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A survivor's tale

How one woman managed to forgive the Nazis who murdered her family

Eva Kor, a survivor of the holocaust death camps, gave a testimony at the trial of 93 year old Oskar Groening. He was known as the ‘bookkeeper of Auschwitz’ because his role was to keep a tally of the possessions taken from Jewish men, women and children as they walked along the ramp that led to the gas chambers. To the surprise, and sometimes dismay, of other survivors she shook Groening’s hand and did not shrink away when he kissed her cheek, signalling her forgiveness and her recognition that he was a fellow human being.

Betrayal?

For some survivors this felt like a betrayal. They felt that she had no right to offer such a public gesture and that it seemed to imply a disrespect for those who had died as well as a willingness to let those who had committed horrible crimes go unpunished. For others her gesture was an inspiration. A testimony to the power of human beings to overcome hate.

Forgiveness

For Kor herself, forgiveness was her salvation, something that brought her back to full life. She has often said that she refused to be a victim and her public gesture was part of a campaign to share what she had found, “I felt when I discovered forgiveness like I had found a cure for cancer. It was that amazing to me. If we consider anger and hatred the cancer of the human soul, and if I found a cure for that cancer and it made me feel good and did not hurt anybody, should I keep it secret or should I share it with the rest of the world?”

She did not, however, deny that Groening had played a part in the Holocaust and that “he was a small screw in a big killing machine, and the machine cannot function without the small screws.” But she felt that more good could be done by keeping this elderly man out of jail and using him to counter rising neo-Nazi groups and those who deny that the holocaust ever happened.

The testimony

To forgive is not the same as to forget. And Eva Kor had not forgotten the horrors she endured as can be seen in these extracts from her testimony at the trial:

“Hello Herr Oskar Groening,

My name is Eva Kor. In May 1944, when we were taken to Auschwitz, my name was Eva Mozes. My family and I were part of the Hungarian transport. My family included my father Alexander Mozes, 44 years old; my mother Jaffa Mozes, 38 years old; my older sister Edit, 14 years old; my middle sister Aliz, 12 years old; and my twin sister, Miriam, 10 years old.

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Within thirty minutes after arriving on the selection platform, Miriam and I were ripped apart from our family forever. Only she and I survived, because we were used in experiments conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele.

Within half an hour we became part of a group of twin girls aged two to sixteen: thirteen sets of little girls and one mother. We were taken to a processing centre where they cut our hair short and took our clothes away. That evening they returned them with a red cross at the backs. Then they lined us up for tattooing.

When my turn came, I decided to cause them as much trouble as a ten-year-old could. Two Nazis and two women prisoners restrained me with all their force. They began by heating a needle. When the needle got hot, they dipped it into ink and burned into my left arm, dot by dot, the capital letter A-7063. Miriam became A-7064. Auschwitz was the only Nazi camp that tattooed its inmates.

"We had no rights but we had a fierce determination to live one more day, to survive one more experiment."

Then we were taken to our barracks. They were filthy and crude. Huddled in our filthy bunk beds, crawling with lice and rats, we were starved for food, starved for human kindness, and starved for the love of the mothers and fathers we once had. We had no rights but we had a fierce determination to live one more day, to survive one more experiment.”

Eva Kor went on to describe the experiments and how close she came to death.

“In Auschwitz, Mengele used approximately 1,500 sets of twins. The number of survivors is between 180 and 250 individuals. The other twins all died in the experiments. Would I have died, Miriam would have been killed with an injection to the heart. Mengele would have conducted the comparative autopsies. In normal life we cannot do that - inject one twin with a deadly germ and then perform an autopsy on the twin to see the results.”

She recounted the story of how, before the liberation of the camps, the Nazis blew up the gas chambers in an attempt to destroy the evidence of their appalling brutality. She also explained that Miriam had been left with severe medical conditions as a result of the experiments and these eventually led to her death.

Image of birds breaking free from a chain at sunset to symbolise freedom and forgiveness

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Forgive, not forget

Towards the end of her testimony she addressed Oskar Groening directly:

“My forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrators from taking responsibility for their actions, nor does it diminish my need and right to ask questions about what happened at Auschwitz.

I hope you will provide me with responses to the following questions:

1. How do you feel about my forgiving you and all the Nazis for what was done to us?

2. Do you know why Auschwitz was the only Nazi camp that tattooed its prisoners? Why did other camps choose not to do this?

3. Did you know Dr. Josef Mengele?

4. Did you hear about his experiments?

5. Were there any rumours about what Mengele did or what happened to his files? Anyone who has heard or knows anything about our files, I still need to know what was injected into our bodies.”

And she made this demand:
“Mr. Groening, I want to ask you to make this statement: “I want to appeal to the young neo-Nazis of today and tell them that Auschwitz did exist and that the Nazi ideology created no winners. There were only losers. Why create so much pain without any winners? It is sick to want to create another situation like Auschwitz. …”

“I forgave the Nazis not because they deserve it but because I deserve it.”

Eva Kor’s full statement can be found on the website of the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center, which she founded.

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She has lectured extensively and in particular has three life lessons which she wants to share with young people facing difficulties:

1. Never give up on yourself or your dreams. I did not know how to survive Auschwitz, but I was determined to do it. Here I am 70 years later because I never gave up.

2. Treat people with respect and fairness to eliminate prejudice from your life.

3. Forgive your worst enemy and forgive anybody who was ever hurt you. I forgave the Nazis and I forgave everybody who hurt me.

Her ultimate message of forgiveness is a survivor’s message, her forgiveness is part of her resolution not to be a victim:

Source: www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org
& others

UPDATE:

Eva suffered numerous health problems that she believed were a result of her treatment and experiments at Auschwitz. Because Miriam had kidney problems after her last pregnancy, Eva donated one of her kidneys to Miriam, saying: "I have one sister and two kidneys, so it was an easy choice". Miriam died in 1993 of kidney cancer.

On 4th July, 2019, Kor died while in Kraków, Poland, accompanying a CANDLES group on an educational trip to Auschwitz. She was 85 years old. She made the trip annually to share her childhood experiences and give tours from her perspective as a survivor.

Oskar Groening

Following a number of unsuccessful appeals against the prison sentence, Groening died on 9th March 2018 while hospitalised before he was set to begin his sentence.

Updated December 2022

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