Dr. Edith Eger, Psychologist and Holocaust Survivor, Dies at 98

May 7, 2026 - 08:34

Dr. Edith Eger, a Holocaust survivor who turned her harrowing experiences in Auschwitz into a lifelong career as a clinical psychologist, has died at the age of 98. Her passing was confirmed by family members, who noted she died peacefully at her home in California.

Eger was just 16 years old when she and her family were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Her parents were sent directly to the gas chambers, but Edith and her sister Magda were forced into a brutal existence of slave labor. She later recalled being forced to dance for the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, a moment she said taught her the power of survival through performance. The Allies liberated her from the Gunskirchen camp in 1945, where she was found barely alive among a pile of bodies.

After emigrating to the United States, Eger earned her doctorate in psychology and built a practice specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder. She often called Auschwitz her "best classroom," using the inner resources she developed in hell to help others heal from trauma. She did not publish her first book, "The Choice," until she was 90 years old. It became an international bestseller, followed by "The Gift." Her work focused on the idea that while we cannot control what happens to us, we can choose how we respond, a lesson she lived out until her final days.