The Choice

and peacefulness, who took turns standing guard at a school all night
so bombs wouldn’t greet their children in the morning. I admired
them for whatever it was that allowed them not to give up or give in, I
admired their strength for living through another war and for not
allowing horriĕc experiences in the past to destroy what came aer.
Having endured imprisonment, dehumanization, torture, starvation,
and devastating loss did not dictate the kind of life that was possible
for them.
Of course, not everyone I interviewed was thriving. I saw a lot of
silent parents, a lot of children who didn’t know how to feel about
their parents’ silence and numbness, who blamed themselves. And I
met a lot of survivors who remained in the past. “Never, ever will I
forgive,” many told me. To them forgiveness meant forgetting or
condoning. Many of the people I interviewed harbored revenge
fantasies. I had never fantasized about revenge, but especially during
those ĕrst challenging years in Baltimore, I had fantasized about
confronting my oppressors—I wanted to ĕnd Mengele in Paraguay,
where he had Ęed to escape prosecution under the Nuremberg Trials.
I imagined posing as an American journalist to gain entry to his house.
en I would reveal my identity. “I’m the girl who danced for you,” I
would say. “You murdered my parents. You murdered so many
children’s parents. How could you be so cruel? You were a medical
doctor. You took the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. You’re a cold-
blooded killer. Do you have no conscience?” I would rage and rage at
his withered, retreating body, I would make him face his shame. It’s
important to assign blame to the perpetrators. Nothing is gained if we
close our eyes to wrong, if we give someone a pass, if we dismiss
accountability. But as my fellow survivors taught me, you can live to
avenge the past, or you can live to enrich the present. You can live in
the prison of the past, or you can let the past be the springboard that
helps you reach the life you want now.