An added stop that enriched the trip
As we were planning our stay in Terre Haute, Russ found some information on CANDLES Holocaust Museum. Located in what appears to be a single story old church building, the museum was founded by Eva Mozes Kor.
Eva dedicated the museum to her twin sister, Miriam, upon her death. Eva and Miriam were two of 200 twins who survived the Auschwitz Experiments led by Dr. Mengele. Born in Romania, the family owned farmland and were a welcomed and respected part of the community of 100 people.
When the rumblings of Hitlers growing ambition reached this area, the still felt safe. They did not think that the German army would care about six Jews in such a remote area. They were wrong.
When Hungary shifted to the Nazi way of thinking, the Germans did come for this family and no one in the town stopped them from transporting them to a ghetto by train. They could only take a few things and after a time in the ghetto, they were loaded with many other Jews onto cattle cars and taken to Auschwitz.
When the twins were spotted by a guard, they were separated from their mother. They did not even get to say goodbye. They were tested with other twins for 9 months before a Ukrainian branch of the Russian army liberated them.
The twins were spared from an orphanage by a mother of another set of surviving twins who had been a kind of house mom in the Auschwitz prison. They went back to Romania as the family had set that as a meeting place if separated.
There they learned they were the only survivors. Eventually they went to Israel where they worked on a kibbutz and then joined the Israeli army. Both ended up in the U.S. Eva married another survivor of the prison camp system, a pharmacist from Terre Haute. Miriam also married and both had families.
The museum is well done, documenting Eva and Miriam’s life before and after the war. There is enough information without being overly graphic. I want to put this delicately – Children would be able to see and understand the sorrow without seeing or hearing the worst of it. It is enough to get the point across, if that makes sense.
We do not have the dispensation of grace to deal with some of the things we could see and hear about this darkness. But we must face some of it so that we understand how evil this world can be and pray to have the strength to stand up against if for others no matter the cost.
Eva was an advocate for making sure the atrocities of the prison were made known and was instrumental in finding a soldier from the camp who verified that it was not just a holding area after the war. Also she was an advocate for peace and forgiveness, while reminding everyone that peace does not mean we compromise when we need to stand up for what is right.
The displays are well done and there is a theater with a film and a hologram of Eva. The hologram image allows Eva to answer questions you might have about her life and experiences. They were filmed over many sessions in preparation for her no longer being a host at the museum following her death.
I highly recommend a visit here. It was difficult but so important. The hatred for the Jews has not vanished. In 2003, an arsonist bearing a Nazi symbol set fire to the museum. We have to remember so we don’t repeat.
Please read the messages posted on the photos throughout the post here as they tell more of the story than I can relate.
