THELEAVEN.ORG | VOL. 38, NO. 14 | NOVEMBER 11, 2016
THE GHOSTS OF
AUSCHWITZ Eva Mozes Kor recounts the horrifying tale of her survival at Germany’s most notorious concentration camp BY MOIRA CULLINGS
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROCKHURST UNIVERSITY
At Rockhurst University’s Visiting Lecture Series, Eva Mozes Kor recounts how her family was torn apart at Auschwitz and she and her twin sister were handed over to Doctor Josef Mengele for experimentation.
K
ANSAS CITY, Mo. — “Eva Mozes Kor has lived a life of testimony,” said Craig Prentiss, director of the Visiting Lecture Series at Rockhurst University here. “She testifies to hope in the face of horror,” he said. “She testifies to the need for remembrance in a culture that is increasingly inclined to forget. “She testifies to the need for justice and truth in the face of evasion and dishonesty.” “And she testifies to the power of compassion and forgiveness as a means for personal liberation,” he added. Kor, the university’s guest speaker on Oct. 27, entered an overflowing auditorium and prepared to tell the story of how she defied the odds by surviving the Holocaust — and, with her twin sister, the experiments of Doctor Josef Mengele.
A life interrupted “It was the dawn of an early spring day in 1944,” said Kor. “Our cattle car train came to a sudden stop.” The doors opened and thousands poured out onto a small strip of land known as the selection platform.
This was Auschwitz. “In my opinion, there is no other strip of land like that anywhere on the face of the earth that has witnessed so many millions of people being ripped apart from their families forever,” said Kor. The Mozes family — father Alexander, mother
Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence. Jaffa, sisters Edit and Aliz, and Kor’s twin Miriam were thrown into the confusion. “As I looked around,” she said, “I realized that my father and two older sisters disappeared in the crowd. “Never did I see them again.” When one of the camp guards discovered Eva and
Miriam were twins, he promptly ripped them from their mother. “All I really remember is seeing her arms stretched out in despair as she was pulled away,” said Kor. “I never even got to say goodbye to her. “But I didn’t understand that this would be the last
time we would see her.” “All it took was 30 minutes from the time we stepped out of the cattle car,” she continued. “Miriam and I no longer had a family, we were all alone and we did not know what would become of us.” >> See “I THOUGHT” on page 5