Only The Valiant Can Nurture The Virtue of Forgiveness

 Forgiveness Is An Attribute Of The Brave

“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”

World War II, Holocaust, Nazism, The Final Solution, Concentration Camps; the terms still haunt the mankind and narrate the brutal killings and atrocities on innocents. Even after years of liberation, the life in concentration camps kept reminding the Holocaust survivors the horrendous sufferings they had undergone in the concentration camps and the days when they prayed for the end of their life to escape the torture and grueling human experiments on their bodies. Amidst all such horrific memories of the Holocaust survivors, today I have brought a story of forgiveness, a story of resilience, a story of releasing the burden of hatred and angst for those who deserve no mercy but because the victims deserve True Happiness and peace for themselves.

The story begins with the ordeal of a small girl, Eva Mozes Kor, born in 1934 in Transylvania, Romania who survived Dr. Joseph Mengele’s human experiments on twins. She was only 10 when she arrived at Auschwitz with her parents, two older sisters and her twin, Miriam. Her parents and other sisters were directly taken to the gas chambers while she along with her twin, Miriam were selected for the twin experiments, conducted by Dr. Joseph Mengele, known as the Angel of Death. Most of the twins died during the medical experiments; Eva and her sister, Miriam spent nine months in the camp, being subject to experimentation on their bodies. She was given injections with some unknown drugs that caused high fever and swollen arms and legs. When she was taken to Dr. Mengele, Eva heard him saying that she would die in just two weeks. She spent next two weeks in the hospital barrack, crawling across the floor to reach for water as she wasn’t able to walk and kept reminding herself that she must survive; the reason was apparent, if she died, her sister would be given a lethal injection by the doctor to conduct a twin autopsy. After two weeks, it was her intense desire that won the battle; her fever broke and she met her sister. But they never talked about the experiments with each other.

On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated the camp and Eva and Miriam along with 180 children, most of whom were twins, were sent to various shelter homes. Fortunately, Eva found her mother’s friend Rosalita whose twins were killed by Mengele. She took the responsibility and helped them return back to Romania.

After the war, Eva tried to forget all about the horrific experiences at the camp and in 1950 she immigrated to Israel. She served in the Israeli Army for eight years. She and her sister suffered varied harrowing ailments as they were used as guinea pigs for the experiments at the Auschwitz. Miriam’s kidneys stopped growing; they remained the same as of a 10 year old and Eva donated one of her kidneys to her sister. In 1978, when a miniseries by NBC, The Holocaust was aired, she became curious to know about all the Mengele twins who were liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp and how the deadly experiments affected their lives. She started locating other survivors of the camp and in the year 1984, she founded CANDLES, Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.

 50 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, in the year 1995, Eva decided to forgive the Nazis and she returned to the place where she had witnessed many children tragically murdered. Dr. Hans Munch, a Nazi doctor who was stationed outside the gas chamber at the camp was also standing with her, to read the witness statement as the testimony of Holocaust period. At the same time, Eva declared her forgiveness and changed her status from being a victim of the Holocaust. She even forgave Dr. Mengele to release herself from the feelings of hatred and to remove the burden of suffering and the traumatic period. It wasn’t easy for her but she couldn’t live any longer with those nightmares; now she wanted peace and tranquility for herself.

 

When the holocaust survivor forgave the Nazi soldiers, she received controversies and protests from all over but she expedited that forgiving doesn’t imply denial of justice; neither means that crimes and evil deeds should be forgotten. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting as in many cases, it’s impossible to forget the events that affect our lives deeply but the truth is: forgiveness is nothing to be done with the perpetrator, rather it can be defined as an ardent need of the victim so as to release themselves from the pain inflicted upon them.

 There is No Point in Raking Up the Past

Do you also feel, forgiving is one of the most difficult acts that you do especially to those who have hurt you, pained you and berated you? Yes, everyone feels the same; now let’s look at the other side of the coin. Do you really believe that the one who has hurt you, remembers about his wrong behavior? Of course not, so ultimately who is suffering? Isn’t that YOU, because you are not able to forget and you choose to carry the burden of the grudges and anger for the person who is responsible to ruin the precious time of your life. You have lost that moment of your life and now recalling and cursing again and again about the same, you are destroying the present moment also. The moment you forgive the person, you feel relieved from all those feelings which were getting you deprived from your peace of mind and tranquility. Learn to forgive, because forgiveness doesn’t bring any good to others; it brings contentment and bliss to our self. So stop raking up the past and nurture the virtue of forgiveness absolutely for yourself.

 

“Forgiveness is a promise, not a feeling. When you forgive people, you are making a promise to yourself to heal yourself and to empower yourself with peace and tranquility.”

Does Forgiving Make You Gullible?

Many of us believe that one’s forgiveness may be implied as one’s cowardice and undue endurance, but forgiveness is a virtue of the valiant and not the cup of the tea of cowards. Forgiveness helps you to cultivate the ability of sequestering oneself far from all the brunt of past and the experiences of bitterness and humiliation; caused deliberately to you. There will be many to goad you into an act of retaliation or revenge upon that person but if you overcome the tendency of harboring contempt and bitterness you succeed in uplifting your mind, body and soul. Only the valiant can nurture the virtue of forgiveness. 

Forgiveness helps you in healing from pain and the agonizing moments; forgiveness is not only self-liberation but self-empowerment also.

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Having a mulish attitude of retaliation will impel you to deeply entrenched feelings of contempt, displeasure and vindictiveness. You will probably end up in the unenviable throes of profound desolation and will never be able to pull yourself through this situation. So forgive for yourself; not for others. It will be painful for you if you don’t help yourself to come out of an unpleasant state of mind. Let your mind and soul be at peace by nurturing the virtue of forgiveness. Believe me, the virtue of forgiveness is the summum bonum of human life and human character; let’s keep it alive, let’s keep it flourishing and bring peace to our eternal Self.