September 13, 2023 • 33 mins
Dr. Edith Eger was only 15 when her family was violently removed from their home in Hungary by German Nazis and sent to concentration camps. But after surviving Auschwitz, and later immigrating to the United States, Dr. Eger kept her past a secret, even from her own children, until decades later. On this emotional episode of She Pivots, Dr. Eger discusses dancing for her survival at Auschwitz, her decision to get her PhD in her 50s, the power of sharing her story, and her advice for future generations.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today, more than seventy years have passed. What happened can
never be forgotten. I know that and can never be changed.
But over time I learned that I can choose how
to respond to the past. I can be miserable or
I can be hopeful. I can be depressed, or I
(00:23):
can be happy. We always have that choice, that opportunity
for control. I am here, this is now. I have
learned to tell myself over and over and over again
until panicky feeling begins to ease.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That was an excerpt from the book The Choice by
my guest today, Doctor Edith Eager. This is Sheep Habits
and I'm your host Emil Tage Susman. In that short clip,
doctor Eager's talking about her experience surviving the whole cot
and her long journey of healing the trauma she endured.
(01:04):
She is one of the few remaining survivors of perhaps
one of the most gruesome concentration camps Auschwitz.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Doctor is one of the dwindling number of survivors who
can bear first hand testimony to the horrors of the
concentration camps. Her book recounts the hell and trauma that
she and other survive is endured during and after the war,
and it is a universal message of hope and possibility
to all who are trying to free themselves from pain
(01:33):
and suffering.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now at ninety five, doctor Eager's story spans decades and
contains so many incredible chapters. She's an accomplished mother, author,
and clinical psychologist. Her story is a deeply inspiring example
of what it means to pivot because of something personal.
After the trauma she endured, she realized that she needed
(01:58):
to face herself and face her emotions that had built
up over the years. So over twenty years after she
left Auschwitz, doctor Eager decided to pursue a degree in psychology,
graduating at the age of forty nine. She then went
on to receive her PhD in clinical psychology at age
fifty one. She has used her own experiences to help
(02:22):
others heal in their traumas while telling her incredible life story.
Her story is incredibly complex, and although I'd love to
share it in its entirety, it's impossible in just one episode. Still,
it is so important to me to preserve her story
and hopefully will lead you down a path of discovery,
(02:42):
especially given the fact that so many are attempting to
erase the Holocaust. The horrors Doctor Eager and millions of
others endured cannot be overstated. We are also releasing her
episode ahead of Russia Shaana, the Jewish New Year and celebration.
I hope this episode serves as a way to pass
along her story to future generations. Her story is truly
(03:04):
moving and I hope you enjoy it. She was born
in nineteen twenty seven in Slovakia and later moved to
Hungary with her family. Doctor Eager was the youngest with
(03:25):
her two older sisters, Clara and Magda.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I was a very lonely child because I had two
very talented sisters.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Clara played the violin concerto at just five years old
and Magda was a pianist.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Clara was a child prodigy in violin, and she was
the only Jewish girl accepted at the music academy in Budapeste.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
That was a hard deck to follow.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
When she was already in the camp, her professor World
War name smuggled her out and hit her until the
end of the war, and the way I found out
that she was alive. When we came from Vienna to Prague,
I saw advertisements with the violin that she's giving a concert.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
When did you still feel like a child? Do you
remember what your childhood was like when you still felt
like a child.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I remember being a little adult rather than a child's child.
I don't remember really playing dolls too much. I did
have a doll. But most of all, I think I
was prepared to our Schwitz because I was able to
(04:50):
use some of the skills when I was alone. I
became cross eyed when I was three years old.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Here's how she writes about that experience in her book
The Choice.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Since the accident, I turned my head toward the ground
when I walk, so that I don't have to see
anyone looking at my lopsided face. I haven't yet learned
that The problem isn't that my sisters taunt me with
a mean song. The problem is that I believe them.
I am so convinced of my inferiority that I never
(05:26):
introduced myself by name. I never tell people I am Eadie.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Still, she found solace in her own art. She loved
to dance.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I studied to do ballet, and I was studying to
do acrobatics and gymnasts. I was going to be preparing
for the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Actually, I understand that you try out for the Olympic
team when you were young. Can you tell us that story.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well, my teacher came to me one day and told
me something that was the most difficult to hear, that
I do not qualify for the Olympics because I'm Jewish.
So I said to her, I'm not Jewish. And of
(06:25):
course it is a lie, because all you had to
do is go to the city hall when you're born,
and there is a line religion Jewish. My line didn't
do me any good. I like to take you way back,
(06:46):
way back to nineteen forty three, when I am a
fifteen year old young girl.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Despite feeling lonely, doctor Eager found a deep connection with
a young man. It was he who her that she
had beautiful eyes and beautiful hands. Shortly before they were
separated and each taken to concentration camps. She held on
to the idea of him and the comfort of knowing
that he loved her throughout her time in Auschwitz. She
(07:16):
found out years after the war had ended, that he
had been killed in the camps. When she talks of
him now, it is clear that she kept him alive
in her mind. After all these years.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Well, you know, I was always a kind of hopeless romantic.
I had a boyfriend. Imre was his name in Hungarian,
emre Fhir Friedman was the last name. I didn't realize
that there was such a person as Imbre. I did
(07:50):
have a wonderful boyfriend who died. He was a kind
sudden junctra man.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
They come in the dark. They pounded the door, they yelled.
Does my father let them in? Or do they force
their way into our apartment? Are they German soldiers or nielush.
I can't make sense out of the noises that startled
me from sleep. My mouth still tastes of sadir wine.
The soldiers storm into the bedroom, announcing we are being
(08:25):
moved from our home and we settled somewhere else. We're
allowed one suitcase for all four of us. I can't
seem to find my legs to get off the cot
where I sleep at the foot of my parents' bed,
but my mother is instantly in motion.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Doctor Eager and her family are taken by cattle car,
not knowing the horrors that lie ahead of them.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
We were toured that we're going to Hungary to work.
We they know that we're going to a place called Auschwitz.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Was here in this very moment where her mother left
her with a piece of advice, Doctor Eager has never forgotten.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
My mother told me, and I caught.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
We don't know where we're going, we don't know what's
going to happen. Just remember, no one can take away
from you what you put in your mind. And that
is what was ringing in my ear, and I considered
it my duty to do what I did.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It was that very conversation between doctor Eager and her
mother that inspired her to write her first book, The Choice,
and in fact, she has come back to those words
again and again throughout her life. It was a way
to keep hope alive through the hell of Auschwitz and
the source of healing. Over twenty years later, when she
began to process her traumas.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I felt so alone because I asked, our shreetz, does
anyone know that I'm here?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
What was the answer?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
The answer is that my curiosity was very helpful. My curiosity.
I wanted to know what's going to happen next, and
next is a very good good word. And I said
to myself, if I survived today, then tomorrow I'll be
(10:26):
free Tomorrow was a very important word in my vocabulary
in our shots.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Did you give yourself a timeline to think about how
soon tomorrow would be? Or it was always just the
thing that kept you going.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
It was really one day at a time. Because there
was another girl there from Yugoslavia, and she loved her country,
and I loved my country. And I've talked about hunger
or the wonderful they based Hungarian sleeve and eat. And
(11:06):
she told me that we'll be liberated by Christmas. And
Christmas came and went, and the following day she died.
Do I think she was my best teacher, telling me
not to set any dates because we don't know what's
going to happen next.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
No one could have expected or known the horrors of Auschwitz,
and from the moment she arrived, they did not end.
The human imagination still struggles to comprehend what was done
here Auschwitz, where humanity comes face to face with its
ultimate capacity for evil.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
One point one million people died here, more than the
total of British and American losses in the whole of
the Second World War.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
They took us through the camp, the little barracks, melly
with bricks, no windows of us six seven, eight to
ten people sleeping one door, filty, blankaging, guns pointing down,
and the wires was so high. And they said in
German arbit Machfried work the life free.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Auschwetz was hell. Aschwitz really was hell.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I didn't talk enough about doctor Mangelen. We had to
separate everybody over forty, everybody under fourteen, and they are
automatically went to the gaest Jab And that's all I
would like to tell, because then I begin to cry,
(12:42):
and I don't think you ready for that.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
And I just want to.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Tell you that being alive of ninety five, it's a
miracle to me.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I appreciate every moment.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So she's not able to tell us the story I
wanted to hear in her own words. Hears some excerpts
from her book The Choice about her frankly unbelievable interaction
with doctor Joseph Mengela.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
Doctor Mengela, we learn he is a refined killer and
a lover of the arts. He trawls among the barracks
in the evenings, searching for talented inmates to entertain him.
He walks in tonight with his entourage of assistants and
casts his gaze like a neck over the new arrivals,
(13:30):
with our baggy dresses and our hastily shorn hair. We
stand still, back to the wooden bunks that edge the room.
He examines us. Magda ever so subtly, grazes my hand
with hers. Doctor Mengela barks out the question, and before
I know what's happening, the girls standing nearest me, who
(13:55):
know I trained as a ballerina and gymnast back in Casa,
push me forward, closer to the angel of death.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
He studies me.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
I don't know where to put my eyes. I stared
straight ahead at the open door. Little dancer, Doctor Mangeleis says,
dance for me. If I miss a step, if I
do anything to displease him, it could be me.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I dance.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
I dance. I am dancing in hell. I can't bear
to see the executioner as he decides our fates. I
close my eyes. I focus on my routine, on my
years of training.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Auschwitz was unrelenting, but she held tight to what her
mother had told her that day in the cattle car.
She had the strength of her mind. It wasn't until
December of nineteen forty four, six months after she entered
that she left Auschwitz, but she was still far from free.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We were put on a tree so we can carry
ammunitions for the Nazis.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Still, despite her, her sister Magda and so many others
being atop the train, the British still bombs the train.
In the chaos of it all, Doctor Eager and her
sister managed to survive, but still they were not free,
and her and her sister struggled to stay alive continued.
It wasn't until May fourth, nineteen forty five, when a
young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a
(15:29):
number of dead bodies that she was saved from the
brink of death.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You go up step, all I see is dead body
is sent And I said to myself, here I'm going
to die. And I survived the death watch, which was
from my hotelzan to go and skirhad as the Americans
(15:57):
came and the Russians very eated, evacuated, And that's how
I ended up in Mile thousand, Austria. People going through
the gate and coming back. I remember that clearly, how
(16:18):
freedom was there, and then we didn't know what to
do with their freedom.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
After the war, Doctor Eager moved to Czechoslovakia, where she
met Bella, the man she would marry. She lived a
lifetime in just those few years between the war ending
and moving to the United States. In nineteen forty nine,
she had her first child, Marianne, who was severely sick
and she had to go to great lengths to get medicine.
Under communist rule, Bella was later arrested and doctor Eager
(16:51):
helped him escape from prison. Feeling the pressures of Communist rule,
they immigrated, but not without great difficulty and wrong sense
of guilt.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I smuggled my husband out and that's how we came
to America.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
PENI, when you thought about coming to the US, When
you thought about coming to America, what did you know
about America at that time? What were you thinking about
that you could achieve by being in the US.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Even before coming to America, I was told at that
there is going to be democracy waiting for me. There
was no democracy, so I joined the Women of Color.
I ended up with Martin Luther King, and I remember
(17:49):
the hardg also, But I remember that in America people
were practicing prejudice, the most ridiculous thing.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
That has ever happened.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
And just as for you, as we are.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
We have the same.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Opportunity to power, but the social position.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Look, I know what you have to man, it's so
to you.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Look, I mean, if you really want me to say it,
I will.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's prejudice, That's what it is.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
We are not about to turn around.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yes, sir, we own the move now.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yes, yes, we own the move in no way. But
racism can stop us, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The prejudice followed doctor eager to America with an encounter
with the patient who is part of the David Koresh movement.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
It was the US and them mentality. And then actually
had a white Supreme Mescy person in my office who
was a member of the David Korash in Texas, and
he told me the first thing he will do is
kill all the Jews.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Did that remind you of prejudice that you had seen?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, I don't know the word happy. I don't know
who is happy. I'm cheerful as well as I can.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Do you think that other people feel happiness that you can't.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I think I like to be a compassionate listener. I
like to listen and repeat what I hear, so I
know that we are on the same page. So when
Jesus said turned the other cheek, I think it has
to do with me looking at the situation from a
different perspective. Do other people feel happinesssets, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
I usually took about that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I went to have steak at Ruth Steakhouse, and I
noticed that I was walking on cobblestones. It triggered that
time when children were spitting at us as we were
walking through Germany and called us dogs and many bad verds,
(20:22):
and I felt so sorry for the children that they
were taught to hate me.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Despite her optimism, it took years for doctor Eager to
fully process her trauma, she wrote in an essay in
the Atlantic. For decades, I never spoke of the death camps,
never told anyone, including my children, especially my children, that
I was a survivor. But it was her daughter, Marianne,
who had gone on to become a child psychologist, who
(20:53):
inspired her to pursue psychology at the University of Texas
al Paso.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I was forty.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
My supervisor told me to go get a PhD.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And I looked at.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Him and I said, by the time I get a PhD,
i'll be fifty. And he said, you'll be fifty anyway,
and I think that's the best thing. You know, the
chronological age is going to happen. It's what you do
with it, not what happens.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That is incredible advice. I feel like a lot of
people who listen to this show aren't fifty yet and
are still feeling like the first part of how they
plan their life to go. You know, maybe it's the
career path they went on, maybe it's the way they
thought their family was going to look is kind of
(21:49):
sunsetting and they're not sure, like they have enough time,
I guess to rethink it. But that's an incredible perspective
to me.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Every moment is precious and we don't seem to appreciate
what we have until we lose it. So freedom is
a big word, and the second effort is freedom from
the prison that we put in our minds. And the
key is in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
During our interview, doctor Eager recalled a specific moment where
the grief, guilt, sorrow and everything in between that she
had repressed for so many years bubbled to the surface.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I remember that my granddaughter asked me to buy
her a pretty dress so she could go to the dance,
and I did that, and I came home out of
the blue. I was crying and I didn't understand what
is going on with me. But then I came to
(22:53):
the realization that I didn't cry because I bowed a
beautiful dress for my granddaughter. There. I cried because I
never went to a dance. So I think that's very
important that it's okay to grieve and feel and heal.
(23:16):
You can't heal what you don't feel. The opposite of
depression is expression. What comes out of your body will
not make you ill. What sticks in there does.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
A trained clinical psychologist, she's still practicing at the age
of ninety five and helping her patients heal through their
traumatic experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I don't treat people as they are. I treat them
as if they were, but they are capable of becoming.
So I don't treat the bomb like a bomb. I
treat them as a wonderful, knowledgeable human being and they
rise to the occasion. We have the body, we have
(24:03):
the blood that we cannot change. We have the environment.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
But I like the.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Third how you respawn to the other two Because what
comes out to eybody doesn't make you ill. What stays
in there, So share your secrets. I do the talking
that brings out feelings and people that you cannot talk
(24:30):
about it or medicate it, but to feel the feelings.
There's a lot of crying, which is very healthy because
what comes out of your body doesn't make you ill.
What stays in there does. And I think that's very
important to share your feelings.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Doctor Eager makes her patients face themselves to truly feel,
to walk through the pain, the suffering, so they can
get to the other side. This is the exact exercise
that she did with herself at the age of sixty
three when she returned to Auschwitz to as she says,
look the lion in the face.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I went to school, I went to school.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I went to school and made me realize that I
cannot take them further than I have gone myself. And
that's when I decided to go back to Auschwitz. Look
at the lion in her face.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Do you remember what you felt when you went back.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I cried a lot.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Cried because I missed my mother. I missed the time
that I could talk to my mother as two women,
two mothers. I never forget what happened. I will never overcome,
but I came to terms for that, I call it
(25:57):
my cherished wound, because part of me was left in Armstrad,
but not the better part, not the bigger part.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I've read in your book that part of why you hadn't,
or I guess a big part of why you hadn't
shared about your experience with your children for many, many years,
is that you wanted to protect them. It sounds like
you might have a different perspective now.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Well. At the time, I did what I thought to
be a Yankee Dudo dandy and not to talk to
my children about the past. Today I would think very differently.
But I'm sure that my children forgave me that. At
the time, I did the best I knew.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
How to do.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Everyday information that I had, I certainly would change.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
It today again, she wrote in The Atlantic, I thought
my silence about the past would be a buffer for
my children. Yet in hiding from the past, I wasn't
free of it. You had spent many years after you
came to the US not talking about the fact that
you were a survivor. What changed that for you?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I had my secret, and then the secret had me.
So when I had two paraplegics and one of them
was in a federal position. Blaming, blaming, blaming, you name it,
you blame people, God, country. Conversely, the other one said
(27:41):
to me, you know, hey, doc, and I was wearing
a white coat. It's a doctor eager Department of Psychiatry.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
He said to me, hete God, God gave me.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
A second chance in life. And I'm in a wheelchair.
That means I can reach for much children, much closer.
I can reach for the flowers. And I felt like
the biggest impostor because here I was with two paraplegics
(28:14):
and I couldn't take them further than I have gone myself.
So I want to thank those two wonderful gis who
guided me to go back to Alfred. And that's the
work I do today. Visit the places where you were,
you relieve that experience, and then you revise your life.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
How do you manage withholding judgment as you're listening to patients,
to people talking to you when something that we really
be affecting them seems kind of minor compared to what
you've been through.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I think it's recognized board that suffering makes you stronger.
We can use the bad and turn it into good,
so it's not comparable suffering as part of life. At
ninety five, I'm very very much thinking before I say anything,
(29:23):
is it important? Is it necessary? And most of all,
is it kind? I think we can empower each other
with our differences, that you can be you and I
can be my me, but together we're going to be
(29:44):
much stronger. And that I learned in our shreds that
all we had was each other there, and all we
have is each other.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Now, considering that you really hadn't shared for so many years,
how do you feel about sharing your story with us now?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Anything that comes out of my body? I feel that
I owe it to my mom. They let people know
what happens when good people do bad things. Just looking
for the light wherever I am. It's called faith, not believe,
(30:27):
people say. I believe believe. I have faith that people
are basically good.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
And I learned that from and Frank.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
She said, as I look outside people are fighting and killing.
I still believe. She said that people are basically good.
I certainly joined her that we're not born evil, We're
not born to it hate. We're born with love and
(31:05):
joy and most of all, passion for life.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
What legacy do you think you're leaving behind?
Speaker 4 (31:15):
That everything in life is temporary.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
There is no guarantee, there is no certain tea, but
there is probability. And that's what I developed in our shreds,
that I could put me in a gash chamber any minute.
I had no control over that, but I could never
(31:40):
ever ever own my spirit.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
And that's what I bring you today.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Thank you so much for joining us. It has been
such an honor and a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
You're a great interviewer. I love you, dimples continuing so
wonderful work that you do.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
I'm at you.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Doctor Eager lives in California, where she has her clinical
practice and holds a faculty appointment at the University of California,
San Diego. She is a prolific speaker who has appeared
on numerous television programs, including CNN and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
She continues to use her story to spread a message
of perseverance, courage, and compassion. She is the author of
(32:30):
two New York Times bestsellers, The Choice and The Gift,
both of which you can find wherever you get books.
Happy Russiashana Lashanatova, thanks for listening to this episode of
She Pivots, where I talk with women about how their
experiences and significant personal events led to their pivot and
(32:51):
eventually their success. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at she Pivots the podcast and leave a rating in
comment if you enjoyed this episode to help others learn
about it. A special thank you to our partner Marie
Clare and the team that made this episode possible. Talk
to you next week. Audio excerpts courtesy of Simon and Schuster.
(33:12):
Audio read by Tovah Felsche from the audiobook The Choice
by Doctor Edith Eager, published by Simon and Schuster Audio,
a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. Were used with
permission from Simon and Schuster. She Pivots is hosted by
me Emily Tish Sussman, produced by Emily eda Veloshik, with
(33:36):
sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock, and research and
planning from Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
I endorse Che Pivots
Today, more than seventy years have passed. What happened can
never be forgotten. I know that and can never be changed.
But over time I learned that I can choose how
to respond to the past. I can be miserable or
I can be hopeful. I can be depressed, or I
(00:23):
can be happy. We always have that choice, that opportunity
for control. I am here, this is now. I have
learned to tell myself over and over and over again
until panicky feeling begins to ease.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That was an excerpt from the book The Choice by
my guest today, Doctor Edith Eager. This is Sheep Habits
and I'm your host Emil Tage Susman. In that short clip,
doctor Eager's talking about her experience surviving the whole cot
and her long journey of healing the trauma she endured.
(01:04):
She is one of the few remaining survivors of perhaps
one of the most gruesome concentration camps Auschwitz.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Doctor is one of the dwindling number of survivors who
can bear first hand testimony to the horrors of the
concentration camps. Her book recounts the hell and trauma that
she and other survive is endured during and after the war,
and it is a universal message of hope and possibility
to all who are trying to free themselves from pain
(01:33):
and suffering.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now at ninety five, doctor Eager's story spans decades and
contains so many incredible chapters. She's an accomplished mother, author,
and clinical psychologist. Her story is a deeply inspiring example
of what it means to pivot because of something personal.
After the trauma she endured, she realized that she needed
(01:58):
to face herself and face her emotions that had built
up over the years. So over twenty years after she
left Auschwitz, doctor Eager decided to pursue a degree in psychology,
graduating at the age of forty nine. She then went
on to receive her PhD in clinical psychology at age
fifty one. She has used her own experiences to help
(02:22):
others heal in their traumas while telling her incredible life story.
Her story is incredibly complex, and although I'd love to
share it in its entirety, it's impossible in just one episode. Still,
it is so important to me to preserve her story
and hopefully will lead you down a path of discovery,
(02:42):
especially given the fact that so many are attempting to
erase the Holocaust. The horrors Doctor Eager and millions of
others endured cannot be overstated. We are also releasing her
episode ahead of Russia Shaana, the Jewish New Year and celebration.
I hope this episode serves as a way to pass
along her story to future generations. Her story is truly
(03:04):
moving and I hope you enjoy it. She was born
in nineteen twenty seven in Slovakia and later moved to
Hungary with her family. Doctor Eager was the youngest with
(03:25):
her two older sisters, Clara and Magda.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I was a very lonely child because I had two
very talented sisters.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Clara played the violin concerto at just five years old
and Magda was a pianist.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Clara was a child prodigy in violin, and she was
the only Jewish girl accepted at the music academy in Budapeste.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
That was a hard deck to follow.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
When she was already in the camp, her professor World
War name smuggled her out and hit her until the
end of the war, and the way I found out
that she was alive. When we came from Vienna to Prague,
I saw advertisements with the violin that she's giving a concert.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
When did you still feel like a child? Do you
remember what your childhood was like when you still felt
like a child.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I remember being a little adult rather than a child's child.
I don't remember really playing dolls too much. I did
have a doll. But most of all, I think I
was prepared to our Schwitz because I was able to
(04:50):
use some of the skills when I was alone. I
became cross eyed when I was three years old.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Here's how she writes about that experience in her book
The Choice.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Since the accident, I turned my head toward the ground
when I walk, so that I don't have to see
anyone looking at my lopsided face. I haven't yet learned
that The problem isn't that my sisters taunt me with
a mean song. The problem is that I believe them.
I am so convinced of my inferiority that I never
(05:26):
introduced myself by name. I never tell people I am Eadie.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Still, she found solace in her own art. She loved
to dance.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I studied to do ballet, and I was studying to
do acrobatics and gymnasts. I was going to be preparing
for the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Actually, I understand that you try out for the Olympic
team when you were young. Can you tell us that story.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well, my teacher came to me one day and told
me something that was the most difficult to hear, that
I do not qualify for the Olympics because I'm Jewish.
So I said to her, I'm not Jewish. And of
(06:25):
course it is a lie, because all you had to
do is go to the city hall when you're born,
and there is a line religion Jewish. My line didn't
do me any good. I like to take you way back,
(06:46):
way back to nineteen forty three, when I am a
fifteen year old young girl.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Despite feeling lonely, doctor Eager found a deep connection with
a young man. It was he who her that she
had beautiful eyes and beautiful hands. Shortly before they were
separated and each taken to concentration camps. She held on
to the idea of him and the comfort of knowing
that he loved her throughout her time in Auschwitz. She
(07:16):
found out years after the war had ended, that he
had been killed in the camps. When she talks of
him now, it is clear that she kept him alive
in her mind. After all these years.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Well, you know, I was always a kind of hopeless romantic.
I had a boyfriend. Imre was his name in Hungarian,
emre Fhir Friedman was the last name. I didn't realize
that there was such a person as Imbre. I did
(07:50):
have a wonderful boyfriend who died. He was a kind
sudden junctra man.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
They come in the dark. They pounded the door, they yelled.
Does my father let them in? Or do they force
their way into our apartment? Are they German soldiers or nielush.
I can't make sense out of the noises that startled
me from sleep. My mouth still tastes of sadir wine.
The soldiers storm into the bedroom, announcing we are being
(08:25):
moved from our home and we settled somewhere else. We're
allowed one suitcase for all four of us. I can't
seem to find my legs to get off the cot
where I sleep at the foot of my parents' bed,
but my mother is instantly in motion.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Doctor Eager and her family are taken by cattle car,
not knowing the horrors that lie ahead of them.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
We were toured that we're going to Hungary to work.
We they know that we're going to a place called Auschwitz.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Was here in this very moment where her mother left
her with a piece of advice, Doctor Eager has never forgotten.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
My mother told me, and I caught.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
We don't know where we're going, we don't know what's
going to happen. Just remember, no one can take away
from you what you put in your mind. And that
is what was ringing in my ear, and I considered
it my duty to do what I did.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It was that very conversation between doctor Eager and her
mother that inspired her to write her first book, The Choice,
and in fact, she has come back to those words
again and again throughout her life. It was a way
to keep hope alive through the hell of Auschwitz and
the source of healing. Over twenty years later, when she
began to process her traumas.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I felt so alone because I asked, our shreetz, does
anyone know that I'm here?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
What was the answer?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
The answer is that my curiosity was very helpful. My curiosity.
I wanted to know what's going to happen next, and
next is a very good good word. And I said
to myself, if I survived today, then tomorrow I'll be
(10:26):
free Tomorrow was a very important word in my vocabulary
in our shots.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Did you give yourself a timeline to think about how
soon tomorrow would be? Or it was always just the
thing that kept you going.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
It was really one day at a time. Because there
was another girl there from Yugoslavia, and she loved her country,
and I loved my country. And I've talked about hunger
or the wonderful they based Hungarian sleeve and eat. And
(11:06):
she told me that we'll be liberated by Christmas. And
Christmas came and went, and the following day she died.
Do I think she was my best teacher, telling me
not to set any dates because we don't know what's
going to happen next.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
No one could have expected or known the horrors of Auschwitz,
and from the moment she arrived, they did not end.
The human imagination still struggles to comprehend what was done
here Auschwitz, where humanity comes face to face with its
ultimate capacity for evil.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
One point one million people died here, more than the
total of British and American losses in the whole of
the Second World War.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
They took us through the camp, the little barracks, melly
with bricks, no windows of us six seven, eight to
ten people sleeping one door, filty, blankaging, guns pointing down,
and the wires was so high. And they said in
German arbit Machfried work the life free.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Auschwetz was hell. Aschwitz really was hell.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I didn't talk enough about doctor Mangelen. We had to
separate everybody over forty, everybody under fourteen, and they are
automatically went to the gaest Jab And that's all I
would like to tell, because then I begin to cry,
(12:42):
and I don't think you ready for that.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
And I just want to.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Tell you that being alive of ninety five, it's a
miracle to me.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I appreciate every moment.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So she's not able to tell us the story I
wanted to hear in her own words. Hears some excerpts
from her book The Choice about her frankly unbelievable interaction
with doctor Joseph Mengela.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
Doctor Mengela, we learn he is a refined killer and
a lover of the arts. He trawls among the barracks
in the evenings, searching for talented inmates to entertain him.
He walks in tonight with his entourage of assistants and
casts his gaze like a neck over the new arrivals,
(13:30):
with our baggy dresses and our hastily shorn hair. We
stand still, back to the wooden bunks that edge the room.
He examines us. Magda ever so subtly, grazes my hand
with hers. Doctor Mengela barks out the question, and before
I know what's happening, the girls standing nearest me, who
(13:55):
know I trained as a ballerina and gymnast back in Casa,
push me forward, closer to the angel of death.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
He studies me.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
I don't know where to put my eyes. I stared
straight ahead at the open door. Little dancer, Doctor Mangeleis says,
dance for me. If I miss a step, if I
do anything to displease him, it could be me.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I dance.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
I dance. I am dancing in hell. I can't bear
to see the executioner as he decides our fates. I
close my eyes. I focus on my routine, on my
years of training.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Auschwitz was unrelenting, but she held tight to what her
mother had told her that day in the cattle car.
She had the strength of her mind. It wasn't until
December of nineteen forty four, six months after she entered
that she left Auschwitz, but she was still far from free.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We were put on a tree so we can carry
ammunitions for the Nazis.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Still, despite her, her sister Magda and so many others
being atop the train, the British still bombs the train.
In the chaos of it all, Doctor Eager and her
sister managed to survive, but still they were not free,
and her and her sister struggled to stay alive continued.
It wasn't until May fourth, nineteen forty five, when a
young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a
(15:29):
number of dead bodies that she was saved from the
brink of death.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You go up step, all I see is dead body
is sent And I said to myself, here I'm going
to die. And I survived the death watch, which was
from my hotelzan to go and skirhad as the Americans
(15:57):
came and the Russians very eated, evacuated, And that's how
I ended up in Mile thousand, Austria. People going through
the gate and coming back. I remember that clearly, how
(16:18):
freedom was there, and then we didn't know what to
do with their freedom.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
After the war, Doctor Eager moved to Czechoslovakia, where she
met Bella, the man she would marry. She lived a
lifetime in just those few years between the war ending
and moving to the United States. In nineteen forty nine,
she had her first child, Marianne, who was severely sick
and she had to go to great lengths to get medicine.
Under communist rule, Bella was later arrested and doctor Eager
(16:51):
helped him escape from prison. Feeling the pressures of Communist rule,
they immigrated, but not without great difficulty and wrong sense
of guilt.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I smuggled my husband out and that's how we came
to America.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
PENI, when you thought about coming to the US, When
you thought about coming to America, what did you know
about America at that time? What were you thinking about
that you could achieve by being in the US.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Even before coming to America, I was told at that
there is going to be democracy waiting for me. There
was no democracy, so I joined the Women of Color.
I ended up with Martin Luther King, and I remember
(17:49):
the hardg also, But I remember that in America people
were practicing prejudice, the most ridiculous thing.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
That has ever happened.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
And just as for you, as we are.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
We have the same.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Opportunity to power, but the social position.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Look, I know what you have to man, it's so
to you.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Look, I mean, if you really want me to say it,
I will.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's prejudice, That's what it is.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
We are not about to turn around.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yes, sir, we own the move now.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yes, yes, we own the move in no way. But
racism can stop us, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The prejudice followed doctor eager to America with an encounter
with the patient who is part of the David Koresh movement.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
It was the US and them mentality. And then actually
had a white Supreme Mescy person in my office who
was a member of the David Korash in Texas, and
he told me the first thing he will do is
kill all the Jews.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Did that remind you of prejudice that you had seen?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, I don't know the word happy. I don't know
who is happy. I'm cheerful as well as I can.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Do you think that other people feel happiness that you can't.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I think I like to be a compassionate listener. I
like to listen and repeat what I hear, so I
know that we are on the same page. So when
Jesus said turned the other cheek, I think it has
to do with me looking at the situation from a
different perspective. Do other people feel happinesssets, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
I usually took about that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I went to have steak at Ruth Steakhouse, and I
noticed that I was walking on cobblestones. It triggered that
time when children were spitting at us as we were
walking through Germany and called us dogs and many bad verds,
(20:22):
and I felt so sorry for the children that they
were taught to hate me.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Despite her optimism, it took years for doctor Eager to
fully process her trauma, she wrote in an essay in
the Atlantic. For decades, I never spoke of the death camps,
never told anyone, including my children, especially my children, that
I was a survivor. But it was her daughter, Marianne,
who had gone on to become a child psychologist, who
(20:53):
inspired her to pursue psychology at the University of Texas
al Paso.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I was forty.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
My supervisor told me to go get a PhD.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And I looked at.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Him and I said, by the time I get a PhD,
i'll be fifty. And he said, you'll be fifty anyway,
and I think that's the best thing. You know, the
chronological age is going to happen. It's what you do
with it, not what happens.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That is incredible advice. I feel like a lot of
people who listen to this show aren't fifty yet and
are still feeling like the first part of how they
plan their life to go. You know, maybe it's the
career path they went on, maybe it's the way they
thought their family was going to look is kind of
(21:49):
sunsetting and they're not sure, like they have enough time,
I guess to rethink it. But that's an incredible perspective
to me.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Every moment is precious and we don't seem to appreciate
what we have until we lose it. So freedom is
a big word, and the second effort is freedom from
the prison that we put in our minds. And the
key is in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
During our interview, doctor Eager recalled a specific moment where
the grief, guilt, sorrow and everything in between that she
had repressed for so many years bubbled to the surface.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I remember that my granddaughter asked me to buy
her a pretty dress so she could go to the dance,
and I did that, and I came home out of
the blue. I was crying and I didn't understand what
is going on with me. But then I came to
(22:53):
the realization that I didn't cry because I bowed a
beautiful dress for my granddaughter. There. I cried because I
never went to a dance. So I think that's very
important that it's okay to grieve and feel and heal.
(23:16):
You can't heal what you don't feel. The opposite of
depression is expression. What comes out of your body will
not make you ill. What sticks in there does.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
A trained clinical psychologist, she's still practicing at the age
of ninety five and helping her patients heal through their
traumatic experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I don't treat people as they are. I treat them
as if they were, but they are capable of becoming.
So I don't treat the bomb like a bomb. I
treat them as a wonderful, knowledgeable human being and they
rise to the occasion. We have the body, we have
(24:03):
the blood that we cannot change. We have the environment.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
But I like the.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Third how you respawn to the other two Because what
comes out to eybody doesn't make you ill. What stays
in there, So share your secrets. I do the talking
that brings out feelings and people that you cannot talk
(24:30):
about it or medicate it, but to feel the feelings.
There's a lot of crying, which is very healthy because
what comes out of your body doesn't make you ill.
What stays in there does. And I think that's very
important to share your feelings.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Doctor Eager makes her patients face themselves to truly feel,
to walk through the pain, the suffering, so they can
get to the other side. This is the exact exercise
that she did with herself at the age of sixty
three when she returned to Auschwitz to as she says,
look the lion in the face.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I went to school, I went to school.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I went to school and made me realize that I
cannot take them further than I have gone myself. And
that's when I decided to go back to Auschwitz. Look
at the lion in her face.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Do you remember what you felt when you went back.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I cried a lot.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Cried because I missed my mother. I missed the time
that I could talk to my mother as two women,
two mothers. I never forget what happened. I will never overcome,
but I came to terms for that, I call it
(25:57):
my cherished wound, because part of me was left in Armstrad,
but not the better part, not the bigger part.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I've read in your book that part of why you hadn't,
or I guess a big part of why you hadn't
shared about your experience with your children for many, many years,
is that you wanted to protect them. It sounds like
you might have a different perspective now.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Well. At the time, I did what I thought to
be a Yankee Dudo dandy and not to talk to
my children about the past. Today I would think very differently.
But I'm sure that my children forgave me that. At
the time, I did the best I knew.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
How to do.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Everyday information that I had, I certainly would change.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
It today again, she wrote in The Atlantic, I thought
my silence about the past would be a buffer for
my children. Yet in hiding from the past, I wasn't
free of it. You had spent many years after you
came to the US not talking about the fact that
you were a survivor. What changed that for you?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
I had my secret, and then the secret had me.
So when I had two paraplegics and one of them
was in a federal position. Blaming, blaming, blaming, you name it,
you blame people, God, country. Conversely, the other one said
(27:41):
to me, you know, hey, doc, and I was wearing
a white coat. It's a doctor eager Department of Psychiatry.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
He said to me, hete God, God gave me.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
A second chance in life. And I'm in a wheelchair.
That means I can reach for much children, much closer.
I can reach for the flowers. And I felt like
the biggest impostor because here I was with two paraplegics
(28:14):
and I couldn't take them further than I have gone myself.
So I want to thank those two wonderful gis who
guided me to go back to Alfred. And that's the
work I do today. Visit the places where you were,
you relieve that experience, and then you revise your life.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
How do you manage withholding judgment as you're listening to patients,
to people talking to you when something that we really
be affecting them seems kind of minor compared to what
you've been through.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I think it's recognized board that suffering makes you stronger.
We can use the bad and turn it into good,
so it's not comparable suffering as part of life. At
ninety five, I'm very very much thinking before I say anything,
(29:23):
is it important? Is it necessary? And most of all,
is it kind? I think we can empower each other
with our differences, that you can be you and I
can be my me, but together we're going to be
(29:44):
much stronger. And that I learned in our shreds that
all we had was each other there, and all we
have is each other.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Now, considering that you really hadn't shared for so many years,
how do you feel about sharing your story with us now?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Anything that comes out of my body? I feel that
I owe it to my mom. They let people know
what happens when good people do bad things. Just looking
for the light wherever I am. It's called faith, not believe,
(30:27):
people say. I believe believe. I have faith that people
are basically good.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
And I learned that from and Frank.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
She said, as I look outside people are fighting and killing.
I still believe. She said that people are basically good.
I certainly joined her that we're not born evil, We're
not born to it hate. We're born with love and
(31:05):
joy and most of all, passion for life.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
What legacy do you think you're leaving behind?
Speaker 4 (31:15):
That everything in life is temporary.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
There is no guarantee, there is no certain tea, but
there is probability. And that's what I developed in our shreds,
that I could put me in a gash chamber any minute.
I had no control over that, but I could never
(31:40):
ever ever own my spirit.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
And that's what I bring you today.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Thank you so much for joining us. It has been
such an honor and a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
You're a great interviewer. I love you, dimples continuing so
wonderful work that you do.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
I'm at you.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Doctor Eager lives in California, where she has her clinical
practice and holds a faculty appointment at the University of California,
San Diego. She is a prolific speaker who has appeared
on numerous television programs, including CNN and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
She continues to use her story to spread a message
of perseverance, courage, and compassion. She is the author of
(32:30):
two New York Times bestsellers, The Choice and The Gift,
both of which you can find wherever you get books.
Happy Russiashana Lashanatova, thanks for listening to this episode of
She Pivots, where I talk with women about how their
experiences and significant personal events led to their pivot and
(32:51):
eventually their success. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
at she Pivots the podcast and leave a rating in
comment if you enjoyed this episode to help others learn
about it. A special thank you to our partner Marie
Clare and the team that made this episode possible. Talk
to you next week. Audio excerpts courtesy of Simon and Schuster.
(33:12):
Audio read by Tovah Felsche from the audiobook The Choice
by Doctor Edith Eager, published by Simon and Schuster Audio,
a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. Were used with
permission from Simon and Schuster. She Pivots is hosted by
me Emily Tish Sussman, produced by Emily eda Veloshik, with
(33:36):
sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock, and research and
planning from Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
I endorse Che Pivots
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