I watched a documentary this afternoon called Forgiving Dr. Mengele. It was about a woman named Eva Kor who, along with her twin sister Miriam, had been "patients" of Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz death camp. It was a touching, inspiring movie and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do.

The basic premise of the movie was that Eva had experienced horrors unimaginable as a child as well as the loss of her entire family except her sister at the hands of the Nazis. (The two of them managed to survive the death camp and were actually caught on videotape as the Russians liberated her camp.) Eva's pain was tearing her soul apart and she had to find some way to heal herself. She also was in search of some way to heal the damage the Nazi doctors had done to her sister. Miriam had been injected with a substance that caused her kidneys to stop growing at age 10. Her current doctors thought if they could find out what she was injected with, they might be able to counteract its effects. Eva's search led her to a Dr Munch who had been a colleague of Mengele but who had been acquitted in Nuremberg of war crimes. She met with him and after a series of conversations, decided to not only forgive Dr Munch of any injury he had caused anyone but to also extend that forgiveness to all Nazis including Mengele who had done such damage to her and her sister.

Eva is quite the crusader for forgiveness. She lectures around the country telling her story. She opened up a Holocaust Memorial Museum in Terre Haute, IN where she lives. She speaks to school groups about her ordeal. She's traveled to Auschwitz every decade for the last 30 years for the anniversary of the liberation of the camp. She even read her statement of forgiveness at the site of a crematorium in Auschwitz which was quite controversial in the world of Holocaust survivors. She spends a great deal of her time defending her act of forgiveness.

What I found most compelling about the documentary was the question "What does forgiveness mean?" For Eva, forgiveness means not letting what happened to her rule her life. It means not letting hate eat her soul. It means accepting what happened to her and her family and moving on with her life. Many of the survivors think that forgiveness means forgetting. They think it means pretending nothing happened to them. One man made the comparison of forgiving one's child. He said that when your child does something wrong and you forgive him, you act as if nothing ever happened. He said he'd never be able to do this with the Nazis. One thing that really struck me was the sense of peace that surrounded Eva and turmoil that surrounded her detractors.

One of my favorite parables is of the two monks and the woman. Once there were two monks walking down a road. They came to a creek about waist deep that they had to cross. At the bank of the creek stood a woman dressed in fine clothing. She didn't want to ruin her dress so she asked the monks if one of them could carry her across. The first monk hoisted her on his shoulders and the three of them crossed. On the other side, the monk let the woman down, bid her a good day, and off the monks went. Several hours of silent walking later the second monk asked the first monk how he could possibly have touched that woman. He knew their order forbid the touching of women and yet he'd done it anyway. The first monk turned to the second monk and said, "I put that woman down hours ago. You should do the same."

"Put the woman down" has become one of my favorite sayings meaning "Let go of what your hanging on to because it isn't good for you." Eva Kor managed to put down the Nazis. It makes my grudges seem petty.

Although I'm still not ready to put down the bastards who stole our stuff. :P