2023-04-17

Kor, Alex

Lecture delivered by Alex Kor, DPM, MS (Witham Health Services; Fellow and Past President, American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine; Fellow, American Society of Podiatric Surgeons) on April 17, 2023. On Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), Dr. Kor relates the story of three people: his mother, Eva Kor, who was a victim of Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz; Dr. Hans Muench, a physician at Auschwitz who found a way to protect prisoners there; and himself, a podiatrist and cancer survivor. These stories yield important lessons about memory, forgiveness, and the ethical practice of medicine.

This lecture is part of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics Dr. William S. Silvers Holocaust, Genocide, and Contemporary Bioethics Lectureship and was co-sponsored by the John Shaw Billings History of Medicine Society and the Ruth Lilly Medical Library. The purpose of the Silvers Lectureship is to offer space annually for physicians and other community leaders to consider the impact of their work and apply the ethical lessons of the Holocaust. The lectureship strives to focus healthcare workers on the morality of their actions and to ground contemporary conflicts in the lessons of history.

Ruth Lilly Medical Library

Educational; History

History of Medicine; Bioethics; National Socialism; Nazis; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Cancer Patients; Auschwitz (Concentration camp); Kor, Eva Mozes; Muench, Hans; Mengele, Josef, 1911-1979

Transylvania (Principality); Germany; Israel; Indiana (state)

History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Lectures

Ruth Lilly Medical Library