Tagged: “Why Forgive?”
After 50 Years of “Living as an Angry Person,” Forgiveness Brings Peace
WIBC-FM, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA – Although she is known around the world for forgiving the Nazis who tortured her during World War II, Eva Mozes Kor reveals in a newly-released film that she lived for nearly 50 years as an angry person before learning to forgive.
“I was very angry with many people. I was in a lot of pain,” said Kor as she reflected on her life and how uncomfortable she was baring her soul for the documentary “Eva” that was released in April.
“Forgive your worst enemies. It will heal your soul and it will set you free,” Kor says in the new film narrated by Ed Asner. It documents Kor’s life, her travels and struggles and how she became the person who was able to forgive the individuals who committed atrocities on her, and who killed her family and millions of other people.
Kor and her sister Miriam were the only survivors in their entire family and that was because they were twins who were separated from the others by the Nazis. Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor, was fascinated with twins and performed experiments on Kor and her sister among others. The lingering effects are believed to be what killed her sister in 1992.
The Holocaust (in Hebrew, “Ḥurban” meaning “destruction”), was the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this “the final solution to the Jewish question.”
Even before the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they had made no secret of their desire to eliminate all Jews. As early as 1919, had written, “Rational anti-Semitism (discrimination against the Jews), must lead to systematic legal opposition.…Its final objective must unswervingly be the removal of the Jews altogether.”
In his political manifesto, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Hitler further developed the idea of the Jews as an evil race struggling for world domination. Nazi racial ideology characterized the Jews as “subhumans” and “parasites” while the Aryans (Germans) were the “genius” race. Ultimately, the logic of Nazi racial anti-Semitism led to annihilation of millions of Jews.
- Watch the official “Eva” movie trailer (2:08).
- Listen to an Eva Kor interview about the new movie (9:54).
- Hear from other Holocaust survivors in this University of Michigan-Dearborn Holocaust Survivor Oral History Project.
- Learn more about the horrific History of the Holocaust from this comprehensive report in Encyclopedia Britannica.
Read previous posts on this website about Eva Mozes Kor:
- A Feb. 27, 2018 guest blog by Eva Mozes Kor written especially for this website.
- Eva Mozes Kor: “Let’s heal the world through forgiveness” – March 6, 2018
- Some Auschwitz Survivors Disagree with Eva Mozes Kor – May 6, 2015
- Nothing Good Ever Comes from Anger – April 28, 2015
- Forgiveness as Freedom – March 17, 2012
When I forgive my former boyfriend, I find that I tend to make excuses for his behavior. I don’t like it when I see that I am making excuses. How do I avoid this?
There is a big difference between what we call **reframing** a person’s actions and excusing those actions. For example, if you see that he was under pressure and displaced his anger onto you, you can forgive while at the same time acknowledging that he should not have treated you this way. An excuse is to say that displacing anger is ok, acceptable, or not morally wrong. When you forgive and start to reframe whom the other person is, try to keep in mind that the behavior still is not fair. Your separating a person and his actions may help you to avoid excusing the actions as you forgive the person.
Learn more at How to Forgive.
Can a person get rid of anger permanently simply by letting it out or is forgiveness necessary to be rid of anger?
The answer depends on the level of injustice and the depth of the anger. If the other was insensitive without being cruel, then your expressing an appropriate, measured level of anger may take care of the issue. On the other hand, if you have been treated very unfairly and your anger is deep, then catharsis (letting out the anger) may not be effective. Forgiveness then may be required to rid yourself of the anger. Please keep in mind that catharsis by itself, when the problem is serious and the anger is deep, actually can increase the anger and lead to a pattern of being angry and expressing it. Catharsis then needs forgiveness to deal in a healthy way with the anger.
Learn more at How to Forgive.
My spouse keeps up subtle put-downs on me. I forgive….and forgive again….and it keeps happening. I am growing weary of forgiving. Help!
When you forgive, try also to ask for fairness once your anger is lower. Forgiveness and justice need to exist side-by-side. From a position of reduced anger, consider letting your spouse know of your inner hurt from these “subtle put-downs.” Your spouse needs to hear this so that a change in behavior can occur, and perhaps an asking-for-forgiveness from you.
Learn more at Forgiveness for Couples.
I am about half-way through the process of forgiveness and I now am realizing that what happened was not entirely the other person’s fault. I “pushed his button” and he got angry. Is it ok to abandon the process of forgiveness under this circumstance?
Are you still angry with the other person? If not, then forgiving may not be necessary. Are you concluding that there was no actual injustice against you? If so, then forgiving may not be necessary. If you see the other as simply reacting with a reasonable level of anger and if there is no harm to you, then yes, setting forgiveness aside is reasonable. If, in the future, you find that you do harbor resentment, the starting up the forgiveness process again would be fine.
Learn more at Why Forgive?
