorldWar II when asmany as 150 sets of twins came forward and shared their experiences to a shocked public.
Their stories are heartbreaking, but Eva’s story didn’t end there. She and her sister survived.
After her liberation, Eva became a spokesperson for all the twins who suffered and died in the Nazi concentration camps.
And interesting as that is, the time came when she realized her burden of hatred was too great. She made the decision to forgive Joseph Mengele. Forgiveness not for him, but for herself.
“So I forgave him. It wasn’t easy but gradually it felt like I had gained power over the angel of death. I realized that if I could forgive him, I could forgive everyone. If it didn’t work, I thought, I can always take my pain back.”
As I read this, I had to stop in order to absorb what she was doing. If she could forgive what was done to her, to her family, who am I to cling to petty grievances and slights? Many didn’t agree with her forgiveness but she remained committed. She repeated over and over, “My forgiveness is not for him, but for myself.”
Eva’s thoughts live on. During these times of uncertainty, we might pause now and then to consider those we’re holding grudges against, feeling less than charitable toward for whatever reason.
Time to look at forgiveness in a new way perhaps. It’s not for the sake of the “other guy”. It’s for our sake. See how that feels. As Eva said, “If it doesn’t work, you can always take your burden back.”