Holocaust Survivor Dr. Edith Eger
Original Program Date: 12/8/2020
A native of Hungary, Edith Eva Eger was just a teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever known. As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, she and her family were sent to Auschwitz, the heinous death camp. Her parents were sent to the gas chambers but Edith’s bravery kept her and her sister alive. Toward the end of the war Edith and other prisoners had been moved to Austria. On May 4, 1945 a young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a number of dead bodies. He quickly summoned medical help and brought her back from the brink of death.
After the war Edith moved to Czechoslovakia where she met the man she would marry. In 1949 they moved to the United States. In 1969 she received her degree in Psychology from the University of Texas, El Paso. She then pursued her doctoral internship at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Dr. Eger is a prolific author and a member of several professional associations. She has a clinical practice in La Jolla, California and holds a faculty appointment at the University of California, San Diego. She has appeared on numerous television programs including CNN and the Oprah Winfrey Show; and was the primary subject of a holocaust documentary that appeared on Dutch National Television. She is frequently invited to speaking engagements throughout the United States and abroad.
To learn more about Dr. Eger, please visit her website at https://dreditheger.com/
Books by Dr. Eger:
The Choice: Embrace The Possible: Edith Eger’s powerful first book The Choice told the story of her survival in the concentration camps, her escape, healing, and journey to freedom. Thousands of people around the world have written to Eger to tell her how The Choice moved them and inspired them to confront their own past and try to heal their pain.
“I’ll be forever changed by Dr. Eger’s story…The Choice is a reminder of what courage looks like in the worst of times and that we all have the ability to pay attention to what we’ve lost, or to pay attention to what we still have.”—Oprah.
The Gift: 12 Lessons To Save Your Life: Eger expands on her message of healing and provides a hands-on guide that gently encourages us to change the thoughts and behaviors that may be keeping us imprisoned in the past.
Eger explains that the worst prison she experienced is not the prison that Nazis put her in but the one she created for herself, the prison within her own mind. She describes the twelve most pervasive imprisoning beliefs she has known—including fear, grief, anger, secrets, stress, guilt, shame, and avoidance—and the tools she has discovered to deal with these universal challenges. Accompanied by stories from Eger’s own life and the lives of her patients each chapter includes thought-provoking questions and takeaways
About Our Moderator: Talli Dippold
Talli Dippold is the Associate Director of the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte. She served as the Executive Director of the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library & Resource Center at Shalom Park. She graduated Cum Laude with a BS in Hospitality Management from the University of New Hampshire and graduated as class Valedictorian with an MS in Genocide and Holocaust Studies from Gratz College. Talli decided to take her passion for storytelling, customer service, and empathy and pursue her lifelong passion for Holocaust and Human Rights education. During the past decade she has traveled extensively throughout Eastern Europe and participated in numerous educational opportunities including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Belfer Conference, the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers Program, as well as the Hillel International Professionals’ Heritage Study Tour in Poland. She has been an active member of the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust since 2013, and serves on the Executive Board of the Association of Holocaust Organizations since Jan. 2019. Talli co-teaches a college class on preserving memory in the digital age that culminates in a two week study tour to Poland where she leads a group in cemetery restoration work. She considers herself a 3G, as all four of her grandparents are Holocaust survivors. Talli is a native of Jerusalem, who enjoys traveling and sharing her stories.
