In my recent post on forgiveness, I wrote about the film Forgiving Mengele. This documentary follows Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of the inhumane experiments of Dr. Mengele in Auschwitz, who decided to forgive Mengele as part of her own healing process.
Eva is a woman who is strong in her convictions about the importance of forgiveness. She went to meet with some Palestinians at the Peace Research Institute for the Middle East in the West Bank as a way of:
testing [her] ideas of forgiveness in different situations to see if somehow we could stop this vicious cycle of revenge.
In addition to some Palestinian historical consultants and teachers, she met with Sami Adwan, a Palestinian Professor of education, who had been active in the Fatah Movement and imprisoned in an Israeli jail for five months. He spoke about how he used to hate all Israelis, seeing them as a source of [his] suffering and how his only interactions with Israelis had been in interrogation rooms. Later, however, he had opportunities to meet with Israelis as equals. He went on to say:
I don’t know if I’m reaching the point of forgiveness, but I am reaching the point of understanding. I found out that Israelis are willing to listen to the other side. The Palestinians are eager to tell their stories.
In my post on Stories as a Means to Enhance Mutual Understanding and in my book, Repairing the Quilt of Humanity: A Metaphor for Healing and Reparation, I discuss the value of stories as a vehicle for creating mutual understanding. I see telling stories as a key to healing and reconciliation. Stories provide a context that helps us understand other perspectives; they can help us see through others’ eyes or step in their shoes. I had anticipated that Eva’s meeting with these Palestinian individuals would be an opportunity for mutual understanding. I was saddened and disappointed, therefore, when that did not come to pass.
Eva was visibly uncomfortable during the meeting and, at times while others were speaking, she even rolled her eyes. Toward the end of the meeting, in response to hearing a story, she said:
“I don’t have any comment on that. I feel very sorry that he suffered but I don’t want to hear eight, nine stories of how much suffering they have done. I think that is unfair. I don’t think it has anything to do with the books we are trying to discuss and I didn’t want to hear his story. I know his story and everybody’s story.”
Prof. Adwan aptly responded by stating:
“That doesn’t get us anywhere. Unless you are willing to hear my story, unless I am willing to hear your story, there will be no meeting point. I would listen to your story ten times. … I myself I don’t want to continue to see myself as a victim. I need this chance to grow from my situation to feel free like you are free now.
Clearly Prof. Adwan and I saw this meeting as a great opportunity. Eva, however, experienced the meeting as:
an unbelievable barrage of your people did this.. I felt threat. I was at their mercy and that is a very uncomfortable feeling . And there were times when the thought went through my mind, ‘here I am in Palestinian Territory, with Palestinian people, and what if they kidnap me?'”
She described the meeting as:
“really very disappointing. I was very troubled. I feel that the idea of forgiveness cannot really happen while people are fighting for their lives. Yes, I understand that they don’t know what else to do besides getting angry. The problem was that it was not a very comfortable position for me to be in. I could not cope with it. It was very very hard, they are hurting, they are angry and it was more than I could deal with.”
I am not judging Eva or her reaction. It is understandable, particularly for an Auschwitz survivor, that a situation in which she felt that she was being attacked (even if that was not the intention of the individuals she was with), would bring on a fight-flight reaction. This incident merely highlights how difficult it is for people who feel that their survival is threatened to be able to hear others speak from a different perspective.
While it is never possible to create “safe” spaces for dialogue, in instances in which all parties have deep-seated, strong emotions, it is vital to create a space in which individuals can feel “safe enough” to hear others’ stories. It is possible that in the meeting Eva participated in, there was not enough ground work from the start to create that kind of space. It is also possible that because of Eva’s enormous strength in other contexts, it was assumed that she would be strong enough to be able to hear these stories without becoming defensive. But none of us can be strong in all contexts,. Our empathy and potential for forgiveness can be eviscerated by fear. Fear is the real enemy. As I wrote in an earlier post, fear is the root of all evil. Ironically, that post was about the friendships developed between an Israeli boy, injured by a Hamas rocket, a Palestinian Muslim girl, injured by an Israeli missile, and their families in the hospital where the children were living while they received ongoing long-term treatment.
How can we see past our fear to find our common humanity?
Dear Deb,
Thank you for this. I, too, have come to feel that fear is the root of all evil and that conversely, love is the essence of every good thing in the universe. The process of coming to see past our fear is a challenging and complex undertaking that is ever a work in progress. But that progress is crucial. The understanding that our emotions are the product of our beliefs, rather than cosmic truth, is likely a step in the right direction.
Deb, I truly appreciate your work, your thoughtfulness and your commitment to light and healing; thank you. You’re a good egg, my friend!
Love,
Michael
Thank you Michael. It’s always a pleasure to read your comments.
In my book Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment, I make a big distinction between forgiveness and
reconciliation.
Resentment is an ongoing demand in the present that yesterday would have been different. Yesterday it rained and radically
inconvenienced my plans. Demanding that it didn’t rain doesn’t change the fact that it did. Demanding that people would have been just or not done what they did, even when heinous, doesn’t change the fact that they did it.
Forgiveness is giving up the demand that yesterday was different. It frees me from the past. Forgiveness is independent of the person you are forgiving, it is how you set yourself free from what other people did.
Forgiveness is not condoning or agreeing with people. it is how I release myself what someone did in the past.
Reconciliation is about how two or more people agree to live/work/relate together in the future. I do not recommend people be reconciled with people who don’t share their values. In fact I would say that it would be foolhardy to be reconciled with someone who would violate your values.
I need to forgive Hitler (for my benefit), but I will not be reconciled to him until he shows some awareness of what he has done and some indication that he won’t do it again.
I think the women Eva in your story needs to make the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation.
She was feeling pressured to reconcile (how she interpreted the idea of forgiveness) and she could see no indication that it was safe to have some future relationship with the people. Conversation about what is valuable and how she wants to live in the future and who would share in those values would be a step to reconciliation.
Rob
Rob, I agree and resonate with your distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. I am not sure that Eva was feeling pressured to reconcile. I am not sure she even reached the point of even considering that. It looked to me as if she was not even able to hear the stories of the individuals with whom she was meeting. I don’t think they were seeking reconciliation, I think they were merely wanting to share stories and thereby share perspectives. Her fear led her to be unable to even engage in a conversation that might have led to a recognition of mutual values. To me it was a missed opportunity in which fear was the villain.
Dear Deb,
These posts, specifically part two, were excruciating for me to read. It triggered a very judgmental place within me that I ought to examine.
I especially liked this passage:
“But none of us can be strong in all contexts,. Our empathy and potential for forgiveness can be eviscerated by fear. Fear is the real enemy.”
One love,
Toni
Deb, I don’t think the pressure was external. She was resisting the process of story telling. That tells me she was resisting what she perceived as the implication of the story telling. For example, If I listen to your story I may end up empathizing with you and become reconciled to you, but I don’t want that because I don’t perceive you as safe.
I am not sure that fear was a villain. If she was afraid it tells me she does not perceive that she has the resources to respond to a perceived threat. Asking her what she needed to feel safe would be one way to begin building those resources. Sometimes before we have conversation about painful things we need to ask: What do we need to do to make it safe enough to have this conversation.
Excellent point Rob about asking Eva what she would have needed to feel safe. While there may have been work done that was not in the film, it did not appear that enough upfront work was done to set guidelines for the conversation to make it as safe as possible for Eva. Perhaps, if that had been done, she may have been better able to hear the stories.
Toni,
I have to admit that when I first watched the film, I found myself negatively judging Eva. It was not until I watched parts of it a second time that I realized how vulnerable she was feeling. Without any action taken (like what Rob has discussed above) to create some sense of safety, Eva was left feeling so threatened that she could not even listen – certainly not with her heart.
Thanks, Deb, for these companion posts and initiating the follow-up discussion. It has been interesting. I would only add that the dimension of time (the passage thereof) plays a key role in most peoples’ capacity to forgive. In most cases, people need time to be able to look at and comprehend the underlying emotions that come from a particularly or profoundly damaging experience. If one tries to forgive too soon, I’m afraid it’s more of an intellectual exercise (to avoid pain) and not really rooted in a deep emotional conviction (and as a result, the release won’t last). On the other, as Dennis Miller used to say, I could be wrong.
Duff,
I completely agree. Forgiveness takes time just as the grieving and healing process does.
Deb and Duff
I disagree about it takes time. Time doesn’t heal anything, it is what you do during the time that brings forgiveness, healing or resentment. I have known people carry PTSD and resentment for over 60 years without relief. If time heals they would have been well and truly cured.
I do agree with Duff that a rush to forgive may not be helpful as it may be a rush to denial. You have to know the hurt before you forgive the hurt. The healing process in South Africa was Truth and Reconciliation not denial and reconciliation.
I also know that it is possible to resolve PTSD grief and resentment in one session. Those strategies are presented in my book Restoring Hope.
Rob,
I agree, it is not time itself that heals all. I see healing as a process and, as such, it takes time. I don’t think one can truly heal if there is no time for grieving. It certainly doesn’t need to take 60 years, but It often requires a bit of hindsight as well as a realization that the healing will not be complete without forgiveness.
I’d love to hear more about your strategies.
Deb
You can find some free recorded tele-seminars at
http://www.clergyleadership.com/teleseminars/tele-seminars.cfm
Scroll down to the Restoring Hope section.
The guilt, shame, and self-forgiveness tele-seminar will give you an introduction to my approach.
Rob
Rob, I wasn’t clear in my comment about time. I completely agree that time, alone, is not a cure for profound emotional hurt. As Deb wrote, it is a process and it takes work. As for an individual being able to resolve PTSD grief and resentment in one session, while certainly possible, I would tend to believe that to be the exception and not the rule.
Hi Duff
I am interested in curing PTSD in one session and making that the rule not the exception and have done it. When I was first introduced to the strategies it defied much of what I had been taught in graduate school about treating PTSD.
What may take longer are the other sequelae of trauma. For example a traumatized child is often hindered in doing the normal developmental tasks of learning to relate and become adult etc. These limited abilities get incorporated into personality that may take longer to repair/rebuild. Or an adult may have become homeless and alcoholic, like many of our Veterans with PTSD. While the PTSD may be readily resolvable, the economic and social marginalization may take longer and require lots of additional resources.
Whilst I have nothing but sympathy for what Eva, her sister and countless others who endured unthinkable pain at the hands of the Nazi’s back then, I find it disappointing to learn that someone like Eva cannot empathise with the Palestinians – largely down to fear due to the horrors experienced in her youth.. Whilst I don’t particularly agree with how Israel was created, it’s here now and here to stay. What I can never accept, however, is how our Jewish people cannot see our own wrongdoings onto the Palestinians and/or justify the apartheid, illegal settlements, denying them of basics needs like water, electricity etc. It’s horribly wrong. For someone like Eva to fall foul of her fear and not be compassionate towards the victims of our modern day Nazi’s (the IDF), isn’t acceptable by any means.
I hear what you’re saying Sarah. What I know is that pain and fear, whether based on reality or not, lead to defensive behaviors of all kinds. While I may wish that Eva had been able to respond differently, I can’t say that her incapacity to be compassionate was unacceptable. People move through fear in different ways – it’s difficult to feel compassion (or much of anything else) when one feels endangered.