The character arc of Edith Eger
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born Edith Eva Elefant on 29 September 1927 in Kosice, then Czechoslovakia, the youngest of three daughters of a tailor. Between then and her death sit ballet lessons and a place in the Hungarian Olympic gymnastics team, removal from that team in 1942, the Kassa ghetto, a brick factory, deportation to Auschwitz in May 1944 and the murder of her mother there, being made to dance, a death march to Gunskirchen, liberation among the dead at seventeen, a marriage, a bribe that freed her husband, an underwear factory in Baltimore, a doctorate at fifty, a clinic in La Jolla, a return to Auschwitz in 1990, and a bestseller at eighty nine. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Edith Eger?
They took the gymnastics team first. She got the rest back herself.
She was the youngest of three daughters in Kosice: Klara played violin and went to the Budapest Conservatory, Magda played piano, and Edith did ballet and gymnastics and was in the Hungarian Olympic gymnastics team. In 1942 new anti-Jewish laws removed her from it. In March 1944 she and her parents and Magda were moved into the Kassa ghetto, in April into a brick factory with twelve thousand other people, and in May to Auschwitz.
Her mother was separated from her on arrival by Josef Mengele and murdered in the gas chamber. That same evening Mengele made her dance for him in the barracks. He gave her a loaf of bread for it, and she shared it with the other girls. Later, on a death march of about thirty four miles to Gunskirchen, when she could not walk any further, one of those girls recognised her and carried her, with Magda. At Gunskirchen she ate grass. When the American army reached the camp in May 1945 she was left for dead among bodies, until a soldier saw her hand move. She weighed thirty two kilograms and had a broken back, typhoid, pneumonia and pleurisy.
She said of the camps that people asked where God was, and that she always said God was with her. She said the guards were prisoners too, that she prayed for them and turned hatred into pity, that they had been brainwashed and their own youth had been taken from them.
She and Magda found Klara alive in Kassa. Their parents and Edith fiance Eric had not survived. At nineteen she married Bela Eger, who had fought in the resistance, and when the communists jailed him she got him out by bribing a guard with a diamond ring. They went to the United States with their daughter, and in Baltimore, with no English, the only work she could find was in an underwear factory. Then Texas, where Bela became an accountant. She had three children and did not talk to them about the war.
The turn came late and she made it herself. She became a friend of Viktor Frankl, went into therapy, and took a doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso in 1978, when she was fifty. She opened a clinic in La Jolla, joined the faculty at UC San Diego, and specialised in post-traumatic stress. In 1990 she went back to Auschwitz on purpose. At the urging of Philip Zimbardo she wrote The Choice, published in 2017 when she was eighty nine, which became a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. The Gift followed in 2020 and The Ballerina of Auschwitz in 2024. She died at ninety eight, survived by three children, five grandchildren and ten great grandchildren.
The moments
Edith Eger's timeline.
The 1920s
Born in Kosice
Everyday. A tailor house, three daughters, all of them musical.
The 1940s
Ballet and gymnastics
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She was on the Olympic gymnastics team.
Off the team
Setback, and it changed everything. The first thing they took was the gymnastics.
The ghetto, then the factory
Setback, and it changed everything. A ghetto, then a brick factory with twelve thousand people.
Auschwitz
Setback, and it changed everything. Her mother was taken from her at the gate.
Made to dance
Setback, and it changed everything. She danced for him, and gave the bread away.
A girl carries her
Setback, and it changed everything. The bread she gave away came back for her.
A soldier sees her hand
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty two kilos, and one soldier looking twice.
She marries Bela
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Three sisters alive, and nobody else.
A ring for his freedom
Milestone, and it changed everything. She bought her husband out with a ring.
The 1950s
The underwear factory
Setback, and it changed her direction. No English, and piecework in Baltimore.
The 1960s
She says nothing
Setback, and it changed everything. Thirty years of not saying it.
The 1970s
Keep quiet, or study it
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go and train as a psychologist, taken, or leave it where it was. A clinic, a university post, a return to Auschwitz, and three books, the first of them at eighty nine.
A doctorate at fifty
Milestone, and it changed everything. Fifty years old, and she went and got the doctorate.
The 1980s
The clinic in La Jolla
Milestone, and it changed everything. She treated the thing that had happened to her.
The 1990s
She goes back to Auschwitz
Milestone, and it changed everything. She went back on purpose, at sixty two.
The 2010s
The Choice
Milestone, and it changed everything. Her first book, at eighty nine, and it went everywhere.
The 2020s
The Gift
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Her own sentence for the whole thing.
The Ballerina of Auschwitz
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A third book, at ninety six.
She dies at ninety eight
Setback, and it changed everything. Three children, five grandchildren, ten great grandchildren.
Her books are still in print and her clinic outlived her by nothing at all, because she worked until the end. What she set moving is her own sentence about it: what happens to us in life is not the most important thing, the most important thing is what we do with our lives.
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Edith Eger: frequently asked questions
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Where does this timeline of Edith Eger's life come from?
More character arcs
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Sources
- Edith Eger, English Wikipedia biography.
- The Choice: Embrace the Possible, Scribner, 2017.
- The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life, 2020, and The Ballerina of Auschwitz, 2024.
- The UC San Diego Holocaust Living History Collection interview, After Auschwitz: Choosing Life.