On a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland in June 2007, Eva Kor points to her own image in a photograph taken when the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.

Guest Speaker Tells of Surviving Holocaust

Subject of Nazi doctor’s experiments refuses to be a victim

JENNIFER McMANAMAY
College relations staff writer

Eva Mozes Kor, who with her sister, Miriam, survived Dr. Josef Mengele’s medical experiments on twins at Auschwitz, will give a talk at Sweet Briar College about her experiences during the Holocaust. The lecture will be at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 30 in the Boxwood Room at the Florence Elston Inn & Conference Center.

In 1984 Kor founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre-Haute, Ind., to tell the story of Mengele’s victims. She and her sister, who lived until 1993, were able to find 122 survivors of the genetic experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. CANDLES is an acronym for Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.

Bringing Kor to Sweet Briar was the idea of Briana and Brittany Deane, identical twins who graduated from the College in December. The sisters are writing a historical novel that follows several pairs of twins who are persecuted, set in different time periods and places, including Auschwitz.

The Deane’s, who will return to Sweet Briar for Kor’s appearance, had read about Eva and Miriam, and purposefully visited Auschwitz as they researched the book. Brittany said they were especially moved by an iconic photograph taken when the Soviet army liberated the camp. It depicts the Mozes twins leading a column of freed prisoners past grim barbed-wire fences.

Kor’s lectures are extemporaneous accounts of her arrival at Auschwitz and separation from her parents and two older sisters, all of whom died there. She recalls the experiments she was subjected to, and cheating death more than once.

“I have to cover the survival story because everyone wants to know how does a person survive Auschwitz,” she said.

The theme of survival and keeping hope alive is important, but it is not the only lesson Kor draws. She speaks also of understanding and combating prejudice. A third lesson is about forgiveness.

“The world is filled with victims and no one has figured out how to stop the victims from being victims. And this is where forgiveness comes in,” she said.

In 1995 Kor famously forgave the Nazis for what they did to her, a controversial act chronicled in the documentary film, “Forgiving Dr. Mengele.” Although many Holocaust survivors disagree with her choice, she believes forgiveness liberated her from the powerlessness that comes with being a victim.

In a phone interview, Kor said society benefits when those who have suffered horrors don’t “feel, act and think like victims. Forgiveness is a seed for peace. Anger, revenge are seeds of war.”

She said moving with Miriam to Israel from their native Romania — where in 1950 life under communism was still dangerous for Jews — helped her to reach these conclusions. It was the first time in her 16 years that she lived without fear of persecution.

She began to lose the mantle of victim and to appreciate who she was, which she believes is necessary to being a happy person. Whether you’re short, tall, black or Jewish, you have to like who you are, she said.

“If you’re short, you have to like being short because no one can stretch you.”

Admission to the lecture is free. For details, please contact ksummers@sbc.edu or call Ext. 6230.