The Choice by Edith Eger

Author : Edith Eger
Title : The Choice
Published : 16/08/18
Pages : 384
Genre : Autobiography
Publisher : Rider

      In 1944, sixteen-year-old ballerina Edith Eger was sent to Auschwitz. Separated from her parents on arrival, she endures unimaginable experiences, including being made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele. When the camp is finally liberated, she is pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive. The horrors of the Holocaust didn't break Edith. In fact, they helped her learn to live again with a life-affirming strength and a truly remarkable resilience. The Choice is her unforgettable story. It shows that hope can flower in the most unlikely places.

     I have once again returned to the subject of the war and in turn the Holocaust. It is a subject I have read a great deal about in recent time covering both fiction and nonfiction, this time, however, there is a slight twist in the narrative. Edith is a Holocaust survivor and when many choose to talk about the horrific event that befell them during there time in Auschwitz this author has taken a different approach to the subject at hand. She has chosen to discuss how you move on from such an event, how you don't let it twist you up inside for the rest of your days, and in turn how you can use these very experienced to move forward and help others who have experienced very traumatic events.

     I think it takes an exceptionally brave and strong person to talk about such matters, I could not even begin to wrap my head around these things in a very real sense. Being sent to an extermination camp is something I truly believe that only a survivor can understand. No matter how much we may read or see in films it is through the living of such things one truly gains a grasp of a situation. It can, however, evoke strong emotions in the viewer, we are capable of feeling empathy for them without ever having been there. Through this text, she does just that, and more than most she goes on to show us the reader the long-term effects of such situations. While most books stop on liberation day Edith gives us great insight into how someone can go about rebuilding what has been shattered. And as we move forward through her eyes we witness the echos stretching out across time. It became more and more evident to me that it is not about going back to who you were before. This I fear is something that is impossible to achieve. It is however about how we can learn to manage our expectations and find ways to live with the events that have taken place.

      The author presents her text in a manner and style that allowed me as the reader to gain easy accesses to the world she lives in.  The narrative moves between time periods showing us the acts that caused her life to shatter and then how she took them and changed them into something else. How they can be used not only to help heal her but also the way in which she chose to present them to her patients and allow them to find a way to deal with the pain and sorry that is destroying their own lives. It is a remarkable thing to be able to witness how someone's life can be turned around. On the flip side of this she bares her own scares to the world, it is a staggering thing to see how people come to the blame themselves for choices and events that a complete out of there control. In saying this woman had an incredibly hard life would be to underestimate the things she went through. She did, however, manage to bring some good into the world. And who can really ask for more than that? When we look back on our lives we find it far to easy to see the bad we have coursed. This book shows that we must also bear witness to the good. No one's life is complete one thing or the other, and that I feel is what we should take away from this book.

     When I had come to the end of this book, there was so much swirling around in my head. It is difficult to take everything in, in one sitting and I know I will be returning to it to get a better understanding. Even if your interest in the Holocaust is only passing I feel there is a lot to be taken from this book. It would I feel also be good for anyone struggling with there lives, to give a grander view of life and hope even in your darkest hour there can still be light if you are ready to fight for it.