We have a choice

A thrilling and compelling story

In her book, which is more than just a memoir, Edith Eger gives us not only the thrilling and compelling story of her own life, but also the inspiring stories of her patients. Against this backdrop, he shows us that we all have a choice - to choose to step out of the role of victim, to free ourselves from the shackles of the past and to begin to live fully.

Edith Eva Eger was born on 29 September 1927 in a Hungarian Jewish family in Košice. At just 16, the Nazis deported her to Auschwitz, where her parents were murdered and she had to dance to Mengele. Together with her sister Magda, she survived several camps and the death march. In 1945, American soldiers pulled it from the pile of corpses at Mauthausen. For decades after the war, she still struggled with trauma and guilt. In America, where she and her husband eventually emigrated under dramatic circumstances after the communist takeover, she earned a doctorate in clinical psychology, raised three children and opened a therapeutic practice. At the request of the U.S. Army, she began helping soldiers at risk for post-traumatic stress syndrome. At first, she was unable to talk about her own past at all. But then she decided to break the silence and after thirty-five years she went to Auschwitz. It was only there that she understood that in order to heal, she had to forgive first. Not Hitler or Mengel. But to herself.