This was a beautifully written memoir of Edith's life before, during & after her time as a pow in austwitchz & other concentration camps. It covered serious subjects delicately & made the reader see how life can change in the matters of minutes.
I have read a few books from survivors of austwitchz & the other concentration camps & this one is on par with the best selling ones. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in this subject or just want to know what life was really like in these horrific times

It’s 1944 and 16 year old Edith, a gymnast and dancer, is taken with her parents and sister, Magda, in a cattle cart to Auschwitz. Here they believe they are going work until the war ends. This belief is soon changed when Edith learns what happens in the buildings with the tall smoking chimneys.
What follows is a heartbreaking memoir of a young ballerina.

I have read a few books of this nature but this one really got to me, much more so than any other which I believe is due to this being the first hand experience of the author when she was such a young age. I just can't comprehend how Edith could have come through such unimaginable experiences and come out the other side as such an amazing and strong young Lady.
When I close my eyes thinking of this book all I can see are 3 terrified people huddled in their grey wool coats awaiting their fate.

This was such a haunting and powerful read, I am lost for words an how to express how deeply horrific but motivating this book is. I will be recommending to everyone as I feel it is a must read book.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reading copy.

Would I be able to survive such atrocities – and not be bitter? I doubt it. Even as a teenager, Edith Eger appreciated that good and evil co-exist in human nature; she survived by telling herself to survive today and be free tomorrow. Despite the suffering, she rises above the unbelievable and excruciating cruelty and starvation, clings to her sister who is in the same camp, dreams of her young man, Eric, and determines that she has choices.
It is gut-wrenchingly brutal in terms of loss, humiliation, fear (the scenes with Mengele are truly chilling), deteriorating health but shines with hope, love - and forgiveness. Edith’s return visit to Auschwitz many years after her internment must have been gruelling, but her description of meeting one of the guards (not at Auschwitz) is breathtakingly generous.
We must never let such monstrous obscenities happen again.

Wow Wow Wow, an amazing book, I have been to Auschwitz, it still haunts my thoughts when I think about the holocaust. Beautifully written with so much feeling. How can a young girl survive such horrors and manage to live her life despite the extreme traumas, starvation and cruelty that she lived through. Enjoy is not the correct word, I was more spellbound waiting to see if she managed to survive and whether any of her family and friends survived. Thank you for this book, it has reminded me of what we must never let happen again, one of a few books that has had a profound impact. Recommended.

I was lucky enough to have read Edith's original memoir, The Choice, which was extraordinary; this is no different and whilst, I think, it has been written for young adults in mind, I feel it can and should be read by all ages.

This sets out Edith's teenage life before, during and after the war ... her hopes and dreams that were dashed by the horrors inflicted but the power of the mind which, regardless of what is done to you, remains your own and something which you retain control over when you may have lost control of everything else.

I can't even begin to fathom how someone, who has experienced what Edith and countless others went through and witnessed, can come out the other side even close to being able to function back into society and then have the bravery and strength to re-live it by talking and writing about it in the hope that the atrocities committed are never repeated or forgotten? In my view, that takes a special type of person.

Memoirs like these are harrowing and disturbing to read BUT they are also stories of hope, strength, love; they are essential and a lot of lessons can and must be learned from them and I thank Edith, Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of this important and must-read book for all ages.

Beyond beautiful. So incredibly heartbreaking but full of positivity, hope, joy, strength, resilience and all the best parts of human beings. I have never read a book like this before… The fact that all of this happened is unbelievable for me.

Thank you to the author for sharing this heartbreak and hope.

If I could give 10 stars, I would. Outstandingly brave.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

If you read a single book this year, read this one. Simply. Stunning.

Having read The Choice I was keen to read the author's new book. It did not disappoint. It was heart breaking but also uplifting. I cannot start to imagine the hardship and strength of character these people had. Another book that needs to be read by many to understand the importance of the Holocaust.

The memoir of Edith Eger, The Ballerina of Auschwitz, is a non-fiction account of a Jewish girl and her family who endured the horrors of World War II. It captures the stories of many Jewish families who lost their loved ones in the cruelty of the war, and who, like lost souls, struggled to find themselves amidst the devastation. Each page evokes a profound sense of pain, grief, and helplessness for the reader. This book is a memoir of their happiness before the war and the grief of life afterward. It is a heart-wrenching story of Dr. Edith Eger's life. This is a must-read for every generation, offering a glimpse into our history through the eyes of a real person who lived through it. I have no words to fully describe this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and to Penguin Random House for bringing such a true story to life.

I'd not read the authors original book but am going through a "history" phAW.
This is a heartbreaking read, the things they went through. It is one of those stories that will stay with me for a long time.

Firstly, I have been to Auschwitz and seen the horror of what occurred and the results left behind. I have read lots of stories since visiting Auschwitz and have a different mindset reading these now. It is now 2024 and each time I read a book about this point in history, I am always transported back to when I first visited Auschwitz and I am always just as shocked reading the details every time. I believe it is always important to remember this point in history. Hence, we know what extreme hate looks like, what humanity is capable of, what humans are capable of and how we can avoid this ever happening again. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

I had not heard of the author's first book, 'THE CHOICE' nor of her story, so this book came to me fresh - and as a complete shock. It's the story of Edith Eger's life, but mostly of her experience of being taken to Auschwitz aged 16, of her time in the camps and how this has impacted her whole life. In this account, the original book has been condensed and reshaped potentially for young adult readers, which means that is a shorter and quickly readable account.

In spite of that, it is an emotional and harrowing read; yet beautifully written, evocatively re-creating the horrific times, the things people had to endure, and how, as the author puts it, "We can’t alter the past or control what’s coming round the next corner. But we can choose how to live now.”

Edith's choice, as she came back into the real world and her real life, was to become a psychotherapist, to help others, with her message and story of hope, resilience, and yes, choice. Choosing to bring good out of what could have become a downhill slope of depression and victimhood, the author recounts her personal story in order to help others to make the same choices of hope and help. And, too, to help next generations discover the truth of what occurred during the holocaust.

There are many accounts, both fiction and non-fiction, of those terrible times. This is one of the most powerful I have read, even though it is comparatively short and in some ways, quite matter-of-fact. This is what happened; this is what it caused; and this is the good that has somehow been able to come out of all of that.

To be read with hankie to hand, especially as Edith describes what happens to the love of her life.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the Advanced Reader Copy. This is my own honest review.

read this book in one sitting before bed. Could not sleep after it, I just kept thinking about what Edith and Magda went through. It was such a a heartbreaking read. I had to keep putting it down for a couple of minutes to compose myself, that's something they couldn't do. Eric, I have no words. He sounded such a lovely young man. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House.

“We can’t alter the past or control what’s coming round the next corner. But we can choose how to live now”

The generation who actively experienced the Second World War, fascism, the Holocaust, whether as the victims of that obscene ideology, or as its perpetrators, are almost all dead or impossibly ancient.

Meanwhile, horrifically, we witness the rise of ultra right ’populist’ politics, the demonising and dehumanisation of other races, other creeds, other sexual orientations which are not heteronormative, those who are female, both in this country, in Europe, in the USA, like some deadly, lethal virus advancing in its spread, global.

To I hope most of us, this is incomprehensible. This is why I HAVE to read books like Eger’s. It is not because I want to read graphic descriptions of mankind’s inhumanity to itself, to those whom it denigrates as not being as human as itself, but because it seems more than ever important to acknowledge that the potential to be the absolute worst of mankind is there within every one of us. There is, as Eger reminds us, both in this book, and her others, a choice. In large and small ways, we can embrace our humanity or embrace our – not bestiality, as the depths of sadistic and cruel brutality is something which seems almost uniquely human – but our most selfish, self-serving and vicious selves.

Edith Eger, like fellow psychotherapist and philosopher Viktor Frankl, survived the camps, and used the experience of their own, terrible trauma to help others, not only holocaust survivors, but more widely, humanity at large, or at least, those who can recognise that within us is always some choice as to whom we might be, the person who denigrates and denies the humanity of others, or the one who recognises a shared humanity, and tries to choose the acknowledgement of the sacred in the other.

This is, yes, a horrific book, but also an inspiring one, written from a place of hope.

Very humbling read and I’m so glad that the original version (The Choice) has been rewritten so that it can capture a younger audience.
Beautifully written and well executed.
I will be encouraging my younger children at work to read this.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

I have read a few of these Auschwitz books but this one got me in a way others didn’t
I think because it’s told from someone who is very young makes a difference the author is the youngest of three daughters Magda, klara and Didkcu their father was a tailor very well known they lived a good life until the war
They were dragged from their homes and put on cattle trains to take them to camps they were separated first men and women then worst the girls and their mother were separated
It began they were stripped head shaved left for hours to get their uniforms so eventually got their striped dresses and horrible knickers and thrown into sheds were they slept on boards 2 to a bed
Food was virtually non existent, you went to work everyday if you were too ill you were shot if you couldn’t take it anymore you threw yourself on electric fence death was quick
Magda and Didkcu survived day after day
The book is very descriptive about the camps things I had never read before but that’s what makes it interesting too also you forget at times this is a teenager seeing all these things

As the title suggests, this is a memoir concerning the teenage years of a ballerina and gymnast, dominated by the months she spent in Auschwitz and then various camps as the war drew to its end. There are quite a few of such memoirs now and the6 never fail to be both profound and shocking. Of course there is a shocking level of brutality but more importantly, the book emphasises the resilience of the human spirit. She was extremely close to death, had typhus, pneumonia, pleurisy and a broken back and weighed about 70lbs, 5 stone at liberation, yet she survived. To quote, “I was victimised bit not a victim, hurt but not broken, the soul never dies but meaning and purpose can come from deep in the heart of what hurts us most”. Wow!

I have read almost every book sharing stories of people who suffered at Auschwitz after my visit to Krakow in 2018. Edith Eger's story as a true survivor hits home, I couldn't put it down and I will recommend this as a must-read for everyone. A really powerful story which I won't ever forget.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

Recently, every time I see a book title using the formula “the [insert job title] of Auschwitz”, I come close to rolling my eyes. The sufferings that occurred in the many concentration camps can’t be defined and delineated with such a simple formula, especially one that seems to be being used over and over. Still, I decided to give this one a go because it was written by a survivor, and it was the right decision. The reductive book title doesn’t do Eger or her work justice.
This book was a truly powerful work, beautifully written. Edith Eger has crafted a beautiful legacy from the ashes of her time being subjected to the cruellest abuses imaginable. She’s given future generations insights into how to survive mentally when everything around you is calculating destruction. It’s more than a remarkable memoir. It’s a work of loss and of hope, of hatred and love, of survival being the best revenge. Everyone should read this book.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the privilege of being able to read this in return for an honest review.

Oh, this book stirred up so much emotion in me. Poignantly written it portrays the authors story in the lead up to her and her sisters imprisonment in Auschwitz, the time they spent there and what happened following their liberation. I found it so hard to read but completely compelling. It is difficult to understand the cruelty that was endured whilst admiring the courage that it took to survive such an ordeal. This is a book that needs to be read.

It won't be much longer before there are no people left alive who lived through this. It's one thing reading books written about it, and another reading first hand experience. I have passed family who did so, and I know the effect it had on them. It is seared on my mind and impacts my life. It echoes through the generations. But for those who do not have this in their family, books like this one are essential reading. It's written well and draws you into the life and experiences of the author. It's much more than historical. It's visceral and real, and encourages you to place yourself in such a position and see how it might feel. In current times, where attitudes are ever more divisive, we need whatever possible to enable people to realise what our current trajectory might bring us to. This book is not easy reading and some of it is heart breaking, but well worth it.