In 1995, as part of what would become a “life-changing experience” — Eva Mozes Kor decided to return to Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, where, about 50 years earlier, her family had been shipped as part of the Holocaust.
Before leaving, she asked a German doctor who oversaw some of the infamous atrocities perpetrated there to meet with her at the site. That he agreed came as a shock — the fact that she came away from the meeting feeling fondness for him and something akin to admiration for his decision to meet her was even more startling.
“I felt very strongly that I should thank him, but how do you thank a Nazi doctor — it sounded crazy even to me,” Mozes Kor said.
After deliberating the idea for 10 months, Mozes Kor decided to write him a letter of forgiveness. After another four months figuring out exactly what to say, she sent it.
Afterward, she said, “I discovered I had a power; no one could take it away from me, and no one could stop it.”
The idea of being able to forgive in the face of even the most evil baseness was at the heart of the message Mozes Kor delivered Thursday night at Temple Emanuel. The keynote speaker at the Anti-Defamation League’s 34th annual Governor’s Holocaust Remembrance Program, the 81-year-old said she “just stumbled upon” the power of forgiveness, adding that she wishes it had happened earlier.
The founder of CANDLES: Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors, as well as a Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Ind., Mozes Kor lectures about 30 times a year.
“In Hebrew, one of the words used for forgiveness is ‘teshura’; without teshura we’re stuck,” said Rabbi Joseph Black.”But choosing to forgive doesn’t mean we forget. … We remember, we grieve and we honor role models like Eva.”
Each time she lectures, Mozes Kor implores her audience to do what she did 20 years ago.
“You can say anything you wish in the letter, but at the end you have to say, ‘I forgive you,’ and you have to mean it. That is what sets you free,” she said.
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292, acotton@denverpost.com or
