Whitehouse Junior High School students listen to a talk by Dr. Edith E. Eger, a Holocaust survivor, at Whitehouse High School Thursday May 25, 2017. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

When Edith Eger was 16 – just a few years older than students at Whitehouse Junior High School – she and her family were sent to Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps.

That year, 1944, her parents were killed at the camp, and her life became a nightmare. But she was able to use advice she received from her mother to stay strong.

“(She said) ‘Just remember no one can take away from you what you put in your mind,'” Eger said.

On Thursday morning, Eger, 89, who holds a doctorate, shared her message of positivity and hope with Whitehouse Junior High School students, recalling several moments when she had to try and change her thinking in order to have a positive outcome.

“We never knew when we took a shower if it was water that was going to come out or if it was gas,” she said.

In another story recalled by Eger, Dr. Josef Mengele, a physician at the camp who was nicknamed the “Angel of Death,” came to the barracks and said he wanted to be entertained. As a trained gymnast and ballerina, Eger was chosen to perform.

She said she was able to get through the performance by closing her eyes and pretending she was at the Budapest opera house dancing to “Romeo and Juliet.”

“You have a choice to be a victim or to not only be a survivor but a thriver,” Eger said. “I cannot say why me? I have to say what now?”

In May 1945, Eger was liberated by the 71st Infantry of the U.S. Army. She had been presumed dead and was spotted moving around near a pile of dead bodies.

“I refuse to be a victim,” Eger said. “I’m one of a kind and I’m here to tell you in Whitehouse there will never ever be another you.”

The Whitehouse ISD Education Foundation funded Eger’s visit, after three teachers requested a Holocaust survivor speak with the students. This year, eighth-grade students at the school read the play version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

“When Dr. Eger talks about America, she is moved with emotion,” said Jim Nipp, of the Whitehouse ISD Education Foundation. “I hope the students take away the fact that she never gave up hope or lost her mind.”

Trinity Hudgins, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at Whitehouse Junior High, said she appreciated Eger’s advice about staying positive during times of adversity.

Jared Carrig, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, said he thought Eger’s message was very inspiring.

“I just think it was a powerful message of hope and no matter what you go through you can always look at the good and keep going,” Carrig said.

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