Forgiving the Angel of Death Group Project COMM-1080-504 Matthew Maxwell Maria Ipsen Kennedy Orellana Megan Priebe
Overview Eva Mozes Kor and her twin Miriam were ripped from their home in Romania along with their family and loaded onto a cattle car and transported to Auschwitz. While at the infamous camp they were subject to experiences that would change Eva and her life’s trajectory for the rest of her days. (CBN, n.d.) Eva and Miriam were subjected to horrific experiments by a man named Dr. Josef Mengele. Dr. Mengele used the twins and many others to perform studies into the effects of poisons, germs, and different chemical compounds. He would use one of the twins as the subject and the other as a control. The control twin would often have to watch the other twin go through excruciating pain and often death. (CBN, n.d.) Eva and Miriam were liberated from Auschwitz by Russian soldiers after nine grueling months of torture. (CBN, n.d.) Although liberated Eva explains in CBN’s, Holocaust Twins’ Survival Story, “If anybody asks if I was angry with God, I was angry with everything, of God, the world, and everybody.” (CBN, n.d.)
Overview During a visit celebrating the 50th anniversary, Eva realized that if she did not forgive the men who perpetrated these heinous acts she would be imprisoned for the rest of her life. (CBN, n.d.) With that notion she forgave; Here are her words from CBN’s, Holocaust Twins’ Survival Story, “As I was standing by the ruins of the gas chamber I was remembering all the people I was forgiving. I was forgiving the Nazis. I was forgiving Mengele. I was forgiving the people that did the experiments,” she said. “I was forgiving everybody because of the fact that I have the power to forgive. It gave me an emotional freedom that was so exhilarating, so beneficial to me, that I did not have to deal with who did what to me and why. Immediately, I felt that all the pain I was carrying on my little shoulders were lifted from me; that I was free. I was no longer a prisoner from my tragic past.” Following this personal epiphany Eva went on to start her own Holocaust museum in Terra Haute, Indiana, in the memory of her twin Miriam. She also shares her experiences with others and the lessons she learned on her path to forgiveness. (CBN, n.d.)
Dr. Josef Mengele (The Angel of Death) Born to the founder of a farm machinery company in the village of Gunzburg, Bavaria on March 16 th 1911(E.B., 2019). ● ● Josef Mengele studied philosophy in the 1920’s and came under the persuasions of the racial ideologies of, Alfred Rosenberg(E.B., 2019). Pursued a medical degree a the University of Frankfurt am Main(E.B., 2019). ● Enlisted in the Sturmabteilkung (SA; “Assault Division”) in 1933(E.B., 2019). ● ● Joined the research staff of a newly founded Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in 1934(E.B., 2019).
Dr. Josef Mengele WWII Dr. Mengele served as a medical officer with the Waffen – SS in France and Russia(E.B., 2019). ● In 1943 he was appointed by Heinrich Himmler to be chief doctor at Birkenau, the supplementary extermination camp ● at Auschwitz(E.B., 2019). He and his staff were tasked with selecting incoming Jews for labor or extermination. Part of this selection was to ● choose inmates for experiments to discover means of increasing fertility(E.B., 2019). His main focus of interest was the research of twins(E.B., 2019). ●
Auschwitz Holocaust Twin Experiments Amputation and reattachment of limbs from selected twin sets. He would remove limbs from these individuals and then ● try to reattach them to the other subject. When this would fail he would often kill the twins(H.N., 2000-2019). Perform blood transfusions from one twin to the other(H.N., 2000-2019). ● Sew twins together in an attempt to create Siamese twins from separate twins(H.N., 2000-2019). ● Infect one twin with Typhus and/or other diseases then compare the results of the infected twin with the healthy ● twin(H.N., 2000-2019). In most cases the twins would die or be killed and then Dr. Mengele would perform autopsies to study the internal effects of his experiments.
Other experiments.. Dr. Mengele was also interested in heterochromia. This is when individuals have eyes of two distinct color variations. ● He would actually collect different body parts, including these eyes. The Dr. would actually inject chemicals into individuals eyes in an attempt to change the color(H.N., 2000-2019). He was interested in other physical challenges such as dwarfism and other deformities and would seek out these ● individuals for research(H.N., 2000-2019). He would also experiment on pregnant women due to the fact that they could not work. He’d also force incestuous ● pregnancies and study the results(H.N., 2000-2019). He tried sex change operations(H.N., 2000-2019). ●
Other experiments cont... He removed organs operating on victims without anesthesia(H.N., 2000-2019). ● He also tried to prove that Gypsy and Jewish people were genetically inferior through various experiments(H.N., ● 2000-2019). He vivisected children who knew him as kindly old “Uncle Papi.” (Stockton, 2016) ● He sawed off the heads of infected prisoners and sent the preserved samples to Germany for study. (Stockton, 2016) ●
The Kor Twins Eva Mozes Kor was born in 1934, Portz, Romania to Alexander and Jaffa Mozes, farmers who were the only Jewish ● residence in the area. (USC.S.F., 2015) She had three siblings, two older sisters and her twin sister Miriam. (USC.S.F., 2015) ● In 1944, their family was transported to the regional ghetto Simleu Silvaniei. In May, they were transferred to ● Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. (USC.S.F., 2015) Because Eva and Miriam were twins, the girls were selected to take part in experiments overseen by Dr. Josef Mengele. ● (USC.S.F., 2015) The girls joined the estimated 1,500 sets of twins subjected to medical experiments at Auschwitz under the guidance of ● Mengele, whose grisly practices earned him the nickname "Angel of Death." (rferl.org, 2015)
Surviving the Experiments & Ultimate Forgiveness This video gives some detail into the experiments and Eva and Miriams’ struggle for Survival and Eva’s path to Ultimate Forgiveness. (Quora, 2017)
Life after Auschwitz ● Both sisters immigrated to Israel in 1950. It was there, Kor says, that she was able to sleep peacefully for the first time since the Hungarians occupied their village nine years earlier. (rferl.org, 2015) Both she and Miriam built careers, married, and had children, and Kor moved to the United States with her American ● husband -- also a Holocaust survivor -- in the 1960s. (rferl.org, 2015) Until her death in 1993, Miriam suffered kidney problems that Kor believes were caused by Mengele's experiments. ● (rferl.org, 2015)
Life after Auschwitz cont.. In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Kor read a witness statement signed by a Nazi doctor ● named Hans Muench, whom she had asked to confirm details of the horrors committed at Auschwitz. After reading the statement, Kor announced that she was forgiving the Nazis, a declaration that sparked controversy given the scale of the crimes committed during the Holocaust. (rferl.org, 2015) Kor, who has resided in the Midwestern state of Indiana since 1960, says she even chose to forgive Mengele, whom both ● she and her sister outlived. The notorious SS doctor died in 1979 in South America after evading arrest and prosecution for decades. (rferl.org, ● 2015)
Individual Thoughts Maria Ipsen’s Thoughts Matthew Maxwell’s Thoughts The amount of pain and trauma that this War had on victims As I digest this information and the process that Eva must were uncountable. It is very hard to imagine not only deaths have experienced, I’m astonished by the capacity she had to of your loved ones, but to allow other people use you as part forgive. Something that comes to mind is the “core of cruel haughtiness activities is revolting. Nevertheless, the relational rules” laid out in Cahn & Abigails’, Managing story of Eva is inspiring and allowed me to see the immense conflict through forgiveness. Doctors as a group have a power of the mind and emotions that forgiving somebody specific amount of trust assigned to them through societies view of their position. Whether this trust has been earned can have on your life . or just given through historical precedence, I feel Dr. Mengele’s absolute betrayal of this trust would have been extremely hard for myself to forgive if placed in a similar circumstance. The fact that Eva sought out a participant in the atrocities of Auschwitz and ultimately forgave his participation is remarkable. Eva’s willingness to let go of the feelings of revenge and desires to retaliate(Cahn & Abigail, 2014) are rare in this age of cyber bullying and self aggrandizing. What a selfless act and perfect example of forgiveness.
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