The Ballerina of Auschwitz is a harrowing but incredibly well written account of life as a Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Hungary/Czechoslovakia and later Auschwitz, and then "home" as a survivor. Thais Eger’s retelling of The Choice.
Obviously this is a novel full of descriptive and haunting heartache and appalling situations.
A novel worth reading, not necessarily enjoyed.

Feeling incredibly grateful for having received an early copy via NetGalley. After reading ‘The Choice’, this book was definitely a well written and nice addition to the original book. The writing style and topic was so well developed, and I keep thinking about how her story has shaped not only her own life, but also other peoples life. Especially during a time where extremism is on the rise again, Edith Egers story is so insightful and important!!!

Many thanks to Net Galley, Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House and Edith Eder for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
This is a very powerful book, it’s traumatic and very sad in places and reminds us of the horrors people endured at Auschwitzc during WW2 to an extent we feel Edith’s pain as we read, but it’s difficult to comprehend the true reality
In a beautiful style Edith tells us of her life before, during and after the WW2, her strength, resilience and determination come through in the story. To be able to find hope amongst horror and pain is truly remarkable. This story reminds us all that there is always a choice.
This book is aimed at YA, I hadn’t read Edith’s adult memoir The Choice but will definitely be adding it to my reading list.

3.5 *

Earlier this year I read 'The Choice' by Edith Eger and I was moved in so many ways. It was my first five star of the year. Eger's writing and her perspectives have the power to change mindsets - she really is an inspirational lady. So when I saw this on NetGalley I knew I had to read it. I was really looking forward to reading more about Edith's experiences, the lessons she had learned from them and her amazing insight into life. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed to find out this book is the same as 'The Choice' but with a new 30% worth of material.

This book was also a lot shorter and it did not contain as much of the inspirational insight as the first book I read. It was focused primarily on her experience in Auschwitz and afterwards. With 'The Choice' still fresh in my mind, there were only a few new stories I do not remember from last time.

It was still an incredible read and I am still in awe of this lady and everything she has had to overcome. I was just disappointed it was very similar to the book I had just read from her.

Definitely worth it to those who read 'The Choice' a while ago or for those who have never read it. Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

To preface my review I want to say I never read “The Choice” but I do love WW2 memoirs and stories.

This book took me a minute to get into as the sentences are a little choppy and can jump around a little BUT the story is beautiful. It’s such a heart wrenching story with so many varied characters seen through one set of eyes. Trying to put myself into this story was off course impossible but I felt dark and deep emotions reading this book.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for allowing me to read this book.

Edith was only 16 when she was sent to Auschwitz and almost dead when liberated. This is her retelling of her life before, during and after her time there. A moving narrative that ensures she and her story are not forgotten.

Well written and engaging book. Gives an insight to the horrors seen and experienced by this young lady that would influence her life forever. Well worth reading.

It's been a while since I read an actual Holocaust survivor story, rather than fiction/based on a true story. And wow. What an account. The Ballerina of Auschwitz is listed as being "a dramatic retelling of The Choice" which I haven't read.

I do have a slight issue with the sheer number of books that are called "The x of insert concentration camp name", but at least it makes it clear what it's about. However, I really loved the simplicity of the cover art, and really appreciate it not having the stripes of the uniforms as a background.

The Ballerina of Auschwitz is a beautifully written account of life as a Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Hungary/Czechoslovakia (her town was part of both countries at different times) and later Auschwitz, and then "home" as a survivor.

As you'd expect it was a story with a lot of loss and heartache. The chapters about Ediths time in Auschwitz are not as brutally descriptive as some I've read, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Edith has written as much as she could bear to reccount.

It is also a story of hope. The hope that "I just have to survive today and I'll be free tomorrow" is something I've read in other survivor accounts as well. The hope that she would see Eric and Klara again. The hope that one day everything would be right again.

There are two quotes that I love.
The first is something she realised after being shaved at Auschwitz, and sums up her strength of character. "We have a choice: to pay attention to what we've lost or to pay attention to what we still have." It's something I try and remind myself of too.

The second is when Edith was on a death march, during which 1900 women died. It's a wonderful example of Edith's beautiful writing style.
"We are like the head of a dandelion gone to seed and blown by the wind"

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author of this book.

I could not put this book down. Harrowing and enlightening in equal measure. I felt at times I was there with the author witnessing what she was. There were a few instances I had to stop and take a moment to reflect and absorb what I had read. I still can’t believe that humans did this to other humans. That this is still happening to others is what made it very hard to read.

I feel this is an important work that everyone should read. We should not try and forget these atrocities, we should try to be better humans to each other. We all feel the same pain, worries, love, laugh and feel the same emotions. Why we can’t see past appearance or religion even to this day is a stark reminder that I took from this beautiful book. It deserves to be read. We need to learn from it.

This is the moving and harrowing account of the war years from a Holocaust survivor. An amazing story of a remarkably strong Jewish woman and her sister Magda. Her resilience & determination kept her going in the darkest of days. Life as it was, is graphically described. It’s a raw read of awful suffering in desperate circumstances. The years afterwards, healing and moving on are also told.
Edith said “We can’t ever change what’s happened to us. We can’t alter the past or control what’s coming around the next corner. But we can choose how we live now”.
Along with her sister Magda, she clung to hope and fought for a future.

The original novel written by the holocaust survivor “ The Choice embrace the possible “by Edith Eger is now on my to be read list it was published in 2017 by Scribner
This novel is a retelling of the story aimed at younger people and focusing priority on the authors younger life in concentration camps
The author has a very clear easily read writing style although the book has potentially triggering a traumatic topics it is dealt with it’s with subtlety and poise. If this is a retelling for younger people there is very little detail that is spared and I therefore think it would be more suitable for older teenagers.
I loved the sentence (I want to give you something written, especially for you at this stage of your becoming. ). I may have to read the original of the choice, but somehow I’ve missed.
I’ve read quite a few holocaust novels a few written at the time such as the diaries of Anne Frank and others written as they authors want to tell their stories in older age
As a story of the Holocaust in World War II as well known you know exactly what’s going to happen to the family right from the start this makes it even more horrifying you watch as from behind the sofa as the inevitable happens .
I didn’t realise that this was a Young adult novel when I saw it on NetGalley UK and don’t usually read, I don’t novel but I thought I’d read this one anyway I was glad that I did
Hi Read, copy of the book on NetGalley UK book published on the 3rd of October 2024 Edbury publishing Penguin Random House
Review will appear on Goodreads, NetGalley UK and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com. It will also appear on Amazon UK.

The Ballerina of Auschwitz is a retelling of Eger's earlier book, The Choice (which I read and loved). Where the former focusses primarily on Edith's life after the war, this book goes into much more detail about her personal experiences during World War 2.

Edith talks about her first love, her family's journey to Auschwitz and the harrowing time they spent there. It is a fascinating and heartbreaking read which offers a real insight into such a tragic time.

Edith's writing is beautiful and I was totally transfixed by her story, she is an incredibly strong and brave woman. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a really personal insight into the history of World War 2.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

The usual read of this genre, sad, unexplainable hatred, hope and love. Interesting was the readers description of people hopes to get to Palestine!

The Ballerina Of Auschwitz tells the heartbreaking true story of Edith Eger's life before, during, and after the holocaust

I always find books on this subject hard to really review because how can you say you enjoyed a book about such pain and suffering? This book was eye-opening, it was harrowing and it is a testament to the hope and strength shown by so many under such terrible conditions.

5 stars Mrs Eger. For your story, and for your will and determination.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to a copy of this book via Netgalley.

This is a beautiful but harrowing book. I love that the author has rewritten this for a younger audience. I feel it is really accessible for young adults and teens.

And gives such a vivid picture of what it was like in world war two.

My daughter is currently too young but I will be recommending this book when she gets older.

This is a powerful story which tells of a family, hauled off to a concentration camp. It’s impossible to imagine how the siblings must have felt, watching their mother being ‘sent left’ to her inevitable death in the gas chambers. It’s a frank and honest story of what those persecuted, went through and is tremendously moving. The fear they must have felt is unimaginable. Every morning at roll call, wondering if their number would be called, commiting them to the death chamber. It’s understandable why Magda and then Editke felt that all they could do, was give up and let life go. How hard it must have been to hold on and battle through, even when it seemed the end of the War was in sight.
I truly couldn’t put this book down. I had to know what happened to the sisters; did they survive and what happened next.
It’s extremely moving and I feel privileged to have been able to read it.

Whilst many of you might have read Edith’s book The Choice, this book is focused solely on Edith’s life before, during and immediately after Auschwitz, with an emphasis on her teenage emotions and Edith’s first love, Eric. It has been adapted from her original words in The Choice but it includes approximately 30 percent entirely new material, giving the reader an intimate understanding of the Edith’s journey.

I cannot begin to put this book into words. Every single sentence will touch your heart and squeeze it. To hear of the horrors one human can do to another from someone who experienced it is beyond heartbreaking and there are just no right words to describe it. But to read of the strength of the human spirit, love and hope amidst all that horror is just so humbling.

I cried for most of this book, which is wholly expected I think. But it also filled me with so much warmth and strength and so much resolve to live with an outlook like Edith: to do the best we can in the life we are living, to love well and to choose life and kindness.

“We [all] have the capacity to hate and the capacity to love. Which one we reach for […] is up to us.”

I hope you all pick this book up.

“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.”
― Edith Eger, The Choice

Edie was a teenager who had hopes of being on the Hungarian Olympic gymnastics team. She took dance and gymnastic lessons and had fallen in love for the first time. She had dreams and aspirations for her life. Unfortunately, the world was not a safe place and she and her family were put on a train headed toward Auschwitz. The Ballerina of Auschwitz: Young Adult Edition of The Choice is Edie's harrowing account of what transpired in her life leading up to Auschwitz, during her time in Auschwitz and being saved. I loved how Edie found the strength to go on, to live, to love, to find purpose and to tell her story. In under 200 pages, she tells her very personal story with grace, intellect, and courage.

What a thing to go through, what a thing to experience, what a thing to endure. This book had me thinking about Ma and her experiences in Auschwitz. To experience the unimaginable and find the strength to go on is a blessing. But many experienced survivors guilt. The pain of losing loved ones, the questioning why did I survive when they didn't is a heavy, heavy, burden to bear. The fact that Edie went on to be a psychologist who helped others face trauma shows her strength, her desire to help others, her belief in hope and looking forward while remembering the past.


Inspiring, moving, and powerful.

*This is the YA version of the author's book, The Choice: Embrace the Possible which details her experiences as Holocaust survivor and how she found strength in hope.

I write this review with tears rolling down my cheeks. The author of this book for me is a woman who truly is a warrior and survivor.

Edith Eger at just 16 years old was taken away from everything she knew, everything she loved and cared for and put into the worst place imaginable, Auschwitz. To read her harrowing story of how she somehow survived the horrors that she, her sister and many, many more witnessed is so emotional and heartbreaking. To know how many people didn’t survive the devastation that was Auschwitz, is unimaginable.

I feel the need to read this book and others like it, to hear the stories of those who lived through such a tragedy, to keep their stories and their fights alive and not forgotten. That those who tried and failed to oppress a nation did not in the end win.

A well written but very sad story that I definitely recommend.

Absolutely brilliant. I loved the fast writing pace. The author's tenacity and will to survive is so inspiring, and I really heard the message of Live your life to the full. I am telling everyone I know to read this book!
I am always surprised by new atrocities when I read books about the war and Auschwitz, when you think you have heard it all, along comes another horror someone had to suffer. This is no less chilling and horrific, but the author manages to capture her feelings; guilt, hope, love and the will to survive. This story will stay with me for a long time.

Very moving story seeing Hitler's Final Solution as it actually was.
The books I have previously read regarding the subject were often written third hand so it was interesting to see the camps as they were actually lived in.
Definitely worth reading to give some perspective as to how one Madman can cause so much pain and suffering.
However even with all of the things that happened survivors not only lived but went on to flourish.
Well written and engaging throughout.