July 6, 2019

"Forgive your worst enemies... The moment I forgave the Nazis, I felt free from Auschwitz and from all the tragedy that had occurred to me."

Said Ewa Kor, quoted in "Eva Kor, survivor of Mengele, dies during annual trip to Auschwitz/Forgiveness advocate who dedicated her life to Holocaust awareness testified in 2015 trial of SS officer Oskar Groening" (The Guardian).
During the trial, Kor described her experiences at the hands of Mengele, who had a fascination for twins. She and her twin sister, Miriam, were 10 years old and managed to survive the regular mystery injections from Mengele, who was dubbed the “Angel of Death”.

Kor recalled how, suffering a high fever, she saw Mengele at her bedside, “laugh sarcastically”. “Too bad, she’s so young. She has only two weeks to live,” she recalled him saying.

Crawling on the floor because she was unable to walk, Kor said she went on to find her sister who had been injected with a substance to freeze the growth of her kidneys. “If I had died, Miriam would have been killed with an injection in the heart. Mengele would have performed comparative autopsy,” she said.

36 comments:

Narr said...

That there is more than I could do.

Narr
Way way way more

Mattman26 said...

The parallels with Trump are eerie, aren’t they?

Dan from Madison said...

@Mattman26 - my thought exactly.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The fact that she lived to be 85, after all the torture at the hands of sadistic leftwing Nazis, is a nice thumb in the eye to those f*ing Nazis.

mockturtle said...

Corrie ten Boom told of a similar experience of meeting and forgiving, with difficulty, a former officer of the concentration camp where she and her sister had been held. The story of their ordeal is told in her biography and movie, The Hiding Place. Her family were Christians but hid Jews in a secret room in their house.

Tom Ault said...

People often forget the primary benefit of forgiveness is to the one that forgives rather than the one who is forgiven.

Andrew said...

Reminds me of the story of Corrie Ten Boom, who personally forgave the guard at the camp where her sister died.

https://www.guideposts.org/better-living/positive-living/guideposts-classics-corrie-ten-boom-on-forgiveness

Andrew said...

Wow, mockturtle, you beat me to it. Great minds...

traditionalguy said...

Once upon a time the cry, that the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming was good news.

The way the Germans did their work, the survivors left alive in 1945 were one out of a family or one out of a whole town. The freedom motivated the Jews to assemble to go to Israel and to never again allow a killer to take Jews without a fight. It is a large part of world history to this day. The many individuals that left the chaos of Europe first had to fight their way past the British Army allied with the Arabs to get into Israel. Once there, under David Ben Gurion and with a little help from a friend in the American Presidency, they created a self defense force and then their own Nation State declared fully operational on day one.

Trump has made a good choice to be 100% pro Israel. That courageous policy alone has won the hearts of many, although it always attracts insane attacks like wearing a Red MAGA hat does.

Fernandinande said...

Oskar Groening

Creator of The Simpsons.

I felt free from Auschwitz

Thanks to my fancy speed reading that looked like "I fell from a tree at Auschwitz" and it reminded me of that "My grandfather died at a concentration camp" joke. There's no clinical evidence that the joke is funny.

LYNNDH said...

And that is why comparing Trump and his supporters as Nazis' is so repugnant to anyone that knows History. Have they no shame? Of course not.

Big Mike said...

HEY! Stupid Democrats! This is what REAL Nazis are like. Applying the term to Republicans and anyone else who doesn't vote precisely the way you want them to minimizes the experiences of people like Kor and ten Bloom.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

History tells us that German Nazis felt superior and obligated to kill Jews.

Remind you a bit of leftwing Antifa goons?

Tommy Duncan said...

Blogger traditionalguy said...

"The way the Germans did their work, the survivors left alive in 1945 were one out of a family or one out of a whole town. The freedom motivated the Jews to assemble to go to Israel and to never again allow a killer to take Jews without a fight. It is a large part of world history to this day."

That history is being wiped out and replaced by an alternative history by the Left/Democrat/Media. This is why the left is so anxious to remove historical markers. History has to be rewritten to support the left's current narrative. Inconvenient facts must be destroyed.

Narr said...

Look up "Beria Bering Sea Great Soviet Encyclopedia"

They issued it in loose-leaf, to keep up with the rapidly changing events of the past.

Narr
Later dudes

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

add Richard Wurmbrand to the Corrie Ten boom list

stlcdr said...

Very chilling.

As already noted, the Left really don’t know what evil resided in the Nazis. They don’t know history. Their calling anyone they don’t like Nazis is erasing that history. Indeed, it appears that those on the left are repeating it.

Robert Cook said...

"People often forget the primary benefit of forgiveness is to the one that forgives rather than the one who is forgiven."

This is absolutely correct.

Bilwick said...

As Eric Butterworth liked to say, "We forgive people not because they deserve it, but because we do."

Ray - SoCal said...

North Korea seems similar on their treatment of prisoners for testing weapons - poison gas, etc.

And if true, what China is doing for organ harvesting of political prisoners is horrible.

It’s a view the prisoners are no longer human.

And both countries have prisoners due to religion.

Qwinn said...

Forgiveness without repentance is immoral. If God requires repentance for forgiveness, and every religion I know of says He does, why would anyone think it is moral to skip that requirement?

The Left likes the idea, because they are completely unrepentant and plan to continue their evil. They quite enjoy getting a continuous free pass in exchange for, well, absolutely nothing.

Qwinn said...

Put another way, to forgive without repentance is indistinguishable from condoning, and thus perpetuating further, evil.

It does not heal the forgiver. The forgiver is merely abdicating his responsibility to oppose evil. Evil people are quite happy that that responsibility be abdicated, and are quite happy to propagandize in favor of it as a virtue.

kate said...

As a sign of gratitude on how my son was saved from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) , i decided to reach out to those still suffering from this.
My son have been suffering from ADHD since the year 2016 and it was really tough and heartbreaking for me because he was my all and the symptoms were terrible, he always have difficulty with communication,and he always have problem paying attention . we tried various therapies prescribed by our neurologist but none could cure him. I searched for a cure and i saw a testimony by someone who was cured and so many other with similar body problem, and they left the contact of this doctor who have the herbal cure to ADHD. I never imagined ADHD has a natural cure not until i contacted him and he assured me my son will be fine. I got the herbal medication he recommended and my son used it and in one months time he was fully okay even up till this moment he is so full of life.ADHD has a cure and is a herbal cure,you can contact the doctor for more info on drwilliams098675@gmail.com on how to get this medication, Thanks.

Fen said...

Forgiveness is what you indulge when you cannot get revenge ;)

Robert Cook said...

"The Left...are completely unrepentant and plan to continue their evil."

The left believes exactly the same about the right.

Qwinn said...

"The left believes exactly the same about the right."

This can be said about any and every single issue and problem, because the Left projects *everything*, every single sin it has ever committed, onto the Right.

To the point that slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, all institutions supported by the Democrats, and which the Republican Party was formed explicitly to oppose, are completely projected onto the Right, in defiance of all logic, reason or justice.

I find arguments that all the racists "switched parties" in the 60's to be hilarious. If that were so, if there were a massive switch of the parties somewhere around Nixon as the Left claims, wouldn't it be Republicans who look back fondly on FDR, and Democrats who despise him?

Rosalyn C. said...

I appreciate the comment by traditionalguy, in particular his understanding of the struggle for and the importance of the State of Israel. I never expected in my lifetime there would be the possibility of another annihilation of the Jewish people. But now we see in the United States and in Europe how eager and determined the Left is to attack and undermine the State of Israel.

Ever since 9-11 many in the West have learned that the virulence of the negativity towards Jews which is expressed within the Quran and preached in the Muslim world is every bit as evil as that of Nazi Germany. In fact Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem were allies.

Eva Tor wanted to remind people what is possible if people are motivated by hatred. I hope we never forget.

n.n said...

Ah, the National Socialists, social justice warriors, rabid diversitists, politically congruent, redistributive change, "Jew privilege", selective-Jew or life deemed unworthy of life (e.g. Pro-Choice or selective-child), and Mengele or clinical cannibalism h/t "#CecileTheCannibal (e.g. recycled-child). Here's to progress through the ouroboros.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Don't be confused with the belief that forgiveness requires a lack of punishment for the offender.

Josephbleau said...

All the Nazis are dead, should I hate them more than the Stalinist? Or the Vikings? or the Japanese Army of WWII? Or the Mongols? Or the Comanche? Or the Homo Sapiens who killed the Neanderthal? Or the 18th Century Slave Traders who sold Ukrainian women to the Arabs. Or the Southern elites of the early US who purchased the lives of African slaves? Or the foreign UK residents who can't keep themselves from enslaving workers by visa fraud?

Josephbleau said...

A favorite Heinlein quote, "When the ship lifts, all debts are paid."

RoseAnne said...

I read her biography several years ago and was fascinated. Think of the average 10 year old that you know and how they may have reacted to the same experience. Within the hour they arrived in the camp their parents and older siblings were dead. They both survived only to find out years later that Miriam's life was shortened by the experiments. In the midst of utter chaos and violence when they arrived in the camp, their mother did what she could hoping at least one of her children would survive the camp.

CLOBadger said...

I suggest the “Accountant of Auschwitz” currently streaming on Netflix. She is featured prominently and it is interesting how her fellow witnesses felt about her forgiveness. I found it through Ann’s son John’s blog

Bart Hall said...

I learnt my Polish from another Mengele survivor, Sara Nomberg (m=Przytyk), 1915-1990, when she was living with her son in Quebec. She spoke no French or English, but was fluent in German, as am I.

For understandable reasons Sara would not speak German, but was also fluent in Russian, which I speak well enough to be polite. Thus began a 3-year journey (for me) of learning Polish until it was better than my Russian. Sara took deep meaning in passing on her language and hassid culture. She wept one Passover when I chanted the Kiddush in Hebrew.

Leaving out a lot, all of it rich and fully satisfying, Sara's life changed remarkably in 1989 when her son had an 18 yo German ag student on his farm. For a month that girl spoke to Sara in German. Utter silence.

Finally the ag student got in her face, whilst gently holding her hand, and said (in German) "I know what happened to you, but I was not alive then. My *parents* were not alive then, and my grandparents were all frightened kids in their early teens. I wish to learn from you, but can do that only in German, and only if you actually share your life with me."
"Genau" [=indeed] said Sara, in German, and then began to unfold her astounding story, much of which was published in English by the University of North Carolina IIRC.

When the summer internship was over and the German girl ready to depart, I was at the farewell party, and Sara embraced the intern, with abundant tears -- not just the two of them -- and said in German ..."So many thanks. For the rest of your life, please, know that you are the one who truly liberated me from Auschwitz. Finally, I can die in peace." Which she did several months later.

I count that time as some of the most meaningful in my life.

Narr said...

That's a wonderful story, Bart.

Narr
no joke

Bilwick said...

"'The Left...are completely unrepentant and plan to continue their evil.'

"The left believes exactly the same about the right."

Of course, to the Left, resisting statism and upholding liberty is evil. So there's your ptoblem right there.