The performers took their bows and the audience rose in thunderous applause. Just as the clapping was beginning to die down, Igone de Jongh, her arms full of flowers, came down from the stage and walked directly to where Audrey and I were sitting. A spotlight beamed down on us. The ballerina embraced me, tears in her eyes, and then gave me her biggest bouquet. The theater exploded in emotion. I couldn’t see to walk when we left our seats, my eyes still too full of tears.
It took me so many years to work through my anger and grief, to release Mengele and Hitler, to forgive myself for having survived. But in the theater with my daughter, watching one of the darkest moments of my past brought to life on the stage, I knew again what I realized that night in the barracks—that while Mengele had all the power, while day after day he chose with his grotesquely wagging finger who would live and who would die, he was more a prisoner than I was.
I was innocent.
And free.
KEYS TO FREE YOURSELF FROM NOT FORGIVING
Am I ready to forgive? Think of a person who has wronged or harmed you. Do any of these statements ring true? What she did was unforgivable. He hasn’t earned my forgiveness. I’m ready to give her the gift of my forgiveness. If I forgive, I’ll let him off the hook. If I forgive, I’ll give him permission to keep hurting me. I’ll forgive once there’s justice, or an apology or acknowledgment. If you relate to one or more of these statements, you are likely spending energy being against someone, rather than for yourself and the life you deserve. Forgiveness isn’t something you give someone else. It’s how you release yourself.
Acknowledge and release rage. Make a rage date with yourself. If the idea of being angry is too terrifying to face alone, ask a trusted friend or therapist to help you. Legitimize your anger, then choose a way to channel and then dissolve it. Scream and yell. Hit a punching bag. Bang the ground with a stick. Break plates on the patio. Get the rage moving, let it out so it doesn’t fester and contaminate you. Don’t stop until there’s nothing left. In a day or a week, do it again.
Forgive yourself. If I’m having trouble releasing someone who has hurt me, it may be that I’m holding on to guilt or shame or judgment toward myself. We’re born innocent. Imagine you’re holding a precious baby in your arms. Feel the warmth and trust of this tiny being. Gaze into the curious, wide-open eyes, at the little hands that reach as though to take in every detail of the whole, unfathomable, bountiful world. This baby is you. Say, “I’m here. I live for you.”
Conclusion
THE GIFT
We can’t take away suffering, we can’t change what happened—but we can choose to find the gift in our lives. We can even learn to cherish the wound.
There’s a Hungarian adage that says you find the darkest shadow beneath the candle. Our darkest and brightest places—our shadows and our flames—are intertwined. My most terrifying night, the first one in Auschwitz, taught me a vital lesson that has enhanced and empowered my life ever since. The very worst circumstances gave me the opportunity to discover the inner resources that helped me again and again to survive. My years of introspection, of being alone and working hard as a ballet student and gymnast, helped me survive hell; and hell taught me to keep dancing for my life.
Life—even with its inevitable trauma, pain, grief, misery, and death—is a gift. A gift we sabotage when we imprison ourselves in our fears of punishment, failure, and abandonment; in our need for approval; in shame and blame; in superiority and inferiority; in our need for power and control. To celebrate the gift of life is to find the gift in everything that happens, even the parts that are difficult, that we’re not sure we can survive. To celebrate life, period. To live with joy, love, and passion.
Sometimes we think that if we move on from loss or trauma, if we have fun and enjoy ourselves, if we continue to grow and evolve, that we’re somehow dishonoring the dead, or dishonoring the past. But it’s okay to laugh! It’s okay to have joy! Even in Auschwitz we were celebrating in our minds all the time, cooking feasts, arguing over how much caraway you put in the best rye bread, how much paprika in Hungarian chicken paprikash. We even held a boob contest one night! (Guess who won?)
I can’t say that everything happens for a reason, that there’s a purpose in injustice or suffering. But I can say that pain, hardship, and suffering are the gift that helps us grow and learn and become who we are meant to be.
During the final days of the war, we were starving to death and cannibalism broke out in the camp. I was immobile on the muddy ground, hallucinating with hunger, praying for a way to keep living without succumbing to eating human flesh. And a voice said, “There’s grass to eat.” Even at death’s door, I had a choice. I could choose which blade of grass to eat.
I used to ask, “Why me?” But now I ask, “Why not me?” Perhaps I survived so I can choose what to do with what happened, and how to be here now. So I can show others how to choose life, so my parents and all the innocents didn’t die in vain. So I can turn all the lessons I learned in hell into a gift I offer you now: the opportunity to decide what kind of life you want to have, to discover the untapped potential lying in the shadows, to reveal and reclaim who
