Megan Joslin Forgiving the Angel of Death

Forgiving the Angel of Death

The atrocities committed by Dr. Josef Mengele in his human medical experiments during World War II at Auschwitz are some of the worst of the entire war. His “research” focused on twins and individuals with dwarfism, as well as genetic and hereditary disorders. One woman to survive this was Eva Mozes-Kor, she along with her twin, Miriam, suffered at the hands of Mengele. In her search for Mengele and his research records in order to help Miriam and her medical problems, she discovered something much greater, the power of forgiveness.

Eva Mozes-Kor is one half of a pair of twins that endured Dr. Josef Mengele’s horrific medical experiments in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. While both she and her sister survived the camp and made it to its liberation, her sister Miriam suffered irreparable damage that would eventually be the cause of her death. In an interview with Joanie Eppinga she relays how she was able to forgive Dr. Mengele and move on with her life to inspire others to do the same. In dealing with her own internal hatred of the events, Mozes-Kor came to the realization that holding on to that in her heart did her no good, but that the true power laid with forgiveness. Through a discussion with a co-worker when she was in her mid-twenties, Mozes-Kor found what she had previously viewed as hatred of the Germans and the Nazis was pointless because there was nothing she could do about what had happened, instead she needed to focus on the future and how to heal. Many of her fellow survivors just wanted to forget the whole trauma and would not talk about it if they could help it. After meeting with Dr. Hans Münch, who worked at Auschwitz during the war, and traveling to the concentration camp in 1995, Eva Mozes-Kor wrote him a letter of forgiveness. The power was hers, and she attempts to share this will all. After this encounter she saw that she had the power to forgive anyone, even the so-called angel of death. She ends the interview by saying “Your forgiveness is the final word.”¹ (p. 141)

In the years leading up to the new millennium there was a string of political apologies that occurred. At that point in time over 50 years had passed since the horrors of the concentration camp and the victims who could be given recognition were beginning to die. That’s why Eva Mozes-Kor apology letter to Dr. Hans Münch fits right in, she did not want to spend her remaining years holding onto the hatred as those around her had.

Eva Mozes-Kor’s views on forgiveness were challenged, even by fellow survivors of the same ordeal. At an event held in June 2001 by Hubert Markl the president of the Max Planck society, the society that aided Dr. Mengele’s human experimental research, offered an apology to the survivors of Nazi medical crimes. Jona Laks, the president of the organization of Mengele Twins, thanked Markl for the apology but did not express the same token of forgiveness that Mozes-or had at that very same event. She feared that forgiving would lead to forgetting, and it was part of Jewish law for them “to remember that you were slaves”². For Eva, forgiving did not necessarily mean forgetting, it was a means to an end because it gave her the ultimate power.

This interview shows one woman’s evolution from victim to victor. Over her years of searching for Dr. Mengele’s records she found something much greater, the ability to forgive. It shows that remembrance can come in many forms, and it is different for each individual.

Bibliography

Eppinga, Joanie. 2009. "Forgiveness: The Key to Self-Healing—An Interview with Eva Mozes-Kor." Journal Of Hate Studies 8, no. 1: 131-141. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed January 28, 2016).

Roelcke, Volker. 2004. "Nazi medicine and research on human beings." Lancet 364, 6-7. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed January 28, 2016).