A dream come true: 1945 letter from Mickey Kor expresses longing for new life in America

Sep. 29—More than a year ago, when a freelance journalist in New York contacted Alex Kor to tell him about a letter written by Kor's father in September 1945, Alex's response was, "I think you're mistaken."

The journalist, Andrew Silverstein, was writing an article on European Jews who, during and after World War II and the Holocaust, turned to an American-Jewish publication, the Forward, to help seek asylum and find relatives.

In 1945, the Forward published an edited-down version of Mickey Kor's letter, translated into Yiddish; Kor was hoping to make his way to America, Silverstein said.

When he wrote the letter, Mickey Kor, then a teenager, was not aware that two brothers had, in fact, survived the Holocaust, although his parents and one brother had been murdered by the Nazis.

Nor was he aware that Lt. Col. Andrew Nehf of Terre Haute, whose military unit took Mickey Kor under its wing after liberation, was already working on his behalf to help him emigrate to America.

In the letter, Kor wrote that the Nazis had murdered family members "in a cold-blooded manner ... I now am alone in this world and not knowing where to turn ... I want to forget the terrible past. I look forward to the future and the hope that somehow, I will be given the opportunity of entering the country of the United States of America."

He further wrote in the English version, "It is my expressed hope and feeling of beginning life anew. I want to become a credit to mankind and not a liability. I await your reply and will appreciate whatever help and advice that you may afford me. I thank you from the bottom of my heart," he wrote to what was then called the Jewish Daily Forward, now called the Forward, an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience.

Mickey Kor had survived four years in labor and concentration camps; he had been used as slave labor.

While being led on a death march by German soldiers fearing the end of the war in 1945, Kor escaped from his captors and hid; he was soon liberated by American G.I.s near Magdeburg, Germany.

Ever since the soldiers gave him his first bottle of Coca-Cola when they liberated him in April 1945, he had wanted to come to the U.S., Silverstein wrote in his article.

In Mickey's own words: "I've been issued the regular Army uniform, ate and slept with the boys, and became one of their buddies. As time went on, I acquired knowledge of the 'English' language; and today I am proud to say that I am truly 'American' in every [aspect], except fact."

A photo from that time period shows Kor in an American Army uniform a couple sizes too large, eating an ice-cream sundae out of a glass with a Coca-Cola insignia on it, Silverstein writes.

In reading the 1945 letter, "It breaks your heart," Mickey's son, Alex Kor said. He was in Israel when he received a copy of the letter electronically in summer 2022, preparing to enter a stadium for the opening of the Maccabiah Games, or Jewish Olympics, in which he would participate.

"I'm walking into the stadium, looking on my phone, reading the letter and crying," Alex Kor said.

His father's story is one of several told in Silverstein's article, which appeared Sept. 10 in forward.com. It is titled, "How a news column saved lives, re-united families and changed history."

Alex Kor said his dad's story was chosen because of his strong desire to go to America.

"He was alone in the world, not knowing where to turn, looking for advice. He wanted to forget the terrible past," Alex Kor said. "It showed my dad's yearning for freedom and to have a chance in this world, and that's why I think it's so special."

In 1960, Mickey married Eva Mozes Kor, an Auschwitz survivor who founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute. Eva, along with twin sister Miriam, was subjected to human experimentation under Josef Mengele at Auschwitz.

Eva died in 2019 and Mickey in 2021.

Silverstein, in the course of doing research for another article, found Mickey Kor's letter and thousands of other documents in the digitized archives of Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem. A former Forward editor, Isaac Metzker, donated the collection upon Yad Vashem's founding in 1953.

From its beginning in 1897, the Forward helped Jews scattered by pogroms and war find each other.

Silverstein had been doing a story to help commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Forward, and in particular on its column called Seeking Relatives that ran for decades in the publication. That's when he "stumbled" onto the files that included some 15,000 documents related to Seeking Relatives.

Silverstein, in partnership with the Forward's archivist Chana Pollack, selected a handful of letters "to represent the vast universe of European Jews who contacted the Forward for help during and in the aftermath of the Holocaust. We selected messages from refugees, ghetto residents, prisoners and survivors and set out to tell what happened to the people in the letter and those they were seeking," Silverstein wrote in a separate article explaining the project.

They spent a year working on it and the resulting article.

While Alex Kor has known about the letter for more than a year, he could not talk about it while research and work on the article continued.

Silverstein, in a phone interview, said he found Mickey Kor's story "really touching ... It was very clear that he really wanted to come to America."

While most who wrote to the Forward were looking for relatives to help them go to America, Mickey Kor didn't have any relatives here.

The letter also stood out because the original was typewritten in English; very few Holocaust survivors were able to write in English, Silverstein said.

As he did his research, Silverstein located Alex Kor and found out much more about Mickey's life in the U.S. "He wanted to be an American. He loved being with American soldiers. He joined the U.S. Army," Silverstein said.

Mickey Kor's story "was pretty amazing because it seemed like what his vision for the future he wished to have in 1945 is what he was actually able to accomplish," Silverstein said. "That's pretty incredible."

Mickey Kor's portion of the overall story can be found at: https://bit.ly/3RE2Zj2

Silverstein said the overall article is about survivors, survival, Jewish families re-uniting after the war and in some cases, helping people escape from the Nazis during World War II.

"But it is also a very American story as well, a Jewish American story in particular, because it's people who are writing to the Forward to come here to the U.S."

Kor is "somebody who really expresses that desire," Silverstein said.

Sue Loughlin can be reached at 812-231-4235 or at sue.loughlin@tribstar.com Follow Sue on Twitter @TribStarSue