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Meet Holocaust Survivor Eva Kor

Yesterday I met an absolutely amazing woman by the name of Eva Kor.  Eva is a survivor.  At the age of 10, Eva and her twin sister Miriam were sent to Auschwitz and subjected to medical experimentation by Dr. Josef Mengele.  They remained in the Nazi death camp for about 9 months before being rescued from the sub-human and torturous conditions.

I was able to hear Eva speak yesterday in an interview format with a video presentation behind her on the big screen.  The pictures were difficult to watch and her story was equally gruesome.  I expected that, tho.

What I didn’t expect to find was… a woman with an incredible amount of strength and character.  There was no bitterness about what happened to her, no hatred towards those who hurt her and no anger about the past.  Eva’s message was simple – forgiveness.  She chose to forgive those who abused her and killed her family members.  She never said it was easy, but she explained that she didn’t do it for their benefit.  She did it for herself because she deserved it.  Once she made the choice to forgive, a weight was lifted and her nightmares about the events ceased.  Amazing.

Her story about surviving the camp was just as astonishing as her act of forgiveness.  She told how, as the last of 4 children, her father had wished she were a boy and frequently told her it was her fault she turned out to be a girl.  Eva became a very defiant and rebellious child which naturally lent itself to helping her defy the odds at Auschwitz.  She pointed out that the numbers tattooed into her arm are blurred because it took 4 people to hold her 10 year old body down.  She determined on the first night that she would survive.  For her, there were no other options.  She was injected with something that was supposed to cause her death (so her body and her twin sister’s healthy body could be comparatively autopsied at the same time).  Eva became very sick but refused to die.

Her story can be found in a book called Echoes from Auschwitz and details her early life, her time in the Nazi camp and a brief account of what happened shortly after the liberation.  Eva’s message to us all can be summed up in the brief note she scrawled inside the cover of my copy of Echoes from Auschwitz yesterday:

To learn more about Eva Kor and what she is doing now, visit The Forgiveness Project.

14 Responses on “Meet Holocaust Survivor Eva Kor”

1. 

   abercrombieautumn | July 21st, 2008 2:19 pm

   wow thats amazing…i really look up to survivors of the holocaust that show you can get through everything…so inspiring!!

2. 

   Kel | July 22nd, 2008 10:29 am

   She really was amazing. Thanks for posting about this (somehow I just knew you would.)

   Thank you, Eva, for coming and sharing your story.

3. Summer Reading Ideas : Girls Can’t WHAT? | July 23rd, 2008 6:52 am

   [...] Meet Holocaust Survivor Eva Kor [...]

4. 

   Angie | August 2nd, 2008 11:43 am

   Another good location for information about Eva Kor is http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org.

5. 

   kelly | August 11th, 2008 5:06 pm

   there’s a book called The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. The book takes place at Auschwitz , but the boy in the book calls it outs with its a very good book for anyone

6. 

   kayla | November 20th, 2008 8:47 am

   omg that is so sad what happened to them what happened to the people in the holocaust

7. 

   meranda | March 4th, 2009 12:14 pm

   how many siblings did eva kor have

8. 

   meranda | March 4th, 2009 12:15 pm

   how old was eva kor

9. gretchen | March 4th, 2009 1:16 pm

   She was 10 at the time and the youngest of 4.

10. 

    Tessa | April 20th, 2009 1:01 pm

    I Can’t beleive she did that

11. 

    sk8keeper | April 24th, 2009 7:26 pm

    I am learning about the Holocuast in school

12. 

    Annastasia Arnett | May 14th, 2009 6:24 pm

    i’m learning about all this now in our school. I’m in 7th grade and i go to Clay.
    i haven’t seen or heard such bad stuff in my life and my birthday is coming up here on june 3rd and on my birthday im going to tell how bad the holocaust was and tell them what i have learned while reaching the person i was stuck with. i really hope this lives on forever!
    *i’m crying*
    -Love
    Annastasia Arnett-

13. 

    jade | May 22nd, 2009 2:30 am

    wow, im going to auschwitz with my school this year and im getting the chance to meet a surviver and ask him/her questions.
    its unbeleivable the storys about it :/ x

14. 

    chris | October 12th, 2009 12:28 pm

    very cool!!! i met eva in january of this year at her 75th birthday celebration at CANDLES Holocaust Museum…what a terrific person and a remarkable story of survival and forgiveness!

    i’ve blogged about her and other survivors on my online Holocaust memorial, Never Again!

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