50 | JUNE 23 • 2022
“She told me she wanted
her story to be accessible to
elementary school students
but not to sugarcoat the facts,
”
Davidson said. “Seeing how
little facts adults have about the
Holocaust, it is evident we are
not doing enough for Holocaust
education, and it must begin at
a younger age than high school.
“This book addresses that
challenge because it’s accessible
for upper elementary school
and middle school, and it is
something children and adults
can read together.
”
The 240-page book chron-
icles Kor’s life: her birth in
1934 in the village of Portz,
Romania, the siege of the
town under Nazi occupation
and her eventual deportation
to Auschwitz at age 10. Like
thousands of other twins who
arrived at Auschwitz, she and
her twin sister, Miriam, were
subject to inhumane experi-
ments by the infamous Josef
Mengele.
Of the 3,000 twins who
Mengele experimented on, only
160 children survived and were
liberated when the camp was
liberated in 1945.
Kor survived with Miriam.
After the Soviets liberated the
camp, they eventually made it
back to Portz to their empty
home to learn their parents,
two other sisters and extended
family did not survive.
The book continues Kor’s
life journey from being a refu-
gee, to settling in Indiana, and
to learning how to overcome
her childhood trauma and
unshackling herself from vic-
timhood status by practicing
the act of forgiveness.
In 1995, Eva Mozes Kor
opened the CANDLES
Holocaust Museum and
Education Center in Terre
Haute, Ind., with a mission to
prevent prejudice and hatred
through education about the
Holocaust. In 2007, Kor worked
with Indiana state legisla-
tors to pass a law mandating
Holocaust education at the high
school level.
Many times, she traveled
with groups back to Auschwitz
to bear witness. She died on
one of those last trips in the
summer of 2019.
Davidson said the book, a
legacy to Kor’s life, is meant to
teach children in upper elemen-
tary school grades the lessons
of tolerance and the conse-
quences of what happens when
hatred goes unchecked.
Davidson said Kor was
known to use forgiveness —
even, controversially, to the
Nazis who tormented her and
her sister and murdered her
family — as a way to heal and
move forward with a life where
she refused to forever be looked
upon as a victim.
Offering her forgiveness
healed Eva, but it did not mean
she would forget what hap-
pened.
“In the later chapters of the
book, we discussed Eva’s for-
giveness process,
” Davidson
said. “Forgiveness meant letting
go of hatred. It did not mean
Eva believed the Nazis should
not have been punished or
should have been excused for
what they did.
“For her, if she still found
herself hating the Nazis long
after they physically hurt her,
all it did was cause her further
pain. Only after the trauma was
over could she bring herself to
forgiveness.
“For Eva, forgiveness meant
finding the self-confidence in
oneself that no one could ever
bring her down again.
”
ARTS&LIFE
BOOKS
continued from page 49
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