Happy 95th Birthday to Dr. Edith Eger! | Holocaust Survivor | USC Shoah Foundation — Transcript

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1. 0:00Edie, where were you born?
2. 0:01EE: I was born in Kosice, Czechoslovakia.
3. 0:04INT: And how--
4. 0:05EE: K-O-S-I-C-E.
5. 0:06INT: K-O-S-I-C-E. When-- did you ever have any other names that
6. 0:14you went by, besides Elefant?
7. 0:16EE: No, that was my only name.
8. 0:18And Eger is my married name.
9. 0:20INT: OK, and I hate-- hate to ask you this,
10. 0:21but what is your birth date?
11. 0:23EE: My birthday is September 29, 1927.
12. 0:27I like my age.
13. 0:28INT: OK.
14. 0:29EE: I just had my 68th birthday.
15. 0:31INT: Edie, tell me about your family.
16. 0:36What was your father's name?
17. 0:38EE: My father's name was Lajos in Hungarian, Ludwig,
18. 0:43and he was a very creative man who
19. 0:48worked himself up from being a tailor to being a designer.
20. 0:53And-- and I was very, very lovingly
21. 0:58watching my dad evolving so beautifully.
22. 1:03He was a ladies' man.
23. 1:05INT: Tell me, just-- just to backtrack for a moment--
24. 1:07how do you spell his name?
25. 1:09EE: His name, L-A-J-O-S.
26. 1:13INT: And his middle name?
27. 1:15EE: Middle name--
28. 1:16I don't--
29. 1:18INT: You don't-- you don't--
30. 1:19EE: I don't think he had a middle name.
31. 1:21INT: OK.
32. 1:24And your mother, what was her name?
33. 1:26EE: Her name was Ilona, I-L-O-N-A, Klein, K-L-E-I-N.
34. 1:33INT: Do you know her birth date?
35. 1:35EE: Her birthday was March 29--
36. 1:43March 25, 19--
37. 1:471898.
38. 1:48INT: And what-- what--
39. 1:49EE: My dad's--
40. 1:50INT: I'm sorry.
41. 1:51EE: And my dad's, March 29, 1892.
42. 1:58INT: Where was your father born?
43. 2:01EE: He was born in Czechoslovakia,
44. 2:03a place called Trebisov--
45. 2:06T-R-E-B-I-S-O-V.
46. 2:10INT: And your mother?
47. 2:11EE: And my mother was born in Kosice, I believe.
48. 2:17I-- I really am not so sure now that you're asking.
49. 2:20I-- I think she was born in Kosice, as well.
50. 2:25INT: Now, there were some other children in your family.
51. 2:27EE: Yes, I have two sisters, beautiful sisters--
52. 2:30Magda, Magdalena, as she likes to call herself.
53. 2:33And she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
54. 2:35And Klara, K-L-A-R-A, who lives in Sydney, Australia.
55. 2:41And she's coming to visit me in a couple of weeks.
56. 2:44INT: How wonderful.
57. 2:45EE: Yeah.
58. 2:45INT: Let's go back to-- to Magdalena, is it?
59. 2:49How do you spell her name?
60. 2:50EE: M-A-G-D-A-L-E-N-A.
61. 2:54INT: Now, which one of them-- which one of the sisters
62. 2:58are the oldest?
63. 2:59EE: Magdalena is the oldest, but don't tell her.
64. 3:02INT: OK.
65. 3:02EE: Yeah.
66. 3:03INT: And then after Magdalena?
67. 3:04EE: Then Klara, and then me.
68. 3:05INT: So you were the youngest in the family.
69. 3:07EE: I'm-- I'm the youngest.
70. 3:08Yeah.
71. 3:09INT: OK, tell me some of the early things
72. 3:11that you remember about your family life in Kosice.
73. 3:17EE: Well, my recollection is that I
74. 3:20remember my parents had two girls, and they wanted a son.
75. 3:23And-- and here I am.
76. 3:26I kind of always felt that my parents wanted me to be a boy,
77. 3:31and I wasn't.
78. 3:33And what I remember early on, that I was very ill when
79. 3:40I was three years old.
80. 3:41I almost died of a Spanish fever--
81. 3:43some epidemic was going on.
82. 3:46And the doctor put a needle in one ear,
83. 3:48and then somehow, touched my eyes,
84. 3:52and I became a cross-eyed little girl.
85. 3:55And I was teased a lot.
86. 3:57I felt I was the ugliest little girl around,
87. 4:01to the point that I walked in the streets
88. 4:03and I was looking at the pavement,
89. 4:07because I didn't want you to be in shock of my ugly face.
90. 4:11And so I don't have very, very good memories as a child.
91. 4:15But a wonderful memory I have was
92. 4:17that my mother was a very wise, beautiful woman, who
93. 4:20took me to a ballet school when I was very young.
94. 4:23And I began to speak with my body.
95. 4:26INT: You--
96. 4:27EE: I had a very spiritual and wonderful ballet master
97. 4:30who said to me that God built me in such a magnificent way,
98. 4:34that whatever happens to me, I always have
99. 4:36to find the power from within.
100. 4:38And I remember in Auschwitz, I was thinking of him,
101. 4:42that now it's the time for me to--
102. 4:45to find from within what never came from without.