Eva Mozes Kor was awarded the 2017 Sachem Award, Indiana's highest honor, during a ceremony Thursday celebrating the Holocaust survivor who endured medical experiments at Auschwitz and went on to tout the power of forgiveness.
Kor, 83, founded the Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1985. Most of her family was killed at the concentration camp, but Kor and her twin sister survived, enduring medical experiments before being freed in 1945.
"What began as a single act of forgiveness has grown into a philosophy that is powerfully transforming each and every one of us," Gov. Eric Holcomb said, according to the Tribune-Star. "Forgive your worst enemy, forgive everyone who has hurt you. Forgiveness is an act of self-healing, self-liberation and self-empowerment. It will heal your soul and it will set you free."
Kor received the Sachem Award, which was instituted by former Gov. Mitch Daniels in 2005 and is given to one person annually, during a ceremony at the Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis on Thursday.
The award is named for an Algonquin term that implies wisdom, judgment, and grace, and Indiana University history professor James Madison called it an "honor only to those who create enduring footsteps of achievement, virtue, service [and] excellence," the Tribune-Star noted.
Kor, whom Holcomb called "the living embodiment of true compassion," said she wanted to spread her message of forgiveness to Congress, the IndyStar reported.
"I want to give them a little lecture of my life lessons, what I learned," she said, according to the newspaper.
Kor also will serve as Grand Marshall of the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade on May 27, Holcomb announced during Thursday's event, according to WIBQ.
Holcomb posted a video of the ceremony on his Facebook page.
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