In the spring of 1994, I was a college student, home for Easter. As the protected daughter of loving parents and cherished sister of three wonderful brothers, I was enjoying life in my homeland of Rwanda.

Although we were of the Tutsi ethnic minority in a country run by an extremist Hutu regime, we could not have imagined the genocide that was about to begin. On April 6, the president of Rwanda, a Hutu, was killed in a plane crash, and Tutsi rebels were accused of shooting down the plane. My family, along with millions of other Tutsis, knew there would be retaliation.

We were ordered not to leave the country, and business as usual stopped. When the killing of Tutsis began, my parents sent me to hide in the home of Pastor Simeon Nzabahimana, a sympathetic Hutu. Different family members then hid in other places.

Seven more Tutsi women were taken in by the pastor. Our hiding place was the small second bathroom of his house. Eight of us were wedged into that 3- by 4-foot space. We would spend the next three months there. Occasionally—and only at night—we would come out of the bathroom and go into the adjoining room to lie down. There was a window in this room, so we didn't dare stay there in the daytime.

The pastor told his two children that the key was lost to the small bathroom. The other women and I listened to a radio that Pastor Simeon had placed outside the bathroom door. The BBC reported daily of the growing number of Tutsis who had been brutally killed. Many entire families were wiped out.

For three months, not daring to make a noise that might cause us to be discovered, we women used hand signals to talk to one another. Once a day or sometimes once every other day, Pastor Simeon brought us food and water. We flushed the toilet only when we would hear the other toilet in the house being flushed.

Hutu killers came to the house and searched. During the search, I silently prayed and said the Rosary. I held my breath when I heard the men approach the bathroom door. I believe it was nothing less than a miracle that they turned and left, never opening the door.

Knowing that they would return, I begged the pastor to move a large armoire in front of the bathroom door. He did and then stacked suitcases on top of it. Listening from the silence of the bathroom to the BBC radio reports of the genocide that was happening, I grew angrier each day. I imagined myself as a soldier, seeking revenge.

My anger grew to the point that I became upset with myself. I questioned how I could pray to God for help when I was so angry. I believed that someday I would be able to walk out of that cramped bathroom and start living my life again. But how could I have a life if I were still angry and feeling the hurt that hating others caused me?

I prayed and read the Bible, gaining a better understanding that all people are children of God. I accepted that those who were doing the killing didn't understand the truth of this. They had been blinded by anger and hate. I knew that in order to continue with life once I was free, I had to forgive.

When the Hutus were defeated and the genocide finally stopped, we were rescued. I learned from others about who had survived and who had not. All my family—except one brother who was out of the country—had been killed: my mother, father, two brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many of my friends and neighbors were also gone. Later we learned that nearly one million people had been killed in the genocide—most victims were Tutsis, but some were moderate Hutu sympathizers.

Forgiving the Unforgivable
I was told that one of our former Hutu neighbors was the leader of a gang that had killed my mother and my brother. When I heard that he was being held in a local prison, I decided to go see him. I didn't know what I would do when I saw him face-to-face.

When a guard brought the man from his cell, I hardly recognized this former neighbor, the father of children I had known as I was growing up. His hair was disheveled, and bits of food clung to his unshaven face. He stared at me defiantly. Then when I quietly but sincerely said three short words: "I forgive you," peace swept over my soul. I wanted to be free of hatred because I had seen what the hatred of this man and other Hutus had done. His defiant look melted away, and he bowed his head. I'm sure it was in shame for what he had done.

As I walked out of the prison, the Tutsi man who ran the prison turned to me in anger. "How could you forgive him?" he said. The man had lost his children during the genocide. A year later, I met him again, and he told me that I had changed his life. He had been so full of hate and anger that he was miserable. When he saw that I could forgive and move on with my life after all I had been through and lost, he knew this was also what he wanted to do.

With the healing of my own heart, and after I was able to start anew in the United States, I wanted to reach out to help heal the hearts of others, to help heal my homeland. I told my story in the books Left to Tell and Led By Faith and founded the Left to Tell Charitable Fund to assist children left orphaned by the genocide. Through the fund, many of them have been placed in homes.

Everyone goes through difficulties in life. It's important that we don't give up. I believe that it's only when we have the peace of mind that forgiveness brings us, we are able to move on to live our lives fully.

sumber : http://www.dailyword.com/articles/20...er-forgiveness

At the age of ten, twins Eva and Miriam Mozes, were taken to Auschwitz where Dr Josef Mengele used them for medical experiments. Both survived, but Miriam died in 1993 when she developed cancer of the bladder as a consequence of the experiments done to her as a child. Eva Kor has since spoken explicitly about her experiences at Auschwitz and founded The CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Indiana where she now lives. In 2003 the museum was destroyed in an arson attack, believed to be by white supremacists.

Miriam and I were part of a group of children who were alive for one reason only – to be used as human guinea pigs. During our time in Auschwitz we talked very little. Starved for food and human kindness, it took every ounce of strength just to stay alive. Because we were twins, we were used in a variety of experiments.Three times a week we’d be placed naked in a room, for 6–8 hours, to be measured and studied. It was unbelievably demeaning.

In another type of experiment they took blood from one arm and gave us injections in the other. After one such injection I became very ill and was taken to the hospital. Dr Mengele came in the next day, looked at my fever chart and declared that I had only two weeks to live. For two weeks I was between life and death but I refused to die. If I had died, Mengele would have given Miriam a lethal injection in order to do a double autopsy. When I didn’t die, he carried on experimenting with us and as a result Miriam’s kidneys stopped growing. They remained the size of a child’s all her life.

On 27 January 1945, four days before my 11th birthday, Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army. After nine months in refugee camps I returned to my village in Romania to find that no one from my family had survived.

Echoes from Auschwitz were a part of my life but I did not speak publicly about my experiences until 1978 after the television series The Holocaust was aired. People would ask me about the experiments but I couldn’t remember very much so I wanted to find other twins who were liberated with me. I wrote to newspapers asking them to publish an appeal for other survivors of Mengele to contact me. By 1980 I was sending out 500 letters a year – but still no response. In desperation, one day I decided to start an organization in which I would make myself President. People are always impressed if they get a letter from a president, and it worked. Finally I was able to find other twin survivors and exchange memories. It was an immensely healing experience.

In 1993 I was invited to lecture to some doctors in Boston and was asked if I could bring a Nazi doctor with me. I thought it was a mad request until I remembered that I’d once been in a documentary which had also featured a Dr Hans Munch from Auschwitz. I contacted him in Germany and he said he would meet with me for a videotaped interview to take to the conference. In July 1993 I was on my way to meet this Nazi doctor. I was so scared but when I arrived at his home he treated me with the utmost respect. I asked him if he’d seen the gas chambers. He said this was a nightmare he dealt with every day of his life. I was surprised that Nazis had nightmares too and asked him if he would come with me to Auschwitz to sign a document at the ruins of the gas chambers. He said that he would love to do it.

In my desperate effort to find a meaningful ‘thank you’ gift for Dr Munch, I searched the stores, and my heart, for many months. Then the idea of a Forgiveness letter came to my mind. I knew it would be a meaningful gift, but it became a gift to myself as well, because I realized I was NoT a hopeless, powerless victim. When I asked a friend to check my spelling, she challenged me to forgive Dr Mengele too. At first I was adamant that I could never forgive Dr Mengele but then I realized I had the power now…the power to forgive. It was my right to use it. No one could take it away.

On 27 January 1995, at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I stood by the ruins of the gas chambers with my children – Dr Alex Kor and Rina Kor – and with Dr Munch and his children and grandchild. Dr Munch signed his document about the operation of the gas chambers while I read my document of forgiveness and signed it. As I did that, I felt a burden of pain was lifted from me. I was no longer in the grip of hate; I was finally free.

The day I forgave the Nazis, privately I forgave my parents whom I hated all my life for not having saved me from Auschwitz. Children expect their parents to protect them; mine couldn’t. And then I forgave myself for hating my parents.

Forgiveness is really nothing more than an act of self-healing and self-empowerment. I call it a miracle medicine. It is free, it works and has no side effects.

I believe with every fibre of my being that every human being has the right to live without the pain of the past. For most people there is a big obstacle to forgiveness because society expects revenge. It seems we need to honour our victims but I always wonder if my dead loved ones would want me to live with pain and anger until the end of my life. Some survivors do not want to let go of the pain. They call me a traitor and accuse me of talking in their name. I have never done this. Forgiveness is as personal as chemotherapy – I do it for myself.