Summary of The Choice By Edith Eva Eger

By Condensed Books

A chapter-by-chapter high-quality summary of Edith Eva Eger ́s book The Choice, including chapter details and an analysis of the main themes of the original book.
About the original book:
Dr. Edith Eva Eger, a psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor wrote The Choice: Embrace the Possible in 2017. Eger integrates the lessons she learned after facing anti-Semitism, brutality, communism, and xenophobia to explain how anybody may choose freedom and break the cycle of suffering. The book weaves together Eger's account of survival, recuperation, and joy with World War II history and psychiatric study. The Christopher Award and the National Jewish Book Award have both been given to The Choice, which recognizes books, films, and television that "affirm the ultimate worth of the human spirit." This guide is for the paperback edition published by Scribner in 2018.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.B. Publishers
• Release date: Jul 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005612818

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Copyright

Condensed Books

Summary of The Choice

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This is an unofficial summary of The Choice by Edith Eva Eger, designed to enrich your reading experience.

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OVERVIEW

Dr. Edith Eva Eger, a psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor wrote The Choice: Embrace the Possible in 2017. Eger integrates the lessons she learned after facing anti-Semitism, brutality, communism, and xenophobia to explain how anybody may choose freedom and break the cycle of suffering. The book weaves together Eger's account of survival, recuperation, and joy with World War II history and psychiatric study. The Christopher Award and the National Jewish Book Award have both been given to The Choice, which recognizes books, films, and television that affirm the ultimate worth of the human spirit. This guide is for the paperback edition published by Scribner in 2018.

SUMMARY

The narrative of Edie (Elefánt) Eger begins in her birthplace of Kassa, Hungary, where her family is blissfully unaware that they would be deported in 1944. The troops transfer the Elefánts to a brick industry for a short time before loading them into freight trains bound for Auschwitz. After evacuating the train, the soldiers grab Edie's father, followed by Edie's mother at the selection line. Edie and her sister, Magda, find very fast that their parents died in the gas chambers. Dr. Josef Mengele, the camp physician who executed Edie's mother, approaches Edie's barracks that evening and wants entertainment.

Outside, Edie dances The Blue Danube, supported by the camp orchestra. The Nazis deport Edie and Magda from Auschwitz that winter. Soldiers compel the girls to labor in various industries around Germany; at times, they go by rail, and at other times, they march. Edie's group marches from Germany to Mauthausen, Austria, where they await selection in a bleak line. Soldiers redirect the line just before Edie reaches the front; the remaining inmates continue the Death March to Gunskirchen.

Although there are no gas chambers at Gunskirchen, many captives die of sickness or starvation. Soldiers uncover Edie in a body pile, alive but presumed dead after they free the camp in 1945.

In a German home, Edie and Magda regain their strength. Edie is 70 pounds and unable to walk, communicate, or recall the entire alphabet. When the girls are strong enough, they board trains to Koice, which is still their hometown but has been renamed under the Czech administration.

As they walk home, they come across their middle sister, Klara. When the Elefánts were deported, Klara was a student in Budapest, and she spent the war in hiding. Klara takes on the role of mother and nurse, tending to Edie's needs while she recovers slowly. Edie's doctor refers her to a TB hospital for a full lung examination, where she meets Béla Eger, a sufferer.

Edie receives extensive letters and a visit from Béla when she goes home. Edie moves into Béla's home in Preov, Czechoslovakia when they marry in 1946. Marianne, Edie's daughter, is born soon after. A relative of Béla's who came to the United States before the