The Power of Forgiveness

Eva Mozes Kor was just ten years old when she was sent to Auschwitz. While her parents and two older sisters were murdered there, she and her twin sister Miriam were subjected to medical experiments at the hands of Dr. Joseph Mengele. Later on, when Miriam fell ill due to the long-term effects of the experiments, Eva embarked on a search for their torturers. But what she discovered was the remedy for her troubled soul; she was able to forgive them.

Told through anecdotes and in response to letters and questions at her public appearances, she imparts a powerful lesson for all survivors that guilt, anger, resentment, and shame are a waste of energy. Forgiveness of our tormentors and ourselves is the end of victimization, a release from pain, and fosters resilience. This kind of forgiveness is not an act of self-denial. It actively releases people from trauma, allowing them to escape from the grip of their former tormentors, cast off the role of victim, and begin the struggle against forgetting in earnest.

Eva Mozes Kor (1934-2019) was born in 1934 in Portz in the Transylvania region of Romania. After surviving Auschwitz, she moved to the US and ran the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center. In 2009, her YA (young adult) book Surviving the Angel of Death became an international bestseller. A community leader, champion of human rights, and tireless educator, Eva has been covered in numerous media outlets and is the subject of a documentary, Eva A-7063. She died on July 4, 2019 in Poland during her annual visit with students to Auschwitz.