Yolonda Y. Wilson, a philosophy professor at St. Louis University who researches government obligations to rectify historic and continuing injustice, wrote in 2019:

If anger can help us understand our place in the world and drive us to make the world that we occupy better, then good for anger. The most important feature of anger, properly directed, is the recognition that a wrong has occurred. To the extent that one’s anger motivates one to right wrongs, anger can be a tool of achieving justice. In this sense, anger is also tied to self-respect. Anger is a recognition that one is deserving of just treatment and that one is willing to demand just treatment, even if the demand is ultimately unsuccessful.

Kor, however, was happy with the apology. And if she was happy, who are we to argue? Forgiveness is a choice.

A decade later, Kor also forgave Auschwitz’s accountant. She publicly held his hand and graciously allowed him to kiss her cheek. She wrote a book, The Power of Forgiveness, which came out in 2021 (she died in 2019, but a colleague at her private museum in Terre Haute finished it in her name). In the book, she describes her healing process: She wrote down all the bad words she wanted to say to Dr. Mengele, and once she ran out of words, she realized she’d also run out of anger; she was able to forgive. She decided to write a letter.

I, Eva Mozes Kor, a twin who as a child survived Josef Mengele’s experiments at Auschwitz fifty years ago, hereby give amnesty to all Nazis who participated directly or indirectly in the murder of my family and millions of others.

I extend this amnesty to all governments who protected Nazi criminals for fifty years, then covered up their acts, and covered up their cover up.

I, Eva Mozes Kor, in my name only, give this amnesty because it is time to go on; it is time to heal our souls; it is time to forgive, but never forget.

She asked the United States, German, and Israeli governments to stop investigating Nazis and to open all their files to survivors so they could perhaps read about what had been done to them and learn useful information for their medical records. (Her twin, who had also survived, had terrible health problems; it would have been helpful to know what substances had been injected into her body.) Kor read aloud on the ramp to the gas chambers at Auschwitz:

I am healed inside, therefore it gives me no joy to see any Nazi criminal in jail, nor do I want to see any harm come to Josef Mengele, the Mengele family or their business corporations. I urge all former Nazis to come forward and testify to the crimes they have committed without any fear of further prosecution. Here in Auschwitz, I hope in some small way to send the world a message of forgiveness, a message of peace, a message of hope, a message of understanding.

The press and public ate this up. But just as the footage of Brandt Jean hugging and forgiving his brother’s killer dismayed plenty of Black people, Kor’s actions horrified many other Holocaust survivors. As Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt noted, “I watched them grimace as audiences gave her standing ovations and the media described her as someone ‘who found it in her heart’ to forgive, the implication being that survivors who did not follow her lead were unable to rise above their resentment. Survivors told me they felt they were being depicted as hardhearted, while Kor was being celebrated as the hero, someone bigger than they.”

In her book, Kor says she did her forgiving in her own name only … but calling for amnesty for Nazis can’t be considered acting merely for herself. “I know that most of the survivors denounced me, and they denounce me today also,” she says in the video. “But what is my forgiveness? I like it. It is an act of self-healing, self-liberation, self-empowerment. All victims feel hopeless, feel helpless, feel powerless. I want everyone to remember that we cannot change what happened … but we can change how we relate to it.”

This is absolutely true. In the book, Kor elaborates on how forgiveness made her “free to discover that I had power over my own today and tomorrow, again and again. It hurt no one, it doesn’t hurt me. And it is free. Everyone can accomplish it.” She then adds, “Also, there are no side effects. It works. But if you do not like feeling like a free person, it is possible to return to your pain and hatred anytime.”

Kor’s suggestions that gardening and spending time with animals can help people heal is also positive, also likely to be helpful to lots of readers. But again, the notion that these activities can lead everyone to forgiveness is facile.

People want to admire Kor and to find her generosity of spirit beautiful, because we want to live in a just world. We love cute, tough-talking old ladies with hearts of gold who remind us of our Bubbes and Bibis and Nanas and Nonnas. They charm us. They make us feel safe. They’re familiar, like the cast of The Golden Girls. They convince us that the world has changed for the better since the Holocaust. (Feel free to substitute “since slavery.” Or “since that rapist realized the error of his ways and cried on camera.”) The danger lies in wanting Kor’s story of forgiveness to be every victim’s story, and blaming the victim who refuses to conform to her narrative.

Forgiveness is indeed a choice. But so is refusing to respect the choice of people who have valid reasons not to forgive.