Disclaimer: This may be a trigger subject with some. It is dreadfully sad but it touched my heart and I wanted to share with you. It is about the Holocaust and Forgiveness.
Eva Kor was a young child when she and her twin were torn from their family upon arrival at Auschwitz, never to see them again. Under the direction of Dr. Mengele, they were both subjected to medical experiments that nearly killed them. By sheer will, they fought to survive and were liberated by Russian forces.
For fifty years, Eva held on to her position of “victim”…and rightly so. Her life had been forever altered in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend. She is all that is left of her family. As the 50th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz approached, she awoke one morning with an idea. What if she could forgive someone. She was often called upon to speak and recalled a Nazi doctor that had been at Auschwitz. She had met him at a conference. She figured he may still be alive so she found his phone number and worked up the courage to call him. I’ll let you watch the video and see how she found it in her heart to forgive the most heinous of acts.
We speak a lot here about forgiveness. Anger, bitterness, and resentment are the poisons we take hoping they will affect our enemies. Our enemies don’t care if we are eaten alive inside by negative emotions. They are going on with their lives in the nature of enemies…unknowing, uncaring. If my Lord and Savior has forgiven me of my sins, who am I to not do the same? I try to love others as Jesus loves me…even when they are my enemies. Eva’s act of forgiveness took a great deal of strength and courage. She was alienated from other Holocaust survivors for forgiving the Nazis who killed millions of their fellow citizens, friends, and family members. But she didn’t care. She didn’t do it for them. She did it for herself. I am in awe of that kind of heart…that spirit of forgiveness. My petty grievances pale in comparison. ❤️
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”
Colossians 3:12-15 ESV
I don’t think forgiveness erases the “sin”, it just gives us peace in that we can separate ourselves from the actions of others.
Exactly. The transgression is still there. It’s what we choose to do with it. ❤️
In the early ’60’s I knew a twin survivor. She lost her sister. She was the “lucky” twin who survived the experiments. She chose to become a nurse. A healing choice, I think.
I knew an x-ray tech in Denver who had been subjected to medical experiments as a child in the camps but I do not recall is she was a twin. It is unbelievable to me, having lived as a Jew for 27 years and worked for a medical practice with a large Jewish patient base, that there are people who believe the Holocaust didn’t happen. Then again, I have a great uncle who swore we didn’t land on the moon and it was all staged in Hollywood. ?