INDIANAPOLIS — Joining the likes of Reggie Miller and Kurt Vonnegut, Holocaust survivor and adopted Hoosier Eva Kor will get a mural in downtown Indianapolis.
Individual donors and charitable organizations helped raise money to fund the commissioned piece.
The 500 Festival Foundation is managing the project, set to be installed on the south wall of their building at 21 Virginia Ave.
At approximately 53 feet tall, the mural will be one of the tallest in the city. Artist Pamela Bliss, who painted the Miller and Vonnegut murals downtown, will also paint the Kor mural.
Work started last week. It's expected to be completed by the end of November. When the portrait here is finished, Eva will appear in her trademark blue, with that big smile, giving a peace sign.
The words "hope, healing and forgiveness" will be by her side.
"It's a good education tool because there are some people who don't know about Eva or are not as educated about the Holocaust," Bliss said. "We can't forget the things that happen so we don't repeat it."
Kor, an advocate for forgiveness and human rights, died in 2019 at the age of 85.
She was just 10 years old when her family was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, where her mother, father and older sisters died. Eva and her twin sister Miriam survived at Auschwitz for 10 months until they were freed.
Kor lived in Terre Haute for 59 years, while being known and admired around the world for her forgiveness of the Nazis. In 1984, she founded the Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors (CANDLES) program and helped find fellow survivors of Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele.
For her son, Alex Kor, it's an honor.
"It's very meaningful and I also hope for the public at large, people who maybe had no interactions with my mom in the past, they can learn a little bit more about my mother and maybe use some of my mom's life messages and lessons to better themselves and hopefully better our community," he said. "Hopefully there's some little girl or little boy in downtown Indianapolis that didn't know my mom's story and maybe is walking back from school one day and sees the image and wants to find out more you know that's kind of where, on a personal level, it might make a difference in somebody's life."
Besides Eva's image, the mural will have two large plaques with her story and life lessons. The project should be complete by the end of November.