Book info

• Title The Twins of Auschwitz
• Author Eva Mozes Kor
• Year 2020
• Genre Memoir

In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz. Within thirty minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old. While twins at Auschwitz were granted the 'privileges' of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele's sadistic medical experiments. They were forced to fight daily for their own survival and many died as a result of the experiments, or from the disease and hunger rife in the concentration camp. In a narrative told simply, with emotion and astonishing restraint, The Twins of Auschwitz shares the inspirational story of a child's endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.

Thoughts

This is the eye-witness account of being inside Auschwitz from Eva Mozes Kor, one of the many sets of twins that were allowed to live in the camp so that medical experiments aka human atrocities could be undertaken on them without concent. The story is enlightening, another horror story of how awful human beings can be to each other, but it also has that generosity of spirit that many survivors seem to share. The afterwords were interesting, adding context to some of the controversies Kor has been the centre of, but ultimately, it’s her story and it’s an important one.

Rating: 4 / 5