Personal Stories of Healing and Restoration

 

When the Veil of Silence is Torn...

 

Freedom of Hatred through Forgiveness

A Ukrainian woman recounts:

“My family often told the stories of terror and fear that my relatives went through during the war. This affected my own life as well. From when I was a child, I could not bear the sound of the German language. During a time of prayer on the March of Life we were standing together with the German participants. When we were encouraged to hold each other’s hands, inside my heart I screamed with pain. I felt as if I was cut into pieces alive. A German lady in our group was only two steps away from me. That distance seemed like a huge abyss to me. She approached me with outstretched arms. When I looked into her eyes as she asked me for forgiveness, I realized at that moment that she was doing it with all her heart. I agreed and embraced her. With that embrace my whole fear disappeared. I could ask forgiveness for all the hatred and bitterness against the German people that had been in my heart.”

 

I Had Been Unable to Love Strangers

A German woman recounts:

“I went to the March of Life in the Ukraine because I knew that my grandfather had been there in the war. I felt that God was telling me to personally ask forgiveness for the guilt of my forefathers in the Holocaust. In the run-up to the March, I was scared to death. My fear and shame were so great that I had rather stayed home. In a reconciliation meeting in Lviv, I had the opportunity to tell my story. I was able to ask Jews and Ukrainians for forgiveness, and I saw a dam breaking there. We were in each other’s arms weeping. When we were standing in a circle crying like that, I saw a picture of thousands of colored pieces of broken glass that came falling to the ground in our midst. Later the Lord picked them up and formed a beautiful colorful glass dome, like those you see in a synagogue! Never before had I felt such love for total strangers. We kissed and hugged each other, and something was bonding between us. My fear was gone, and I had but one thought: With my God I could go anywhere! “

 

Seven Names of Relatives Discovered at the Memorial of a Massacre

A German woman recounts:

“On the March of Life we came to the memorial at Drobitzky Yar in Kharkov. During the ceremony we were in a mourning site right inside the memorial. The room was completely lined with a multitude of marble panels. They were inscribed with the names of the Jews who had been murdered there. Shocked and crying, a Jewish lady turned to me. She pulled me to one of the panels and pointed at seven people with the same family name. ‘Those are the names of my relatives!’ Up to that day, she had not known that they had perished in that place. We comforted her and prayed for her. Later, a German lady whose grandfather had been in the Ukraine as a soldier asked the Jews and Ukrainians there for forgiveness for the death and destruction our German ancestors had caused. The presence of God was tangible in the whole room where before the atmosphere had been full of death, depression, and grief.”

 

The Last Chapter – about Reconciliation and New Life

At the March of Life in Odessa:

In Odessa, the German participants met a journalist who evidently had a communist mindset. For several years he had been researching World War II, writing a book on the topic. He was interested in hearing the reports about the March of Life – the descendants of the perpetrators repenting, bringing healing and restoration. The leader of the German team told him the story of his own family. His grandfather had been involved in the crimes as a German soldier near Odessa. At the end of their conversation, the journalist had tears in his eyes, saying, “I will devote the last chapter of my book to reconciliation and the March of Life.”

 

Rescued From Under a Heap of Corpses

The organizers in Mariupol recount:

“When she was 10 years old, a woman managed to escape together with her mother by crawling from under a heap of dead bodies after a mass shooting, surviving by a miracle. A local resident betrayed her mother, but the girl survived. By a miracle, we met this lady a few days before the March of Life. We asked her to come to the March and to share her story, but she was totally against it. She showed us all the documents; she had even written down her life story as a poem. We asked her permission to at least read her poem, since she did not want to come herself. She agreed, under the condition that we would not mention her name. So we were all the more surprised when she stood in front of us at the March of Life. I asked her: ‘Vanda Semyonovna! You are here, my dear?‘ We embraced, weeping, and she said, ‘I don’t fear anything anymore! I will speak!’ She was willing to come to the memorial, and courageously and with shining eyes she spoke about herself and her life. When the Germans repented on behalf of their ancestors, she was able to grant forgiveness.”