IN MEMORY OF EDITH EVA EGER, Ph.D. September 29, 1927- April 27, 2026

by Dr. Ann-Marie Neale

Board of Executive Council member/ Faculty Member

May 4, 2026

On April 27, 2026, Dr. Edith Eva Eger passed away surrounded by her loving family and team.  The board of directors and members of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy USA extend our heart-felt condolences to Dr. Eger’s family and all who were blessed to know and love her.  

Dr. Eger was born in present-day Slovakia to Jewish Hungarian parents.  As a young girl, she was a talented member of the Hungarian Olympic gymnastics team; however, in 1942 she was removed from the team due to the new anti-Jewish laws.  On May 22, 1944, at age 16 along with her parents and one older sister Dr. Eger entered the Auschwitz concentration camp.  She poignantly describes her concentration camp experience and survival in the New York Times bestseller, The Choice, which she wrote and published in 2017 at 90 years of age. 

At the end of the war, Dr. Eger and her husband emigrated to the United States where they raised three children. Years later she finally began to fully grieve and heal from her experience during the Holocaust which prompted her to enter graduate school.  In 1978, Dr. Eger earned a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at University of Texas, El Paso. The title of her dissertation was “Effects of Concentration Camp Stress upon the Development of Life Attitudes in Jewish Subjects.”  Around this time, on the recommendation of a friend, Dr. Eger read Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl and realized that they shared a common bond as survivors of Auschwitz, and having both suffered the loss of family members during the Holocaust.  They met and became life-long friends and colleagues until Dr. Frankl’s death in 1997.  Dr. Eger was a keynote speaker at two of our World Congresses (1986 and 1999).  At one World Congress I understand that she performed an Olympic worthy gymnastics split on stage and danced with Dr. Frankl.  In 1995, Dr. Eger gave the keynote address for Dr. Frankl’s 90^th birthday. 

On a Social Media post (Facebook) dated May 21, 2020, Dr. Eger wrote the following: “Viktor Frankl gives us the opportunity to look at everything in life as an opportunity to discover inner resources and take responsibility for becoming free.  A brilliant and beloved mentor, Frankl helped me finally face the past instead of fighting it and running away. He offers all of us the same gift: to find hope in hopelessness, to create meaning and purpose out of our suffering, and—even in the direst conditions—to embrace life.”

Dr. Eger’s book, The Choice, is more than a memoir; it also includes multiple examples of her psychotherapeutic interventions with clients who struggled with trauma.  She embraced the philosophy of Dr. Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy both personally and professionally, often quoting Man’s Search for Meaning to others who were searching for hope and meaning.  Dr. Edith Eva Eger is a beautiful and inspirational example of the Defiant Power of the Human Spirit and Logotherapy-lived. 

by Dr. Ann-Marie Neale, Ph.D.