Edith Eger: The Woman Who Chose Freedom

by Willow Gelin

“You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.”

Introduction

Dr. Edith Eva Eger (nee Elefánt) was born on the 29th of September 1927 in Košice, Slovakia. Her story is one of strong will and abundant hope, and she is an inspiration to many. Her story was especially moving to me because I, being a dancer, as Edith wished to be, understand the power creative expression can hold during times of distress. I was told her story by my mother and was immediately amazed by her. That she not only survived Auschwitz but, after liberation, found a way to cope with and talk about her trauma, along with continually bettering the world, is admirable.

Background

Edith did not have an easy upbringing. Her father was a prisoner of war in World War I but never discussed his experiences1. Her mother placed a high value on physical appearance and believed that Edith was ugly, beginning Edith’s constant search for perfection and approval. She grew up with two sisters; Magda, who was six years older than her, and Klara, the middle child. To cope with her family life, Edith’s escape became ballet, which she trained in since she was five, and gymnastics, both of which she wished to pursue professionally2 .

Pre-War Context

In 1918, the Treaty of Versailles created the nation of Czechoslovakia, in which Košice was located. Edith’s family’s region was agrarian Slovakia, whose residents were of both Hungarian and Slovak heritage3. When the treaty was signed, the city’s name was changed from Kassa to Košice. Edith’s family were Jewish ethnic Hungarians living in a Czech country, which made them extreme minorities at the time. However, Košice soon after became a predominantly Jewish city; in 1941, 10,211 Jews lived there, of a population of nearly

1 E. Eger, The Choice, Ebury Publishing, London, 2017, p. 30.

2 Ibid, p. 31.

3 Ibid, p. 24.

67,0004 . In November of 1938, Hungary annexed Košice, changing the city’s name back to Kassa5 . Edith remarks that, despite knowing only a German Košice, when Hungary annexed the city, “it felt like home had become home”6 .

Start of War and Nazi Ideology

Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and World War II began. In 1941, Hungary joined Germany in Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union7. However, Hungary, after joining in the operation, questioned their alliance with the Axis powers. In retaliation, Germany began bombing Hungarian cities, one of which was Kassa8. The war was a constant threat to Edith and her family, and death was ever-looming.

Edith’s first experience with antisemitism was in 1939. Hungarian Nazis, called nyilas, evicted their apartment to create more lebensraum, living space, for the ‘Aryan race’, the Nazi Party’s ideal citizens. The ‘perfect Aryan’ would have blonde hair, blue eyes, fully German ancestry, and a willingness to do whatever Adolf Hitler’s government decreed9. The Nazi Party notably despised Jews, and it was made abundantly clear by them that Jews were an inferior ‘race’. Edith recalls that she knew being Jewish was fundamentally bad, as she experienced the horrible treatment of Jews in school. She remembers, “children [spat] at us and called us ‘Christ killers’”10. Edith felt that, simply because she was Jewish, “[she had] done something bad, something punishable.”11 This idea was only reinforced by the war.

4 M. Isenberg, “Encyclopaedia of Jewish communities, Slovakia”, JewishGen.org, 2016, https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_slovakia/slo495.html, (accessed on 25 July 2022).

5 M. Isenberg, “Košice, Slovakia”, JewishGen.org, 2022, https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kosice/, (accessed on 25 July 2022).

6 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 25.

7 N. Askel., “Hungarian Forces: Operation Barbarossa, June-July 1941”, OperationBarbarossa.net, n.d., https://www.operationbarbarossa.net/hungarian-forces-operation-barbarossa-june-july-1941/, (accessed on 29 July 2022).

8 Ibid.

9 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Nazi Racism”, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-racism, (accessed on 21 August 2022).

10 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

11 E. Eger. op.cit., p. 27.

Experiences of the Holocaust

In 1940, curfews were imposed on Jews. In the same year, the nyilas started taking the Jewish men to forced labour camps, and in August 1943, Edith’s father was captured12 . When she realised he was gone, she thought, “how is he a threat to anyone? Why has he been targeted?”13 The family was devastated, not only that he was gone, but that they had no power to change the circumstances.

Around 1943, Magda, Edith’s oldest sister, located their father and visited him. Magda told Edith only that their father was “stagger[ing] under the weight of the table he [had] to heft from place to place”14. Their father returned from the camp in March of 1944, seven months after he was taken15. Edith recalls, “my father was… abused by the Hungarian Nazi[s] and came home… very down and very sad that good people do very bad things.”16 On April 5th , 1944, Hungarian Jews were made to wear the yellow Star of David and, in early 1944, Edith was banned from the Olympic gymnastics team because she was Jewish17. She was banned from the one activity that brought her peace and was forced to come to terms with the reality of the war and the future impacts it was sure to have.

In the dawn hours of April 8th, 1944, Nazi soldiers entered Edith’s home and told her family to leave18. They were given no more information but were allowed one suitcase for the four of them. Klara, Edith’s sister, had moved to Budapest by this time, so escaped deportation. The family was one of the first taken to the Jakab Brick Factory; in total, over 12,000 Jews were imprisoned there19. In the factory, people speculated that they would be sent to Kenyérmezo, which they thought was “an internment camp, where [they would] work and live out the war with [their] families”20. However, the rumours were started by the Hungarian police and nyilas to spread false hope.

12 Ibid, p. 29.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid, p. 30.

16 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

17 E. Eger, op.cit., pp. 27, 32, 33.

18 Ibid, p. 37.

19 Ibid, p. 40.

20 Ibid, p. 41.

Edith later found out that her parents were both given the opportunity to escape, but neither chose to accept. Edith may have blamed her parents for her suffering if she was younger, but she “[did not] have time to blame. Children blame…” she says. “Adults solve the problem and move on”21

Auschwitz and the Final Solution

On January 20th, 1942, Nazi officials met, in a meeting called the Wannsee Conference, to discuss what they deemed the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”22. Adolf Hitler had always intended to exterminate the Jews, and this proposed ‘solution’, the mass killing of Jews, was his ultimate way of enacting this plan; 11 million Jews were estimated by the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Nazi Party’s security and unofficial military organisation, to be murdered as a result23. In 1941, Hitler authorised the Final Solution, and it began to be implemented. In 1942, it was implemented at Auschwitz, a concentration camp in southern Poland which is known for its size and torturous conditions24 Auschwitz was turned from a labour camp to one specifically designed for mass murder. Altogether, over 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, most of them Jews25 .

In May 1944, Edith’s family was taken to Auschwitz26. They were separated by gender and stood in their first selection line. Edith experienced extreme survivor’s guilt after the war ended, not just for surviving, but because of her first day at Auschwitz; Edith was asked by one of the soldiers if her mother was her mother or her sister, and she replied, “mother.” Edith’s mother was sent to the left and she and her sister were sent to the right. Edith asked one of the kapos, the guards, when she would see her mother again. The kapo responded with, “your mother is burning in there… you better start talking about her in the past tense.”27

21 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

22 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Wannsee Conference and the “Final Solution””, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/wannsee-conference-and-the-final-solution, (accessed on 12 August 2022).

23 Ibid.

24 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Auschwitz Camp Complex”, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz-1, (accessed on 28 July 2022).

25 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Auschwitz”, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2015, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz, (accessed on 28 July 2022).

26 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 45.

This news was shocking. Edith looked up to her mother, despite the way she treated Edith, and she did not know how she would be able to live without her. This heavily impacted Edith’s experiences of the Holocaust; she hoped that she would be able to survive the Holocaust alongside her mother and sister, but her parents were immediately killed. Edith discovered her mother was being murdered, and Magda, her sister, hugged her and said, “the spirit never dies.”28 Edith kept her parents’ spirits with her, as well as her own, throughout the entirety of her time at Auschwitz.

The rules within the camp were harsh and harrowing; structure was enforced, making days repetitive and tedious. At four a.m., the prisoners would line up and endure a ‘roll call’ called the Appell29. They would then march to their daily labour, which was either a warehouse or a crematorium30 . After hours of torturous labour, they would get their only meal of the day, “watery soup [and] a stale piece of bread”31. The prisoners’ daily showers were “fraught with uncertainty,” Edith recalls. “We never knew if water or gas would stream out of the tap.”32 They would end the day by sleeping on extremely uncomfortable straw mattresses.

In Edith’s first evening at Auschwitz, during the Appell, Josef Mengele, also called the ‘Angel of Death’, a brutal officer who would conduct immoral and fatal experiments on prisoners, called Edith forward, commanding, “little dancer… Dance for me”33. If she refused to dance or made any mistake, she would undoubtedly have been killed. While dancing, she pretended she was on a stage to distract herself from the reality of her situation. When Edith danced that day, she thought to herself, “I dance for love. I dance for life”34. When she finished dancing, Mengele tossed her a loaf of bread, which she shared with her bunkmates35 This seemingly insignificant action would later save her life.

27 Ibid, p. 47.

28 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

29 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 55

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid, p. 58.

33 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “ Josef Mengele”, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele, (accessed on 28 July 2022) and E. Eger, op.cit., p. 52.

34 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 53.

35 Ibid.

In July 1944, Miklós Horthy, Hungary’s then-Prime-Minister, put deportations of Hungarian Jews on hold. Over the two months that the 430,000 deported Jews had been at the camp, over 70% were gassed on arrival, with many more dying from starvation and disease36 . Between 270,000 and 280,000 Jews remained in Hungary when deportations were stopped, but most were force-marched to Austria37. Edith “didn’t know any of this then. [The prisoners] didn’t know anything of life or the war outside.”38

In the winter of 1944, six months after the prisoners first arrived at Auschwitz, Edith was put into another selection line; the prisoners were to be tattooed39 . The tattooing officer said to Edith, “I’m not going to waste the ink on you,” and placed her into one of the lines40. She noticed that Magda, her sister, was sent to a different line and knew at that moment that, regardless of whether the lines meant life or death, “nothing matter[ed] except that [she] stay[ed] with [her] sister”41. To distract the guards, Edith began cartwheeling, and Magda was able to run into Edith’s line. Although a guard noticed the stunt, Edith was not punished for it.

In early 1945, Auschwitz was evacuated; Soviet troops were approaching Poland from the East and American troops from the West42 . “We’re just going to a place to work until the end of the war,” the prisoners were told43. They spent many weeks in a German thread factory before continuing to move through Germany44. At one point in the journey, Magda found a farm and ran to it. Edith, sitting on top of a train car as the prisoners were instructed, heard gunshots coming from the farm. Magda escaped detection by quickly running back to the train and Edith was extremely relieved that her sister was unharmed. “Magda is my guiding star. As long as she is near, I have everything I need,” Edith thought45

36 E. Lappin, “The Death Marches of Hungarian Jews Through Austria in the Spring of 1945”, n.d., https://www.erinnern.at/themen/e_bibliothek/seminarbibliotheken-zentrale-seminare/verbrechen-verdrangen-leiderinnern/753_lappin_Death%20Marches.pdf, (accessed on 18 August 2022), pp. 2, 36.

37 E. Rabinovich, “Rescue of the Jews of Budapest”, 2018, https://berkovichzametki.com/2014/Starina/Nomer1/ERabinovich1.php, (accessed on 18 August 2022).

38 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 61.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid, p. 62.

41 Ibid.

42 Facing History and Ourselves, “The Death Marches”, Facing History and Ourselves, 2022, https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-9/death-marches, (accessed on 19 August 2022).

43 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 63.

44 Ibid, p. 64.

45 Ibid, pp. 67, 68.

In March of 1945, Edith and the other prisoners began work in an ammunition factory near Czechoslovakia46. One month later, they were marched through a small German town, where they slept in a community hall47. Edith noticed a nearby farm and stole carrots from it. The farmer demanded to see the carrot thief the next day. In fear that Magda, who kept the carrot scraps in her pockets, would be found, Edith revealed herself to him. The man, instead of punishing or killing her, gave her a loaf of bread. “You must have been very hungry to do what you did”, the man said to her48. This small action reminded Edith that there were still good people in the world and fuelled her hope to survive.

In April of 1945, the prisoners were marched to a subcamp of Mauthausen, a concentration camp located in Upper Austria49 “‘We die in the morning,’ the rumours announce[d].”50 The prisoners were told about a set of 186 stairs, the ‘Stairs of Death’, that they had to climb while carrying 50-kilogram bricks51. None could fall, or all those climbing would die

The Death Marches

In mid-1945, the Death Marches began. The marches were the Nazis’ forced transfers of thousands of prisoners to different camps. “It [was] the shortest distance we [were] forced to walk, but we [were extremely] weakened by then,” Edith remembers52. Only one hundred of the two thousand prisoners marching alongside Edith survived53 . The SS were given orders to kill anyone who slowed down or stopped; in total, 200-250,000 prisoners died on the Death Marches54. Edith remembers that “we never knew what [was] going to happen, but we knew that if you stopped, you got killed.”55 Edith was nearly killed after slowing down, but the girls, with whom she shared Mengele’s bread her first day at Auschwitz, linked their arms and carried her56. The girls all took turns carrying each other, which helped many of them survive, and served as a great show of the camaraderie and trust that could be created even when surrounded by death and negativity. “All we had was each other then, and all we have is each other now,” Edith says57

46 Ibid, p. 69.

47 Ibid, p. 71.

48 Ibid, p. 75.

49 Ibid, p. 78.

50 Ibid, p. 79.

51 Ibid, p. 78.

52 Ibid, p. 83.

53 Ibid.

54 Yad Vashem, “Death Marches”, Yad Vashem, n.d., https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20%206260.pdf, (accessed on 21 August 2022).

Edith and the other surviving prisoners eventually reached Gunskirchen Lager, a different subcamp of Mauthausen58. Gunskirchen Lager was built to house only a few hundred labourers, but, following the Death Marches, approximately 18,000 prisoners were housed in the subcamp simultaneously, leading to a prevalence of illness59. A few days after reaching the subcamp, Edith became unable to walk; her back was broken60 . She was left for dead, lying in a pile of bodies.

Liberation and Recovery

On May 4th, 1945, Mauthausen was liberated by American Troops61. Edith remembers seeing flags “emblazoned with the number 71”62 A soldier nearly walked past her, but she used her last reserves of energy to lift her hand, capturing his attention. When she was liberated, Edith thought of her sister. She thought, “we have survived the final selection. We are alive. We are together. We are free ”63

55 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

56 Ibid and E. Eger, op.cit., p. 84.

57 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

58 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 85.

59 Ibid and Jewish Virtual Library, “Allied Liberators: Liberation of Gunskirchen Lager”, Jewish Virtual Library, 2022, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/liberation-of-gunskirchen-lager, (accessed on 21 August 2022).

60 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 86.

61 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

62 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 88.

Edith’s recovery was difficult. She began recovery in a German family’s house in Wels, Austria for six weeks before travelling to Vienna, and then to Prague64 . She and Magda returned to Kassa, their hometown, and found Klara, their sister. They spent a week in Klara’s house recovering from their injuries65. In total, over 1,500 prisoners formerly housed in Gunskirchen Lager died while recovering post-liberation66. Edith recalls, “I was very weak, very skinny, [and] very lonely.”67 Edith’s physical recovery took a long time, but she was able to recover from her injuries successfully. Her psychological recovery, however, took much longer. In the hospital, Edith “was hoping for [her] parents to come back.”68 When they didn’t, she became suicidal and severely depressed; “I had no meaning in my life. No purpose,”69 Edith recalls. However, Edith’s curiosity helped her survive, as she wondered each day, “what’s going to happen next?”70

Emigration

On November 12th, 1946, Edith and Béla Eger, a partisan whom she met in the hospital, were married and, in September of 1947, their first daughter, Marianne, was born. The family planned to immigrate to Israel, and so, in early 1949, shipped the Eger family fortune in a boxcar to Israel71 . However, they soon discovered they were eligible to immigrate to America, and ultimately decided to immigrate there instead, leaving the fortune behind72 .

63 Ibid, p. 91.

64 Ibid, pp. 97, 104, 106.

65 Ibid, p. 111.

66 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Liberation of Gunskirchen”, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022, https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/liberation-of-gunskirchen, (accessed on 21 August 2022).

67 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid, p. 148.

Immigration was difficult for Edith. She did not have any money to get to America, so was given six dollars, now worth approximately $110 AUD, by the Red Cross, which she repaid many years later73 . On the 28th of October 1949, “the most optimistic and promising day of [Edith’s] life,” she successfully immigrated to America74. There was a strong language barrier; the only English word Edith knew was ‘okay’75. Similarly, the culture in America was startlingly different to that in Hungary, which shocked Edith many times. Edith managed to learn English through exposure to the language, as well as through books given to her by Marianne’s school teacher76. On February 10th, 1954, Edith’s second daughter, Audrey, was born77 and, in 1956, the Egers’ third child, John, was born. In 1959, Edith returned to school, feeling that her English was advanced enough to do so; she has since obtained a Bachelor of Science in psychology, a Master of Arts in educational psychology and a PhD in clinical psychology78

Legacy

Today, Edith is 94 years old, and continues to work as a clinical psychologist, remarking “I will never, ever retire.”79 Although Edith still holds trauma from the Holocaust, she has been able to cope with it and live a fulfilled life. Edith tells others, “I am not a survivor, I am a human being,” and calls Auschwitz her “cherished wound”80 Edith recognises that she “[does] not live in the past”81, and that her memory may not be entirely accurate, but remembers her mother telling her on the way to Auschwitz, “no one can take away from you

72 Ibid, pp. 149, 164, 167.

73 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

74 E. Eger, op.cit., p. 167 what you put in your mind.”82 Edith has since shared her story with the world through participating in extensive interviews, testimonies and speaking engagements.

75 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

76 Ibid, p. 175.

77 Ibid, pp. 185, 186 and ibid, p. 194.

78 Ibid, pp. 198, 213, 223.

79 Dr. Edith Eva Eger, interviewed by W. Gelin, Eastern Avenue, 2022.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid.

In 2017, Edith published her first book, ‘The Choice’, which documented her experiences of the Holocaust and became a New York Times Bestseller. She now has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren and hopes that she is remembered as someone who “did everything in her power… to [ensure that others] never experience what I did.”83 She says that she has and will continue to “use my faculties to… appreciate my Jewish heritage, because [it] taught me to never… give up.”84 Edith is a role model to many people globally and continues to make many changes, having donated over 2,000 clinical hours to the Red Cross and consistently helped her clients to overcome their traumas and choose freedom85. Edith preaches the importance of creating connections with others, saying “I can be I, and you can be you, but together we are… stronger than me… or you alone.”86 Ultimately, Dr. Edith Eva Eger’s connections with others helped her not only survive Auschwitz but recover from her trauma and create a new life for herself; a life which she has lived to its fullest.

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