The Choice: Embrace the Possible

“I also want to say that there is no hierarchy of suffering. There’s nothing that makes my pain worse or better than yours, no graph on which we can plot the relative importance of one sorrow verses another. […] I don’t want you to hear my story and say, ‘My own suffering is less significant.’ I want you to hear my story and say, ‘If she can do it, then so can I!’” 

Compassion is central to Eger’s character. She firmly believes that everyone deserves compassion and healing if they willingly accept the challenge, regardless of their background. Eger’s message effectively reaches the audience because readers can trust a radical claim—“there is no hierarchy of suffering”—from someone who has survived some of the most inhumane treatment in recent history. Her attitude invites readers to engage their own self-actualization journeys in the spirit of making the world a better place.

“If I could distill my entire life into one moment, into one still image, it is this: three women in dark wool coats wait, arms linked, in a barren yard. They are exhausted. They’ve got dust on their shoes. They stand in a long line.” 

Eger creates an image like a sepia-tone photograph, contrasting the foreboding landscape—barren yard, dust—and the three women clinging to each other, still hopeful for the future. Readers don’t yet know the women’s identities, but they can sense that the road ahead brings tragedy. Eger herself wishes she better appreciated the final moments with her mother, but this sacred memory keeps her alive in Eger’s heart.

“I don’t realize that they are terrified. I hear only the blame and disappointment that my parents routinely pass between them like the mindless shuttle on a loom. Here’s what you did. Here’s what you didn’t do. Here’s what you did. Here’s what you didn’t do. […] Later we learn that they both had a chance to choose differently. Now they suffer with their regret, and they cover their regret in blame.” 

In hindsight, Eger recognizes how her parents avoided difficult emotions, similar to her own coping mechanisms later in life. Blaming the circumstances, or another person’s actions, directs frustration away from the self. Her parents already feel fragile and vulnerable; accepting responsibility for their impossible position feels overwhelming. Eger later discovers that process must include fully forgiving oneself so that one’s energy can focus on the present and future, though her parents don’t have these coping resources in this moment.

“The contradictions in this place unnerve me. Murder, we’ve just learned, is efficient here. Systematic. But there seems to be no system in place for distributing the uniforms for which we’ve been waiting most of the day. The guards are cruel and rigid, yet it seems that no one is in charge. The scrutiny they give our bodies doesn’t signal our value, it signifies only the degree to which we have been forgotten by the world. Nothing makes sense. But this, too, the interminable waiting, the complete absence of reason, must be part of the design. How can I keep myself steady in a place where the only steadiness is in fences, in death, in humiliation, in the steadily churning smoke?” 

Eger identifies blatant contradictions in the camp’s structure, which point to a more unnatural contradiction: the denial of humanity within a forced community of people. Human nature gravitates toward community for support and growth. The Nazis’ inhumane regard throws the inmates in turmoil because they must learn humanity’s meaning apart from nurture, or else their souls may not sustain the trauma. In Auschwitz, Eger can’t appeal to the oppressors’ empathy; she must discover her own inner peace and reason for surviving. Fortunately, she also has Magda’s support, which gives her a strong external reason to persevere.

“I gaze into the fierce blue of her eyes and think that even for her to ask the question, ‘How do I look?’ is the bravest thing I’ve ever heard. There aren’t mirrors here. She is asking me to help her find and face herself. […] ‘Your eyes,’ I tell my sister, ‘they’re so beautiful. I never noticed them when they were covered up by all that hair.’ It’s the first time I see that we have a choice: to pay attention to what we’ve lost or to pay attention to what we still have.” 

This short interaction impacts both sisters. By asking about her looks, knowing that she is bald and stripped of dignity, Magda becomes vulnerable to an unfavorable reality. Yet, she still wants to know whether her sister recognizes who she once was. Eger, then, chooses to see her positive characteristics rather than sink them both further into despair. Eger’s answer focuses on the present rather than dwelling on the past, and this mindset will help her survive a horrific year.

“In the private darkness within, I hear my mother’s words come back to me, as though she is there in the barren room, whispering below the music. Just remember, no one can take away from you what you’ve put in your own mind. Dr. Mengele, my fellow starved-to-the-bone inmates, the defiant who will survive and the soon to be dead, even my beloved sister disappear, and the only world that exists is the one in my head.” 

The Nazis design concentration camps to break the prisoners’ spirit. Nothing in her setting will provide her hope; to remain whole, and to access her dance spirit, she must reach inside herself. For a moment, she disregards even the small hopes that exist in the outside world so that she can feel her own strength moving her to dance. Finding the inner spirit helps Eger survive both this moment and many more in the long year to come.

“We can choose what horror teaches us. To become bitter in our grief and fear. Hostile. Paralyzed. Or to hold on to the childlike part of us, the lively and curious part, the part that is innocent.” 

Eger understands the temptation to avoid future suffering. Once someone experiences those emotional ranges, avoidance appears the most logical path toward positive emotions and peace. However, Eger has a fascination with curiosity—a willingness to explore unknown territory and become vulnerable to what lies ahead. The former choice imprisons people where they are, but the latter encourages exploration and opens opportunities for growth.

“If she makes a run for it, then I’m off the hook. I can slide back down to the floor and never get up. What a relief it will be. To exist is such an obligation. I let my legs fold up like scarves. I relax into the fall. And there is Magda in a halo of flame. Already dead. Beating me to it. I’ll catch up. I feel the heat from the fire. Now I’ll join her. Now. ‘I’m coming!’ I call. ‘Wait for me!’ I don’t catch the moment when she stops being a phantom and becomes flesh again. Somehow she makes me understand: she has crossed the burning bridge to return to me. ‘You idiot,’ I say, ‘you could have run.’” 

Eger’s figurative language adds drama to the moment. Her legs “fold up like scarves,” emphasizing her physical weakness and the relief of futility. The “halo of flame” around Magda suggests Eger gazes into the afterlife and expresses the love she feels for her sister. Eger also parallels them reaching for each other: Magda crosses a burning bridge to save her sister, and Eger can accept death if she knows she won’t leave her sister alone. Finally, Eger’s point of view confirms her dedication to Magda, but this moment solidifies Magda’s commitment to Eger as well; their pattern of saving each other comes full circle when Eger repeats, “You could have run,” which was Magda’s response to Eger’s having bypassed escape to join her sister in imprisonment again. 

“How strange to hear that in the world outside our purgatory, things change. A new course is determined. These events occur so far from our daily existence that it is a shock to realize that now, even right now, someone is making a choice about me. Not about me specifically. I have no name. But someone with authority is making a decision that will determine what happens to me. North, south, east, or west? Germany or Austria? What should be done with the surviving Jews before the war is over?” 

Eger encourages her audience to recognize their freedom of individual choice, and she also understands intimately how people’s choices can have far-reaching consequences. Particularly, people in power can more easily ignore the impact on real, though faraway, individuals. Her philosophy emphasizes breaking the cycles of suffering, rather than perpetuating them, for the community’s common good.

“We have lived through hell only to become someone else’s nightmare. […] The way the children look at us is worse. We are an offense to innocence. […] Their shock is more bitter than hate.” 

Eger capitalizes on situational irony here: She has experienced dehumanization directed toward her, but though the German bystanders are safe, they feel threatened by their dehumanized presence. The soldiers snatched away Eger’s innocence, but Eger steals the children’s innocence simply by what’s left of her. After everything she’s lived through, she deserves empathy; their shock reveals that they can’t see any humanity left in her, which saddens her more than the murderers’ hate.

“I love [Klara], I love her attention, I love being held and made to feel safe. But it is suffocating too. Her kindness leaves me no breathing room. And she seems to need something from me in return. Not gratitude or appreciation. Something deeper. I can feel that she relies on me for her own sense of purpose. For her reason for being. In taking care of me, she finds the reason why she was spared. My role is to be healthy enough to stay alive yet helpless enough to need her. That is my reason for having survived.” 

Like Eger, Klara seeks validation from external sources. From this point of view, Eger demonstrates how one person’s quest for validation undercuts another’s recovery. Klara’s coping mechanism—in which her happiness depends on the circumstances—stunts Eger’s growth because the two goals are not mutually compatible. Later, Eger will advocate a better way, which involves forgiving oneself and choosing to make the most of the present.

“I wasn’t suicidal at Auschwitz, when things were hopeless. Every day I was surrounded by people who said, ‘The only way you’ll get out of here is as a corpse.’ But the dire prophecies gave me something to fight against. Now that I am recuperating, now that I am facing the irrevocable fact that my parents are never coming back, that Eric is never coming back, the only demons are within. I think of taking my own life. I want a way out of pain. Why not choose not to be?” 

Eger can fight against the guards’ death threats because, though probable, their threats haven’t yet ended her life. She can still prove them wrong and imagine freedom. However, once Eric and her parents die, she has nothing left to prove wrong. Her loved ones are gone forever, and she can’t enjoy a future with them. A bleak future demoralizes Eger more than the slim possibility of one because she no longer pursues stimulating goals, which makes her question the purpose of living.

“I try to mirror the other women. I feel like an elegant parrot, nothing but an echo dolled up in nice clothes that my father did not make for me.”

Eger juxtaposes images with opposite connotations. The first images suggest her wearing a costume and performing a show; she feels “dolled-up” like an “elegant parrot,” which imply that she plays a fictitious person whose persona is overtly fake. Eger then sobers the image by describing clothes that “[her] father did not make for [her],” reminding her not only of her father’s loss but also the sentimental comforts she once took for granted. The second image reveals her true heart, still raw with grief.

“And yet. (This ‘and yet’ closing like a latch.) I had been ready to forsake our marriage in order to take Marianne to America. However painfully, I had been willing to sacrifice our family, our partnership—the very things Béla had been unable to accept losing. And so we began our new life on an unequal footing. I could feel that though his devotion to us could be measured in all that he had given up, he was still dizzy from what he had lost. And where I felt relief and joy, he felt hurt. Happy as I was to greet our new life, I could already feel that Béla’s loss put a dangerous pressure on all the unknowns ahead.” 

Eger takes a risk by marrying a man she doesn’t truly love, especially after experiencing an intense relationship. She reaches her limit when Béla nearly makes a choice that she can’t support, and so she proposes an ultimatum on their marriage. Though Béla’s concession keeps the family whole, the new “unequal footing” foreshadows future marital troubles that will eventually lead to the Egers’ divorce.

“After my first flashback, I began to believe that my inner world was where the demons lived. That there was blight deep inside me. My inner world was no longer sustaining, it became the source of my pain: unstoppable memories, loss, fear. […] I tried to banish my memories of the past. I thought it was a matter of survival. Only after many years did I come to understand that running away doesn’t heal pain. It makes the pain worse. […] But here [in America] I became more psychologically imprisoned than I was before. In running from the past—from my fear—I didn’t find freedom. I made a cell of my dread and sealed the lock with silence.” 

One big difference between physical and psychological imprisonment is the prison guard. In Auschwitz, the guards only have control over the inmates’ physical state, preventing them from escaping to freedom outside. When Eger immigrates to America, she serves as her own prison guard, afraid that if she breaks the silence, she won’t survive the pain. However, healing doesn’t happen without intentional effort, and the pain only grows the longer she resists her past.

“Standing in a park in the hot desert sun, I was indeed at the end of the world, farther in time and space than I’d ever been from the girl left for dead in a pile of bodies in a muggy forest in Austria. And yet I had never, since the war, been closer to her, either, because here I was almost acknowledging her to a stranger, here I was meeting a ghost from the past in broad daylight, while my daughter demanded to go higher and higher in the swing. Maybe moving forward also meant circling back.” 

Eger speaks of her past self in third person, disconnecting the chapters of her life. She can more easily forget the past when her whole setting—time and place—have radically changed: The baking El Paso sun completely contrasts a damp Austrian forest, and her situation has changed entirely. Yet, she can still access her past self across that time and space, and she realizes how close the old ghost lives. She must validate both people to begin true healing.

“What are my disowned feelings? They are like strangers living in my house, invisible except for the food they steal, the furniture they leave out of place, the mud they trail down the hall. Divorce doesn’t liberate me of their uneasy presence. Divorce empties the room of other distractions, of the habitual targets of my blame and resentment, and forces me to sit alone with my feelings.” 

The extended metaphor explores how Eger’s “disowned feelings”—the emotions she won’t validate—throw her mind into chaos. While other distractions and targets occupy the same space, Eger can accuse them for the disarray. However, once she clears the distractions (via divorce), nothing but those less-than-phantom emotions remains. The metaphor illustrates Eger’s emotional state by using tangible images—stolen food, disordered furniture, mud—to explain why the divorce doesn’t alleviate her inner turmoil.

“For me, learning that only I can do what I can do the way I can do it meant overthrowing the compulsive achiever in me, who was always chasing more and more pieces of paper in the hopes of affirming my worth.”

Eger vividly describes how the healing journey grates against her compulsive habits, identifying a specific personal obstacle she must overcome to achieve freedom. The paper symbolizes the external validation she craves. While Eger can hold the tangible paper for concrete affirmation, paper is also flimsy and only a congratulatory gesture. Society’s boxes for what constitutes success don’t account for individuality, but often a person’s unique gifts have a more positive impact than a quantifiable achievement can account for. 

“People ask me, how did you learn to overcome the past? Overcome? Overcome? I haven’t overcome anything. Every beating, bombing, and selection line, every death, every column of smoke pushing skyward, every moment of terror when I thought it was the end—these live on in me, in my memories and my nightmares. The past isn’t gone. It isn’t transcended or excised. It lives on in me. But so does the perspective it has afforded me: that I lived to see liberation because I kept hope alive in my heart. That I lived to see freedom because I learned to forgive.”

Eger always emphasizes how her journey doesn’t require superhuman strength and everyone has the capacity to embrace freedom. She uses a collection of images—selection lines, smokestacks—to summarize her past, and the fact that she can express these moments so emphatically implies that she hasn’t conquered or, by extension, eliminated them. She instead chooses not to allow the past to snuff her capacity for hope and forgiveness. 

“At best, revenge is useless. It can’t alter what was done to us, it can’t erase the wrongs we’ve suffered, it can’t bring back the dead. At worst, revenge perpetuates the cycle of hate. It keeps the hate circling on and on. When we seek revenge, even nonviolent revenge, we are revolving, not evolving.” 

Eger has a peculiar approach to revenge: She tries to prove others inferior through perfect performance. For example, when the Hungarians kick her off the Olympic gymnastics team, she vows to work harder and prove her worth. However, the author understands that even harmless revenge affects not only the target but also her own capacity for self-acceptance and forgiveness. Revenge roots her in the past—revolving—while forgiveness propels her forward and keeps her evolving.

“I can see that the past doesn’t taint the present, the present doesn’t diminish the past. Time is the medium. Time is the track, we travel it.” 

As Eger’s metaphor explains, time bounds people to one track; the past can’t change, and no one can see the future. Eger’s secret to wholeness involves balancing the immutable past with present’s potential. Time alone doesn’t heal, and it merely links history’s events. Wholeness requires all the pieces to be truly complete, and Eger encourages readers to bravely embrace the present even though no one can know what the future holds.

“This is here, this is now. I try to reason with the part of me that feels that with every mile I travel I lose a layer of skin. I will be a skeleton again by the time I get to Poland. I want to be more than bones. […] So I learned to flow, I learned to stay in the situation, to develop the only thing I had left, to look within for the part of me that no Nazi could ever murder. To find and hold on to my truest self. Maybe I’m not losing skin. Maybe I am only stretching. Stretching to encompass every aspect of who I am—and have been—and can become.” 

As Eger approaches the location connected to her trauma, she remembers—and begins to feel like—the starved, diseased girl who the Americans pulled from a heap of bodies. The past’s horrible images overwhelm her as she approaches Auschwitz, but then she begins also recalling the strength that carried her through that dreadful year. She reimagines her emotional state to reflect that strength and chooses to describe the sensation of losing skin as stretching skin. One diminishes, and the other encompasses, and she controls which perspective drives her.

“Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time. Healing is possible when we choose to take responsibility, when we choose to take risks, and finally, when we choose to release the wound, to let go of the past or the grief.” 

Eger disagrees with the adage, “Time heals all wounds,” arguing that forgetting is not the same as healing. Healing requires intentionality, sitting with uncomfortable past mistakes, and voluntarily becoming vulnerable again. Healing involves no longer bowing under the past’s control and choosing to grow with the time that remains.