‘Ballerina of Auschwitz’ shares advice on how to overcome and forgive trauma
Dr. Edith Eger was just a teenager when she and her family were torn from their home by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps.
The girl who had once done that enjoyed a normal life – went to ballet class and spent time with her sisters in Hungary – survived a year in a camp with her two sisters, while her parents were murdered in the gas chambers.
For a long time, she avoided talking about the horrors she witnessed, focusing instead on building a family in America. Ultimately, she became a psychologist and realized that in order to heal, she had to face her trauma, forgive, and stop seeing herself as a victim.
And over a nearly 50-year career, she worked to do the same with her patients.
Dr. Eger, 96, told DailyMail.com: ‘I can’t change my blood. I can change the way I look at things, and I think change can be synonymous with growth.”
Dr. Edith Eger is pictured leaving before she and her family were sent to the camps in 1944. She was liberated from the camps in 1945 and emigrated to America four years later, where she would receive her doctorate in psychology.
Dr. Eger enjoyed ballet growing up in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. While in Auschwitz, Dr. Eger said she was forced to perform a ballet routine, which earned her the title “The Ballerina of Auschwitz.”
Dr. Eger was born in Czechoslovakia in 1927 as Edith Eva Elefant, the youngest daughter of three of Lajos and Illona Elefant. The family moved to Hungary, where Dr. Eger became interested in dance and gymnastics and joined the Hungarian gymnastics team in the early 1940s.
But the comforts of normal life were taken away from her when she and her family were sent to Auschwitz in 1944. Shortly after arriving, Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor, sent her mother to the gas chambers.
Afterwards, Mengele Dr. Eger to perform a dance for him. The ballerina did, saying in her 2019 memoir “The Choice,” “The floor of the barracks becomes a stage in the Budapest Opera House.”
This performance earned her the title ‘The Ballerina of Auschwitz’ and a loaf of bread, which she distributed among the girls in her area.
From there, Dr. Eger suffered famine, beatings and death marches, moving from camp to camp as the Nazis lost ground in the war.
In May 1945, after the U.S. Army liberated the camp she was in, she met the man who would become her husband, Bela Eger.
The two had their first daughter, Marianne, and then fled to America amid threats from the communist government in Czechoslovakia in 1949.
When she came to America, just four years after leaving the concentration camp, Dr. Eger didn’t want to think about the past. She was focused on building a “normal” American life with her family.
Dr. Eger told DailyMail.com: ‘I had a lot of things hidden inside me because I didn’t want to be different and my children didn’t want to be different. I just wanted to be a good Yankee Doodle.”
She entered college in 1969 and received her degree in psychology from the University of Texas, El Paso. She then received her doctorate from William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss and opened a therapy clinic in La Jolla, California.
Dr. Edie as a child, with her family, the Elefants, before she was sent to the camps, around 1932. Parents Lajos and Ilona died in Auschwitz. Dr. Eger married her husband
Dr. Eger with her husband Bela and their firstborn, Marianne, circa 1947
Then in the 1980s she visited Washington DC and went to the Holocaust Museum. There, Dr. Eger saw a photo of a girl who she swore looked just like her.
The experience moved her and she decided she had to talk about what happened to her, not only so that people would not forget the horrors of the Holocaust, but also so that she could heal.
She said: ‘I think it’s important that we recognize that what goes into our bodies doesn’t make us sick, it’s what stays in them.’
This became a cornerstone of her therapeutic practice. She encourages people to share what they’ve been through and accept it so they no longer see themselves as victims.
It is common for people who have experienced traumatic situations to feel like victims. But this mentality is cyclical, she said, and leads people to fall into toxic patterns.
Someone who considers themselves a victim of life will likely find themselves in two scenarios, Dr. Eger said. First, they will likely end up in the same scenario: surrounded by people who will hurt them.
Or second, they are likely to become victims themselves and turn their bad feelings into other people’s problems.
Dr. Eger gives a presentation to a classroom full of students in the 1980s
To get there, Dr. Eger to think about the choices before you and make decisions that will help you grow and forgive yourself and those who have wronged you.
Dr. Eger said, “The more choices you have, the less you will ever feel like a victim. It’s not who I am, it’s what was done to me.’
If you’re having trouble forgiving those who have wronged you, Dr. Eger said you can reframe the idea of forgiveness entirely.
She said forgiveness is an act of self-care that actually helps you, and you don’t have to see it as something that serves the person who hurt you.
This will lead to radical growth and change for the better. She said, “I think forgiveness is a gift you give yourself to magnify rather than thank. So don’t call me a psychiatrist, call me a psychiatrist. I think it’s good to stretch your comfort zone.’
Other things you can do to get over your past include focusing on the person you want to be.
To do this, she recommends starting the day by visualizing yourself feeling satisfied at the end of the day. This will help you make decisions throughout the day that will help you feel better and more present at the end of the day.
Dr. Eger said, “You will be what you practice. Decide in the morning what you want to feel in the evening.’
This will help you focus on each day as it is presented to you and be grateful for the time you have, she explained.
Dr. Eger added, “You’re going to look at yourself in the mirror and see yourself satisfied. Since life may only last one day, the morning sun may or may not return. Don’t know. There’s no guarantee.’