By Julie A. Miller
Catholic Herald

Auschwitz survivor talks about forgiveness

DULUTH, Minn. -- Despite the unspeakable horrors she had to endure at the hands of SS guards and Nazi doctors in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Eva Mozes Kor has forgiven them all.

In a presentation titled "Auschwitz, Me and Forgiveness," at The College of St. Scholastica on Oct. 24, Mozes Kor told her story and explained how she learned to forgive.

Mozes Kor lived in Hungary in a well-to-do Jewish family, but the coming of the Nazis changed everything. In 1944 the 10-year-old Mozes Kor and her identical twin sister, Miriam, were packed into a cattle car with their mother, father and two other sisters, aged 12 and 14, and taken to Auschwitz.

Mozes Kor said she remembers her very religious father in the corner of the stinking car, praying, probably for the last time. When they were herded off the train, Mozes Kor's father and older sisters disappeared into the crowd. She never saw them again.

A guard spotted Mozes Kor and her twin and after questioning their mother, grabbed the two girls away. "I never even said goodbye to her and I never got to do so, because this was the last I ever saw her," Mozes Kor said.

Mozes Kor and her sister had their hair cut off and were held down as a red-hot instrument was used to tattoo numbers on their arms. They were to be part of the medical experiments conducted on twins by Dr. Josef Mengele.

When Mozes Kor visited the latrine on her first day in the camp, the skeletal corpses of three children lay on the filthy floor. Then and there, as a 10-year-old child, she made a vow that she would do everything in her power to see that she and Miriam didn't end up on that latrine floor. She said, "From the moment I left the latrine, I concentrated all my efforts, all my talent, all my being on one single thing -- survival."

Mozes Kor was part of an experiment to see how much blood a person could lose and still live. In addition, every part of her body was examined and compared to charts and to Miriam's body, a process that was not dangerous but was terribly demeaning. Mozes Kor said she coped by blocking it out and kept her fierce determination to live one more day, survive one more experiment.

In another experiment, Mozes Kor was injected with a deadly germ and became very ill. She said she heard Mengele laugh sarcastically and say "Too bad she's so young. She has only two weeks to live."

Mozes Kor said, "I made a second silent pledge. I refused to die. I said I would do anything in my power to prove Dr. Mengele wrong and to get well."

She managed to recover from the illness and was reunited with Miriam. Mozes Kor said Miriam looked very ill but refused to talk about what had been done to her during their separation. It wasn't until 1985 that Mozes Kor learned that Miriam had been injected with something that stunted the growth of her kidneys. In 1987 Mozes Kor donated one of her kidneys to keep Miriam alive a few more years. Miriam died in 1993 of a cancer Mozes Kor believes is linked to the experiments.

Mengele used 1,500 sets of twins and other multiples as guinea pigs at Auschwitz and less than 200 were still alive on Jan. 27, 1945, when the camp was liberated, Mozes Kor said.

Mozes Kor said she tells her tragic life story, although it is both difficult to tell and difficult to listen to, because she learned some very important lessons.

One lesson, that she didn't learn until long after the war, was forgiveness. She said, "I have forgiven the Nazis." She initially had no intention of forgiving anybody, but she explained how it came about.

She was asked to give a lecture about the Nazi experiments and was asked to bring a Nazi doctor with her. Her first response was, "A Nazi doctor? Where on earth do you think I can find a Nazi doctor? Last time I looked in the Yellow Pages, they weren't listed."

She remembered a German documentary she had participated in that also included an interview with a doctor from Auschwitz. Through a Dutch friend, she contacted Dr. Hans Munch. He was not willing to come to the United States for the lecture but agreed to an interview on video tape. With a Dutch television crew, Mozes Kor went to Munch's house in Germany for the interview.

She had been yelled at by Nazis, but had never talked to one. Mozes Kor said, "I was very worried that Dr. Munch was going to treat me like I was treated in the camp."

She surprised herself by liking him because he treated her with the utmost respect. In response to her questions, he told her everything he knew about the gas chambers and said, "This is the nightmare I live with every single day of my life."

She was planning to visit Auschwitz in January 1995 and invited Munch to go with her. She said, "It's kind of a chutzpa to ask a Nazi to come and celebrate with you 50 years since the liberation, but I did. And he said, 'Yes, I would love to go.'"

Mozes Kor began looking for a way to thank him for helping her document the history of Auschwitz. After much thought she decided to give him a letter of forgiveness. She said, "I also immediately realized that I had the power to forgive. That no one could give me the power and no one could take it away. And for a little victim, who was a victim for almost 50 years, to realize that I have the power made me feel very good."

A friend asked Mozes Kor if her forgiveness also extended to Mengele. After thinking about it she decided she could forgive him too. Then she said, "Well, if I'm going to forgive Dr. Mengele, I might as well forgive everybody."

During the anniversary visit to Auschwitz, Munch signed his paper documenting the gas chambers and Mozes Kor read and signed her declaration of forgiveness. "I felt immediately a burden of pain was lifted from my shoulders. That I was no longer a prisoner of my tragic past. That I was no longer a victim. That I was finally free," she said.

She now tells everybody, "Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your soul. It will set you free."

To learn more about Eva Mozes Kor on the Internet, visit www.candles-museum.com, the Web site for a museum and educational center founded by Mozes Kor and devoted to the Mengele twins.

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2001