The Choice: Embrace the Possible

Béla Eger comes from a wealthy Jewish family in Prešov, Czechoslovakia. His father, the mayor, died in an avalanche under suspicious circumstances (he had many political enemies), leaving young Béla with a lifelong stutter that regresses under stress. Béla escapes Jewish roundups but fights Nazis alongside the Russian army in the mountains, causing him to develop a different kind of emotional baggage than Eger’s trauma.

When Béla marries Eger, he is much older, and Eger understands that she does not love him. However, Béla does not seem to feel the same. He breaks ties with multiple women to marry a childish-looking girl and surrenders his fortune to join his wife and daughter in America. He also disagrees when she files for divorce and later reinitiates the relationship. Béla’s familial loyalty is notable, though he is not a faultless husband. Béla is often quick tempered, especially under stress. He sometimes resents his children’s simpler lives, a resentment that become apparent when he reminds his prom-primped daughter how Eger spent her equivalent childhood year in Auschwitz. Still, Béla loves his family; after Eger demands a divorce, he happily re-proposes and re-marries the same woman who liberated him from prison many years ago. When they choose to make the best of their marriage, their relationship stands on a solid foundation.

Magda Elefánt Gilbert is Eger’s oldest sister. She is a talented pianist, but unlike Klara, her identity centralizes more around her beauty, flirtatious personality, and humor. She often disregards authority and enjoys teasing people, especially her sisters. Magda and Eger become increasingly reliant on each other during their imprisonment, drawing from the other’s presence the willpower to fight another day. Eger notices how Magda clings to pieces of her former identity: her hair after its first shave; the sexy coat she traded for the warm, sensible one; the beating she accepted victoriously after disobeying a Nazi guard.

Superficially, Magda’s priorities seem frivolous. With survival on the line, beauty holds little consequence. Eger doesn’t realize until after the war how much of her performance comes from insecurity: “Maybe [Magda] condenses the huge global fears about what will happen next into more specific and personal fears […] Or maybe her questions are tangled up in deeper uncertainty—about her essential worth” (81). However Magda perceives herself, Eger paints her with strength, beauty (regardless how much hair or weight she has), and a stubbornness not only to survive, but to live. Even in captivity, she lifts her spirits and those around her with teasing conversation and jokes. Magda’s unbroken spirit helps her recover relatively quickly from near-complete starvation after liberation. Neither Magda nor Eger would likely have survived the Holocaust without the other, in part because of their individual strength, but even more importantly because of their commitment to each other.

Klara, the middle sister, is a violin prodigy. Her mother takes great pride in Klara’s talent, and mastering violin dominates Klara’s childhood. However, she pays a price for the attention and praise: She misses important childhood experiences in service of practicing violin. No one offered her a choice, and Eger understands only later “that Klara might resent being the prodigy. She can’t stop being extraordinary, not for a second, or everything might be taken from her—the adoration she’s accustomed to, her very sense of self” (15). The loss of Klara’s childhood follows her into middle age. Magda and Eger spy Klara playing with her daughter’s old dolls when they visit Australia for their niece’s wedding. The playfulness doesn’t come from nostalgia but rather from a developmental hole that her childhood never filled.

When the nyilas collect the Elefánt family in 1944, Klara is studying at the Budapest Conservatory, which saves her from deportation. Klara’s safety intensifies her survivor’s guilt, especially when she sees her sisters’ destitute state. The guilt, paired with her natural tendency for control, obliges her to become Eger’s personal nurse and oversee her complete recovery. She assumes their mother’s role, and Klara will call Eger “little one” well into adulthood. Klara advocates for Eger even before Auschwitz, such as when Klara protects her younger sister against Magda’s teasing in Chapter 1. While Eger appreciates her sister’s attention and often plays along with Klara’s doting, Klara’s presence is occasionally overbearing and leaves E little room to challenge herself. Still, Klara sacrifices everything to restore her sisters’ health, and she is largely responsible for their physical recovery.

Ilona Elefánt is the young-looking mother of Eger and her sisters whom Eger describes as having a tight face and gray hair that winds up in intricate braids. Ilona loves beauty and glamour; in her youth, many considered her emancipated because she worked for her own income and socialized in important circles. Ilona values her daughters’ artistic talents and physical beauty. She often betrays a particular pride for Klara’s violin proficiency, and she discourages Magda—the slightly larger sister—from eating while doing what she can to add substance to stick-thin Eger. Ilona forgoes true love and marries a Jewish man to please her family. She ultimately regrets her decision and grows increasingly unhappy. Her husband charms most everyone, but Ilona responds indifferently to his playfulness and affection; Eger recalls, “My father intercepts her, lifts her hand so he can twirl her around the room, which she does, stiffly, without a smile. He pulls her in for an embrace, one hand on her back, one teasing at her breast. My mother shrugs him away” (13). Ilona is solemn in Eger’s memory, and Eger remembers pining for her mother’s attention. Ilona is taken to the crematorium upon arrival to Auschwitz, as Eger learns soon after.

Though she often seems distant, Ilona loves her children deeply, and Eger recalls her fondly throughout her post-war recovery journey. In crisis, Ilona speaks the voice of wisdom and reason. When taking 10-year-old Eger to a surgeon who will fix her cross-eye, she warns Eger about the surgeon’s anesthesia-free method and puts on a brave face while pinning her daughter to the table as she screams. On the freight train to Auschwitz, hungry and exhausted, Ilona gives Eger advice that she never forgets: “We don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Just remember, no one can take away from you what you’ve put in your mind” (34). However much Ilona criticizes Eger’s cross-eye or skinny frame, she loves her daughter’s inner strength. In turn, Ilona’s memory strengthens Eger through difficult years of trauma and healing.