Holocaust Survivor Visits TC

As a large group of T.C. sophomores gathered in the auditorium on February 4th, a small woman with a beaming smile sat in a chair on the stage. Student chatter quickly subsided as the speaker broke her silence and began what many students would call an ‘unforgettable’ speech. The guest was Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, a victim of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, a twin, and a Jew in 1940’s Europe.

“My parents believed that we were too far from the war and Germany to be worried…they were wrong.” said Kor, who was born in Northern Romania.

By the time officials came to inform Kor’s family that they were to be deported because they were Jewish, her negative experiences had already begun. Neighbors and friends began discriminating against her simply because they had learned she was Jewish. Rocks crashed through her windows. Her teacher singled her out and made hurtful comments. But her experiences would only get worse. Eventually Kor’s family ended up crammed into a cattle railcar bound for a Nazi death camp. For all but Kor and her twin sister, Miriam, the end of the cattle railcar trip would be the gas chamber.

As Kor and her twin sister exited the train at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, a man named Josef Mengele met them on the platform. Mengele was selecting those who would go straight to the gas chambers and who would live in the miserable camp. But Kor and her sister caught his eye – because they were twins.

After being separated from their mother for the last time, the twin sisters were brought to a special area of the camp in which only twins were held. The conditions were horrid and Kor recalled a particular experience for T.C. students that truly changed her life:

“I needed to use the latrine and so did Miriam…we hurried to the end of the barracks…I stepped inside [the latrine] and froze. There on the floor in the filth were the bodies of three naked children…at precisely that moment, I realized that death could happen to Miriam and me…I refused to die.”

Kor and her sister would endure nine months of biological testing by Dr. Mengele in which Mengele would inject one of the sisters with a dangerous strain of illness and then not treat it. Most twins died. Only about 200 out of thousands of “Mengele Twins” survived World War II. Kor knew that if she died, her sister would be murdered for lab research by the Nazis.

After being liberated from Auschwitz, Kor immigrated to Israel where she would serve as an officer in the Israeli Military for nearly a decade. One day, while on the streets of Tel Aviv, Kor met an American tourist. The two were married just weeks later. Kor soon found herself in the United States, living in Terre Haute, Indiana with her new husband. She and her children have lived in Indiana for nearly fifty years and have opened a Holocaust memorial museum named C.A.N.D.L.E.S. in Terra Haute.

Kor didn’t come to T.C. simply to share her story of misery and sadness; Kor came to inform students of how she rose above the terrible situations she was exposed to.

“I believe that because of my life experiences, I can teach today’s students something,” said Kor.

“Never, ever give up. No matter how difficult your lives are, they couldn’t be as hard as mine was,” said Kor. “Never, ever give up.”