Holding Grudges

I just finished reading a book on the holocaust and... it's pretty shattering... hard to leave a book like that and look at the world the same way... Or people in the same way... again ever... and I really don't know what I would think if I was actually standing in the midst of a concentration camp...
(... the writer actually suggests that any person in power be required to walk through a camp to remind themselves of the abuse of power and the effort required to stop it... and also remind them of the reality of human nature... despot, maniac, and '...just following orders'...)
... The death toll of the holocaust is so great that story can almost leave the realm of emotion and instead merely become a statistic... but for a dedicated mass of survivors who lived the rest of their lives to ensure that the holocaust could never become just... a statistic... Who gathered together... overcame their loss... and published real love and shocking horror... and through their work made the world meet each person face to face... make each trial a personal story...
... The most striking thing of the whole book is the amount of survivors that could simply not get over their experience... who years later would end up taking their lives because of the memory, of the grief, and the sadness of their story... maybe because they could not find a listening ear or a wounded heart that could truly understand what they went through and meet them on their level... maybe it was loneliness...
...But for others it seemed like it was their unwillingness to forgive... their need to hold on to that hate and remember it because it aided them in their search for justice... a righteous cause that needed to be fought for... They pursued their captors and in a combination of justice and revenge paid one evil with another... they could and would not get rid of their hate and eventually their hate consumed them...
... And then there was a third kind of person... Like the story of Corrie Ten Boom who watched her sister die in a camp... .. ... and yet went back to Germany after the war to offer forgiveness to the German people and help rebuild the country... One day even coming face to face with the worst, most evil, vicious, sadistic guard in her camp... and through tears in her eyes and fighting off her shaking hand she offered forgiveness even to him... and maybe... hopefully... she was able to truly overcome the hurt done to her...

... His argument (and I completely agree) is that forgiving someone, although doing nothing to mend anything that has been done or will be done, will free you from the power an abuser had over you... (Even years later it will hold you back in life if you don't deal with it)... It gives you a chance to let it go and find closure... even if they don't ask forgiveness... it's a chance to start over and live your life finally out of the shadow, free of the chains, of whatever or whoever has hurt you... like the original meaning of 'forgiveness'... to send away...