The old woman is right and very wise. Hatred and feelings of revenge are corroding to the soul and in the end poisons only yourself and not your enemies. She made it clear she does not forget. But she harbors no hatred in her soul for the Nazis because she has truly forgiven them. And I think that is what she meant by that being the key to her survival and happiness in her life.
Evil should be hunted and killed, then you can be at peace.
Forgiveness of evil is evil. Evil is encouraged and perpetuated by the notion that there can be forgiveness no matter what evil is perpetrated. Even today, there is evil afoot that looks upon the foolishness of this kind of forgiveness and bares its fangs knowing that, through this forgiveness, the Western world has surrendered it ability to confront evil and call it by its true name (hint: Jihad).
You draw a false connection between the spirit of forgiveness and feelings of hatred and revenge. One can refuse to forgive without being consumed by hatred or revenge. As my father, a concentration camp survivor and others have said, it is not for us to forgive the horror that has been visited upon millions of other people. Believe me, he has feelings of hatred and revenge, but they are not held close in his heart. They are based on the notion of justice: it is just to hate evil and it is doing justice to exact revenge.
We have hardly yet seen the vengeance of the living G-d for what the Nazis have done. Before the true age of Moshiach (the Jewish Messiah) can be ushered in, there will be an accounting that will make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like picnics.
Exactly. Reminds me of the story of Corrie Ten Boom meeting a former concentration camp guard a few years after WW 2. He asked for her forgiveness, and after some tough soul searching, she gave it to him.
I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do that.