A black-and-white photo shows the 16-year-old ballerina at her prime, mere months before her world would be destroyed.
She is dressed in a bathing suit, smiling radiantly while performing a gymnastic split. Edith Eva Eger says the portrait was taken by her first teenage crush: a Jewish boy named Imre. He, like so many others, would not survive the Holocaust.
“I had my 17th birthday in Auschwitz,” Eger says.
Seventy years later, Eger appears frail at first glance, until she astounds a new acquaintance by performing a dance kick that goes shoulder-high.
The 87-year old says her fondest childhood memories still revolve around dancing and training to compete for the Hungarian Olympic team as a gymnast.
“But then I was told that I had to train somewhere else because I’m Jewish, and I do not qualify [for the Olympics],” Eger recalls. “My dream was totally shattered.”
Eger was a Hungarian Jew, the youngest of three daughters, living in a town called Kosice in what is modern-day Slovakia. Her father was a tailor; her mother, a civil servant.
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“Auschwitz gave me a tremendous gift in some ways, that I can guide people to have resilience and perseverance,” Eger says.
In time, Eger also become a motivational public speaker, performing a Ted Talk and giving speeches at schools and universities. She litters her Hungarian-accented English with aphorisms aimed at mental healing.
“Self love is self care,” she tells patients. “The biggest concentration camp is in our mind.”
“She blew me away with her extraordinary optimism and energy,” Levine says, recalling the first time he saw Eger speaking to an audience. “She is a force of nature.”
Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, this Holocaust survivor’s greatest pride and joy are clearly her three great-grandchildren.
“That’s the best revenge to Hitler I can think of,” says the dancer, pointing at one of several portraits of her smiling great-grandchildren in her office.
