'Because the world must know': Holocaust survivor documentary screened in Salem

Despite those who inexplicably deny its existence, the Holocaust was a horrifying reality for millions of people, impacting tens of millions of lives and leaving a scar that will likely never truly heal.

The late Eva Mozes Kor didn’t need memorials or museums or documentaries to know and remember the atrocities committed at the hands of the Nazis in the 1940s. They were burned into her mind and tattooed onto her skin.

Before she died on July 4, 2019, she was featured in a documentary called “Eva: A-7063” and that documentary was shown earlier this month at the Salem Public Library thanks to the Indiana Center for Rural Engagement.

When Eva was only 6, her family was taken from their home in Portz, Romania, and loaded onto packed cattle cars, where they spent the journey and four cramped, hungry, thirsty days until they were allowed to leave the train, which finally stopped within the walls of one of the most notorious death camps Nazi Germany constructed, just 120 yards from the main gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The train was awful, but compared to the camp, it was a haven.

“Here I am at Birkenau,” a video clip records her saying, her voice shaking with emotion, on her first trip back in the 1980s. “The closest place to hell on this earth …  Mom, I will tell our story. I will tell our story because the world must know.”

Read Part 1 of this story in today's Salem Leader and Part 2 in this week's Salem Democrat. A more detailed version of the story will be available online after both parts have been printed.