“The Choice” by Dr. Edith Eva Eger – By Nimandra Gunasekera
Source : Qld Sri Lankan Newsletter – Dæhæna – December 2023
At the age of sixteen, Edith Eger was sent to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz along with her parents and one of her sisters. Hours after he ordered her parents’ death, Nazi officer Dr. Josef Mengele, nicknamed the “Angel of Death”, made Edith, a trained ballerina, dance for his amusement and her survival. At Auschwitz, Edith witnesses and experiences the horrors of the dehumanising effects of prejudice. In 1945, Edith was discovered under a pile of dead bodies when Auschwitz was liberated. She had typhoid fever, pneumonia, pleurisy and a broken back. She will never dance again.
Edith went on to become a world-renowned clinical psychologist specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. However, her journey was not a straightforward one.
Edith spends decades struggling with nightmares and flashbacks of Auschwitz and the crippling effects of survivor’s guilt, determined to stay silent and hide from the past. “Memory is sacred ground. But it’s haunted too.” writes Dr. Eger. “It’s the place where my rage and guilt and grief go circling like hungry birds scavenging the same old bones. It’s the place where I go searching for the answer to the unanswerable question: “Why did I survive?”
Thirty-five years after the war ended, she returns to Auschwitz. It was during this return trip that Edith confronts a devastating truth that had kept her riddled with guilt and shame, a memory she’d hidden even from herself and was finally able to fullyheal and forgive the one person she’d been unable to orgive– herself.
In 2017, at age 90, Dr. Eger published her memoir, “The Choice” which tells the story of her survival and healing, offering profound insights into the power of forgiveness, the human capacity for resilience and the importance of choosing hope over despair.
Dr. Eger weaves her remarkable personal journey with the moving stories of those she has helped heal, making “The Choice” a compelling and inspirational read. Eger’s ability to confront trauma and fin meaning in suffering provides readers with a transformative perspective on life’s challenges. Dr. Eger explores how we can be imprisoned in our own minds and shows us how to find the key to freedom. She lives by the words of her mother, spoken in the cattle truck on their way to Auschwitz, “just remember, no one can take away from you what you’ve put inyour mind.”
Nimandra works in the renewable energy industry,
and enjoys reading and dabbling in a bit of writing
