By Arthur E. Foulkes
TERRE HAUTE — At the young age of 10, twins Eva and Miriam Mozes, were taken from their parents and older sisters by Nazis immediately upon arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
The young Jewish girls would never see their family members again.
The courageous tale of Eva and Miriam Mozes’ time in Auschwitz, and their interactions with the “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele, is recounted in a new exhibit at the CANDLES Holocaust Museum on South Third Street. The exhibit is a pilot for a much larger project being developed over the next several years called “Intertwined Lives: Dr. Mengele, Eugenics and the Mozes Twins.”
“This is done from scratch,” Eva Mozes Kor, founder of the CANDLES museum, said Thursday night during a reception in honor of the new exhibit. “We’ve worked at it very hard.”
The 10-panel pilot exhibit tells the story of Eva and Miriam Mozes experience in Auschwitz as one pair of the “Mengele twins.” Mengele was attempting to use “eugenics” to shape a “master race.” As part of this effort, Mengele conducted experiments on Eva, Miriam and the other twins before Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz in 1945.
“I have always admired her spirit,” said Katherine Utley, an English and Latin teacher at Terre Haute North Vigo High School, speaking of Kor. Utley is one of nine Vigo County teachers who have applied to travel to Auschwitz in January on a trip sponsored by CANDLES.
The corpses of three young children on a latrine floor was one of the first sights Kor saw upon her arrival in Auschwitz, the pilot exhibit states. She quickly vowed to herself to survive the ordeal along with her twin sister.
Many decades later, Kor, whose sister Miriam died in 1993, startled many people by forgiving those that persecuted her. The pilot exhibit spells out her concept of forgiveness, which is not to forget or condone, but rather to free the victim from a terrible past.
Today Kor preaches this concept of forgiveness and attempts to educate people about prejudice, hate and moving beyond both at CANDLES, which she founded in 1995. She plans to take at least six area teachers to Auschwitz in January, making her third trip to the former concentration camp with a group of local educators. CANDLES is hoping to raise enough money to take additional teachers, she noted.
“This is for a cause that is greater than ourselves,” Kor said Thursday evening. About 200 people attended the unveiling of the pilot display. The evening included a silent auction and featured E Z Street, a three-piece jazz combo for entertainment.
Krissi Dillion, a fifth-grade teacher at Fuqua Elementary School, said she has brought her students to CANDLES several times over the years. She has also applied to take the trip to Auschwitz so she’ll be able to teach her students about the Holocaust better, she said. “I make it more than a single page in a social studies book,” Dillion said.
For more information on CANDLES, see the organization’s Web page at www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
