Edith Eger, a psychologist who survived the Holocaust and became renowned for her work on PTSD, has died
Her family has announced this.
“Today, our dearest Edie left her earthly body. She passed away with the same grace with which she lived her life — like an angel returning home. She passed into eternity under the tender care of her family and devoted team. Edie’s life has deeply moved us all, and we will honour her memory through our actions,” the statement reads.
Eger was born in Hungary in 1927. At the age of 16, she and her family were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp because they were Jewish. Her mother and father perished there, but Edith and her sister managed to survive.
Edith herself recounted that she survived because, as a ballerina and gymnast, she was forced to dance before Josef Mengele — the notorious Nazi doctor who conducted experiments on prisoners. In return, he gave her pieces of bread, which she shared with the other women.
Towards the end of the Second World War, Edith and other concentration camp prisoners were transported to Austria during the so-called forced death marches, when many prisoners died from exhaustion and the cold. On 4 May 1945, an American soldier spotted Edith beneath a pile of bodies and rescued her.
After the war, Edith married and moved to the US, where she earned a degree in psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso and became a schoolteacher.
She became famous thanks to two of her works — *The Choice* and *The Gift* — which are based on her story of survival in a concentration camp, where she explored the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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