Eva Mozes Kor

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.

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 in experiments under the direction of Josef Mengele. Approximately 1500 sets of twins were subjected to these experiments, and most died from them. Eva herself became very ill, but she lived and helped Miriam survive.

The Soviet Army liberated the camp on January 27, 1945. Found alive were approximately 180 children, most of whom were twins. 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 located Rosalita Csengeri, a friend of their mother who also had twin daughters used by Mengele. 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 life under Communist rule. In 1950, at age 16, they received permission to leave Romania and 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. She has returned to Auschwitz on numerous occasions, often accompanied by friends and members of the community. This pilgrimage now takes place each summer.

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. She was featured in the January 2015 CNN documentary "Voices of Auschwitz". and CNN's "Incredible survivors" in 2016

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. 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.

In 2016 Kor traveled to Los Angeles, California to be one of 13 Holocaust survivors immortalized using the latest 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.

Currently, Kor is the subject of a new documentary by Ted Green Films and WFYI Indianapolis, to be released in Spring 2018.

Honors

Kor has been recognized by four Indiana governors: twice with the Sagamore of the Wabash Award, once with Indiana's Distinguished Hoosier Award, and once in 2017 with the Sachem Award, which is the highest honor of the state of Indiana. In May 2015, Kor was also named the Grand Marshal of the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade.

In May 2015, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. She also received the 2015 Wabash Valley Women of Influence Award, sponsored by the United Way of the Wabash Valley, the 2015 Anne Frank Change the World Award from the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights in Boise, Idaho, and the 2015 Mike Vogel Humanitarian Award, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Family

Miriam Mozes (1934-1993), Eva's sister, was also a Holocaust survivor of experiments on twins 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 Porţ, on January 31, 1934.

After liberation from Auschwitz, Eva and Miriam spent nine months traveling from refugee camp to refugee camp under the care of Rosalita Csengeri, who was finally able to return them to their village in Romania. From their village, a cousin took them to live in Cluj, Romania, to be cared for by an aunt who had also survived. In 1950, they emigrated to Israel, where Eva lived until 1960 when she married Michael Kor and came to the United States. Miriam lived in Israel until her death in 1993.

The documentary The Holocaust prompted them to locate fellow survivors. Eva married a fellow survivor and founded the museum and foundation CANDLES, an acronym which stands for Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.

Works