Eva Mozes Kor

Sophia Elliott

Early Life ❖ Eva and her twin sister Miriam were born

January 31, 1934 in the village of Portz, Romania

❖ Her mother was named Jaffa and father was Alexander

❖ The twins had two older sisters, Edit and Aliz ➢ The four of them were raised very religious

❖ The Mozes family were land and farm owners, so they had to live a rustic and homey style of life

❖ They were the only Jewish family in Portz 2

Miriam Eva

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Where Eva grew up was the tiny village of Portz, which is right around here

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Before the War ❖ Eva attended a one-room schoolhouse to receive the first four

years of her education ❖ During this time, when Eva was six, Hungarian Nazis occupied

their village (1940)❖ Because of this invasion, anti-semitism spread throughout her

village ➢ Eva’s neighbors and classmates vandalized her

home and called her terrible names

❖ In 1944, Eva and her family were transported to the Cehei ghetto, a ghetto în Simleu Silvaniei (pictured in red on map)

Life in the Ghetto ❖ In the ghetto, there was no housing facilities

➢ Eva and her family used sheets to create a makeshift tent, which they were often ordered to tear down and rebuild by the Nazis

❖ For 2 ½ months the Mozes family lived here ❖ In May of 1944, they were loaded into boxcars

and deported to Auschwitz ❖ She stated how she remembers her father saying

prayers as they were being put on the train

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Arrival at Auschwitz ❖ Eva and Miriam were immediately recognized as twins when

they arrived and were separated from the rest of their family ➢ The rest were sadly sent to the gas chambers

◆ The two were taken to the barrack where Dr. Mengele housed his test subjects

◆ Upon seeing the horrific state of the other children there, she promised herself that she

would do everything to try and stay alive ◆ Eva was only 10 years old

6Eva while in Auschwitz

Life in Auschwitz ❖ Dr. Mengele experimented on the twins by giving them

injections, drawing large amounts of blood from them, and documenting their bodies ➢ This would occur three times a week for six to even eight hours

at a time

❖ For one type of experiment, they would strip naked to be examined and measured closely for hours

❖ Another test involved getting blood drawn from one arm and receiving injections at the same time in the other

❖ Miriam’s kidneys stopped growing as a result of all the testing, remaining the size of a child’s forever 7

Resistance in the Camp

❖ Because of the testing she had to undergo, Eva once became very sick and was sent to the infirmary, where the doctors and Mengele thought she was going to die➢ Eva was determined to maintain the promise to herself to

survive and to prove Mengele wrong➢ If Eva died, her sister would also have to be killed in order

for Mengele to perform a double autopsy

❖ Eva managed to beat this sickness and reunite with her sister back in the barracks, keeping them both alive

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Freedom from Auschwitz

❖ When the Soviet Army began to approach the camp, the Nazis sent the inmates on death marches to other German controlled lands ➢ Those left in the camps were the elderly, sick, and

children (mostly sets of twins like Eva and Miriam) ❖ On January 27, 1945, those remaining in Auschwitz

were liberated ❖ The twins were sent to a convent in Poland and then to

two other refugee camps where they could recover from the debilitating conditions of the camp

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Recovering from Auschwitz

❖ After nine months of bouncing between refugee camps, Eva and Miriam were able to stay with their Aunt in Romania

■ Eva says she still did not feel free living in Romania even though she was liberated

➢ In 1950, the twins moved to Israel (circled on map) to finally feel free to live as members of the Jewish faith

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Life Moving Forward

❖ Eva attended an agricultural school for 2 years and then served in the Israeli Army for 8 years ➢ She attained the rank of Sergeant

Major ❖ She met another Holocaust survivor,

Michael Kor, and they married each other shortly after in Tel Aviv before moving to the U.S.

❖ The couple moved to Indiana and had two children, Alexander and Rina

❖ Eva became a U.S. citizen in 1965 11

Michael Kor (bottom left) and Eva Mozes Kor (bottom right) with their two children

Remembering Her Experiences ❖ In 1978, Eva began to wonder what had happened to the

other sets of twins who survived Auschwitz ❖ She contacted Miriam (who was still living in Israel) to help

her find these other survivors ➢ 122 victims of Mengele’s torture were able to reunite

❖ In 1984, Eva and Miriam created CANDLES ➢ Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments

Survivors ➢ This acronym for the organization also stood as a symbol of

shedding light on the dark times of the Holocaust ❖ Eva dedicated herself to raising awareness about Dr.

Mengele’s experiments 12

“What I discovered for myself was life-changing. I discovered that I had

the power to forgive.”- Eva Mozes Kor

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Forgiveness ❖ In 1995, Eva forgave the Nazis for what they did to her

and her family ➢ She does not excuse them for what they did, but she says

that forgiving them freed her from a burden ❖ Eva believes her message of forgiveness is

misunderstood by other survivors because she is not “forgiving and forgetting” as most would assume

❖ Eva has since created a documentary Forgiving Dr. Mengele and even spoke out against the 2015 prison sentence of Oskar Groning, the “bookkeeper of Auschwitz”

July 4, 2019, Eva Mozes Kor passed away during an annual trip to Poland

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Works Cited Borschel-Dan, Amanda, et al. “Holocaust Survivor Preaches Forgiveness of Nazis as 'Ultimate Revenge'.” The Times

of Israel, 8 Dec. 2016,

www.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-survivor-preaches-forgiveness-of-nazis-as-ultimate-revenge/.

“Eva Mozes Kor.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 July 2019, simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Mozes_Kor.

ITV News. “Eva Mozes Kor: Auschwitz Survivor Dies Aged 85.” ITV News, ITV News, 8 July 2019,

www.itv.com/news/2019-07-08/eva-mozes-kor-the-auschwitz-survivor-who-spoke-confronted-top-nazi-complicit

-in-murder-of-millions-of-jews.

Israel Map Collection And More Free Printable International Maps, www.prntr.com/israel-map.html.

Kieffer, Paige. “Holocaust Survivor Eva Kor Speaks to Minnetonka Families.” Hometownsource.com, 24 May 2018,

www.hometownsource.com/sun_sailor/community/minnetonka/holocaust-survivor-eva-kor-speaks-to-minnetonk

a-families/article_5373c002-5e9c-11e8-a767-f73c8f3fe063.html.

The Story of Eva Mozes Kor, candlesholocaustmuseum.org/eva-kor/her-story/her-story.html.

“Turda.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/place/Turda.