INDIANAPOLIS — Holocaust survivor and beloved Hoosier Eva Mozes Kor died Thursday morning just miles from the Auschwitz concentration camp, seventy-five years after first arriving there as a victim of torture under the Nazi regime.

Kor died of natural causes at 7:10 a.m., local time, in Krakow, Poland. 

She was in the middle of leading an educational summer trip with the CANDLEs Holocaust Museum and Education Center. By guiding participants through the concentration camp haunted with her most difficult memories, Kor was doing what she did best: educating others through telling them her story.

“I’m going to miss her terribly,” her son, Alex Kor, told the IndyStar Thursday. “Yet I know my mom would not want me to cry. She wouldn’t want other people to cry. … Even yesterday, she was giving a lecture, and somebody started to cry. And she said, ‘Don’t cry. You don’t need to cry.’”

Alex said people can honor his mother’s memory best by recognizing her goals and following her path to help others.

“She was a great mother. She may not have thought she was a great mother, but she was a great mother,” Alex said. “My mother’s memory will best be honored by people doing the right thing, by taking her example, by believing in what is right.”

Known for her strength and advocacy after suffering in Auschwitz during World War II, Kor preached forgiveness, even for the Nazis who tortured her.