Dr. Edith Eger on Passover | Host A Yom HaShoah Gathering With Testimony | USC Shoah Foundation — Transcript

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1. 0:00EE: My sister told me when she was here last time
2. 0:03that she remembered even more, how our father was maybe
3. 0:08sensing something that might happen.
4. 0:11That may-- that we may not have another Seder like this again.
5. 0:18INT: Did you remember anything that your mother
6. 0:20might have said or done?
7. 0:22EE: You know, my mom, in the cattle car,
8. 0:26was very, very quiet.
9. 0:29I remember Passover time, she was very, very quiet.
10. 0:33And in the cattle car, she said, you know, just remember,
11. 0:37everything can be taken away from you.
12. 0:39Just what you put here in your head, no one can.
13. 0:43And 40 years later, when I returned to Auschwitz
14. 0:46to honor my mother, I said, you were right.
15. 0:49I came to America, and my name is Dr. Eger today.
16. 0:53Somehow I needed to tell her that.
17. 0:56You know, I lost my family, but I never went to a funeral.
18. 1:01And in a Jewish way, I--
19. 1:03I honored my parents.
20. 1:06I-- I recommend people today to revisit the places,
21. 1:10because I needed to forgive myself that I survived.
22. 1:14That's why I became such a driven high achiever
23. 1:17in America, because I never thought I deserved to survive.
24. 1:23Because I was the ugly one, and they
25. 1:25were prettier and smarter than I was,
26. 1:28and my friends, who never made it back.
27. 1:32So my answer to that was that I--
28. 1:34I wanted to prove somehow that I deserved to survive
29. 1:40by becoming the high achiever.
30. 1:42So when a professor said to read one book, I read 10 books.
31. 1:46When I graduated with honors, I never went to my graduation,
32. 1:51because I never thought I deserved that.
33. 1:54So I had my own ways of needing to forgive myself,
34. 2:03that it's OK for me to be alive.