To receive daily emails from Breaking Christian News to your inbox CLICK HERE

News Release : Dec 17, 2012  Methodist Hospital Houston

"This act of forgiveness is an act of self-healing. I believe forgiveness is a modern miracle of medicine." -Eva Kor

(Houston, TX)—Eva Kor will never forget the day her childhood ended. The images of that day, and the weeks after, are burned into her memory, as brutally permanent as the tattoo on her left forearm.

On a spring day in 1944 Kor and her twin sister Miriam, 10 years old at the time, were taken from their family and herded into the Auschwitz concentration camp. The twins became part of a group of children used for human experimentation by Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death.

Now 78 years old, Kor tells this story to groups across the country and the world. She shared her memories with a group of physicians, researchers and other medical professionals at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute on Dec. 5, as part of the conference "Human Subjects Research After the Holocaust."

A number of speakers examined the ethical lessons of medical experiments carried out on unwilling subjects in the years before and during World War II. Kor joined the panel to put a human face on the brutality she experienced at the Nazi death camp. (Photo: Eva Kor/Scott Jones, The Methodist Hospital)

Identical twins Eva and Miriam Mozes were chosen for experimentation by Mengele, who subjected children as young as two to horrific surgeries and injections.

"Nothing can prepare a person for a place like Auschwitz," she told the audience. Upon seeing bodies of children sprawled on a bathroom floor, Kor said she pledged to herself to survive any way she could.

"Each day I was determined to live one more day," she said, "and survive one more experiment."

Even at such a young age, Kor said she and her sister knew they had no choice but to submit to Mengele's experiments if they hoped to survive. They would often sit naked in a room for up to eight hours at a time, as blood was drawn from one arm and unknown substances were injected into the other arm. The rumor spread around the barracks was that if one was taken to the hospital that person never came back.

"It was very easy to die in Auschwitz," Kor said. "Surviving was a full time job."

Eva stole potatoes to keep her and her sister alive. Guards sometimes looked the other way when she stole food, because the girls were protected by Mengele. "As long as he wanted us alive, no one would harm us," she said.

Then, just four days before the girls' 11th birthday, Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army. The twins were marched out of the death camp before Russian movie cameras, and eventually they were allowed to move to Israel.

Eva met and married Michael Kor, another Holocaust survivor, and moved to Indiana. Her sister Miriam also married but stayed in Israel. The sisters worked together to organize CANDLES, Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors, to help locate other survivors of Mengele's deadly experiments. Through their efforts, 122 twins living in 10 countries around the world were eventually reconnected.

"I do believe in the need for medical research and ethical human experimentation," she told the audience of scientists and physicians. She introduced them to her son, Dr. Alex Kor, a podiatrist at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore.

"Alex was diagnosed with advanced cancer that had metastasized to other parts of his body. The treatments he received saved his life," she said. "I am so very grateful that you (the medical community) found a cure for my son."

Medical advances also helped Eva's sister Miriam, the only other survivor of the Mozes family. Miriam suffered kidney failure after the birth of her first child, and doctors in Israel found her kidneys had been damaged, most likely by Mengele's experiments. Miriam eventually died in 1993 of complications from the condition.

Kor implored all physicians and scientists to remember Mengele's human subjects when they are conducting their own medical research. "Medical science can only benefit mankind when the researchers respect the wishes of their human subjects and treat them with dignity," she said. "Science should be for the sake of mankind, not for the sake of science alone."

In 1995 Kor was able to meet face to face with repentant Nazi physician Hans Munch, and they traveled together back to Auschwitz to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp. On that journey, she said she discovered a way for her to heal both her body and her soul.

"I forgave the doctor, who oversaw the gas chambers where the rest of my family was killed," she said. "And I realized I had the power to even forgive the Angel of Death. Now, I am no longer a victim of Auschwitz.

"This act of forgiveness is an act of self-healing. I believe forgiveness is a modern miracle of medicine."

To receive daily emails from Breaking Christian News to your inbox CLICK HERE

Riveting, Inspirational Account of the Pilot Slated to Fly Flight 11 Out of Boston on 9/11--but Didn't (Video)

Saved from the Ashes of 9/11, He Has Given His Life to Save Others Too: 'Call on Jesus'

What the White House Faith Office Has Done in Just 18 Months

Droves of Subscribers Cancel Netflix After 'Neck Injury' Joke on One-Year Anniversary of Charlie Kirk Assassination

Robert Kennedy, Jr. Delivers ABSOLUTELY HISTORIC Speech at RNC Midterm Convention in Crushing Blow to Democrat Anti-Americanism (VIDEO)

Powerful: Former Air Force Lieutenant Was Sent on Suicide Mission to Ram Flight 93-Its Brave Passengers Made Sure She Never Had To (Video)

25 Years Since 9/11

A Minute By Minute Chronology of Sept. 11, 2001 Terror Attacks

100 Million Americans Have No Memory of 9/11. Here's What's on the Line

On 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks, Many Will Excise the Most Relevant Truth From National Memory: Islamist Ideology Still Motivates Mass Murder

Marco Rubio Hails Ecuador as an 'Aggressive' Partner in the US Counterdrug Push; Receives Country's 2nd Highest Honor

Iran's Islamic Regime is Slowly Crumbling from US Blockade, as Iran's People Begin Attacking Them from Within

Dem Candidate for Senate, James Talarico Just Did a Major About-Face on Trans Athletes: 'Political Game?' (Video)

Whoa! Democrat John Fetterman Spoke at the GOP's Midterm Convention, and Praised a Republican Senator and Trump

President Trump 'Steals the Show' at the Republican Midterm Convention, Announces Huge Payout for Americans If GOP Wins Midterms

Turning Point USA Remembers Their Founder and Leader Charlie Kirk, a Year After His Murder

Christian Grandma Refuses to Back Down after Government Demands She Stop Feeding Community (Video)

GOP Holds Unprecedented Midterm Convention as It Fights to Hold Congress

New Yorkers Gather over 100,000 Signatures to Exclude Mamdani from 9/11 Ceremony

Texas to Teach That Radical Islam Was Behind 9/11 Terror Attack

Steve Shultz, Managing Editor
Founder and Owner

Aimee Herd, Editor