Eva
Mozes Kor and her identical twin, Miriam Mozes, survived
the deadly genetic experiments conducted by "The
Angel of Death", Josef Mengele, in the death camp
Auschwitz during World War II. Their entire family -
parents, grandparents, two older sisters, uncles, aunts
and cousins - were killed ..
Mengele did a number of medical experiments of unspeakable
horror at Auschwitz, using twins. These twins as young as
five and six years of age were usually murdered after the
experiment was over and their bodies dissected. A smiling
"uncle Mengele" injected chemicals into the eyes
of children in an attempt to change their eye color. He
made experimental surgeries performed without anesthesia,
transfusions of blood from one twin to another, isolation
endurance, reaction to various stimuli. He made injections
with lethal germs, sex change operations, the removal of
organs and limbs.
Josef
Mengele
Approximately
three thousand twins passed through Auschwitz during WWII
until its liberation at the end of the war. Only a few of
these twins survived the experiments which they were
subjected to at the hands of Mengele. Among them were Eva
and Miriam Mozes.
Eva and Miriam Mozes were born in the small village of
Portz, Romania, on Jan. 30, 1934. Life for the Mozes
family was good for years, but in March of 1944, the
family was told to gather a few belongings because they
were going to be relocated. They were taken to a ghetto in
Simleul Silvanei and then deported to Auschwitz.
Eva
later recalled how she and her family arrived at the
Auschwitz railhead:
'When
the doors to our cattle car opened, I heard SS soldiers
yelling, "Schnell! Schnell!", and ordering
everybody out. My mother grabbed Miriam and me by the
hand. She was always trying to protect us because we were
the youngest. Everything was moving very fast, and as I
looked around, I noticed my father and my two older
sisters were gone. As I clutched my mother’s hand, an SS
man hurried by shouting, "Twins! Twins!" He
stopped to look at us. Miriam and I looked very much
alike. "Are they twins?" he asked my mother.
"Is that good?" she replied. He nodded yes.
"They are twins," she said.
Once
the SS guard knew we were twins, Miriam and I were taken
away from our mother, without any warning or explanation.
Our screams fell on deaf ears. I remember looking back and
seeing my mother's arms stretched out in despair as we
were led away by a soldier. That was the last time I saw
her .."
Mengeles Twins
A
gruesome fate awaited them at Mengele’s hands. Eva
recalled her own quick introduction to life at Auschwitz:
"The
first time I went to use the latrine located at the end of
the children's barrack, I was greeted by the scattered
corpses of several children lying on the ground. I think
that image will stay with me forever. It was there that I
made a silent pledge - a vow to make sure that Miriam and
I didn't end up on that filthy floor."
During
her ordeal she and Miriam were put through many extremely
brutal surgeries and experiments by Mengele, who
experimented mainly on twins. Eva later told:
"I
was given five injections. That evening I developed
extremely high fever. I was trembling. My arms and my legs
were swollen, huge size. Mengele and Dr. Konig and three
other doctors came in the next morning. They looked at my
fever chart, and Dr. Mengele said, laughingly, 'Too bad,
she is so young. She has only two weeks to live .."
Holocaust
horrors
Eva
later recalled how a set of Gypsy twins was brought back
from Mengele's lab after they were sewn back to back.
Mengele had attempted to create a Siamese twin by
connecting blood vessels and organs. The twins screamed
day and night until gangrene set in, and after three days,
they died ...
The fact that Eva and Miriam survived Auschwitz was a
miracle in itself, as only few individual twins were still
alive at the time the camp was liberated.
In front,
the Mozes twins
After
the liberation of the camp, Eva and Miriam were the first
two twins in the famous film taken by the Soviets - often
shown in footage about the horrors of Holocaust. In some
ways the picture is misleading. The Mengele twins never
wore striped camp uniforms. They were Mengele's favorite
subjects, and they were afforded special treatment, such
as being able to keep their own hair and clothing, and
receiving extra food rations. As long as they stayed
healthy and useful to Mengele, they would be kept alive.
In 1950 Eva and Miriam received visas for Israel and went
there. They became members of a kibbutz, populated mostly
by orphans. In 1952, they both joined the Israeli Army.
Eva studied drafting and Miriam became a nurse. In 1960,
Eva married an American tourist, Michael Kor, also a
concentration camp survivor, and came to the United
States, settling in Terre Haute, Indiana.
In 1985, 40 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Eva
Mozes Kor, Miriam, and other survivors returned to
Auschwitz and subsequently conducted a mock trial of Josef
Mengele in Israel, which received international news
coverage.
Eva Mozes Kor
Eva
Mozes Kor is the author of books on her experience and she
has spoken to over 400 schools, universities, conferences,
synagogues, and civic groups. She is the founder of the
Holocaust Museum and Education center in Terre Haute,
Indiana, and the C.A.N.D.L.E.S., an acronym for Children
of Auschwitz Nazi's Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.
This organization of the Mengele Twins has located and
reunited many survivors of the experiments and is
dedicated "to heal the pain, to teach the truth, to
prevent prejudice."
As adults, Eva and Miriam suffered serious health
problems. Eva suffered from miscarriages and tuberculosis.
Her son had cancer. Miriam's kidneys never fully developed
and she died in 1993 of a rare form of cancer, probably
brought on by the unknown medical experiments and
injections which she was subjected to at the hands of
Josef Mengele.
And Mengele? Despite international efforts to track him
down, Mengele was never apprehended and lived for 35 years
hiding under various aliases. He fled to South America,
and moved from country to country afraid of being caught.
There were many warrants, rewards, and bounties offered,
but he was lucky. He lived in Paraguay and Brazil until
his death in 1979. One afternoon, living in Brazil, he
went for a swim. While in the ocean he suffered a massive
stroke and began to drown. By the time he was dragged to
shore, The Angel of Death was dead ...
