Survivor of Nazi Experiments Shares Struggles and Hope at Colorado State University March 1-2

Colorado State University will host Eva Kor, a Holocaust survivor who endured medical experiments performed on twins at Auschwitz, as a keynote speaker during Holocaust Awareness Week Feb. 28-March 4.

Kor shares the struggles she and her twin faced as victims of Nazi experiments in her presentation, "Echoes of Auschwitz," at 7 p.m. March 1 in the Lory Student Center Main Ballroom. Kor also will present "My Long Journey to Healing" through the Women at Noon series at noon March 2 in Room 230 Lory Student Center. All Holocaust Awareness Week events are free and open to the public.

Kor and her identical twin, Miriam, were victims of medical experiments under Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele, known as Angel of Death or Dr. Death. During their captivity at Auschwitz, the twins were subjects of various experiments under Mengele’s direction. Kor’s sister died in 1993 from a rare form of cancer as a result of the experiments.

Kor began to reunite twins who survived the experiments after she attended a gathering of Holocaust survivors in Washington, D.C., in 1984 and met another Auschwitz survivor who was also involved in the experiments. Kor founded CANDLES, or Children of the Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiment Survivors, in 1984 and recruited her twin sister to find other survivors.

Miriam Mozes Zeiger, who lived in Israel, helped place a small ad in Israeli papers, and nearly 80 twins responded and identified themselves as survivors of the experiments. Today the organization has 120 members worldwide.

In tribute to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, Kor opened CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in April 1995 in Terre Haute, Ind. In 2003, anti-Semites burned the museum down, but Kor decided to rebuild it. Nearly 40,000 people had visited the museum before it was burned down.

After 60 years of liberation from Auschwitz, Kor says she still faces hate but has learned to forgive, including forgiving Mengele as well as the arsonists who burned down her museum.

For a complete list of Holocaust Awareness Week events, contact Hillel at Colorado State at (970) 491-2080 or refer to the calendar on the Hillel Web site at http://csu.hillelcolorado.org.

Events are funded by the Associated Students of Colorado State University, Hillel of Colorado, Association for Student Activity Programming, Women at Noon, PAC, CREATE and the Lory Student Center Diversity grant.

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