“In my yearning to belong, in my fear of being swallowed up by the past, I worked very hard to keep my pain hidden. I hadn’t yet discovered that my silence and my desire for acceptance, both founded in fear, were ways of running away from myself—that in choosing not to face the past and myself directly, decades after my literal imprisonment had ended, I was still choosing not to be free. I had my secret, and my secret had me.”

Throughout the memoir, Eger speaks of both her literal prison and a metaphorical one to express the universality of suffering. Not everyone becomes a prisoner of war, but many people choose to remain silent and struggle to accept themselves. People set boundaries around themselves, intending to keep the bad feelings out, but they don’t see themselves trapped inside. Eger may feel strong by subduing a secret, but the secret has more power over her life than she realizes.

“I also want to say that there is no hierarchy of suffering. There’s nothing that makes my pain worse or better than yours, no graph on which we can plot the relative importance of one sorrow verses another. […] I don’t want you to hear my story and say, ‘My own suffering is less significant.’ I want you to hear my story and say, ‘If she can do it, then so can I!’” 

Compassion is central to Eger’s character. She firmly believes that everyone deserves compassion and healing if they willingly accept the challenge, regardless of their background. Eger’s message effectively reaches the audience because readers can trust a radical claim—“there is no hierarchy of suffering”—from someone who has survived some of the most inhumane treatment in recent history. Her attitude invites readers to engage their own self-actualization journeys in the spirit of making the world a better place.

“If I could distill my entire life into one moment, into one still image, it is this: three women in dark wool coats wait, arms linked, in a barren yard. They are exhausted. They’ve got dust on their shoes. They stand in a long line.” 

Eger creates an image like a sepia-tone photograph, contrasting the foreboding landscape—barren yard, dust—and the three women clinging to each other, still hopeful for the future. Readers don’t yet know the women’s identities, but they can sense that the road ahead brings