Forgiveness sometimes doesn't feel right

I've been both fascinated and horrified by the events of WWII, but I still haven't brought myself to read a comprehensive history of it. My first exposure to those events (not counting Raiders of the Lost Ark) was through a book called The Winged Watchman, a story of a young boy in Holland during WWII. He and his family were not placed in concentration camps nor subjected to brutal torture but the book successfully conveyed anxiety and need, and a loss of innocence that have impressed me for at least two decades. In fact, my daughter Freya gets her name from part of that story.

My oldest daughter has been reading a book called Hana's Suitcase, a story of a girl and her brother who were taken to Auschwitz. Claire, my daughter, is 10, and around the age I was when I read The Winged Watchman. Hana's Suitcase is more horrifying than The Winged Watchman by a few degrees and Claire wept at its conclusion. She asked about the war, what caused it and why, oh why would people do such things to human beings? We talked for a while and I strongly emphasized that one of the reasons people need to read these stories is so that we never forget and never repeat that unspeakably evil portion of our history.

Today I'm home with a stomach bug, so I'm sewing and watching a documentary called Forgiving Dr. Mengele. Mengele was a Nazi doctor who performed experiments on identical twins at Auschwitz. The documentary follows a woman named Eva Mozes Kor, the surviving half of a set of twins who were subject to some of Megele's insanity. It's estimated that 1,400 sets of twins were thus used.

Eva is remarkable for surviving Auschwitz, founding CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center, and writing and signing a letter forgiving Dr Hans Munch for whatever role he had in the war. Later in her story, she describes the thought process of also forgiving Mengele. One woman asked her if some sort of prerequisite should be met before forgiving a person, such as remorse or a promise never to do it again.

Now this is where my mind begins to be blown. Eva responded that no prerequisites must be met in order for someone to forgive. Victims will never cease to be victims until they claim the power of forgiveness as their own. If the abuser continues to dictate whether or not they should be forgiven, then a victim will never cease to be a victim.

If an abuser never apologizes or repents, then many would feel totally justified in carrying anger and even hate until they felt that the abuser was worthy of forgiveness. But forgiveness isn't for the abuser, it's a healing for the victim. I've long contemplated what forgiveness means. It certainly doesn't mean that the pain is gone. It certainly doesn't mean that you've changed the person whom you are forgiving. And it absolutely does not give the abuser power over the victim. What it is, to me, is permission for the healing of the self. It means that I can move on from the power of an abuser because I'm claiming that power as my own. My abuser need not linger in my soul because I cleanse every part of me of the pain, humiliation, self doubt, feelings of absolute unworthiness, and the terror of feeling that I have no power over the bad things that happen to me.

Eva has been speaking out about forgiveness for many years now. She is 78 and now ranks as one of my personal heroes. Sometimes forgiveness doesn't feel right because people somehow feel that the personal decision of forgiveness equates to an excuse for hurtful behavior. It does not. Forgiveness does not excuse nor justify nor does it necessarily extend mercy. Forgiveness is for my salvation, not my abuser's.

Autonomy. Authenticity. Independence. Forgiveness. Love. Freedom. Each of these words contain a world of thought, struggle, study, yearning, and constant development in my life. Today, because of Eva, I feel that I've taken a big step in understanding forgiveness. Brava, brave woman.