How Alex Kor’s Parents Taught Him the Power of Forgiveness

Forgiving a Nazi, especially one as notorious as Dr. Josef Mengele, may seem inconceivable. Yet Holocaust survivor Eva Kor did just that. Not only did she forgive Mengele, who was known as the “Angel of Death” for his brutal experiments on prisoners, but she also forgave Dr. Hans Münch, a Nazi doctor who worked alongside Mengele and eventually extended her forgiveness to all Nazis, both living and dead. 

Her ability to forgive is one of the most striking aspects of her life. Her son, Dr. Alex Kor, a podiatrist, now carries on her legacy through his new book, “A Blessing Not a Burden.” In it, Alex tells the extraordinary survival stories of his parents, Eva and Mickey Kor, as well as the profound lessons their lives offer about resilience, strength and the power of forgiveness.

Dr. Kor’s life itself is often considered a miracle. Raised in Terre Haute, Indiana — a place known for its Midwestern charm but also marred by a history of prejudice — Alex recounts his unique upbringing. While many children of Holocaust survivors grew up in homes marked by sorrow and parents burdened by trauma, Alex Kor’s parents took a different approach. While they didn’t shield him and his sister from the harsh truths of their past, they emphasized the power of forgiveness.

Kor’s mission, as detailed in his book, is to preserve his parents’ inspiring legacy. Drawing from his mother’s example of forgiveness and his father’s boundless optimism, Alex reflects on how these qualities shaped him, guiding him through his own struggles, including a battle with cancer in his 20s. He credits his survival, in large part, to the lessons of resilience he learned from them. “My mom’s endless sense of optimism gave me the strength I needed to overcome cancer,” he said, reflecting on how deeply her outlook impacted his own life.

Eva Mozes was born in 1934 in the small village of Portz, Romania, into a Jewish farming family. In 1940, when she and her twin sister Miriam were just six years old, their village was taken over by a Hungarian Nazi armed guard. The Mozes family, the only Jewish family in their village, lived under occupation for four years. In 1944, the family was forced into the Şimleu Silvaniei ghetto and soon after packed into a cattle car for transport to the Auschwitz death camp. After 70 harrowing hours without food or water, the family arrived on the selection platform at Auschwitz, a place Eva would later describe as “the single most tragic and cruel piece of real estate in the world.”

Upon arrival, Eva’s father and two older sisters were taken away, never to be seen again. Soon after, Eva and Miriam were forcibly separated from their mother, whom they also never saw again. The two young girls became part of a group of twins used as human guinea pigs in Dr. Josef Mengele’s horrific genetic experiments. Of the 1,500 sets of twins — 3,000 children in total — used in these experiments, most perished. Eva herself became gravely ill, but she survived – and so did Miriam.

Mickey Kor, born in 1925 in Riga, Latvia, was the youngest of four boys. His father, a shoemaker, had neither the resources nor the opportunity to escape when the Nazis invaded. The family was forced into the Riga ghetto, where Mickey’s father was murdered on the same day they were taken. Left alone, Mickey’s mother struggled to keep her sons safe. During the liquidation of the ghetto, she saved Mickey’s life by pushing him into a group of older boys selected for slave labor. It was the last time he ever saw her; she and the others not chosen for labor were murdered in a mass shooting. Mickey endured four years of forced labor in multiple camps before being liberated by U.S. soldiers from the 250th Engineer Combat Battalion in 1945.

After the war, Mickey moved to the United States, while Eva made Aliyah to Israel, where she served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The two met in Israel after Mickey placed a personal ad in Maariv newspaper, seeking a wife. Alex recounted their courtship: “My mom responded, and three weeks later they were engaged.” The couple moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, where they raised two children, Alex and his sister, making their home a place where Holocaust stories were openly shared.

Unlike many children of Holocaust survivors, who grew up in homes where the horrors of the past were kept silent, Alex was immersed in these stories from a young age. “By the time I was seven years old, I could tell you many of the stories I heard from my mom, but they were age appropriate,” he said. “I grew up in a neighborhood with 200 non-Jewish families. Nobody talked about the Holocaust there. I remember one time my sister was playing at the neighbor’s house and noticed the mom didn’t have a number on her arm. She ran back home and asked our mom, ‘Mrs. Baker doesn’t have a number—how come?’ And my mom responded, ‘Remember? We told you people did bad things to us.’”

When Alex was 24, his mother took him to Auschwitz for a reunion of the Mengele twins. Many of the survivors were dealing with severe health issues, the lingering effects of the cruel experiments conducted on them. Alex described the gathering: “We were all about the same age, and we played together. But years later, I went to Colorado for a meeting of the children of Holocaust survivors. I was the youngest at 32; everyone else was in their late 40s or 50s. Each person shared their story and ended with, ‘And this is why I tried to commit suicide.’”

He said it was a revelation for him, realizing for the first time how his experience differed from that of other children of survivors. “When it came my time to tell my story, I said, ‘Everything that happened to me growing up was positive. My parents’ survival gave me extra strength, and that helped me overcome cancer.’ They looked at me like I was the crazy one.”

“When it came my time to tell my story, I said, ‘Everything that happened to me growing up was positive. My parents’ survival gave me extra strength, and that helped me overcome cancer.’ They looked at me like I was the crazy one.” – Alex Kor

Eva Kor, known for her unrelenting optimism, dedicated much of her life to educating others about the Holocaust and advocating for forgiveness. In 2001, she was invited to speak at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, the very institution responsible for overseeing the experiments that had been carried out on her. In her speech, she reflected on her journey toward forgiveness: “Fifty-seven years ago, I was a human guinea pig in Auschwitz. Much progress has been made in order for us to be here … I hope we can all learn from the past and begin to heal our pain.”

One of her most memorable quotes was: “Anger is a seed for war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace.”

In 1993, she reached out to Dr. Hans Münch, a Nazi doctor acquitted of war crimes because he had taken steps to save prisoners’ lives. In her speech, Eva recalled her initial meeting with Dr. Münch: “As we sat down to talk, I said to him, ‘Here you are — a Nazi doctor from Auschwitz — and here I am — a survivor from Auschwitz — and I like you. That sounds strange to me.’” Eva eventually asked Münch to return with her to Auschwitz in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. She asked him to sign a document at the gas chamber ruins, confirming the horrors that had taken place there. Dr. Münch agreed.

It was during this time that Eva had a revelation: she had the power to forgive. “I thought about how to thank Dr. Münch, and I realized I could write him a letter of forgiveness. Then a friend asked, ‘Would you forgive Dr. Mengele?’ I thought about it and decided that I could. Well, if I forgave Mengele, I might as well forgive everybody.”