Despite of all life battles of Holocaust survivors, they were able to find resilience and start a new life again referring to the past as a lesson and the present as a gift. The ordinary daily routine seemed for majority as a sort of abnormal: “That I survived Holocaust and went on to talk, to write, to have a toast with tea and live my life – how crazy is that?”. Some of survivors had nightmares for couple of months, even these days, waking up and thinking that they are still in the concentration camps and being so happy that they are in a real bed.
Those who survived the Holocaust, right after their liberation, completely stopped talking about it. It was such a horrific event that people had only one desire – to shut it up from their minds and for 55 years not even a word was said. There were thousands of people who had the same experience and in a way were protected by nature, because the constant thought about inhumanity would drive every one of them mad. There were others that could not recuperate because of trauma (being afraid to go to a shower because there is a possibility of gas coming out). With time survivors started to speak up about their experience in order to make peace with the past so it would not spoil the present. They did not want to carry any hatred, because if you go through your life hating people, the people who you hate will not suffer, but you will.
Eva Mozes Kor even has an original document signed by a Nazi, so if she ever met a revisionist who said the Holocaust did not happen, she could take that document and shove it in their face. She also thanked this Nazi doctor for his willingness to document the gas chamber operation; she did not want to tell anyone about it , because even to her it sounded strange – the letter of forgiveness to Dr. Munch, the most meaningful gift he had ever received.
The main message of survivors’ stories is to share love that grew through hell, to maintain hope and faith when it seems like the whole world is going to collapse. They do not want their past to become anyone else’s future and that only the guilty are guilty, but their children are not. Many of survivors were inspired to share their stories through art and literature because they could no longer stay silent when reading articles that Holocaust had never happened.
