Eva Mozes Kor

Holocaust to be part of WCTV’s IN Focus, Library blog for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Eva Mozes Kor will visit Indiana University East on Tuesday, February 2. Kor is a Holocaust survivor and founder of CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The event begins with a reception from 5-6:15 p.m. in the Meijer Artway, located in Whitewater Hall. Kor will sign copies of her book in the Community Room during the reception.

Kor’s presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Vivian Auditorium.

The event is free and open to the public.

Kor is a survivor of the Holocaust, a forgiveness advocate, and a revered public speaker. She is a community leader, a champion of human rights, and tireless educator of young people.

In 1944, Kor and her family were loaded into a cattle car packed with other Jewish prisoners and transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Kor, and her twin sister Miriam, were just 10 years old. At Auschwitz, the girls were ripped apart from their mother, father and two older sisters, never to see them again. Kor and Miriam became part of a group of children used as human guinea pigs in genetic experiments, under the direction of the now-infamous Dr. Josef Mengele.

Approximately 1,500 sets of twins were abused, and most died as a result of these experiments. Kor herself became gravely ill, but through sheer determination, she stayed alive and helped Miriam survive. Approximately 200 children were found alive by the Soviet Army at the liberation of the camp on January 27, 1945.

In 1995, Kor opened CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute. Thousands of people, including many school groups, have visited CANDLES since it opened.

Additionally, in reflection of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, January 27, WCTV and IU East will discuss the history and research of the Holocaust during an edition of IN Focus. The show will air January 28. It will include discussion on the Holocaust by Associate Professor of History Daron Olson and Ed and Esther Davidson of the Holocaust Center, a part of the Bureau of Jewish Education in Indianapolis.

IN Focus airs live from the WCTV studio Thursday evenings at 6 p.m. on WGTV, Channel 11. Viewers are encouraged to call, email or tweet questions for the guests during the program. If viewers would like to send questions before the show they can be emailed to wctv@wctv.info.

Olson will discuss a historian’s perspective of the Holocaust. Olson’s research interests include Modern Norway and Norwegian emigration to the United States. His theoretical focus includes transnationalism, nationalism, and identity. Currently Olson teaches a wide variety of courses at IU East, including courses on Scandinavia, The Viking Age, Modern Britain, European Nationalism, World War II, and world history surveys.

Esther Davidson was born in Poland in 1941 and survived the Holocaust in the care of an elderly Polish Christian lady while her parents successfully evaded the Nazis. After the war, she was reunited with her parents and they all found their way to a Red Cross sponsored Displaced Persons Camp in Germany. They lived there for four years until immigrating to America in 1949. Ed Davidson’s father was born in Latvia and immigrated to America in 1921. He served as an interpreter during the Nuremberg Trails. Ed Davidson, born in America, is a retired U.S. Army officer. With his wife, he discusses the Nurenberg Trials, the Nazi Concentration Camp system and offers a candid visual tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich. The presentation is recommended for students in middle school, high school and adults.

Educational resources about the Holocaust will be featured in the Campus Library blog on January 25. The blog is available online at iue.edu/blogs/library.

For more information, contact Latishea Varnesdeel, special assistant to the chancellor and chief diversity officer, at lvarnesd@iue.edu.