We are all survivors of something. As Holocaust survivor Irving Ross reminds us, at some level, everyone has experienced loss or hardship. Some have experienced deprivation. Some have experienced prejudice. Many, too many, have suffered abuse of all kinds. However, comparing my own suffering to that of a Holocaust survivor is not possible. There is no way to compare a journey through something so horrific. But there are lessons learned. The message of hope, of resiliency, and what to do with forgiveness resonates strongly with me. I realize not every Holocaust survivor story ends this way, but almost all I have encountered do. And I heal a little bit more each time I hear a survivor speak or read a memoir. You see, I am a survivor too. A much different journey to be sure, but in some places I find parallels, parallels in that accompanying the journey to healing is much emotional pain, memories that turn into nightmares, and the fact that in some form, this “thing” you survived, is always with you. I make a connection with the Holocaust survivor’s desire to protect those you love from knowing your suffering. Most often the suffering is done is silence.
I find myself drawn to the part of the survivor’s stories that talk about AFTER the Holocaust was over because that leads me to connect in my own journey --- is it possible to forgive the abuse of a child? Clearly, the power to forgive most rests with the person that has been wronged. That’s the lesson I am taught in my faith tradition – and that you must forgive in order to put the past to rest. But how? Just get over it? Believe the cliché expression that "time heals all wounds?" Gisa’s amazing story of her time in the ghetto of Poland touches all who hear it deeply, in part, because we felt her pain as she tells it. It has not left her. How could it? Just in hearing her story, I still have the image of her sister holding the hand of her seven-year-old brother as they walked to the trucks that would take them to their death. Maybe we “should” forgive, but can a person truly forgive such evil? Some people have and attest to it. Harold Kushner, a pastor, comments in The Sunflower, ”Forgiving is not something we do for another person, as the Nazi asked Wiesenthal to do for him. Forgiving happens inside of us. It represents a letting go of the sense of grievance, and perhaps most importantly letting go of the role of victim” (186). While I agree with the role of forgiveness in helping the victim let go, I am still stuck like Irving and others survivors suggest, that some actions really are unforgivable.
Over the course of this study, I have grown more comfortable with the belief that perhaps it is not humanly possible to forgive those who perpetrate those acts which violate and attempt to steal a person’s most precious possession – their identity. In sense, that is murder even if actual death does not result. In the Jewish frame of reference, and in my own view, that grievance is not forgivable because what was taken can never be replaced. There is a certain relief in knowing that for some of us, not forgiving is ok. Yet I can still be hopeful not hateful because what these survivors’ stories do tell me is that it is possible to heal. Part of the healing can be the acceptance that not forgiving, saying nothing to the perpetrator, the silence … that is ok. But bitterness, bitterness is not ok. To reconcile, as Irving Roth phrased it; that is what we must do. To reconcile means to bring into harmony, come to terms with. The Holocaust survivors we met, Irving, Gisa, Eva, Simon, and thousands of other Holocaust survivors have made beautiful lives out the ashes of their Holocaust experience. Irving’s words hang with me –“ to build, to create something beautiful, that is how you beat the Nazis. If you are bitter –then they win.” But even for someone as strong and optimistic as Irving, it has taken a long time to get to this place of reconciliation where he can revisit and share his experience as a message to others. In the forward of his memoir, his son tells of the difficulty he encountered as he pressed his father for details. Sometimes Irving had to walk away from the session because it was too much pain. This writing was done just 10 years ago.
With my own experience, I believe I have reconciled, made peace with it, but it has taken many years. At once point, I said I forgave, but in my heart, I knew I had not, and have wrestled with the thought that maybe I cannot. Through reading The Sunflower and learning from the Holocaust survivors, I feel as if I have permission, the choice, not to forgive. I have rarely shared this aspect of my life’s journey. I have fought hard not to let being survivor of sexual abuse define me. The one thing I desperately do not want anyone to do is to feel sorry for me, label me, or view me through some kind of “survivor” lens. I am only guessing, but I am fairly confident that Simon, Gisa, Irving, Eva, Imaculee and other survivors do not want to be viewed only as survivors either. All have moved on to create wonderfully full and vibrant lives. They beat the Nazis or whoever their perpetrators were. That is more than surviving; that is resilience. That is how, to use Simon's own question "the victims come to peace with their past and hold on to their own humanity..." (XII). I find the beautiful sunflower to be a wonderful symbol for such resilience.
I feel more empowered now to tell my story to others in the hopes that more of those surviving in silence will find healing. And if studying the Sunflower in my class helps a student suffering in silence to make the same connections I have, I will feel it is worth it.