As nearly every living Holocaust survivor is expected to be gone within the next decade, a pressing moral question emerges regarding how to preserve memory for a generation growing up amid misinformation and denial. Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of Auschwitz at age ten, spent her final years advocating for Holocaust education to begin much earlier than the typical introduction around age twelve in American schools. She argued that by that age, children have already begun forming worldviews, including prejudice.
Kor believed elementary and middle school students are already encountering conspiracy theories, extremist propaganda, antisemitic memes, and Holocaust distortion online. Her memoir for young readers, I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz, written with author Danica Davidson and released in 2022, has become a bestseller and is now being read in schools, libraries, and homes nationwide. The book details how Eva and her twin sister Miriam survived Dr. Josef Mengele's medical experiments and the terror of Auschwitz, later advocating for education and forgiveness.
Davidson first met Kor at Western Michigan University, where the survivor delivered a lecture on remembrance. Kor expressed her desire to reach young people quickly through a children's book. Davidson interviewed Kor extensively, weaving personal narrative with historical context to make the story accessible for upper elementary and middle school readers. The manuscript sold quickly, but Kor passed away fifteen days later while traveling to Poland for educational work.
The need for such education is underscored by recent trends. Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. and abroad have surged in the last five years, and online radicalization has lowered barriers to hate. Polls show a troubling percentage of young Americans cannot name a single Nazi camp, with some believing the Holocaust is exaggerated or fabricated. Books like I Will Protect You offer an entry point, teaching history as the lived reality of children who played, dreamed, and loved before persecution.
Davidson continues this work, having also written a graphic novel with another survivor and education advocate, Eva Schloss, titled What Lies Hidden, which is ready for publishers. Schloss, known posthumously as the stepsister of Anne Frank, traveled the world to share her story and highlight paintings her brother Heinz made in hiding before his death. With Schloss's recent passing, the story gains urgency. In her Holocaust Remembrance Day op-ed "Working with survivors to tell their stories, before it's too late" at the Jewish News Syndicate, Davidson writes about collaborating with both women, noting they understood how these projects fit into broader Holocaust education frameworks.
Kor spent decades returning to Auschwitz to teach from her trauma, ensuring no child would inherit the world she once did. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, her message remains clear: memory must be taught, empathy practiced, and education must begin earlier. As the last generation who can say "I was there" disappears, the world will only remember what is taught. Davidson emphasized in her article "Holocaust Education Should Start in Elementary School" at Aish that Holocaust documentation can teach children critical thinking, the repetition of human behaviors, how history shapes the present, individual power, the harm of us-versus-them mentalities, and the importance of treating others with empathy.
