Eva Mozes Kor

Eva Mozes Kor

Eva Mozes Kor
Born Eva Mozes
(1934-01-31) January 31, 1934
Porț, Romania
Residence Terre Haute, Indiana
Nationality  Romania
Other names Eva Kor
Citizenship  United States
Known for Founded CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center
Religion Reform Judaism
Spouse(s) Michael Kor
Children Alex Kor, Rina Kor

Eva Mozes Kor (born January 31, 1934) is a survivor of the Holocaust who, with her twin sister Miriam, was subjected to human experimentation under Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Both of her parents and two older sisters were killed at the camp; only she and Miriam survived.[1] In 1984 Kor founded the organization CANDLES (an acronym for "Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors"), through which she located 122 other living Mengele twins, as the experiment survivors came to be known.[2]

Kor founded CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in 1995 to educate the public about eugenics, the Holocaust, and the power of forgiveness. Kor received international attention when she publicly forgave the Nazis for what had been done to her. This story was later explored in the documentary Forgiving Dr. Mengele.

Early life

Eva Mozes was born in 1934 in Porţ, Romania,where her parents, Alexander and Jaffa, landowners and farmers,were the only Jewish residents. They had four girls: Edit, Aliz, and the twins Eva and Miriam.[3]

In 1940, when Eva and Miriam were six, a Hungarian Nazi armed guard occupied their village. In 1944, the family was transported to the regional ghetto in Şimleu Silvaniei. A few weeks later, they were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Since Eva and Miriam were twins, the girls were selected as part of a group of children used as human guinea pigs in experiments under the direction of Dr. Josef Mengele.[4] Approximately 1500 sets of twins were subjected to these practices, and most died from them. Eva herself became very ill, but she lived and helped Miriam to survive.

The Soviet Army liberated the camp on January 27, 1945. Found alive were approximately 180 children, most of whom were Mengele twins.[5] They were first sent to a convent in Katowice, Poland, which was being used as an orphanage. By searching a nearby displaced person's camp, they finally managed to locate Rosalita Csengeri, a friend of their mother who also had twin daughters used by Mengele. Mrs. Csengeri took responsibility for Eva and Miriam, helping them return to Romania after liberation.

After the war, Eva and Miriam lived in Cluj, Romania, with their Aunt Irena (also a survivor) where they went to school and attempted to recover from their experiences at Auschwitz and adjust to live under Communist rule. In 1950, at age 16, they received permission to leave Romania and thus emigrated to Israel, arriving in the port city of Haifa. Eva attended an agricultural school, and then attained the rank of Sergeant Major in the Israeli Army Engineering Corps. In 1960, she married Michael Kor, an American citizen and a fellow Holocaust survivor, and joined him in the United States.

Later activities

In 1965, Kor became a US citizen, and the couple raised two children, Alex and Rina. In 1978, after NBC's miniseries The Holocaust aired, she and Miriam, who was still living in Israel, began locating other survivors of the experiments. In 1984, Eva founded CANDLES, (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors).

She has remained active by giving lectures and guided tours.[6] She has returned to Auschwitz on numerous occasions, often accompanied by friends and members of the community. This pilgrimage now takes place each summer and is next planned for July 2016.[7]

In 2007, Eva Kor worked with Indiana state legislators Clyde Kersey and Tim Skinner to gain passage of a law requiring Holocaust education in secondary schools.[8] She was featured in the January 2015 CNN documentary "Voices of Auschwitz".[9]

In April 2015 she traveled to Germany to testify in the trial of former Nazi Oskar Gröning. During this trial, Kor and Gröning shared an embrace and a kiss, with Eva thanking Gröning for his willingness, at age 93, to testify as to what happened more than 70 years ago.[10] On January 23, 2016, Kor became the focus of a new documentary out of Britain by Channel4 titled "The Girl Who Forgave the Nazis". This documentary explores the meeting between Kor and Groening.[11]

In March 2016, Kor will travel to Los Angeles, California, and be the last of 12 Holocaust survivors immortalized using hologram technology in the University of Southern California's New Dimensions in Testimony Project. The project is a collaborative effort between the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, USC Shoah Foundation and Conscience Display.

Honors

Kor has been recognized by three Indiana governors: twice with the Sagamore of the Wabash Award,[12] and with Indiana's Distinguished Hoosier Award. In May 2015, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.[13] She also received the 2015 Wabash Valley Women of Influence Award, sponsored by the United Way of the Wabash Valley,[14] the 2015 Anne Frank Change the World Award [15] from the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights in Boise, Idaho , and the 2015 Mike Vogel Humanitarian Award, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Family

Miriam Mozes, Eva's sister, is also a Holocaust survivor of twin human medical experimentation at Auschwitz concentration camp, by Josef Mengele. She and Eva were the only members of their family to survive. Mozes was born into a Romanian-Jewish family, in Port, on January 31, 1934.

Miriam and Eva stuck together after the Holocaust and went back to Romania. They "tried to recover" from the Holocaust. Later on the pair emigrated to Israel and then to the United States. The documentary The Holocaust prompted them to locate fellow survivors. Eva married a fellow survivor, as well, and founded the museum and foundation CANDLES, an acronym which stands for Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.

Works

References

External links

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