Holocaust survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, spoke to hundreds of Mahomet residents, including the students involved in the 1997 Pop Tab event, Friday night.
The evening marked the 18th anniversary of the Pop Tab event, which sparked national attention in 1997. Mahomet-Seymour Junior High teachers wanted students to understand the magnitude of the Holocaust, so the classes began collecting pop tabs to represent the 11 million people killed by the Nazi’s.
With donations coming from all over the United States, the group collected 11 million tabs, dumping six million on the gymnasium floor to represent the Jews killed during that time and lining up another five million in paper bags.Nearly 2000 people sat in silent for 45 minutes as the students displayed the pop tabs they had collected.
Kor, one of nearly 200 children who survived Joseph Mengele’s genetic experimentation during the Holocaust spoke at the Pop Tab event, and rejoined Mahomet-Seymour as they commemorated the day. 3000 children were subjected to Mengele’s torture.
Kor spoke of her family, how they were separated, how her older sisters and parents were killed and how she and her twin Meriam survived. She spoke of the anger she carried around for so many years, even after she relocated with her husband in the United States. And then Kor, with grace, spoke of how she chose to forgive the Nazi’s for what they did during the Holocaust.
Mahomet-Seymour’s Bulldog TV captured the evening, and it is still available through their website. If you were not able to attend the event, please watch this life-changing talk Mozes Kor gave Friday night. She is witty, relevant and honest.
