![]() ![]() ![]() While this memoir is not a how-to on overcoming trauma and loss via the essentials of positive psychology or forgiveness work, and while the clinical vignettes do not necessarily describe evidence-based practices, The Choice teaches a profound lesson: healing from darkness is a lifelong process. ![]() There she comes to a hard-won conclusion that frees her, finally, to fully embrace her life and her calling. Realizing that she will have to confront the most haunting and painful moment of her lifein order for her own growth and healing to be complete, she returns to Germany and to Auschwitz despite others’ warnings. Eger exemplifies the dictum that psychotherapists can only guide their patients as far as they themselves have dared to go. Frankl himself in friendship, the quintessential question of survivor guilt, “Why me?!”, becomes “Why not me?!” – the fuel for her determination to heal herself and others against many odds.ĭr. Guided by Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and eventually by Dr. Eger is also guided by her patients’ internal struggles to embark on her own exploration of the long-term consequences of surviving, while countless others did not. In fact, writing at ninety years old and still a practicing clinical psychologist, the author shows how her early life experiences became the reference points for her later life decisions (to marry and have children, to move to the United States and pursue a degree) as well as for her clinical work with traumatized veterans and civilian patients caught between life and death.ĭr. Eger’s memoir does not focus on the events of the Holocaust. Eventually, they physically recover, Edith with a seriously injured upper back.ĭespite her almost unbelievable experiences in several concentration and forced labor camps, Dr. At the end of the war, she and her sister are found by an American G.I., probably only hours from death through starvation. Throughout the catastrophic losses in the months that follow, this “Anne Frank who didn’t die” (as Edith was often called) holds onto her mother’s wisdom in the face of destruction: “Just remember, no one can take away from you what you’ve put in your mind.” In atrocious situations, she holds onto her dignity and her belief in connection and community, rather than simply trying to survive at all costs. She and her sister Magda are selected “to life,” while her parents are immediately murdered. In 1944, Edith, a teenage ballet dancer, Olympic gymnastics hopeful, and the youngest daughter in a Hungarian Jewish family, is transported to Auschwitz in a cattle car. Edith Eva Eger survived the Holocaust in body, mind, and spirit her memoir powerfully illustrates her decades-long journey to not only survive, but also transcend the atrocities of the Shoah. It shows that hope can flower in the most unlikely places.Dr. In fact, they helped her learn to live again with a life-affirming strength and a truly remarkable resilience. The horrors of the Holocaust didn’t break Edith. When the camp is finally liberated, she is pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive. Separated from her parents on arrival, she endures unimaginable experiences, including being made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele. In 1944, sixteen-year-old ballerina Edith Eger was sent to Auschwitz. Eger’s book is a triumph’ – The New York Times ‘I can’t imagine a more important message for modern times. Her memoir, like her life, is extraordinary, harrowing and inspiring in equal measure’ – The Times Literary Supplement ‘One of those rare and eternal stories you don’t want to end’ – Desmond Tutu ‘Extraordinary … will stick with you long after you read it’ – Bill Gates ‘I’ll be forever changed by her story’ – Oprah Winfrey
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