7-11-2019
Eva Mozes Kor (31-1-1934 † 4-7-2019)
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NOTA DE LEITURA
Eva Mozes nasceu em 31 de Janeiro de 1934, assim como sua irmã gémea
Miriam numa família judia (a única do lugar) de Port na Roménia. Tinham
duas irmãs mais velhas, Edit e Liz. Toda a família foi surpreendida pela
prisão de todos no início de 1944. Em Março de 1944 foram todos seis
levados para Auschwitz. Os pais e as duas irmãs mais velhos foram logo
mortos. As duas gémeas foram para o sector do Dr. Joseph Mengele que
utilizava os gémeos para experiências que tinham pouco de científico mas
muito de barbaridade. Calcula-se que pelas mãos de Mengele passaram
cerca de 1500 pares de gémeos.
As gémeas Mozes muito sofreram às mãos de Mengele. Eva tinha nitidamente
mais genica apesar dos seus verdes 10 anos. As injecções de Mengele
atrofiaram os rins de Miriam que ficou doente para toda a vida. Eva
deu-lhe um rim, dizendo “Tenho só uma irmã mas dois rins…”. Mas Miriam
morreu prematuramente de cancro dos rins em 6 de Junho de 1993.
O exército russo libertou o campo em 12 de Janeiro de 1945. Depois de
várias peripécias, ambas as irmãs foram para Israel onde assentaram
praça no Exército. Eva foi mesmo Sargento Mor do exército de Israel. Em
1960, Eva casou-se com Michael Kor, um cidadão americano e também
sobrevivente do Holocausto e foi com ele para os Estados Unidos. Eva Kor
foi cidadã americana em 1965. Preocupou-se depois em procurar os
sobreviventes das experiências de Mengele. Eva fundou uma associação
chamada CANDLES, de ““Children
of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments
Survivors”. Passou a organizar excursões anuais a
Auschwitz.
Escreveu diversos livros autobiográficos. Depois, tomou a iniciativa de
perdoar os seus algozes, atitude que não colheu aprovação geral. Faleceu
em Cracóvia, na Polónia, numa das excursões em 4 de Julho de 2019, com
85 anos, portanto.
Os seus livros mais importantes serão:
1 - Surviving the Angel of Death: The True Story of a Mengele Twin in
Auschwitz
Eva Mozes Kor (Author), Lisa Buccieri (Author)
Data: Outubro 7, 2011
2 - Echoes from Auschwitz: Dr. Mengele's Twins: The Story of Eva and
Miriam Mozes (1995) with Mary Wright Li o livro de 2011 e acho que está bem escrito, mas a narrativa acho-a algo fria. Não me é possível ler o primeiro livro para fazer comparações. Na realidade, sendo diferentes as co-autoras têm por força
de ser algo diferentes, sobretudo no estilo.
NB.
Joseph Mengele nunca chegou a ser preso. A história da sua vida após o
fim da guerra e da sua morte, pode ser lida nos artigos da Wikipedia,
inglês e português.
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CBS
NEWS
Holocaust survivor and forgiveness advocate Eva Mozes Kor dies at 85
·
JULY 4, 2019 / 1:10 PM / CBS NEWS
Eva Mozes Kor, a Holocaust survivor and forgiveness
advocate, died on Thursday while on an annual trip to Poland to visit the
Auschwitz concentration camp. The 85-year-old was sent there in 1944 with her
twin sister.
The two survived — despite undergoing dangerous medical
experiments conducted by the notorious Josef Mengele — though most of her family
did not. The Candles Holocaust Museum and Education Center, which Kor founded in
Terre Haute, Indiana, released a statement announcing her "peaceful" passing.
Kor was born Jan. 31, 1934 in Port, Romania and
spent nearly a year at Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops.
"Surviving the Holocaust at age 10 meant that Eva emerged from a
childhood full of fear, loss,
grief, and displacement," The Candles Museum said in a statement to CBS News.
"But rather than allowing the darkest moments of her life to define her, she
moved forward headfirst into a life of purpose."
The museum credits the NBC special "The Holocaust," a
four-part miniseries that aired in 1978, for spurring Kor into action.
"This newfound visibility and understanding led to a
path filled with searching for Dr. Mengele's files, speaking all over the world,
helping individuals in search of their own healing and founding a museum that
continues to grow every year. Eva blazed trails for Holocaust education and
brought the story of the Mengele twins and Dr. Mengele's experiments into the
international spotlight."
In 1993, Kor met with Hans
Munch, a Nazi doctor who was the only person during the Krakow War Crimes Trial
to be acquitted in 1947. Munch was credited with saving the lives of many Jewish
prisoners by coming up with elaborate schemes to keep them from the gas
chambers. Kor wrote a letter of forgiveness to Munch after their meeting and,
two years later, Munch signed a letter acknowledging the gas chambers at
concentration camps.
Kor was a plaintiff in a 2015 case against former SS
Sgt. Oskar Groening, who was being tried on 300,000 counts of accessory to
murder. She shared photos of embracing Groening at the time and penned an
impassioned op-ed for The Times of London on "why forgiveness is the best
revenge of all."
"We hope Eva's story continues to change the lives of
those who hear it for many years to come," the museum said. The museum will be
closed July 9 in observation of Kor's death. Details regarding a public memorial
service are forthcoming.
According to CBS Indianapolis, Kor was lauded in Indiana,
receiving an honorary degree last year from DePauw University. She was set to
receive a "living legends" honor from the Indiana Historical Society this
summer.
Jul 04, 2019 10:36 PM
Holocaust Survivor Known for Forgiving Nazis Dies at 85
on Trip to Auschwitz
Eva Mozes Kor once told Haaretz: 'I forgave the Nazis
not because they’re good people, but to free myself of the chains of the past
and enable me to be a happy person'
Ofer Aderet
Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor, who became famous for
forgiving the Nazis, died on Thursday aged 85 in Krakow, Poland, during a study
tour in the adjacent extermination camp.
Kor, who was subjected to inhumane medical experiments
at the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele, lived in Terre Haute, Indiana, where she was
active in preserving the memory of the Holocaust.
Kor was born in Romania in 1934. At the age of 10 she
was deported to Auschwitz with her family. Her parents and two of her sisters
were murdered, and she and her twin sister Miriam survived, but underwent brutal
experiments.
In 1950 the sisters moved to Israel, where Kor studied at an agricultural
school, served in the army and married Michael Kor, an American citizen. The
couple migrated to the United States and settled in Indiana, where in 1984 Kor
set up an organization of Holocaust
survivors who
had been subjected to experiments in Auschwitz, and founded the Candles Holocaust Museum
and Education center.
Kor became famous over the years for her controversial approach that centers on
the need to forgive the Nazi criminals to achieve peace of mind. Thus, in 1995
she traveled to the memorial site in Auschwitz in
the company of a former Nazi doctor and declared that she forgave him.
“As I did that I felt a burden of pain was lifted from
me. I was no longer in the grip of pain and hate,” Eva said later. “I was
finally free.”
“Forgive your worst enemy, it will heal your soul and
it will set you free,” Kor said a decade later in an interview to Ronen Bergman
in Yedioth Ahronoth.
She added that she forgave even Mengele and all the
doctors who performed the gruesome experiments on her. “I forgive them for
killing my parents, for robbing me of the rest of my family, for taking my
childhood from me, for turning my life into hell, for creating nightmares that
accompanied me every night in the past 60 years. In my name – and only in my
name – I forgive them for all those horrific acts,” she said then.
In 2015 she made headlines again during the trial of
Oskar Groening, an elderly German who had served as an “accountant” in
Auschwitz. Kor was one of the 60 Holocaust survivors who joined the suit in a
special procedure. Addressing Groening, who was ultimately convicted of
assisting the murder of 300,000 people, Kor astonished the audience and the
media when she approached him, shook his hand, hugged and kissed him and said
she forgave him.
“I forgave the Nazis not because they’re good people,”
she said afterward in an interview to Haaretz. “But to free myself of the chains
of the past and enable me to be a happy person.”
Unlike other defendants who stood trial in Germany for
similar crimes in recent years, Groening did not deny having served in the
concentration camp, but asked for forgiveness for what he had done, saying “I
undoubtedly bear moral responsibility. If there’s any criminal responsibility
with it – you decide.”
Kor was moved. “I wanted to thank him for his
testimony,” she said. “I don’t think the world understands how important it was.
The neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers cannot deny a Nazi’s testimony.”
Kor also objected to sending Groening to four years in
prison. “It’s stupid to send a 94-year-old to prison. Instead we must use his
testimony for education and public diplomacy,” she said. Groening died in 2018
before serving his sentence.