How to Kick Butt in a Crisis
A Miracle of Grace That Changed a Teenager’s Life
A renowned international speaker ends each presentation with a high ballet kick and invites her audiences to get up and dance. They jump to their feet in raucous celebration. Why does she do this? Why do they join her? It has to do with a universal discovery she made in the crucible of horror before one of the world’s most sadistic men.
In last week’s post, I told about Dr. Edith Eger’s first hours at Auschwitz as a sixteen-year-old and a small choice to pay attention to what remains, not only what is lost helped her survive and bring healing to countless others over the last sixty-six years. The next scene builds on that choice in the crucible of crippling fear.
Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death, conducted sadistic experiments on live humans at Auschwitz that sent 1.25 million people, 90% Jews, to their deaths. In a nightmarish juxtaposition, a prisoner orchestra would hold weekly concerts at the behest of Dr. Mengele. The night of Edith’s arrival, the same day he murdered her mother, Dr. Mengele scoured the camp for a ballerina. Edith’s reputation as member of the Hungarian gymnastics team preparing for the next Olympics preceded her. He arrived at her barracks and ordered her to dance to “The Blue Danube.” This is her account of how she survived that frightful moment:
“First the high kick. Then the pirouette and turn. The splits. And up. As I step and bend and twirl, I can hear Mengele talking to his assistant. He never takes his eyes off me, but he attends to his duties as he watches. I can hear his voice over the music. He discusses with the other officer which ones of the hundred girls present will be killed next. If I miss a step, if I do anything to displease him, it could be me. I dance. I dance. I am dancing in hell. I can’t bear to see the executioner as he decides our fates. I close my eyes.
I focus on my routine, on my years of training—each line and curve of my body like a syllable in verse, my body telling a story: A girl arrives at a dance. She spins in excitement and anticipation. Then she pauses to reflect and observe. What will happen in the hours ahead? Who will she meet? She turns toward a fountain, arms sweeping up and around to embrace the scene. She bends to pick up flowers and tosses them one at a time to her admirers…handing out tokens of love. I can hear the violins swell. My heart races. In the private darkness within, I hear my mother’s words come back to me, as though she is there in the barren room whispering below the music. Just remember, no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind … ‘The Blue Danube’ fades, and now I can hear Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. The barracks floor becomes a stage at the Budapest opera house. I dance for my fans in the audience. I dance within the glow of hot lights. I dance for my lover, Romeo, as he lifts me high above the stage. I dance for love. I dance for life.
As I dance, I discover a piece of wisdom that I have never forgotten. I will never know what miracle of grace allows me this insight. It will save my life many times, even when the horror is over. I can see Dr. Mengele, the seasoned killer who just this morning murdered my mother, is more pitiful than me. I am free in my mind, which he can never be. He will always have to live with what he’s done. He is more a prisoner than I am” (40-41).
This miracle of grace magnifies the prison of hatred and cruelty, which is worse than the victim’s prison. This searing vision is a rare and mature insight far beyond her years, an insight many never obtain, much less seek. Edith “checks out” in order to survive and comes back with a key to later thrive, a key she says is in our pockets. It’s the refusal to let a crisis or person define you, the refusal to be trapped in the vortex of hate and cruelty. She knows in that moment she has a choice to be free inside, even if it’s the mere freedom of “what you put in your mind.” Within that space she experiences a freedom no person or power can extinguish or steal. Our thoughts may not change our circumstances, but they move our feelings and attitudes. We can choose to be imprisoned by our fear and hatred or we can pity our enemies. This choice begins to free us up inside our crucibles.
A crucible is a place of testing without a certain outcome. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a situation of severe trial or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new.” The word is similar to the meaning of cross (related to “cruc”), a situation in which great change takes place. It’s like the Japanese word “Kiki” for crisis, which means “danger” and “opportunity.” Without whitewashing the danger, this word adds the possibility of change, improvement, and hope. Just as a crucible reveals the substance of the element, a crisis reveals the character of a person. Edith’s character is rare, valuable, and true.
Many people can’t get out of their crucibles right now, but they can “kiki” them in the rear. At some point in the future they may even find love and forgiveness, and that is a divine discovery.
Source cited:
Eger, Edith. The Choice. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2017.