The Choice:

By; Edith Eger Page number: 224

Published on: 2017

“Your eyes”, I tell my sister, “they are so beautiful. I never noticed them when they were covered up by all that hair.” (pg. 38)

Thoughts:

In our lives, there are factors outside of our control that influence us. The household we are born into, the time and place of our birth, our financial resources, our nationality, and ethnicity, and our appearance. We are given a set of circumstances, and we are expected to mold something new out of them. We make choices based on what life introduces to us, and these choices reflect who we are. Your actions, thoughts, habits, and relationships; every proceeding is a choice. It is not much about what we are given, but it is about what we do with what we have. We are not what happens to us, we are what we consciously choose to be.

Humans are not made of just flesh, they are also a mind and a soul. Their existence can not be limited to physical attributes, because they are more than that. A human can be physically caged, tortured, or silenced, but if he has the consciousness of having a choice, it becomes impossible to defeat him. To know that the spirit is an eternal being and that one’s perspective of the world becomes their reality is a competence no power can subdue. No matter how the outside treats you, you will always have the option to choose how you respond to the situation, which is the purest form of freedom. Nobody can take the ability to choose for yourself away from you. You are free; you are free to choose whether to hate or to love. You can keep going or give up; you can hope for revenge or move forward.

Suffering is universal and inevitable; it is in the ordinance of this world. At some point in your life, you will be a victim by the outside, but it is still your choice not to internalize it. You will be a victim, but you don’t have to choose to remain in the feeling of victimhood.

“The Choice” is yours.

Summary:

Dr. Edith Eva Eger is a mom, sister, wife, psychologist, UT alumni, and friend. She is also a Holocaust survivor. Edith shares her story, her past that she had long been running away from. She embraces what happened to her, she acknowledges the pain, and she misses what she once had before the war. Edith tells the reader how she survived the nightmarish events of the Holocaust, and her journey in America.

In May of 1944, Edith and her family were deported to Auschwitz. Edith lost her first love, her parents, her grandparents, and many friends and relatives to the Holocaust. There was a systematic murder of millions of Jews, the chimneys did not stop smoking, and the soldiers did not tire from killing. Pain, hunger, and horror consumed all inhabitants of the concentration camps. By 1945, Magda and Edith were relocated to a factory, and with the rapid advancement of the Allied forces into Germany, were forced into death marches. Edith and Magda survived, but what they experienced and saw would not allow them to feel normalcy for a long time, maybe ever.

Now, in 2023, it feels almost impossible to recognize such atrocities happening. The crimes committed by the SS seem inexplicable and inhumane. To leave millions to die of hunger, famine, and diseases, to shoot families at once, to burn people alive. The victims, ghost-like figures with deep eyes and boney bodies who were forced to feel less than human, were once individuals with hopes and dreams.

Edith’s story explains precisely how a survivor can gain back those lost values. She shares with her listeners, who may not have had to experience the Holocaust but went through other forms of abuse, that you are not what happens to you, you are who you choose to be. You can actively shift your mindset, even if you can not shift what happens to you. Most things in life are outside of your control, but you always have control over your choices. Even if hope is not granted to you by the outside, you can choose to feel it inside. You are forever liberated because you are the only one who can choose your own outlook on life.

personal rating of the book: 10/10