Never
Forget
Is
forgiveness forgetting? How can anyone not forget and yet forgive? Surely, these
questions have pondered through the minds of anyone that has wrongly suffered
at the hands of others, yet at some point choose to love instead of hate. Recently
viewing the film entitled Forgiving Dr.
Mengele, I learned about the Holocaust. People of Jewish descent suffered horrific
mistreatment at the hands of German Nazis. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines Hate Crimes as crimes committed
against an individual or group due to prejudice
of the targets religion, disability, sexual orientation, race, creed, or
nationality. Often times after people have experienced and survived distressing
situations they feel that the rest of their life is out of their control. Yes,
there are conditions and disorders that may result after a major negative exposure
in some but not all cases. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one example that I
will further discuss. However, emotional healing has a major impact. Choosing
to forgive can help a person have a more positive outcome and it takes personal
effort and support
The
documentary Forgiving Dr. Mengele
tells the experience of Eva Kor, a holocaust survivor. Eva was around ten years
old when she and her family, forced into a concentration camp at Auschwitz,
Poland. Once there Nazi soldiers immediately separated Eva and her twin sister Miriam
from her parents and older siblings. Eva never saw her parents or older
siblings again. Jewish twin children were used a guinea pigs in the ruthless
unregulated experiments of German Scientist Dr. Mengele. One of Eva’s first
memories that expressed the cruelty of the situation was that of after separation
from her family then taken to a room where corpses of children lay on the floor.
The narrator described the bodies to have emaciated appearance, flies all
around, and eyes open. At one point Eva received some type of drug and a
prognosis of two weeks to live. “I concentrated on how to survive one more day
and refused to die! (Kor)” I don’t know
many if any one that could experience similar conditions these days and not be committed
to an insane asylum. Yet this documentary started with Eva Korr, now an older
woman, wife, mother, activist, business owner, advocate announcing during a
speech that she give personal Amnesty to all Nazi Germans for their treatment
of Jews during the Holocaust. Once
during a peace forum in Israel that included Israelis and Palestinians, Eva
stated, “Sometimes people don’t know what to do besides get angry.” “People cannot
heal while fighting.” Although Eva was unable to make any progress at the peace
forum, these statements in relation to what is and has been going on in the
Middle East are monumental.
The
Jewish culture has many strict laws and customs. The way that some people interpret
and carry out laws can be a roadblock against healing, progress, and resolution.
Fighting and wars continue to reign in the Middle East between Arabs,
Palestinians, and Israelis since about 1000 BC or earlier (mideastweb.org). A negative environment for a substantial period
can have lasting effects on the human body. Post-Traumatic stress disorder is a
new, twenty years or less, medical condition that is a result of exposure to
stress related experience with life threatening or at least threat of severe
injury (Liness, Rogers). PTSD can be acute (sudden, short term) or chronic (on
going, long-term). Psychological effects of PTSD include behavioral,
psychological, emotional, and cognitive. The
Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County notes that many Holocaust survivors
unknowingly suffer from PTSD and do not seek proper medical treatment.
In the film Forgiving
Dr. Mengele, Eva Kor’s best friend tells how Eva displays habits like “never
leaving food on her plate,” takes an unofficial doggy bag (food packed to go) from
restaurants, excessively chain locks doors, and sleeps on her purse. Although
Eva earns a success income as a Relator, she worries about going hungry (Forgiving
Dr. Mengele).
Anyone
that has wrongly suffered at the hands of others, and made the choice to
forgive, moved on to a successful life and positively helped others has learned
what it mean when people say forgive but never forget. When confronted of her
choice to forgive amnesty to Nazi Germans for how they treated Jews during the
Holocaust, Eva Kor, a holocaust and Mengele twin survivor stated, “ Victims
heal themselves, victimizers take responsibility,” “Forgiving has only to do
with victims empowering themselves and taking their life back” (Forgiving Dr. Mengele). People always
have a choice. Instead of trying so hard to forget, people can turn the
negative around as a tool for education, peace efforts and helping others cope.
Works
Cited
Forgiving
Dr. Mengele Bob Hercules, Cheri Pugh, Eva Mozes Kor, Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-On |
2006 Documentary.
Barel, E., Van IJzendoorn, M. H.,
Sagi-Schwartz, A., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2010). Surviving the
Holocaust: A meta-analysis of the long-term sequelae of a genocide.
Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 677-698.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-publications#Hate.
http://mideastweb.org/timeline.htm
Ozick, Cynthia.
"Life Isn't Beautiful." Newsweek 15 Mar. 2010: 54. Academic OneFile.
Web. 29 Apr. 2013
Tampa Tribune
http://www.tampatrib.com.
http://www.jewishorangeny.org/page.aspx?id=199249
April 30, 2013