Whilst debating whether or not to buy a five-volume history of Auschwitz (I did) and if all the books would fit in my suitcase (they did), I felt my phone buzz. Somewhat absent-mindedly, I unlocked the screen and read the latest Tweet published from the Auschwitz Museum's official account:
'Only five days ago we recorded a testimony of Eva Kor, an Auschwitz survivor, for @AuschwitzMuseum Archive. Today came a (sic) news about her passing away. It [is] more than just 'a (sic) breaking news'. It is a devastating one as one more survivor stopped sharing [their] story.'
I was stunned. I knew that Eva was meant to be at the Auschwitz Museum that very week, perhaps even that very day, as part of her annual visit with a group from the CANDLES Museum in Indiana. It was soon revealed that she had been to the Museum in the days following her death, but had died in the hotel in Kraków in which the group were staying that morning. I suddenly felt a wave of sadness hit me, and shortly afterwards left the Museum.
Quite a lot has been written about Eva Mozes Kor, given her global recognition and media appearances, so here I shall share a basic biography and my experience of meeting her.
Eva Mozes and her twin sister, Miriam, were born on 31 January 1934 in Porţ, a small village in Romania. Her father Alexander and mother Jaffa were farmers, and the only Jewish residents in the area. Eva also had two other sisters, Edit and Aliz. They lived a quiet life - that is, until a Hungarian Nazi armed guard invaded in 1940. After four years living under occupation, and facing daily persecution, the family were moved to the Şimleu Silvaniei ghetto; several weeks later, they were put on a transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The journey took three days.
Upon arrival, men and women were separated, undergoing a 'selection' to decide if they were fit for work or would immediately be sent to the gas chambers. In all the commotion, Eva lost sight of her father and two older sisters, whom she never saw again. The twin girls stayed with their mother, but they were soon ripped out of her arms. This was also the last time Eva and Miriam would see their mother.
Twins were a subject of great interest for the now infamous SS doctor Josef Mengele, otherwise known as the Angel of Death. He would conduct horrific experiments on both twins, including injections of various diseases and chemicals, blood tests, surgeries performed without anaesthetia and experiments to change eye colour. If one twin died, often the other would be killed so that a comparative autopsy could be undertaken. Approximately 1,500 sets of twins (3,000 children) were selected for Mengele's experiments - only 200 of these individuals survived the Holocaust. Eva and Miriam were two of those survivors.
The Mozes twins were kept as guinea pigs for Dr Mengele's horrendous 'research' from their arrival in March 1944 until January 1945. They were regularly used for experiments; at one point, after an unknown chemical was injected into her arm, Eva became gravely ill and had to fight hard to stay alive. Thankfully, her determination - even at the age of just 10 - helped her to recover, and both twins were alive to see the day of liberation by the advancing Red Army.
After the war, Eva and Miriam returned to Romania to live with an aunt, herself a Holocaust survivor. In 1950 they were given permission to emigrate to Israel. Both served in the Israeli army, with Eva eventually attaining the rank of Sergeant Major in the Israeli Army Engineering Corps. Ten years later, she married an American citizen and Holocaust survivor, Michael Kor, and moved to the United States with him, whilst Miriam remained in Israel. After the miniseries Holocaust aired on television in 1978, the twins decided to start locating other twin survivors of Mengele's experiments. It was this decision that led to Eva founding the CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) Museum in 1984. Through this programme, 122 fellow survivors were discovered.
Both Eva and Miriam suffered through their adult lives as a result of the horrendous experiments to which they were subjected. Miriam experienced kidney problems as her kidneys had never fully developed. Eva gave one of her kidneys to her twin sister, but sadly Miriam developed kidney cancer and died in 1993.
Eva was something of a controversial figure in the survivor community. After spending many years fighting with her anger and hatred of Mengele and the Nazis, she eventually found some solace in the idea of forgiveness. In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Eva publicly forgave the Nazis for the crimes they had perpetrated against her and her family. She carried this message of forgiveness up until her death; in a video recorded for the Auschwitz Museum just five days before her death, Eva stated, "Forgive your worst enemies."
This was not, of course, an opinion shared by all Holocaust survivors. At the 2015 trial of Oskar Gröning, the so-called 'Book-keeper of Auschwitz', Eva publicly forgave him, even embracing him in front of the cameras. An excerpt from a statement written on behalf of her 49 co-plaintiffs reads: 'We cannot forgive Mr Gröning his participation in the murder of our relatives and another 299,000 people – especially since he feels free from any legal guilt. We want justice and we welcome the resolution that this trial brings.' Other survivors have also criticised Eva's stance on forgiveness, questioning her right to forgive those who also persecuted and murdered their families.
Eva, however, was always clear that she forgave the Nazis "not because they deserve it but because I deserve it." Forgiving them, in turn, allowed her to forgive her parents, "whom I hated all my life for not having saved me from Auschwitz. Children expect their parents to protect them; mine couldn’t. And then I forgave myself for hating my parents."
During her lifetime, Eva wrote and contributed to several books, including Echoes from Auschwitz: Dr. Mengele's Twins: The Story of Eva and Miriam Mozes and Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz. She was the subject of a number of documentary films such as Forgiving Dr Mengele (2006) and Eva: A-7063 (2019), and appeared in international media on many occasions.
I only had the opportunity to meet Eva once, in July 2017. I was at the Auschwitz Museum for its 70th anniversary conference, and the CANDLES group were visiting the same week. Eva didn't follow the group all the way around Auschwitz I, but rather sat in the room dedicated to child victims of Auschwitz in Block 6. It was there that I found her, seated next to the large photograph that shows her and Miriam along with other child survivors after liberation. When I first arrived, she was dozing in her chair - "It's been a long week for her," explained one of the CANDLES staff, gently - and we talked, occasionally glancing over at Eva. It was like she was a living 'exhibit', part of the display, dressed, as always, in various shades of blue. This was reinforced further when she woke up; every time a new tour group entered the room, Eva would put her hand on the 10-year-old version of herself in the photograph, as in the picture at the top of this post. The voice of one tour guide cracked slightly when he explained to his group who she was. All the time she sat, smiling, occasionally nodding or waving at the visitors as they passed.
I had a short conversation with Eva, mainly about my admiration for her resolution to forgive, and the way that forgiveness has played a large role after genocides in places like Rwanda. We had a hug and a photo together, and then I left to catch the bus to Kraków.
That brief encounter lifted my spirits and prompted me to reflect on my own personal conflicts and tensions. Could I forgive my worst enemy? Surely, if a woman who had lost most of her family and been subjected to terrible experiments could forgive her tormentors, I could do the same in my own life.
Well, I'm still working on that concept. And even if you don't fully agree with Eva's ideas of forgiveness, her courage and determination must be admired. She took her negative start in life and changed it into one of positivity, kindness and optimism. She spoke to thousands of people of all ages, sharing her story and asking them to be kind to one another. She was an inspiration, a real role model.
May her memory be a blessing.
