"Why on earth does my forgiveness hurt you?"

BBC Radio 4 - Today, 24/04/2015, Auschwitz survivor Eva Kor on why she hugged former Nazi in court:

"They called me a traitor.

And when I talked to survivors and I said, "Why on earth does my forgiveness hurt you?", and they have no answers.

I guess victims like to have more victims. And the bigger the crowd the better and I don't understand it.

I found forgiveness has zero to do with the perpetrator. If they benefit from it, so be it.

But the victims, 70 years after liberation, I was in Auschwitz with 300 other survivors and they were all talking about their experimental, falling apart. Poor me, what they had done to me.

Well, I don't forget what was done to me, but I am not a poor person: I am a victorious human being who has been able to rise above the pain, forgive the Nazis - not because they deserve it but because I deserve it.

And as long as we understand my forgiveness, that the victim has a right to be free, and you cannot be free from what was done to you unless you remove it from your shoulder as a daily burden of pain and anger."