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asually as flipping a coin. You could be sent to the “showers of death” for
having a loosely tied shoelace.
After years of being brutalized, the camp inmates longed for freedom, yet, paradoxically, also
dreaded it. When their liberators arrived, some prisoners “rushed forward but most retreated and
even returned to their barracks.”
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CHAPTER 9: COGNITIVE PROCESSES
Edith was a fortunate survivor. She later married, immigrated to the United States, and became a
clinical psychologist. Recently, at the age of 61, Dr. Eger’s need to understand the twisted reality of
the camps motivated her to return to Auschwitz. “I came to mourn the dead and celebrate the living,
I also needed to formally put an end to the denial that I had been a victim and to assign guilt to the
oppressor.” For many years, she had denied the horrible truths of her camp experiences, but
eventually denial was unacceptable to her. By reliving the events of her incarceration and forcing
herself to think about the meaning of that horror, Dr. Eger believes she has become better able to
help others understand events that seem inexplicable in the context of their everyday lives.
The fundamental human desire to comprehend the nature of one’s existence that motivated Dr. Eger
was eloquently described by another survivor of Auschwitz, Italian writer Primo Levi. He reports,
“It might be surprising that in the camps one of the most frequent states of mind was curiosity. And
yet, besides being frightened, humiliated, and desperate, we were curious: hungry for bread and
also to understand. The world around us was upside down and
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