For much of her life, Auschwitz survivor Eva Mozes Kor was filled with hatred for the Nazis who killed her family and subjected her and her sister to grueling medical experiments. In 1995, Kor discovered that forgiving the people who harmed her was a pathway to joy. Kor shares her life story in The Power of Forgiveness, published posthumously in February by Central Recovery Press, to help others cast aside anger and demonstrate how to remember the Holocaust without passing on hate to future generations.
When Kor’s family arrived at Auschwitz in 1944, her mother, father, and two older sisters were presumably sent to the gas chambers. Because Auschwitz physician Dr. Josef Mengele specifically sought out twins for dangerous medical experiments, Kor and twin sister Miriam escaped death.
Six days a week for the next 10 months, Kor and her sister were stripped naked and measured by scientists or had their blood drawn while they were given transfusions of unknown substances. Determined to survive, the sisters battled deadly illnesses, starvation, and the hardships of life in Auschwitz.
At liberation on Jan. 27, 1945, the twins were 11 years old. Their childhood unrecoverable, the girls would remain together in Romania and Israel until 1960, when Kor moved to Terra Haute, Indiana, with Michael Kor, her new husband and a fellow survivor.
A stranger in America, Kor found her hatred and rage escalated when her sister began suffering from tuberculosis and medical conditions that doctors could not diagnose. When her sister died of cancer in 1993, Kor believed “Miriam’s life could likely been saved” had she known more about the nature of Mengele’s experiments.
In 1993, Kor met with former Auschwitz physician Dr. Hans Munch in hopes of uncovering additional details about the Auschwitz twin experiments. Though Munch knew nothing about Mengele’s work, he had extensive knowledge of the killing operations at Auschwitz. Kor was surprised to find she liked the former Nazi.
At Kor’s behest, Munch made a signed declaration of the purpose of Auschwitz and his role in the Nazi killing apparatus on Jan. 27, 1995. There, Kor delivered a “personal declaration of forgiveness” to all who participated in the Holocaust.
As she spoke, Kor said she “felt all the pain [she] had carried with [her] for fifty years lifted from [her] shoulders.”
Kor found forgiveness empowering and became a vocal forgiveness advocate. She peppers The Power of Forgiveness with advice for readers seeking to forgive, asking them to write, but never send, personal letters to those who have harmed them.
Forgiveness can help people “break free of [their] rage,” Kor argues, while those who hold on to anger allow their victimizers to control their emotions and their lives. “We don’t forgive for others,” she explains. “We forgive for ourselves.”
Failing to forgive can also create a “cycle of destruction” in which victims “pass on their repressed rage and powerlessness to their own children and grandchildren, who, in turn, eventually seek revenge.”
Generational malice takes center stage when Kor explains how Munch’s home was “attacked by arsonists three times” after a reporter wrote an unkind profile of the “entrenched Nazi” that contained Munch’s address.
“I settled the score for my grandfather, a survivor of Auschwitz,” the reporter told Kor.
“Is that so?” Kor asks readers.
The Power of Forgiveness will be an asset for anyone looking to regain agency or move on from anger. For those in thrall to the atmosphere of toxic political animosity and victimhood culture, Kor’s words may create a path to productive dialogue.
Kor’s story is also a reminder of the diversity of Holocaust survivors’ experiences. Other survivors have expressed anger and confusion over Kor’s ability to see the humanity in former Nazis. Strangers struggled to understand how a survivor might smile and dance at Auschwitz.
Finding joy did not cause Kor to forget the Holocaust. In 1995, she created the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center. Through writing, speaking engagements, running her museum, and leading tours at Auschwitz, Kor kept the past alive. In fact, it was during an educational trip to Auschwitz on July 4, 2019, that Kor died at age 85.
In her memoir, Kor has left a poignant road map for carrying the truth of the Holocaust forward while simultaneously making ourselves invulnerable to all forms of hate.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
