Tag: Courage

The Stewardship of Fear: Trauma-Informed Leadership in an Age of Anxiety

By Jill Szoo Wilson

She is thoughtful, intelligent, good-humored, and consistently encouraging to her fellow students. She’s the kind of student who listens closely when others speak, offers quiet affirmation rather than competition, and seems genuinely glad when her classmates do well. She began the semester strong, delivering two solid speeches and attending every class. There was nothing tentative about her start.

Midway through the term, something changed. Her warmth toward others remained. Her generosity did not disappear. But her attendance became uneven. Absences began to grow to the extent that she missed one of her assigned speaking dates. From there, a pattern emerged that did not match her ability or her effort.

This student did not vanish or disengage as some do. Each missed class came with a morning email in which she apologized and asked what she could do to keep up with the rest of the class. Even as she struggled to be present in the room, she worked to remain connected to the course and accountable to its expectations.

On the final day of the semester, I pulled her aside before class began. This was her last opportunity to deliver the make-up speech she had missed earlier in the term. I asked a question I have asked many students before, a question meant to open a door rather than close one: “How are you doing? Are you ready to go today?” I could see the fear in her eyes drain into the rest of her body and turn into fight-or-flight level tension. Tears came first. Panic followed. We agreed that she could choose whether to deliver the speech privately, after the other students had gone, or not deliver it at all.

When the classroom emptied, we talked for a long time. In the end, she did not give the speech—she could not—and in that moment, I knew I needed to honor her choice. There are times when I will encourage a student to push through their fear. Knowing when not to is part of the work.

What unfolded in that empty room was a trauma response. Panic, dissociation, and fear overtook the student’s capacity to communicate as her nervous system shifted into a state of perceived threat. Her breathing became shallow and rapid. Her body held itself tight. Her words rushed forward, tumbling over one another as she tried to explain how desperately she wanted not to feel the way she did.

Anyone who works in a position of authority—teachers, pastors, physicians, supervisors—has seen this moment. Communication can become physically unavailable when fear takes over. The body tightens, language recedes, and access to speech narrows. When someone is in that state, it is important to remember that applying pressure to the one suffering amplifies distress. Performance returns only when the nervous system has time and space to settle.

There are moments when growth comes from learning that discomfort is not danger, and pushing through fear can be part of that work. There are other moments that call for a different response, as I will explain in the next section.

Fear, Authority, and the Return of Choice

Clinical psychologist David A. Carbonell has spent decades working with people whose lives are shaped by anxiety and panic. His work is especially instructive for those in positions of authority because it explains fear without shaming the person who experiences it and without requiring the leader to become a therapist.

Carbonell begins with a simple but destabilizing premise: anxiety is not a failure of reasoning. It is the activation of a survival system designed to move faster than thought. When fear arises, the brain’s alarm circuitry engages before the reflective systems responsible for language, planning, and explanation have time to come online. This system is meant to protect us, not to help us communicate well.

In moments of perceived threat, the nervous system does not pause to ask whether fear is reasonable or proportional. It acts. Muscles tighten. Breathing shifts into the chest. Attention focuses inward, and sometimes sight narrows. The body prepares for escape, defense, or collapse. Thought follows only if the body allows it.

This is why anxiety so often surprises both the person experiencing it and those witnessing it. A student who is prepared may suddenly freeze. A patient who understands their condition may struggle to answer basic questions. A congregant who wants to speak honestly may fall silent at precisely the moment language feels most necessary. These responses are not evidence of avoidance, deceit, or unwillingness; they’re evidence that the body has moved ahead of the mind.

Carbonell describes anxiety as a “counterintuitive problem” because the strategies people instinctively use to overcome fear often make it worse. Reasoning with fear, pushing through it, or trying to suppress it may appear sensible, but they frequently intensify the nervous system’s alarm. The body interprets urgency, control, or insistence as confirmation that danger is present. What sounds like encouragement to the leader can register as a threat to the person already struggling to regulate.

When I was struggling with heightened anxiety in 2013, I remember telling my longtime family doctor, who was familiar with my personality and profession, “Speaking exhausts me right now. I know what I want to say, but I just don’t feel like talking. It’s exhausting.”

This insight is critical for anyone in authority. When anxiety is driving the body, access to speech narrows as survival takes precedence. Communication returns as the conditions that support it are restored.

The AWARE Framework

Dr. Carbonell developed the AWARE framework while working with clients whose anxiety escalated quickly and overwhelmed their ability to stay present. Rather than asking people to conquer fear, the model offers a way to slow the moment down once fear has already arrived and to change how a person relates to that fear in real time. AWARE stands for Acknowledge, Wait, Allow, Repeat, and Engage. The sequence follows the nervous system’s own rhythm as it moves from alarm toward steadiness.

Acknowledge

Acknowledge begins by bringing attention to what is happening in the present moment. Fear often intensifies when it goes unnamed, especially when a person tries to reason their way out of it or push it away. My student described it this way: “The last time I did a speech, I kept thinking if I could run out of the classroom I would be okay, but then also telling myself I couldn’t run out of the classroom. The more I told myself to stay, the more panicked I felt.”

Acknowledgment interrupts that spiral. When fear is named as it appears, the body no longer has to work as hard to contain it. Attention shifts from escape to awareness, and the nervous system begins to loosen its grip.

In practice, acknowledging fear means noticing and naming what is present in real time: a tight chest, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, a sense of urgency. This naming does not analyze or correct the experience. It simply brings it into awareness. That attention eases the body’s demand for immediate action and signals that the moment can be tolerated rather than escaped.

Instead of asking, “How do I get out of this?” the question becomes, “Is this danger or discomfort?” When the answer is discomfort, fear can be acknowledged without being obeyed.

Acknowledgment slows the interaction and opens space for choice.

Wait

Wait introduces time into a moment that feels compressed. Fear collapses experience into urgency. Everything begins to feel as though it must happen immediately.

For my student, waiting would not have meant deciding what to do next. It would have meant staying with the sensations for a few seconds longer without acting on them. Feeling her feet on the floor. Allowing her breath to move as it could. Letting the urge to escape crest and fall rather than rushing toward resolution.

Even brief pauses give the nervous system crucial information. As seconds pass without action, the body begins to register that immediate escape is not required. Breathing steadies. Muscles soften. Attention widens enough for choice to return.

For leaders, waiting can feel counterintuitive. We are trained to move toward solutions, explanations, or outcomes. Carbonell’s work asks us to trust time itself as a regulating force. Waiting allows the body to recalibrate so that whatever comes next emerges from awareness rather than urgency.

Allow

Once fear has been acknowledged and time has been introduced, the next impulse is often to make the fear stop. This is where anxiety tends to escalate. The body senses resistance and responds by pushing harder.

In the student’s experience, this showed up as an internal struggle. She tried to calm herself, reason with herself, and override the urge to escape. Each attempt intensified her panic. Her body interpreted the struggle itself as evidence that something was wrong.

Allow changes that relationship. Instead of working against fear, the student lets the sensations exist without trying to fix them. The chest remains tight. The breath stays shallow. The urgency lingers. But the fight stops.

Allowing fear does not mean agreeing with it or surrendering to it. It means recognizing that the alarm has already sounded and does not need correction in order to settle. When resistance drops, intensity often follows. The body begins to regulate not because it was forced, but because it is no longer being fought.

Repeat

Fear rarely resolves in a single wave. It rises, softens, and often returns. When it does, the impulse is to interpret its return as failure.

Repeat offers a different response. When fear resurfaces, the student returns to the same steps without escalation. She acknowledges what she notices. She allows the sensations to exist. She waits again. Nothing new needs to be solved.

This repetition teaches the nervous system something essential: fear can come and go without requiring action. Each cycle weakens the urgency attached to the sensations. Over time, fear loses authority not because it disappears, but because it no longer controls the response.

Repeat builds tolerance, not toughness. Consistency, not control, carries the system toward regulation.

Engage

Engage comes after fear has been acknowledged, time has been allowed, and resistance has eased. The student does not wait for fear to disappear. She reenters the task while carrying the remaining sensations with her.

In the classroom, this means shifting attention outward. The student stands at the front of the room with a breath that is still shallow but workable. She looks up. She finds one face in the room. She begins with the first sentence she prepared.

Engagement does not require full calm. It requires orientation. Attention moves away from internal monitoring and toward the shared task of communication.

As the student speaks, fear may continue to rise and fall in the background. She does not evaluate it. She stays with the work in front of her. Each sentence spoken gives the nervous system new information: the body can remain visible, engaged, and unharmed.

Engage restores agency. Communication resumes not because fear vanished, but because attention found a place to rest outside the self.

What This Means for Leaders

Over the years, I have noticed that more students are arriving in my classrooms with nervous systems already shaped by repeated alarms. I see it in attendance patterns, in the way bodies brace before a speech, and in how quickly attention collapses inward once fear takes hold. This is not unique to my classroom. It is widespread and growing.

Recent data make that clear. A large national survey by the University of Michigan School of Public Health found that one in three college students reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms, with more than a third meeting criteria for a diagnosable anxiety disorder (University of Michigan School of Public Health, 2023). The National Education Association reports similar findings, noting that anxiety now surpasses depression as the most frequently cited mental health struggle on many campuses (National Education Association, 2023). A global review in BMC Psychiatry echoes this pattern, showing that roughly one-third of college students worldwide experience elevated anxiety levels, with anxiety disorders among the most common conditions in this age group (Nguyen et al., 2023).

These are not abstract statistics. They describe the lived reality of the bodies and minds leaders stand before every day in classrooms, churches, clinics, and offices. Anxiety is shaped not only by individual history, but by cultural and academic pressures that accumulate long before people enter our spaces. For many, heightened vigilance is already the baseline.

That reality has direct consequences for communication. Bodies braced for threat do not speak as freely as bodies oriented toward engagement. When the nervous system detects danger, real or perceived, it redirects energy toward survival. Leaders trained to maintain momentum or secure outcomes may misread hesitation as resistance, silence as avoidance, or uneven performance as lack of preparation. Yet insistence on immediacy or efficiency can quietly confirm the very threat the nervous system is trying to manage.

Trauma-informed leadership begins with recognizing this dynamic. It does not require diagnosis, nor does it ask leaders to become therapists. Instead, it calls us to:

  • notice how fear shows up in the moment,
  • slow the interaction enough for regulation to begin, and
  • orient expectations around the body’s capacity before asking it to communicate under pressure.

This does not weaken standards. It strengthens people.
Honoring a student’s nervous system in a moment of acute distress does not eliminate accountability or academic standards; it ensures that evaluation reflects capacity rather than collapse.

A trauma-informed posture creates the conditions under which students and colleagues can perform to their actual ability. It allows them to remain present long enough for thinking, skill, and preparation to take shape. The goal is not to remove challenge, but to ensure that challenge does not exceed the body’s ability to participate.

When leaders understand fear as a physiological response rather than a personal failing, they interpret hesitation as information. They allow choice to reenter the moment. And they learn to meet fear not with urgency, but with timing, which is often the difference between collapse and communication.

In an era when anxiety is this pervasive, trauma-informed leadership is not an added skill. It is a necessary form of stewardship.

Afterword

This is a complicated topic to write about because so much of what we do in a classroom grows out of instinct and the kind of discernment that only time creates. It is hard to explain to a new teacher, or to a young professional in any field, when to hold a firm pedagogical line and when to let it soften in order to meet the human being in front of you. Students need different things in different moments, and those needs are often invisible until they surface in panic, silence, or retreat.

I was out of the college classroom for two years. When I returned this past semester, I noticed a marked shift in the students. I am not someone who says, “This generation is lazy” or “The kids are changing” as a complaint about the future. The students are changing, but they are responding to changes that began long before they entered our classrooms. They face a cultural landscape shaped by social media, constant comparison, economic pressure, and a world that asks them to “perform” in nearly every public and private space. Their nervous systems reflect the world that formed them.

I taught a student in 2013 who blacked out while giving a speech. He remained standing at the podium, but his words stopped. Just before he went silent, he began to stammer, and I watched fear move through him until it overtook the moment.

After class, we sat together and debriefed. I asked him what had gone through his mind just before the fear took hold. He said, “I pictured my mom in the audience. And she was telling me I would not amount to anything.”

In that moment, it was clear that no amount of pedagogy would help him. He did not need stricter deadlines or more detailed feedback. He needed encouragement. He needed someone to meet him in the present moment and remind him that the story he carried was not the story he had to live. I decided to let him give the speech again during the next class period so he could replace that frightening experience with a new one.

What happened next shaped the way I think about teaching. After he finished the second speech, the entire class stood and applauded. They were not applauding brilliance. They were applauding something much more important: courage. They had seen a peer face something that had once undone him, and they honored the strength it took to return.

That semester taught me to build classroom cultures rather than classrooms organized around performance. It taught me that skills grow best in environments where students trust that their humanity is seen and that their fear will not be used against them. I have never regretted that decision.

Further Reading

Carbonell, David A. The Panic Attacks Workbook: A Guided Program for Beating the Panic Trick. McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Carbonell, David A. The Worry Trick: How Your Brain Tricks You into Expecting the Worst and What You Can Do About It. New Harbinger Publications, 2016.

Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press, 2024.

Sapolsky, Robert M. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. 3rd ed., Holt Paperbacks, 2004.

What My Students Taught Me This Semester

Christmas treats handed out. Goodbye hugs and handshakes extended. Grades turned in. Another semester in the books.

Moments like this remind me of what it used to feel like to drop a coin into a noisy fountain. Whatever wish I made filled my mind and hand with anticipation, with the kind of energy that moves you forward. Then came the thrust of the arm, the release, the drop, the looking through rippling water. It felt quiet. Like you had accomplished something, but wouldn’t quite know what until much later.

Where do our wishes go? Where will these students go?

Does that make sense?

This was probably my favorite semester in all my decades of teaching in higher education.

Intersections. Semesters are always intersections between me and the students, the students and one another, and the students and themselves. Who they were, who they are, and who they are becoming. But this semester felt electric, alive with points on a map charting lefts and rights, ups and downs, and ins and outs. For better and for worse.

I had students who became homeless and held on. Students who were beginning afresh and letting go. Students who started with little hope and left with direction, and others who learned quietly that school just isn’t for them. There were fights for freedom. Heated arguments about the meaning of courage, good, and knowledge. I bore witness to confusion and courage and strength and joy. Tides in an ocean of relative chaos, and ships that refused to sink.

I am so proud of my students. Every single one of them. And I am humbled by the role I have in their lives to listen, question, encourage, and challenge.

In the final summation, what I realize is that I needed them more this semester than they needed me. Or maybe it was equal. They kept me focused outside of myself, and when I wanted to despair, they met me with laughter, frivolity, complexity, and routine.

This is life. Our classrooms are microcosms of the wider world, and when we can love, negotiate disagreement, have difficult conversations, and still extend hugs and handshakes at the end, we have taken part in some of the most rewarding work this life offers.

I’ll leave you with some of the results from one of our more contentious Socratic question roundtables this semester, What Is Courage:

“Courage is the willingness to make a full, genuine attempt at overcoming an obstacle that presents a physical and/or mental danger.” —B

“The full attempt to overcome a physical and/or mental obstacle with perceived risk.” —A

“An action. Choosing to face an obstacle that presents risk in spite of those risks.” —P

“An act or mentality that allows or enables someone to overcome an obstacle despite the chance of danger or other unfavorable outcomes.” —D

“The mental and moral strength to act despite fear and danger.” —T

“Courage is doing something even when you feel afraid.” —C

“Courage is the act doing something even when you feel fear/danger/risk/ obstacle, whether is physically or mentally challenging  even when it costs you something, and even when no one is watching.” —S

“Courage is bearing up under the weight of outward and/or inward threat for the purpose of becoming who you need to be for yourself and others. All for the glory of God.” —J

“I’m not sure, but I know it’s something we do for the greater good or else it’s just self-confidence.” —L

What do you say courage is?

Faithfulness in the Face of Antisemitism: Covenant, Memory, and Christian Responsibility

By Jill Szoo Wilson

Author’s Note:
This is not an essay about forgiveness. I have written about Eva Mozes Kor, Holocaust survivor and forgiveness advocate, for years because I deeply respect her message. I honor her legacy here while condemning antisemitic violence without qualification and calling Christians to action in the present moment. Nothing in this piece is meant to soften, spiritualize, or diminish the reality of antisemitism today.

Nearly seventy years after the Holocaust, Eva Mozes Kor still looked at the world and saw a painful truth: antisemitism had not disappeared. The lessons of history, no matter how horrific, were not enough to prevent hatred from resurfacing. As a survivor of Auschwitz and a Mengele Twin, she carried both the burden of memory and the wisdom of experience. She often asked a simple but haunting question: What has changed since Auschwitz?

Eva often spoke about how Adolf Hitler rose to power not as an anomaly, but through a series of orchestrated events designed to achieve a singular goal, the extermination of the Jewish people and the establishment of an Aryan-dominated society. Hitler and his regime promoted the belief in Aryan racial superiority, claiming that Germans of “pure” Nordic descent were destined to rule over other groups they labeled as inferior. These ideas, rooted in eugenics and extreme nationalism, fueled policies that targeted Jews, Romani people, disabled individuals, Slavs, and others deemed unfit for their vision of a racially “pure” society. This ideology was systematically enforced through propaganda, education, and legislation, including the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935.

The Nuremberg Race Laws consisted of two primary statutes:

The Reich Citizenship Law: This law declared that only individuals of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens, effectively revoking Jews’ rights as citizens. It stated: A Reich citizen is a subject of the state who is of German or related blood, and proves by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich. (Source)

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor: This law prohibited marriages and extramarital relations between Jews and citizens of German or related blood, aiming to preserve the “purity” of German blood. It also forbade Jews from employing German females under 45 years of age in their households. (Source)

Germany, one of the most advanced and cultured societies of its time, fell under the influence of a leader who manipulated public fears and desires, offering promises of restoration and prosperity in exchange for obedience. Step by step, ordinary citizens became participants in a deadly machine, one that required gradual compromises until they found themselves complicit in atrocities. This transformation is hauntingly explored in the book Ordinary Men, which details how average individuals became executioners not out of inherent evil, but by following orders, rationalizing their actions, and failing to resist the system that consumed them.

Eva witnessed this transformation firsthand and spent decades ensuring people understood how easily it could happen again. She often emphasized that Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, nor was it the result of a single event. It was a gradual process, shaped by economic hardship, propaganda, and the willingness of ordinary people to accept small injustices until they became monstrous realities.

Five Factors That Allowed Hitler to Rise to Power

The Holocaust was not an accident of history. It was the result of a carefully constructed plan, built on a foundation of economic despair, propaganda, and the gradual erosion of moral resistance.

Economic Devastation: Germany faced severe unemployment, with rates soaring to 30 percent in the early 1930s. This economic turmoil created fertile ground for extremist ideologies. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

Scapegoating the Jews: The Nazi regime capitalized on existing antisemitic sentiments, blaming Jews for Germany’s economic and social woes and uniting the populace against a common, innocent enemy. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

Propaganda and Control: Through relentless propaganda, the Nazis dehumanized Jews, portraying them as subversive and dangerous, which facilitated public acceptance of discriminatory laws and actions. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

Apathy and Inaction: Many Germans and international observers remained passive or indifferent as antisemitic policies escalated, allowing hatred to fester unchallenged.

The Allure of Power: Hitler’s strategic political maneuvers, including exploiting democratic processes, enabled him to consolidate power and implement his radical agenda.

These historical conditions are not confined to the past. Alarmingly, antisemitism has seen a resurgence in recent years. A 2024 report highlighted a 340 percent increase in global antisemitic incidents compared to 2022. (timesofisrael.com) Furthermore, a 2025 Anti-Defamation League survey revealed that 46 percent of adults worldwide harbor significant antisemitic beliefs. (adl.org)

Despite comprising a small fraction of the global population, approximately 15 million Jews worldwide, many continue to advocate for oppressed communities, even when it entails personal risk. Eva marveled at this enduring commitment to justice and empathy.

The Ultimate Power: Forgiveness

Eva often said, “Anger is a seed for war, forgiveness is a seed for peace.” To her, forgiveness was never about excusing harm. It was about breaking the cycle of hatred.

Forgiveness does not take place on the battlefield. It is not something that happens in the midst of conflict, nor does it excuse or prevent the necessity of justice. Forgiveness comes later, when the dust has settled and when the victim is free to reclaim their own power. It is not about surrender. It is about refusing to let the past dictate the future.

While Eva never shied away from confronting the past, she was equally passionate about what came next. She believed that dwelling in anger, no matter how justified, only gave power to those who inflicted harm. “Forgiveness,” she said, “is the only power a victim has to heal, liberate, and reclaim their life.”

Eva was careful to say, “I forgive in my name only.” She never claimed to speak for other survivors, nor did she suggest that forgiveness was a requirement for healing.

Eva Mozes Kor often emphasized this declaration, reflecting both her personal journey and a deep respect for Jewish principles regarding forgiveness. In Jewish tradition, forgiveness, or mechila, is a profound process that hinges on sincere repentance from the wrongdoer. Maimonides, a preeminent Jewish scholar, outlined that true repentance (teshuva) involves the offender’s acknowledgment of wrongdoing, genuine remorse, and a committed effort to rectify the harm caused. Only after these steps is the victim encouraged to offer forgiveness.

This framework underscores that forgiveness cannot be granted on behalf of others. It is an intimate act between the victim and the penitent. In the context of the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered without any expression of remorse from the perpetrators, the notion of forgiveness becomes even more complex. Jewish law maintains that offenses against an individual require that individual’s forgiveness, making it impossible for survivors to forgive on behalf of those who perished. (utppublishing.com)

Eva’s careful articulation, that her forgiveness was solely her own, respected this principle. She did not presume to speak for other survivors or the deceased. Her act of forgiveness was a personal liberation, a means to free herself from the grip of anger and victimhood, without contravening the collective memory and enduring grief of the Jewish community. (candlesholocaustmuseum.org)

This distinction highlights the delicate balance between individual healing and communal responsibility. While Eva chose forgiveness as her path to peace, she acknowledged that such a choice is deeply personal and may not be appropriate or possible for others, especially when traditional avenues for repentance and atonement are absent.

Forgiveness, in her view, had nothing to do with the perpetrator. It did not condone, excuse, or endorse their actions. It was not about justice. It was about reclaiming control over one’s own life. “I call forgiveness the best revenge,” Eva said, “because once we forgive, the perpetrator no longer has any power over us, and our forgiveness overrides all their evil deeds.”

This idea was radical and not always welcomed. Many survivors could not accept it, and for good reason. Even outside the context of the Holocaust, many struggle with the idea that forgiveness does not mean forgetting or allowing injustice to continue. For Eva, forgiveness was deeply personal. It was about reclaiming power, not about absolving the guilty. But within Jewish tradition, memory itself is sacred: to remember is to bear witness, to demand justice, and to ensure that history does not repeat itself.

Am Yisrael Chai: The People of Israel Live

Throughout history, the Jewish people have faced oppression, displacement, and genocide, yet they have endured. The phrase Am Yisrael Chai, meaning “The People of Israel Live,” is more than just words. It is a declaration of survival, resilience, and hope. It is an anthem of defiance against those who have sought to erase Jewish existence and a testament to the enduring strength of a people who refuse to be defined by their suffering.

This phrase has been spoken in times of both devastation and triumph. During the Holocaust, Jews whispered it in ghettos and concentration camps, affirming that even in the darkest of times, their spirit remained unbroken. In the aftermath of World War II, it became a rallying cry for survivors who rebuilt their lives, many of whom found refuge in the newly established State of Israel in 1948.

Today, Am Yisrael Chai continues to hold deep significance. It is proclaimed at Holocaust memorials, sung in celebrations, and carried forward as a reminder that survival is not just about existing. It is about thriving, growing, and refusing to let history repeat itself. In the face of rising antisemitism, the phrase remains an unshakable affirmation that the Jewish people will continue to live, to contribute, and to stand up for justice, not only for themselves but for all who face oppression.

Remembering is an act of justice. It ensures that the past is neither erased nor repeated. Forgiveness, when chosen, does not diminish remembrance. It follows it. It does not mean forgetting, nor does it replace accountability. Instead, it allows individuals to reclaim the power to shape their own future, free from the weight of bitterness.

We’re on the Battlefield Again

We are on the battlefield again.

Now is the time to fight back. Antisemitism did not end with the Holocaust. It did not disappear with memory or education or vows of “never again.” It has returned openly and violently, and it is targeting Jewish people simply for existing. This is not abstract. It is not theoretical. It is happening now. Those of us who are not Jewish do not get to watch from the sidelines. I serve the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters until the bitter end, or as long as God allows breath in my body. Silence is no longer neutral. To remain quiet is to abandon them on the battlefield.

Recent Antisemitic Attacks (2023–2025)

Below is a concise, verifiable list of documented incidents illustrating the resurgence of antisemitic violence and hate in recent years:

• Bondi Beach Hanukkah Shooting (Dec 14, 2025):
Gunmen opened fire during a Jewish “Chanukah by the Sea” event in Sydney, Australia, killing at least 11 and injuring dozens in what officials condemned as an antisemitic terrorist attack targeting Jews during a holiday celebration. (AP News)

• Timeline of Australian Antisemitic Incidents (2023–2025):
Jewish communities in Australia faced multiple threats including synagogue arsons, graffiti, and escalating antisemitic violence leading up to the Bondi incident. (The Forward)

• Manchester Synagogue Attack (Oct 2, 2025):
A vehicle and stabbing attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, England, resulted in three deaths and several injuries, confirmed by police as a terrorist targeting of Jews. (Wikipedia)

• Antisemitism Surge Worldwide (Post–Oct 7, 2023):
Global reports documented thousands of antisemitic incidents worldwide, including threats, harassment, and violent attacks in many countries, since the escalation of the Gaza conflict. (Combat Antisemitism Movement)

• Synagogue and Community Vandalism (2023–2024):
Multiple bomb threats, arson, and intimidation against synagogues were reported in Australia and elsewhere, part of a broader pattern of anti-Jewish hate following geopolitical tensions. (Wikipedia)

• Antisemitic Incidents in the UK (2023–2024):
The Community Security Trust documented thousands of antisemitic incidents in the UK, marking sustained high levels of anti-Jewish hate in recent years. (CST)

• Antisemitic Acts in the U.S. (2024):
The Anti-Defamation League’s audit reported record-high antisemitic incidents in the U.S., including harassment, threats, and violent acts occurring across all 50 states. (Congress.gov)

• Berlin Holocaust Memorial Stabbing (Feb 21, 2025):
A man attacked a person at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin with a knife, injuring the victim in an incident with an antisemitic motive, according to police and press reporting. (Wikipedia)

Christians, What Will You Do?

For Christians, the connection between the God of Israel and the Christian faith is not symbolic, philosophical, or historical alone. It is covenantal and continuous. The God Christians worship is the same God who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who said, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:7). Scripture never records that covenant being revoked.

As Joel Richardson, a Christian author, Bible teacher, and filmmaker whose work focuses on biblical prophecy and God’s enduring covenant with Israel, has taught repeatedly, Christianity does not represent a departure from Israel’s story but its unfolding. The New Testament itself insists on this continuity. Paul writes that Gentile believers are not the root but the branches, grafted into a tree they did not plant, sustained by promises they did not originate (Romans 11:17–18). The Church, according to Scripture, does not replace Israel. It depends on her.

John Harrigan, a Christian writer and filmmaker who has examined the theological roots of Christian antisemitism, including through the documentary Covenant and Controversy, has argued that Christian antisemitism is not merely moral failure but theological collapse. Scripture bears this out. To sever Jesus from His Jewish identity is to sever Him from His genealogy, His Scriptures, and His covenantal mission. Jesus did not erase Israel’s story. He entered it. “Salvation is from the Jews,” He said plainly (John 4:22). The apostles did not preach a new God, but the fulfillment of what had already been spoken “by the mouth of all the prophets” (Acts 3:18).

Christianity does not make sense apart from Israel. The Messiah Christians proclaim was Jewish. The Scriptures they read were entrusted first to Jewish hands (Romans 3:2). The covenant they appeal to was never revoked. Paul is unequivocal: “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Any theology that distances itself from Jewish suffering, or treats the Jewish people as spiritually obsolete, stands in direct contradiction to the very text it claims to honor.

This is why the present moment is vital. Scripture does not allow Christians to retreat into abstraction when the people of Israel are targeted. The call is older and clearer than modern politics: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). Silence, in this light, is not neutrality. It is a theological choice.

Standing with the Jewish people is faithfulness to the God Christians claim to serve. It is obedience to Scripture. The God who keeps covenant does not abandon His people, and those who bear His name are called to stand with them.

So the question is no longer theoretical.

Where do you stand?

Danger sign in Auschwitz
I took this photo in Auschwitz in 2013.

Fear is Inevitable. Courage is a Choice.

By Jill Szoo Wilson

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” — Hannah Arendt

In the summer of 1942, Reserve Police Battalion 101 assembled outside the village of Józefów in Nazi-occupied Poland. The men who stood in formation were not professional soldiers. Only months earlier, they had been running hardware shops, repairing trucks, keeping business accounts, and returning home to their families each evening. They were fathers and neighbors, men in their thirties and forties who had aged out of frontline service before the war began. Their conscription into a reserve police unit had interrupted ordinary routines, not fulfilled ambitions for combat.

Major Wilhelm Trapp, their commander, stepped before them. Witnesses later described him as unsettled, his face unusually pale. He spoke without military rhetoric or ideological preface. The battalion, he said, would enter Józefów and collect its Jewish residents. They were to remove people from their homes: women, children, the elderly, and the sick. The residents would then be taken to the nearby forest, where the battalion would carry out “necessary measures.”

Only after giving these instructions did Trapp add a final detail that stands out in the historical record. Any man who felt unable to participate could step out of formation without punishment.

The battalion remained still. No one protested or sought clarification. After a moment, a few men stepped out of line, then a few more. In all, out of nearly five hundred, only twelve removed themselves from the formation.

The rest marched toward Józefów.

How should we account for the decision of so many men drawn from familiar routines to stay in formation without protest?

Scholars have focused on this moment because it disrupts familiar explanations for how violence begins. Reserve Police Battalion 101 was not composed of ideologues or trained executioners, but of ordinary men whose lives had previously consisted of work, family, and routine. Their choice to remain in formation cannot be explained primarily by coercion or conviction. Most stood still not because they wanted to exact harm, but because they did not want to stand apart, be seen refusing, or face the uncertainty of acting alone. Therefore, the residents of Józefów were not killed by men set apart as specialists in violence, but by neighbors who failed to refuse when refusal was still possible. In this context, participation arose less from intent than from hesitation. The killing did not require their belief, only their compliance.

What happened in Józefów suggests that violence can advance not only through conviction, but through the avoidance of refusal and the desire to remain safely within the group. Harm is sustained when no one interrupts it.

What happened outside Józefów reveals a pattern that extends far beyond wartime and history. Once obedience becomes the easiest way forward, responsibility begins to feel negotiable, something that can be handed off to whoever stands above us or beside us. People rarely wake up intending to harm others; they drift into it when the cost of refusal feels heavier than the cost of compliance.

Decades after the war, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram invited ordinary adults into a small laboratory at Yale University. He told them they were there to help with a study on memory. A mild-mannered man in a gray lab coat instructed them to administer electric shocks to a stranger in the next room if the stranger answered questions incorrectly. The shocks were fake, but the participants did not know that. Immediately following their press of the button, they heard screams, protests, and pounding on the wall. Many feared they were seriously hurting someone. A few protested, a few tried to stop, several shook or wept, but most continued when the man in the lab coat reassured them that the responsibility was his own. Their distress did not prevent their obedience. Being told they were “not the ones in charge” became a relief.

A few years later, another researcher, Philip Zimbardo, converted the basement of Stanford’s psychology building into a mock prison. Volunteers were assigned roles: some became “guards,” others “prisoners.” The assignment came with no training, no ideology, and no instruction to be harsh. The guards were merely told to maintain order.

At first, the volunteers treated their roles loosely. Some joked, others followed the script half-heartedly, unsure how seriously to take the experiment. They carried traces of their everyday lives with them: the habits of students, sons, and roommates. But as the hours passed, their uniforms changed the way they moved. The mirrored sunglasses hid their eyes, and the separation between “guards” and “prisoners” encouraged them to speak with authority. They began to issue commands more sharply. They enforced rules more strictly. What started as playing a role shifted into performance with stakes, and each act of control made the next one easier.

The shift did not arise from hatred or conviction. It unfolded as the guards realized what the role allowed—and chose to use it. No one corrected their tone. No one questioned the rules they invented. Each act of control felt like permission for the next. Within days, they relied on humiliation and psychological pressure, not because they had entered the experiment with cruelty in mind, but because they discovered they could act this way and decided to keep doing it. The situation offered authority without limits, and they stepped into that freedom. Their choices, small at first, accumulated into harm.

Around the same time, a quieter experiment unfolded in a hospital ward. A researcher named Charles Hofling phoned nurses during their shifts, pretending to be a physician giving a prescription. The dosage he ordered violated hospital policy and put the patient at clear risk. The nurses knew this. They hesitated. Yet almost all of them prepared to administer the medication. They were not driven by disregard for the patient or by carelessness. It was the voice on the other end of the phone—authoritative, insistent, claiming responsibility—that tipped the scale. To obey felt safer than to refuse.

The people in these experiments were not sadists or zealots. They were parents, students, nurses, and everyday workers who did not want to cause harm but wanted even less to bear the discomfort of resisting it. They felt anxiety, confusion, even moral distress, yet continued anyway. They were relieved when to believe that the responsibility in their given scenarios did not belong to them. In a forest outside Józefów, this same pattern played out on a scale that cost innocent people their lives.

Cowardice is not the same as fear. Every person feels fear, and it arrives with its own shape, rising from uncertainty, from unanswered questions, from the risks that come with being alive. Fear can warn, protect, or humble us. Cowardice begins only when fear chooses its strategy. It places the cost of one’s actions onto someone else. Instead of carrying the weight of responsibility, it hands that weight to another person and walks away. Cowardice keeps its own reputation polished while letting others absorb its impact. It asks to be understood and excuses itself from being accountable. It allows the consequences of one’s choices to settle on those who cannot escape them.

We often imagine evil as something committed by those who crave it, yet most of the harm in history has been carried out by people who felt uneasy, reluctant, even afraid. The men in Józefów did not wake with murderous desire. They stayed in formation and let someone else decide what their fear would cost. The question Józefów leaves us with is not who among us would choose violence, but who among us would choose the discomfort of refusing it.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This piece was originally posted on my Jill Szoo Wilson Substack.

Poem: Eight Out of Ten

A robin lands on the arm of the garden chair
as if the universe were not built to frighten her.
She tilts her head. The world tilts with it.

No anthem announces her.
No speech.
No medal.
Only the wind, unbuttoned at the collar,
pretending not to notice.

She steps once, twice—
a feathered stride across the iron rung,
making a path of what is there.
The waking yard yawns and watches,
a mini tightrope walker—
eight out of ten from the pine tree branches.

She pecks at a crumb
left over from someone’s careless breakfast—
(is that my blueberry with a bit of bagel?)
it is hardly a feast.
Yet she claims it with the authority
of a creature who never learned to doubt her place.

A distant car door slams.
The robin pauses.
I can see her thinking
the way a tiny body thinks—
all heartbeat and decision.

Then she stays.

This is how courage works:
not with battle cries,
but with the quiet agreement
to remain exactly where fear expected you to flee.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

The Courage to Be Seen Thinking: Speaking Through Fear

By Jill Szoo Wilson

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”— Eleanor Roosevelt

I teach communication courses. Public Speaking is my mainstay. I also teach theatre, but communication has taken the front seat in my heart because I can see—clearly, daily—that the younger generation longs to become confident and competent in their ability to connect with other people. It isn’t a weakness in them, as many older adults like to say. It’s a weakness in us if we don’t equip them now to adapt their unique voices to their audiences.

My generation shared this desire when I was in school, but the landscape has changed since then. We lacked information; this generation is drowning in it. Growing up, our question was “What should I say?” Theirs is closer to “Who will hear me?” They are not unsure of what to speak about as much as they are unsure whether anyone is listening in a world where voices collide, compete, and vanish into the noise.

Yesterday, as this semester wraps up, I asked my class, “Has public speaking gotten easier for you?” I fully expected the usual yes. For a couple of decades, I’ve almost always heard that answer. But this time, about 80 percent said yes, and the other 20 percent said they are more terrified than ever.

I stopped everything and asked them why.

When a student feels afraid, I take it seriously. I feel a brief window of responsibility to help them leave stronger than they arrived, so they do not carry unnecessary fear into the rest of their lives.

One student said, “I felt fine on my first speech. But then I had to miss one, and on the next speech, I felt like I was behind. My chest tightened. I felt like I needed to escape—run out the door—but I knew I couldn’t. So I felt trapped. Feeling trapped, my fear grew and soon it was like I couldn’t see anymore. It’s like my mind escaped the room, but my body had to stay here.”

What a remarkable way to describe panic:
“It’s like my mind escaped the room, but my body had to stay here.”

I won’t unpack the whole conversation we had afterward, but I share this because it highlights how essential it is to equip young people with the communication tools necessary not just to present information, but to remain present within themselves when they feel afraid. Even though these students know each other well by now, even though there’s camaraderie and safety (even in disagreement), they still confessed thoughts like:

Do I sound stupid?
Are they judging me?
What if I fail?
What if I’m not good enough?
Why didn’t I rehearse more? Now it’s too late. I’m going to crash out.
I want to disappear.

So I told them that if they remember anything from this entire semester, please let it be this:

  1. There are always a hundred things happening at once in any moment. That’s life. It’s okay. You can’t control that part.
  2. What you can control is your preparation and your focus—look outward to the audience you’re giving something to, not inward toward fear.
  3. Adapt your message to your audience (using recency, locality, psychology, physiology, and economic factors), and speak from the heart as though you’re giving, not taking.

Fear lasts because communication touches identity. No teacher can remove that for another person; we can only help them learn how to stand in it.

Speaking always involves two kinds of work: thinking and being seen. When a student puts their ideas into words, they’re not only organizing their thoughts; they’re placing those thoughts into a space where others can evaluate them. That movement from inner reasoning to public expression activates the body just as powerfully as the mind. The student feels exposed because, in a very real sense, they are. Communication invites others to witness our thinking, and the body responds as though it must protect what has just been revealed. In this light, courage is not the absence of fear in communication, but the willingness to let one’s thinking be visible while learning to stay present in that exposure.

[C]ourage is not the absence of fear in communication, but the willingness to let one’s thinking be visible while learning to stay present in that exposure.

Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux demonstrated that the brain processes emotional threat more rapidly than conscious reasoning, producing instinctive reactions before the mind has time to interpret them (The Emotional Brain, 1996). When speaking, that instinct narrows attention and draws awareness inward. The student’s focus moves away from the audience and toward the self: What are they thinking of me saying this? In that moment, communication shifts from sharing ideas to guarding the identity that feels exposed. The body prepares to protect the thinker, even while the thinker is trying to speak.

To teach how to communicate through fear, then, is not simply to teach speaking. It’s to teach attention. Communication is an outward-facing act in which meaning is co-created between speaker and audience. The student is not performing for a passive group but participating in a shared moment of understanding. When fear sends the mind fleeing—“escaping the room while the body stays behind”—the pedagogical work is to help students return to that shared moment. This does not mean suppressing their anxiety, but retraining where they place their awareness. Instead of monitoring their own performance, they learn to notice the listeners they are addressing: how the audience responds, where clarity is needed, and where curiosity sparks. They begin to read the cues that help them stay present, such as facial expressions, body posture or stillness, eye contact, moments of confusion, or quiet signs of interest like leaning forward, nodding, or attentive silence. Attention becomes the bridge that allows the speaker to stay present long enough for communication to take shape.

You may wonder, Isn’t it scarier to notice the people in front of you? I would respond with another question: Isn’t it far more frightening to stand in front of others while constantly critiquing yourself in your own mind? When students shift their attention outward, they no longer face the audience alone. They begin to share the work of understanding with the people who are listening.

Educational theorist Parker Palmer writes that “we fear the live encounter” when speaking because we are culturally conditioned to treat knowledge as a possession to defend rather than a shared activity (The Courage to Teach, 1998). Many students come to communication believing that they must display what they know and protect it from critique. In that mindset, speaking becomes an act of performance: their ideas become something like personal property on a stage, vulnerable to judgment. Fear grows because the task feels like self-presentation rather than shared exploration. The speaker begins working to preserve an image—trying not to be wrong, trying not to be misunderstood—rather than working to illuminate a topic with others. Under this frame, communication is effort spent guarding the self rather than engaging with the subject or the audience.

Instead of treating knowledge as something we defend, we can help students see it as something we share.

A helpful metaphor I offer my students is to treat ideas like campfires. When students speak, they are tending a thought long enough for others to gather around it. The speaker’s work is to make that flame visible and to offer enough clarity for others to see by its light. The heat belongs to the concept, not to the student’s identity. Fear grows when a student imagines they themselves are being scrutinized or judged, as though they must withstand the fire. But when they learn to host others at the fire of an idea, the pressure shifts. They do not perform; they invite. Their task becomes to let the thought burn clearly enough for others to explore what its light reveals.

Hosting others at the fire of an idea becomes an act of generosity. Instead of guarding an idea to protect themselves, students learn to offer it for the sake of shared understanding. In this posture, ideas become contributions rather than possessions to defend. The goal moves toward clarity, shared reasoning, and insight that others can carry beyond the moment of speaking. The speaker intends to give something away: a perspective, a question, or an interpretation that helps others think more carefully.

This change in intention helps reshape the student’s internal experience. The audience is no longer a threat to self-image, but a group of learners who can benefit from the speaker’s effort. Fear loosens not because it vanishes, but because it now serves a different purpose. Anxiety becomes a form of care: a signal that the message matters. Instead of trying to perform without fault, the speaker begins to engage in the work of making ideas accessible to others by choosing clearer examples, inviting shared reasoning, and adjusting pace and language. The focus shifts from How do I look? to What might help them see this?

Such reframing is supported by Kenneth Burke’s foundational view of rhetoric as “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols” (A Rhetoric of Motives, 1950). Burke’s definition shifts attention away from persuasion as winning agreement and toward communication as building shared understanding. He calls humans “beings that respond to symbols” because we think, interpret, and act through language. Words, therefore, do more than convey information. They invite people into a coordinated way of seeing. In this light, communication becomes cooperative work. As students begin to see their speeches as something they give rather than something by which they are measured, their attention turns toward building that shared understanding. Fear becomes manageable because their purpose becomes relational, and their speech becomes purposeful because it serves a common effort.

Anxiety, then, becomes not an obstacle but a cue that communication matters. It invites awareness rather than avoidance. As Susan Cain observes, “Fear is not a flaw; it’s a sign that something is worth doing” (Quiet, 2012). In a pedagogical context, this insight reveals fear as evidence of engagement, a marker that students are entering meaningful communicative work.

When communication is taught as outward-facing rather than defensive, students learn more than technique. They develop ethical habits of attentiveness, which are central to higher education and essential to public life. In an era marked by rapid exchange, polarized discourse, and performative speech, the capacity to direct attention outward becomes an act of civic responsibility. It equips students not merely to express themselves, but to interpret contexts, consider audiences, and contribute to understanding within complex communities.

Higher education, viewed through this lens, is not simply preparing speakers. It is cultivating citizens capable of relational inquiry. To help students remain present while speaking, to keep their “mind in the room” when fear urges retreat, is to equip them for the intellectual and ethical demands of adult life. They learn to see communication not as self-display but as participation in the shared labor of meaning-making.

This reframing transforms fear from a barrier into a catalyst. Students do not conquer visibility; they inhabit it. They learn to speak with others rather than at them and to stay present in the encounter rather than disappear into self-consciousness. In doing so, they acquire a communicative stance that extends well beyond the classroom, a stance defined not by performance but by presence.

When a student says, “It feels like my mind escaped the room,” communication education becomes a way of helping them return. We can teach them to stay present with others and to participate in meaning-making even when visibility feels risky. The work of public speaking becomes ongoing preparation for shared life: learning to offer ideas with clarity, to attend to others with care, and to keep the mind in the room where understanding can grow. This practice shapes how we show up in the world, cultivating attentiveness, generosity, and a readiness to learn in community with others.

Jill Szoo Wilson is an educator, speaker, and writer who teaches communication and theatre at the college level. Her writing explores the ethical and relational possibilities of speech in public life.

Further Reading

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. University of California Press, 1969.
Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Crown, 2012.
LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain. Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach. Jossey-Bass, 1998.
Rosenberg, Marshall. Nonviolent Communication. PuddleDancer Press, 2003.
Tannen, Deborah. The Argument Culture. Ballantine, 1999.

Poem: Unencumbered

She collected recollections

From the past

As though they were

Trinkets from a shop

Where antiques—

Roughly used and rusting—

Lay waiting,

Lay trusting

Their time would come again.


Again yesterday came

But with a different name

“Today”

So she sat with her

Treasures

Stoic and measured

With a grip not to lose

For if she loosened her hold

They may drip away.


Away from the darkness

Of her previous losses

She looked toward the light

Lost her sight

At the brilliance it held

Shuttered with fear

Melted with doubt

Stifled her silent shout

With a thought.


The thought

A question

Singed with intention

Smoking

Like the barrel of a gun

Prompting her

To run

Instead of stay—

But she stayed.


Stayed in the place

Where she planted the seeds

Grass to grow

To overthrow

The things it seemed

She could not let go

Like a patient

Patiently awaiting

Death.


Death that rides

On the back of loss

That stabs at the fear

Of drawing near

“Don’t move from here”

She whispered out loud

And hoped the desire to move

Would evaporate

Like a cloud.


Clouds of then

Filled the present

A fog in this room

Invaded by the presence

Of shadows—

Not men—

Only places

They may have been

Had they stayed.


Staying threatened her breath

As the air turned white

The longing for safety

Compromised

By this encroaching night

The fear of losing

Being lost from her sight

As a struggle to gain

Awoke to the fight.


Fighting for air

She stood to her feet

Considered her options:

Victory / Defeat—

Destruction seemed easy

To fail is so clean

Triumph unknown

Invites mystery:

Shrapnel of

The unforeseen.


Unforeseen was the way

Mighty was the day

When the roots that held

Were cut away

When her voice

Unvoiced

Found the breath to say,

“Tomorrow

is where my future—

unencumbered—

lay.”

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Watercolor Dreams

An old poem about waking up from a story that was too small.

He found her with her eyes closed

Tight

Lids wrapped around

Pulled down

And dreaming

Watercolor dreams


He lived a life of comfort

Cotton

Filled his form

Like an animal stuffed

Insulated from

The courage to explore


He held her at one end

Taut

Between fingers tightly wound

Stretching like elastic

Brittle with aging codependence

Afraid to loosen his grip


She was like a Rose

Strong

Yet gentle in her making—

Giving but not taking—

So he wore her pinned

To his jacket like a prize


He pulled one petal at a time

Slowly

Scattered her around himself

Like confetti at his feet

Glimmering in sunlight

After a parade


She watched through rose colored

Eyes

Wondering at his dance

As he tapped his feet

To the rhythm of his science

Letting his heart beat out of sync


She rested a while tired by the

Miles

Traveled in footsteps and

In smiles broadly sewn

To the walls of her soul

Like threads of a tapestry


He named his rationality

Reason—

Suddenly like a thief

Holding a bag of gold

Heavy with secrets untold and

With her time and observations


She cut the rope between her

Heart

And the anchor he threw

Watched it sink

Until she could see it

No more, now


There at the bottom of the

Ocean

And her sighs

Lay the anchor and

There on the water’s edge

Sail her heartbeat and

Her watercolor dreams.


© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: Things That Grow

This poem was inspired by German artist Ruprecht von Kaufmann‘s piece, Die Welle.

There are things that fly

They twist and bend

Against blue sky illumined yellow

Black splattered with white

Gray interrupted by scatters of light—

Flap their wings

Or float

Like dreams

Stretching long on

Currents of wind

Winding through branches

And higher still

Playing with the stars

Before floating

Softly

Down.


There are things that stay

They cut the horizon with Always—

Mountaintops jutting high

Above valleys cradling

As seasons pass,

Children with wild hair

Wrinkle and fade

While limbs of Earth

Press toward

Eternity

Wrapping themselves

Around, holding together

The pieces that

Neither

Ascend nor

Sink.


There are things that rest

They are supple and sway

Discover stillness and move

Both in a single day—

Blades of grass yawning

Amidst beds of life,

Frogs lazy as clock towers strike

Croaking songs of love

In the dark of night,

Dogs whose paws

Chase squirrels inside dreams

Awakened

By flies frenetic

Then alighting

To sow, slowly,

Life.


There are things that fall

They rise and are pulled

Held close by the moon

Then dropped in cascades—

Swells shrouded by waves

Climbing and crashing low

Furious contrast tempered by

Mystery of falling—

Petals, eyelids, snowflakes, the sun—

Or, he whose courage inflates

Buoyant inside his soul

And on the surge

Not treading but digging

Through cold

Slicing holes in which

To plant his teardrop heart—


© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Eva Mozes Kor and the Price of Forgiveness

By Jill Szoo Wilson

Eva Mozes Kor often said, “Anger is a seed for war, forgiveness is a seed for peace.” It was more than a slogan. It was a theology, a philosophy, and a daily discipline forged from one of the darkest chapters in human history. As a child imprisoned in Auschwitz and subjected to the medical experiments of Josef Mengele, Eva discovered that survival demanded a defiant hope. Decades later, she chose forgiveness as a form of liberation that offered survivors a path toward healing. Her decision inspired admiration and deep respect, and it also sparked fierce debate about justice, memory, and the boundaries of human compassion. The peace she pursued required extraordinary courage, because every step forward in forgiveness carried a cost.

I recently revisited one of Eva’s emails, a message filled with the kind of raw honesty that few people ever achieve. It was written in her unmistakable, unpolished style: urgent, passionate, and deeply personal. In it, she reflected on the consequences of her decision to forgive a former Nazi doctor, Dr. Hans Münch, and the relentless challenges she faced in opening CANDLES Holocaust Museum.

Reading it now, years after her passing, I am struck by how unyielding she was in the face of criticism, injustice, and personal danger. She did not simply speak about forgiveness. She lived it, even when it cost her dearly.

The Controversy Over Forgiving a Nazi

In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Eva Mozes Kor did something unthinkable to many: she publicly forgave the Nazis. More than that, she stood beside Dr. Hans Münch, a former SS doctor at Auschwitz, and signed a declaration of forgiveness.

The backlash was immediate and fierce.

Israeli media framed the moment as a betrayal. Footage of Eva walking with Münch was broadcast again and again, without the context behind it.

A major Israeli newspaper published a scathing article, questioning whether any publicity was better than being ignored entirely.

In 1998, journalist Bruno Schirra published an interview with Münch in Der Spiegel, where the former SS doctor made remarks about his time in Auschwitz. The interview triggered a criminal investigation in Germany.

Around the same time, a French radio interview with Münch led to an even more explosive controversy. His derogatory remarks about Roma and Sinti people resulted in criminal charges in France for inciting racial hatred.

The consequences were devastating.

Münch and his family faced public scrutiny, threats, and harassment. In Germany, legal action pushed toward trial despite his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

In a personal email to me, Eva shared that Münch’s home was firebombed three times after his address was published in an article, requiring police protection for his family. I have not been able to verify this in any public record or independent source. It was her own account, offered behind the scenes, reflecting the weight she felt over what was happening to Münch and his loved ones.

Eva was horrified by what was unfolding. She had spent years advocating for justice. Now, she found herself advocating for mercy.

She sent more than 50 letters pleading with authorities to drop the lawsuits against Münch, but the legal proceedings continued.

In 2001, Münch was convicted in France. His sentence was waived due to his age and deteriorating mental state. He passed away later that year.

Eva felt a complicated kind of relief. Münch’s family was finally free from further attacks, and she no longer carried the guilt of contributing to their suffering.

The Fight to Build CANDLES Holocaust Museum

By 1995, Eva Mozes Kor had already reinvented herself many times: Holocaust survivor, public speaker, and founder of CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) in 1984. That year, she took on yet another role as a museum founder.

The CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center was an extension of Eva’s mission to teach others about the Holocaust and the experiments performed on her and other Mengele Twins. She wanted to create a permanent place of education, remembrance, and dialogue.

Opening the museum was no small feat.

She found a commercial building in Terre Haute, Indiana, but it was too large and too expensive for the original client she was working with as a realtor. Instead, she made a bold and risky decision to secure financing under her own name, her husband’s name, and a partner’s name to purchase the building herself.

At 61 years old, she signed a $168,000 mortgage, despite her husband’s hesitation.

With limited funds for exhibits, she handmade decorations, including a wall of blue paper strips that read:

“LET US REMOVE ALL HATRED AND PREJUDICE IN THE WORLD, AND LET IT BEGIN WITH ME!”

When the museum opened on April 30, 1995, it quickly became a vital educational resource, drawing teachers, students, and community members eager to learn from Eva’s story.

Then everything changed after 9/11.

Her business partner, who owned a travel agency, struggled to keep her business afloat. The economic downturn was crushing. Eva was forced to buy out her partner’s share of the building at a much higher price, not to expand but simply to save the museum.

By 2002, at age 68, she and her husband took out a $222,000 mortgage to keep CANDLES alive.

The Fire That Could Not Destroy Her Mission

In November 2003, Eva Mozes Kor received a phone call in the middle of the night.

“Mrs. Kor, this is the police department. You need to come to the museum. There is a fire.”

She and her husband rushed to the scene. By the time they arrived, flames were already devouring the building. Firefighters battled the blaze, but it was too late. Everything inside was lost: photographs, historical documents, survivor testimonies, and artifacts.

She stood there watching as the place she had built with her own hands, her own money, and her own pain collapsed into smoldering rubble.

Investigators then found a message spray-painted on an exterior wall in black:

“REMEMBER TIMMY MCVEIGH.”

Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, had been executed in Terre Haute just two years earlier. The implication was chilling. This was an act of hatred and intimidation meant to silence her.

But Eva had spent her entire life surviving the worst of humanity.

The next morning, standing in front of the ashes, she made a decision.

“We will rebuild.”

And she did.

With support from the community, from Holocaust educators, and from donors around the world, CANDLES Holocaust Museum rose from the ruins and reopened in 2005, stronger than before.

You can burn down a building. You cannot destroy a mission.

The Legacy of a Fighter

Most people would have stopped. Most would have looked at the destruction of their museum as a sign to walk away.

But Eva rebuilt.

The email she sent me that recounted this event, full of spelling errors, fragmented sentences, and scattered thoughts, perfectly reflected who she was:

Unpolished, yet utterly real.
Wounded, yet relentless.
Misunderstood, yet unwilling to back down.

Eva Mozes Kor understood something most people do not. Forgiveness does not rewrite the past. It does not fix what was broken. But it allows a person to stop carrying what cannot be undone.

She was never naive. She knew the world was cruel, unjust, indifferent.

She fought anyway.

She did not stop.

What This Means for Us

Eva’s story is not only about forgiveness. It is about resilience in the face of resistance. It is about choosing to build when the world wants to destroy.

Her words still challenge me.

Could I have made the same choices? Would I have kept going? Would I have had the courage to stand alone?

Perhaps that is the lesson she left for us.

Forgiveness is a gift. The fight for something bigger than yourself is what makes history.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Featured Image photo credit: WFYI Indianapolis, 2021