Remember the Past to Protect the Future | Engel Angle

I don't think women understand just how hard it is to shave your face without cutting it.
Mac Angle Footwear Start Telegram, Angle Angle Podcast. Here in the Sunset Lounge,
thanks for joining me. A bit of a different topic today and a pretty heavy subject as well,
but one that means a lot to me for reasons that I'll never quite understand when I was a teenager,
I became very interested in World War II. My grandfather served in World War II in Japan,
and I think like a lot of people we became interested in that subject because it was the first
World War or War of Significance that was captured on film. Now if you go back and look throughout
history, most of the big conflicts in time were only really captured on blurry photographs.
Not many of them. World War I, there was some video footage, film footage, and World War II,
the technology advanced where a lot of images could be captured on film. And it changed the way
we saw it, and it certainly changed the way it could be documented. And I was fascinated by it,
I still am. And there's one part to that conflict that really grabbed my attention because I couldn't
fathom that it happened. I certainly believe they did happen because it did. And I'm talking,
of course, about the Holocaust. I have been fortunate in the last few years to have the privilege
of talking to a few Holocaust survivors in their stories are amazing for a variety of reasons.
One, their ability to survive in the face of inhumane odds and the fact that they went on to live
such good lives. And they didn't let that part of their life destroy them.
You talk about forgiveness, you're talking about the ability to move on, their ability to do that,
despite the hand that they had been dealt for no reason at all, is truly inspiring and gives you
a different perspective about some of the things that you may be holding on to. My guest for this
episode is the son of parents who are both Holocaust survivors. His name is Dr. Alex Gore.
He is a podiatrist in Terrahode, Indiana of all places, and his parents survived the Holocaust.
Mickey Gore, he survived multiple camps, including Buchenwald and his mother, Ava Moses Corps,
survived Auschwitz. In fact, his mother was one of and her twin sister or part of select group
of people who were human experiments at the hands of Dr. Joseph Mengele and his monsters.
She survived and eventually she went back to Auschwitz and Buchenwald pardon me,
a Buchenwald rather, in 1984. It was the first time she had been there in 39 years.
And since then, she went on to become a fierce advocate for Holocaust survivors and the
positions that she held were quite unpopular in the fact that she made a point of saying publicly
that she forgave the Nazis. She forgave her captors. She forgave the people who did terrible
things too. That was really unpopular and quite controversial, but she didn't deviate from it.
Mickey and Ava are both gone and Alex has taken on the responsibility of continuing to tell their
stories as a way to maintain their legacies. You can find his book, a blessing, not a burden.
There is also a documentary that you can find online about Ava Corps, and I encourage you to
consume any of this if you have time, make time to do it. Because one thing that has happened
the last several years that I became aware of that I become aware of is that I do think people
are forgetting the Holocaust. We do have a tendency to forget history no matter how
believe it is. And I do believe having talked to some survivors and historians, most notably
Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker who has made films about the Holocaust and Holocaust
survivors is that there is an agreement that people are forgetting it. And I think that's a total
tragedy. Michael Cork, part of me, Dr. Alex Cork has made his mission to make sure that we don't
forget it. He actually will be at the University of Texas Dallas on February 5th for a talk. I encourage
you to give that a look if you're in the area and are interested. Without further ado, please welcome
my guest, Dr. Alex Cork. How old were you when you started to figure out the fact that they were
Holocaust survivors? So growing up in Terrorhood Indiana, it's kind of an unusual place
for two Holocaust survivors to live. I knew at a very young age Mac that my parents were different.
My mom had a number on her arm. My dad did not. And I always tell the story, this is really my
sister and I have a younger sister. We were told very age-appropriate things about our parents pass.
So we knew what her parents told us. And just to give you a quick little story, I was seven years
old. My sister was five. She's playing at an extra neighbor's house and an extra neighbor's not
Jewish. Not a Holocaust survivor. And when typically when my mom, when her mom did the dishes, we
would stand on her left side and see your number. So my sister's next door and they had dinner and
and so my sister asked, Mrs. Baker, where's your number? I thought all mommies have numbers.
Mrs. Baker, very, very smart said, well, Reena, you should go ask your mom that. So she runs back
next door and says, mommy, mommy, we just had dinner at Jill's house. And I don't understand. I thought
all mommies had numbers. My sister's five. My mom says, I think most mothers would say, well, you're
too young. I'll tell you later, not my mom. She said, look, Reena, your father and I told you and your
brother the bad things, the bad people did bad things to us. And one of those bad things was they
put a number on mine. Oh, and Mrs. Baker didn't have those bad things. So just to give you an example,
we were told by the time I was 7, 8, 9, I knew a lot of the stories and quite frankly, Mac,
but the time I was a teenager, it became somewhat like, I don't need to hear about this. I know
everything and I didn't think it was that big a deal. I just thought it was normal because it's
all I knew. I'd go to Israel and see my relatives and we wouldn't, it wouldn't dominate every
conversation, but was kind of, you know, on the on the back burner, you know, they would relate, oh,
so and so that was survived this camp, you know, was living over here. And so by the time I was 7, 8,
9, I knew all the stories. Do you remember the first images, how old you were when you started to
see images, pictures and old film footage of the camps? Well, film footage, the biggest, the film
footage that's the iconic picture is actually from a video. My mom, my aunt, were in the front of
the line when they were liberated from Auschwitz. I didn't know about that until 19 until I was in
high school. And so we didn't see pictures until there was a mini series holocaust. It came out
a year after roots on NBC. That was 1978. And around that same time, my mom got access to the video.
And she said, there I am in the front. And I said, oh, mom, come on. And she says, no, that's Miriam,
my aunt. And she knew other people. And that's kind of how the story was pieced together. But I
probably didn't know anything about video or pictures until 78, 79. So a number of years ago,
I interviewed a holocaust survivor who had survived Auschwitz and a couple other camps. And he
eventually was liberated and moved to Dallas and led an incredible life. And it was a part of his
life that he did not want to burden with his children. But he also knew that there was a
responsibility. And he didn't know how to negotiate that in terms of he wanted his children,
obviously, to have a better life than he had and not to be burdened with some of the realities
that he dealt with. But he didn't know how to educate them. So he didn't do it for a long,
long time. He buried it. How did your parents navigate that responsibility with you and your
sister? My mom was your atypical survivor. She talked about everything. My dad,
when I was young, would tell jokes. So yeah, I played ping pong against synopsis. But gradually
as my mom became, we had a ping pong table and he would say, I played ping pong against synopsis.
And everything was, he tried to make everything lighthearted. And by the time in the late 70s,
when I was in high school, my dad would say, well, I don't talk about it. And then gradually,
after that 1978 miniseries, he did begin to talk a little bit. So I kind of had, you know,
I've found over the years, Mack, there's one of two extremes. Either survivors want to talk a lot
or they don't want to talk at all. And I had both extremes at home. And so my dad, as things
became more and more commonplace for my mom to speak. And then in 1995, my mom opened a Holocaust
museum in Tara Hoat. My dad was forced. He had just retired as a pharmacist. So he began
speaking, lecturing somewhat against his, against his thought. But eventually, he became very proud
of the fact that he was a survivor. So my parents felt it was a big responsibility to tell young people,
including my sister and I, about what had happened. They didn't think, at least my mom didn't
think it was a burden. It was more, and this is quite frankly, it feeds into the title of my book.
But I've always thought it's more of a blessing than a burden. And I know a lot of to your story
about the survivor in Dallas, yes, a lot of survivors did not tell their children for many,
many years. I was at, and when I was in my 30s, I moved to Denver, Colorado, and I went to a meeting
of second generation. I had never met any other second generation beyond the Mangle of Twins kids.
All the Mangle of Twins were my parent, my mom's age, so their kids were my age.
I went to this meeting of second generation, and all the survivor's children, the survivor's
children were 15, 20 years older than me. Each person stood up and said, well, I didn't know
the story until I was in my 30s. And each one had contemplated suicide. And I guess there's an
adage or a notion I should say about post-traumatic stress. And I think in doing some research,
a book by Helen Epstein called Children of the Holocaust, when young children ask their parents
a question, and they don't get an answer, the children, even if they might be 5, 6, 7, 8 years old,
think that there's something to hide. Well, my parents, even my dad, would answer questions.
Nothing was left unanswered. And I think for me, that was a difference between these other
survivors that I met when I was in my 30s and they were in their early 50s. So I think there is
for me, it was a very of great benefit for my parents to tell me very age-appropriate things
when I was younger. And then as I got older, I became much more knowledgeable. And quite frankly,
today, Mac January 27 is the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. So my parents
are no longer here on this earth. But I feel it's my responsibility to continue their legacy.
When you were young, let's go 10 years, and you started to become more developed emotionally,
did at any point, did you have any, for lack of a better word, guilt, that you had this life,
that they made possible for you, that had nothing, nothing of the challenges that they endured.
Did you ever wrestle with that at all? You know, I've never been asked that. I've never,
I never had any guilt feelings. I had my parents, and the best way, I can remember I was 14 or 15
years old. We were very, very middle class in, in Terahot. And the best way I can answer this,
is I wanted the nicest T-shirt, the nicest tennis racket. And I would tell my dad,
yeah, Mike and Eric hanged 10 shirts were popular, wasn't Gucci. And I said, mom and dad, Eric and
Mike have hanged 10 shirt. Can I have a hanged 10 shirt? And my dad said, look, I just went to your
closet. You have six shirts. I didn't have one when I was your age. So it wasn't the fact I was guilty,
felt guilty. It was a fact that my parents reminded me of their past that I need to be thankful
for what I have and the material things were not that important. And it was a tough lesson for me to
learn as age of 13, 14, 15, but for me as an adult, it really means a lot now. And so your mother
was a survivor or in the included in the children of Auschwitz, deadly experiments conducted by Joseph
Mangala at Auschwitz. Did she ever tell you what they did to her? Yes, she did. She arrived,
got to Auschwitz in May of 1944. My mom, my aunt, were torn away from their mother's arms,
never did they see their parents or their two older sisters again. They were part of medical
experiments by Dr. Mangala. There were 3,000 twins, 1,500 sets of two approximately. And typically,
my mom would tell me, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they were taken to a lab, boys and girls,
blood drawn, blood injected, things injected. They were never told the contents of these injections.
These were the dangerous experiments. If one twin died during the experiments, the other
twin was killed and comparative autopsies were done. Typically on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday,
these were not the dangerous experiments, but they were very demeaning. They were lying naked,
ages 2 to 15, boys and girls, body parts measured to their twin, to charts, to other twins.
And so this started for my mother in May of 1944, and it continued through November, December of
44 prior to their January liberation. When she talked to you about her experience at Auschwitz,
one of the pieces that stood out to you the most, even now in your later years, that still
make you either angry, sad, or wonder how did anybody survive that?
That's a great question. I've been to Auschwitz Mac 32, 33 times, and at times we go back on this
date, January 27. The one thing that stands out is that if so brutally cold there, how did they
survive? How did they get through the winter of 1944 into 1945? They didn't have a lot of clothes,
at times they would stand roll, call outside. And my mom, I would ask my mom, how did you survive?
Because when we would go back starting 1985, all of us had bundled the coats, and my mom would
say, I don't know, I blocked it out. I was determined she had tunnel vision. She saw herself
in my aunt being liberated. From the second she got to Auschwitz, that was her mindset.
And so anything that got in a way of that, including death, she kept her vision that she wanted to
survive. So that's probably the one thing that always sticks out to me when we go back in January,
is that it's so incredibly cold, how in the world did they survive? The second thing
is, if I were able to go back in time and had a bird's eye view, if you will, of my mom being
injected in my mom surviving, somebody wants to ask me, what would I see? And my response
is and would be today, I would see a little tenoral girl who was scared to death,
but was determined to live, just knowing my mom, the way she lived the rest of her life.
And so, you know, those are two of the images. I mean, like I said, I've been back so many times,
it's never dull to my emotions. I went back initially in 1985, 41 years ago today,
and my mom was very healthy. And then over the years, she gradually had a decline. And now we go
back almost every summer. And in the winter, I was there a year ago today for the 80th anniversary.
And now it's bitter sweet from me because I still see my mom there, where with me, yet I know
she's not physically there, but I think she's there emotionally. So the first time you went
to today, how did that first time you went change your life in seeing it and being there?
Interesting. I had never obviously been to Auschwitz. I didn't have textbooks. When we were
in Terroho, we didn't have Holocaust education. My parents were my textbooks. And the weird thing was,
in 1985, we had about 10 or 11 manual twins with us. I knew where everything was. I knew where my
mom's barracks was. I knew where the selection platform was. I knew where everything was, even though I'd
never been there. And I always find that very odd. And yes, you know, it was very dramatic, very
tough. But I saw my mom, you know, being able to handle her emotions. And that gave me strength.
She had gone back a year earlier by herself. And over the years, you know, people would come
with us. We've had over 1,300 people come with us to Auschwitz via Candles Holocaust Museum.
And people would say, you know, I'm really afraid. And then they would see my mom's courage and
quite frankly, how she handled herself. And people would say, wow, this is amazing. So I think
it changed me that I, you know, I appreciate life more. As, you know, for me, when somebody goes
through hell like my parents did, I was tell myself that if they got through that, that I can get
through anything. And so for me, it's always kind of given me somewhat a little extra perseverance in
my life. And I think other people that have gone with my with my mom and now go with me, hopefully,
they have the same response and same perspective on life. I think it changes you because you can
read things in textbooks, you can watch videos, you can watch movies, but to see it. And beer can
out, which is Auschwitz to the vastness of it is just words cannot describe. So you talked about
the vastness of it. And one part to this that I've always wondered about, and I've only visited
a visited one camp. I visited a doc how, which is near Munich, was how people in these surrounding
communities weren't aware of what was going on because there's a lot of denial about from from
citizens, German citizens, I'm sure Polo citizens claim the same thing, which well, we didn't know,
we didn't know. And then when you go visit the camp and see how big it is, and then see how close
it is to neighborhoods, you think, well, wait a minute, how did they possibly not know when you had
that visual of how big that place was? And then when you heard people say, well, we didn't know
how did you sort of rationalize that denial in your head? Yeah, that's a tough question.
You know, I think that over the years, I've met people that have lived in the village. I know
of an Auschwitz tour guide who lived in Oswencien and her grandparents were there. And she always had
feelings of guilt. She later became an Auschwitz tour guide. And so, you know, I think that people
had to do what they had to do. And at times, you know, I don't blame anybody, you know, I guess nowadays
the terms are a bystander where you let things happen or an upstander. I think the problem is
that if people during World War II were voicing their opposition, they would be sent to the gas
chamber as well. So, that's a tough question for me to answer. I do think that, that, you know, in
this day and age, things have changed a lot. And I hope that people that encounter prejudice and
racism and anti-semitism are no longer bystanders. They need to be upstanders.
So, your dad survived Buchenwald. And I think for most people who are, who are casually aware of
the Holocaust, Auschwitz is the name that everybody knows the most, right? I would say in terms of
fame, a lack of a better word, that's the one that everybody's familiar with. Whereas the other
ones, Doc Hal Buchenwald and some other ones, maybe they don't know that one quite as well.
So, in your experience and your knowledge and maybe in your conversations with your mom and your
dad was Buchenwald any worse or then Auschwitz. I mean, were they all basically equally horrendous?
They were all bad in their own way. I mean, my dad was also in two other camps,
Stuthoff, which the percentage of survivors was minimal. But each camp, you know,
Doc Hal had some medical experiments. I mean, there were, you know, hundreds of camps all over
Europe. And so, there wasn't one that was known to be, you know, a good camp. I mean, but yeah,
my dad survived four years of camps, starting with the rega ghetto, then Kaiserwald, then Stuthoff,
and then was liberated outside of Buchenwald by an American GI from, from of all places,
Indiana. But, you know, I think that, you know, my dad and my uncle, uncles would tell me stories
that, you know, they were lucky. They were on work. They were primarily work labor camps.
And my dad was younger and smaller for his age. So, at times, you know, my uncles would do his
share of the work. So, my dad would be singled out for not doing share of the work. But, you know,
they were beat up. I mean, he would tell me stories. There was, they were on a ship
in the Baltic getting ready to get to Stuthoff. And he went up to the deck to see what was going on
and the Nazi had his gun and said, hit him on the, on the head. He said, go back underneath the deck.
And then they would get food and they would just spray food and water. And my dad would sit
like a fish with his mouth open. Years later, 20 years ago, my dad and I were at a red lobster.
We go past the aquarium. There's a little fish getting fed. We sit down. My dad's crying hysterically.
So, what happened? So, I looked, he goes, the fish, the fish. I didn't know the story about him
being on the, on the boat outside of Stuthoff. So, you know, things would trigger memories,
particularly with my father. And he would explain it. And I think it helped him. But yeah,
to answer your question, Mac, I don't know that anyone camp was better or worse. Auschwitz had the
numbers that the other camps did not. But Book and Wald had a system of camps as well
that was as notorious as Auschwitz. Hello, it's Mike Riner of your dark companion here.
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So, a few years ago, I interviewed a Polish Holocaust survivor and fascinating man,
and I said, do you think we're forgetting the Holocaust? And he said, forgetting the Holocaust,
what do you mean? We already forgot it. And that really hit me. And then fast forward,
or I guess fast forward a couple of years later, I'm interviewing a documentary filmmaker Ken
Burns, who was being recognized by the Dallas Holocaust Museum for film work that he had done
about the Holocaust. And I asked him that question. I said, are we forgetting the Holocaust? And he
said, yes, we are. Your parents loved it. Do you think we've, do you think we have forgotten
the Holocaust societally? I think as a society, unfortunately, the answer is yes. I mean, I come
into contact, I lecture all over the country. And I do think that particularly young people,
under the age of 35 or 40, really aren't aware of what happened. And even people,
my age at times will say, really, there were six million, there were 11 million total people,
that's impossible. And even recently in the social media, I'm not going to mention her name,
but somebody kind of minimized or diminished the medical experiments done in my mangola. And so
there's no doubt that I think that the world needs to remember, these are terrible stories and
terrible things that happen to one group. And unfortunately, if we don't remember the terrible past,
the world's going to repeat these same mistakes. And you can even argue, this has happened
in the last couple of years. And so, you know, a friend of mine has an organization on the East Coast,
Stacey Galen, and her motto is, remember the past to protect the future. And I think that's so
eloquent and so simple, but it is so important because, yes, to Ken Burns's point and to your
other guess, I think that, yes, society has forgotten something that only happened 81 years ago.
And that's a shame. There's one part to the human experiment that I know, I know it happened
in Japan. In Japanese doctors, we're conducting human experiments on their subjects.
In one development of this, and I don't know if it happened. I don't know if it's anything,
you pursued in your, in your pursuit of knowledge for this, is whether or not those
test results were kept and used by American doctors and scientists and researchers. I was
always under the impression that it was. And that was something that I don't know when I,
when I learned that in my 20s, I'm in my early 50s now, when I learned that in my early 20s,
I was like, God, there's something so incredibly wrong with that. What are your feelings about that?
About using those results? Well, I'm a health care provider. I'm a podiatrist for 35, 36 years.
This kind of is, comes close to the vest for me. There are some, no, there are medical ethics
issues. My mom and the other mangle twins were not given a form consent. So you and I, when we
go to the doctor, we sign a release that says, yes, you know, I understand that this flu shot
could give me a headache, but my mom and the other mangle twins were not given that privilege.
There is no doubt that there were atlases, Mac, that doctors, medical students, and residents
use that were created from the medical experiments at Auschwitz. That's a proven fact. And so
the specifics of the experiments done on my mom, you know, we know some of the, some of the answers.
One of my moms, particularly after my aunt died in 1993, one of the things that my mom
was focused on was trying to find the specifics of the medical experiments so that she could help
the other mangle twins avoid the same predicament as my aunt, who died somewhat related to the
experiments. And so we don't know the stories, we don't know the specifics of the experiments,
but that's one of the things I continue to hope that the Auschwitz Museum will help us with, you
know, years ago when my mom was alive, Mac, one time we went and they said, oh, we have something to
show you, Eva, these were vials using Mingles lab. And I don't know if you know, but the bear
corporation bear aspirin changed her name during the war to IG Farben. And on the, on the vials,
it had bear the bear corporation. So the point is that it would probably help. There are very
few mangle twins still alive. Some people may theorize that it's affected the children of mangle
twins. I'm a cancer survivor. Nobody can suggest in any way that my cancer was from the experiments.
But the point is, we don't have those results and it probably would be helpful at some point to
find out what was used. And to your medical ethics question, I do think that it's a big dilemma,
something I'm speaking tomorrow at Florida International University, do a bunch of medical
students. And one of the questions is to your point, you know, are these experiments something
that should be used to help research nowadays? I would say no. You mentioned something previously
about, I guess there's now a concerted effort, whether it's conscious, I don't know, I obviously
it would be to diminish and almost demean the Holocaust in some ways. And it was just some sort
of figment of, I don't even know what it would be. And this is another one that I went down a
rabbit hole one time about this subject. I think it was on Facebook and it was a whole community
of Holocaust deniers, not people who just disputed a number, 11 million, 5 million, 6 million.
It was that it ever even existed. And it's one thing to sit there and say, well, man,
let never really landed on the moon, but that was a hoax. It's like, okay, I, I'm not really in
that. I, I, I, I think it's ridiculous that anybody would dismiss, dismiss that. But this one
to deny the existence of that event is cruel. And I can't get my head around it. I'm not Jewish,
I had no ties to the Holocaust at all. And as a human being, I can't imagine something like this
that you, that a person Alex would sit there and deny that it ever happened. How do you wrestle
with those people who insist man never happened? Well, you know, when my mom was alive,
she would say, look, here's my number. This is me as a child. There's a picture of me in a
liberation. How can you deny the fact that that is me and that I have this number? And she would use
her, her, her experiences to try to educate people, particularly Holocaust deniers. And she
encountered Holocaust deniers on occasion. I do, you know, you can go around and around in circles
with people that deny the facts and neither truth. All I can do is tell my parents' story,
tell my story, and hope that people have common sense. I mean, we can't change the world.
So how do I wrestle with it? It's very frustrating. And at times, my mom would, I mean,
the former president of Iran, president Amina John, said the Holocaust never occurred. Years ago,
my mom had a video of her in front of the liberation picture. Somehow sent it to the president of
Iran and said, look, president, I know you're an educated man. You say the Holocaust didn't occur.
That's me in the picture. This is me. I invite you to come with us to Auschwitz so I can show you
where I lost my parents and where I was part of medical experiments. He responded. They responded,
but they didn't come with us. So you never know how you can open that door to at least
educate and open people's eyes to the truth. And eventually, hopefully, people will, you know,
see the light and change their ways. So one recurring theme I have heard from Holocaust
survivors is their ability to forgive. And that experience did not overwhelm and overtake
their lives well after they were liberated older now. And I still don't know how they did it.
Did your parents do it?
The answer is yes. My mom was a big proponent of forgiveness, but early on after she survived,
she had a big chip on her shoulder. And through a strain, there's a circumstances. She met a
Nazi doctor after my aunt died after her twin died. And this Nazi doctor who worked alongside
Mangala felt very guilty about his experience there. And so to make a long story short, Mac,
my mom said, would you come with us to Auschwitz in 1995 to document the atrocities to document
your role? And he said, yes. And my mom came back to Terahot saying, oh, my goodness, I'm going to
have a Nazi doctor coming with us to Auschwitz to document history. And my mom asked me, how do I
think a Nazi doctor? I said, I don't know. And she went to the local hallmark card shop looking for
a thank you card, nothing seen appropriate. For months and months and months before January of
1995, she was looking for a way to thank him. Then she called me a couple of months in advance of
our trip. I figured it out in my name only, in my name only, the highest honor I could give another
human being, the best gift I could give Dr. Hans Mooch for documenting history is to forgive him.
And I said, mom, I don't think this is a good idea. I don't care what you think. I need to,
I need to prepare a document. So she prepares a document. My mom's fifth language was English. So
she took it to her local English professor and said, Dr. Kaufman, we review this. And Dr.
Kaufman said, even there's no grammatical mistakes. But I think you're forgiven the wrong guy.
You should forgive Dr. Mangel. And no, no, no, I'm forgiving Dr. Mooch because I want to thank him.
So in January 27, 1995, 50th anniversary, Dr. Mooch Trudeau's word told the world what he did,
what he was a part of. He stitched her remorse, but there was no deal made between my mom and Dr.
Mooch. And then my mom, true to her word, thanked him and she thanked him by forgiving, yeah,
in her name only. My mom was, he did a lot of criticism. And not until months later, did she realize
that she not only had given Dr. Mooch a gift, she had given herself a gift and she really,
over the years, resented her parents. So she decided she wanted a clean slate. She wanted to
forgive her mom, forgive her dad, forgive herself for hating her parents, forgive Dr. Mooch,
which she had already done, forgive Mangel, all in her name only. And then in her name only,
she wanted to forgive all Nazis. And I said, mom, that last part, you're gonna open up a whole new
can of worms. She said, I know, but I don't want another Nazi doctor coming forth and saying,
well, I've worked alongside Dr. Mangel. Why don't you forgive me too? She wanted to move forward
and be healthier and happier. And she realized that she no longer had that chip on her shoulder.
And quite frankly, my dad and my mom would argue about forgiveness. And later in life,
I'm not gonna say who this is. My dad was a big NBA fan. And my dad said, I'm gonna forgive so
and so, who was of German descent. And I said, dad, we don't know that his family was anyway involved
with the Nazis. He said, no, no, I know. But I want to do this because I've seen what forgiveness
has done for your mom. So he had a press conference. His very, my dad usually didn't like the public
guy. He had a press conference and forgave this player's family. To his dying day, he had his
jersey in his room. And one little interesting story after my mom died, there was a Nazi guard
from Stutthoff on trial Bruno Day, DUI. And we have colleagues and friends in Germany. And they
contacted me and said, look, there's a trial Bruno Day to looking for people who were at Stutthoff
and your dad was there. Would he have a statement to put him in prison to kill him? And so my
dad, for a couple of days, thought about it. And to my great surprise, he said, you know, Alex,
I've thought about this a lot in your mom's memory. I want to forgive Dr. Mr. Bruno Day because
the war is over. Life needs to go on. And we were the same age, but people made mistakes. I think
he should be forgiven. And my dad's state was Ren in German court. Wow. So Alex, for people who
want to honor that wish of life goes on, we've got to move on. We can't just sit there and
sit in the past, but we've got to make sure that we recognize what happened and learn from that.
And your very humble opinion, what is the best way to do both?
It's a tough, it's a tough question. You know, I don't think forgiveness is for everyone.
And my dad finally came around later in his life, but I do think it's a healing perspective.
My mom would answer that question, Mack, by doing the following. She would say, look, you know,
hopefully none of you in the audience have to forgive a Nazi. But if you have to forgive a family
member, a grandfather, a coworker, you go into your room by yourself, pretend that person's
across from you and write out a letter saying all the bad things that they did to you, all the bad
things that you felt. And then at the end, you say, despite all this, I forgive you. Never give
that letter to the person, the real person. But do this in a way that you feel like you're talking
to that person. And my mom, what people would come to Candles Holocaust Museum in Terahot,
they want to learn about the history. But at times, they would say, Eve, I need to talk to you
and bribe it. And typically it was a very benign family issue or coworker. They wanted to learn
how to how to use the gift of forgiveness. My mom would tell teachers and young people, look,
you've, you learn reading, writing arithmetic when you're third and fourth, fifth grade,
young people, even at that age, to learn the skill of forgiveness. It might make the world a better
place. You know, so in the 90s, after the movie, Schindler's list came out, there was a rash
of big budget Hollywood films about the Holocaust. And some are better than others.
Obviously, Hollywood has produced any number of very, very good movies about the subject.
What are your, for people who want to learn a little bit more about them, but want to watch a
Hollywood movie? What are the best ones? Do you think they should watch in order to do so?
Well, I think Schindler's list is excellent. I mean, I'll be very
somewhat self-centered when I say this, but there's a documentary about my mother,
Eva Edas 7063. The late Ed Asner's and narrator was done by Ted Green Films. There's another movie on
Netflix called Forgiving Dr. Mangala. But, you know, I think there's a whole host of, of motion
pictures and movies that are out there that really, and, you know, I think it's important to your
point to what we're talking about. Each story is so unique. There's not one story that defines
the entire gamut of Holocaust experiences. So, I recognize this in my own life a number of years
ago, which is if you have a parent who's gone on and done pretty successful, you're kind of chasing
that standard sometimes. My dad, and in my case, who's my dad, no disrespect to my mom, but
certainly my dad, in terms of what my dad did this and this and this, and I hadn't come close. I
haven't come close. Your parents were put into a horrible situation, survived, and they have this
identity as a result of that of being survivors forever, which is remarkable. However, an intended
achievement. Now, you're a young person growing up and trying to make your own life. Did you ever chase
that ghost? Yeah, it's a great question. I get that asked up. I get that question asked a lot.
You know, I think I have, I think I have an obligation to in some way honor their life and
honor their legacy. I never thought I was chasing ghosts. And quite frankly, when I talk to, when
I speak to people, I tell them six, seven, eight years ago, my parents were alive. I had no
interest in doing this. I would go periodically and hear my mom talk and you know, I knew exactly
what she was going to say because I've heard hundreds of thousands of times, but I never thought I
would be doing this. And just to give you my mom, July 2nd, 2019, we were on our hotel room in
Poland in Krakow preparing for our daily trip. We were there for the 100 people and I, my mom had
just had a hard issue earlier in the year and she's playing on social media and I said, Mom, you know,
you're 85 years old. You're not getting any younger. When do you think you're going to slow down?
She looked at me. This is six and a half years ago. She said, slow down. What do you mean slow down?
I can't slow down. There's so much hate and anti-semitism and racism in the world, Alex. I have no
choice, but I have to continue. Two days later, that hotel room, my mom passed away in my arms.
I never had an opportunity to ask my mom what my role should be. And I did it with my dad because he
was very slow to climb. So I always think back that my mom was telling me, you know, that sorry,
that I need to help them continue their legacy. And so hopefully for me, I don't think I'm chasing
ghosts. I think I'm doing what my parents will want me to do. Alex, I really appreciate your time
today. This was fascinating. I wish you the very best of luck and health and in your future
endeavors to educate the world about this very important event. Thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Mack. Appreciate the opportunity. All right. Thanks, Alex. Take care.
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