September 11, 1922

[SkyIsGrey]

Run time: 08:21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaUO1NFeqKU   Posted on YouTube: August 19, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 11, 2007 By DU Member: SkyIsGrey Views on DU: 569

 

[JDPriestly]

1. I hope that everyone will watch the video entitled "Forgiving Dr. Mengele."

"Forgiving Dr. Mengele" is the story of a child who was one of Dr. Mengele's experimental guinea pigs in the WWII prison camp. As an adult, she finds freedom and a new life by "forgiving" (not forgetting) but "forgiving Dr. Mengele." You need to see the film to understand what she means by "forgiving."

I found the film to be very moving. It is available from NetFlix. As one who lived for some years in Austria in a town that had been the home to many Jews before WWII, as one who is very familiar with how the horror of the Holocaust cost so many lives and ruined so many more, this film deeply moved me.

We harm ourselves when we hold on to anger about the wrongs done to us in the past no matter how terrible the wrongs were. Granted, forgiving wrongs does not change the fact that the wrongs happened. However, forgiving wrongs done to us frees us to communicate with and deal with those who committed the wrongs and to live more productively in the here and now and in the future.

In one scene, the principal character meets with Palestinians who insist on airing their grievances to her. They do not hear her message or understand her experience. She is unable to deal with them because they only harbor resentment.

I pray that both the Palestinians and the Jews of Israel be given the grace to forgive and to be forgiven and to find their way to healing, to prosperity and to a good life.