We are survivors, of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.

As a victim of labor trafficking, I have survived all odds in an unknown land to be able to lend a voice to the voiceless, advocate for other victims, and empower survivors.

What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.

In my experience, survivors want the opportunity to teach and not be shunned because they went through something unknowable,” Merle said.

A sense of humor—bitter or otherwise—is the hallmark of a survivor.

I’ve been through racism, discrimination, violence and abuses from men. […] I’ve been through a lot in my life as a woman. I gave love but I was abandoned when I needed help – but all that I’ve been through made me better and stronger. I am a survivor!

I believe that many people who were abused as children do themselves—and the entire struggle—a disservice when they refer to themselves as "survivors." A long time ago, I found myself in the middle of a war zone. I was not killed. Hence, I "survived." That was happenstance ... just plain luck, not due to any greatness of character or heroism on my part. But what about those raised in a POW camp called "childhood?" Some of those children not only lived through it, not only refused to imitate the oppressor (evil is a decision, not a destiny), but actually maintained sufficient empathy to care about the protection of other children once they themselves became adults and were "out of danger." To me, such people are our greatest heroes. They represent the hope of our species, living proof that there is nothing bio–genetic about child abuse. I call them transcenders, because "surviving" (i.e., not dying from) child abuse is not the significant thing. It is when chance becomes choice that people distinguish themselves. Two little children are abused. Neither dies. One grows up and becomes a child abuser. The other becomes a child protector. One "passes it on." One "breaks the cycle." Should we call them both by the same name? Not in my book. (And not in my books, either.)

"Among our group included Genocide survivors who would share with us how they were able to forgive perpetrators who killed their family members. At the end of the program, our wounds had healed.”

Connecting with others during difficult times makes the trials more bearable.

Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content.

Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than people who are most content.

For the survivors and their testimonies I want to single out from the huge and forbidding archive a volume that deserves permanent currency: Anton Gill’s The Journey Back from Hell. It is an extraordinarily inspiring treasury of voices, and one grounded and marshalled by the author with both flair and decorum. Indeed, these reminiscences, these dramatic monologues, reshape our tentative answer to the unavoidable question: What did you have to have to survive? What you had to have is usually tabulated as follows: luck; the ability to adapt, immediately and radically; a talent for inconspicuousness; solidarity with another individual or with a group; the preservation of decency (“the people who had no tenets to live by — of whatever nature — generally succumbed” no matter how ruthlessly they struggled); the constantly nurtured conviction of innocence (an essential repeatedly emphasised by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago); immunity to despair; and, again, luck.

Grief and resilience live together.

She told him that he had survived by doing the opposite of all the others. Where they abandoned, he saved. Where they were cruel, he was kind. Where they betrayed, he was faithful.