Member Contributor

And God Smiled

by Mim Collins, Psy.D., MFT

To those who are dear to my heart . . .

It was a few years ago, at a network meeting at my house, that I met Leslee. I was drawn to her; I felt a connection. She is a psychoanalytic therapist. She brought brochures talking about her worldwide seminars for therapists, where the experiences were shared, processed, integrated, and incorporated. I told her I wanted to go — not then, but when I was ready.

I was born the year that Hitler invaded Poland, 1939. My older brother and I sat around the radio with our parents and listened to the voices of General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On April 12th, 1945, while sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner we spontaneously wept at the news that FDR had died. Our hearts were broken. Who would watch over us as he had? We felt such a deep loss.

There was much talk in those years about what was happening to the Jews in Europe. I was too young to understand, but it haunted me that I could not connect to their plight. And through these many decades I have felt drawn to understand my lack of identification to the horrors that had been whispered about at first, them talked about aloud in the synagogue from the bema in our little schul in our little town. The Jews in Eastern Europe, the Jews in Eastern Europe, The Jews in Eastern Europe. Through the years I had felt compelled to watch the documentaries over and over. I wept to my core during Schinder's list 20 years ago, and again when I saw it recently. It never occurred to me that I could ever feel the depth of their suffering, or that these unknown Jews could ever feel like my family.

And then a dear friend went to Auschwitz. I yearned to have been able to join her, to experience the place of suffering with her. I hadn't even known through all of these years that I wanted to go. Her pain touched my yearning to feel it for myself. I was afraid to travel to Europe on my own; I had never done it; I felt my wings had been stunted by issues early on that had kept me from living out my longing to travel. As a therapist for 40 years I have always taken pride in my internal travels, and the deepening of the inner journey of my psyche . . . but I wanted to go.

In December, 2015, the tour guide advertised a trip to study in Vienna in an experiential process for a week. I called her immediately. To my surprise and delight she told me that she had just made arrangements for a private van to drive us to Kraków and Auschwitz for the 3 days prior to the seminar. I was going! My heart flipped . . . I was going!!! OMG, Could it be real? A million questions flooded me . . . she answered them all right away . . . she was reassuring, and comforting . . . I was going to Auschwitz!!! We were going to the March of the Living!!!

When the itinerary for Poland arrived months later, I eagerly read it and burst into sobs. Vienna for 2 days, then a 6-hour ride to Poland. Our first stop would be Auschwitz!! We were going straight to Auschwitz! I felt my soul journey to the depths of my being. In these moments I felt my heart reach back to my deceased parents, brother, grandparents, and great grandparents, through the generations to those who died in the ghettos in Kraków, in the gas chambers, from starvation, from torture, from humiliation, from lethal injection, from the atrocities that befell the Jews, MY people. I felt connected to them all. They are my people . . . I am a Jew . . . they are my brothers and sisters, grandparents, my beloved ones. I am weeping now . . . Not because I lost them, but because I finally found them!

We arrived at Auschwitz just 3 days ago, on a Tuesday. There was the gate, the barbed wire fences, the barracks, the gas chamber, the ovens . . . I had seen so many pictures of it all over the years that it was no shock. I cried when I saw the baby clothes on exhibit.

And then we drove the 2.9 km to Birkenau. I had never seen pictures of the desolate, barren open space where the railroad tracks led to the stopping point where cattle carloads of Jews were unloaded and forced to go through the "selection" process. The stopping place seemed to reach far into the distance. While I lingered behind, our group of 6 others had already walked to the stopping place; I decided to join them. I stood there for a moment! I opened my arms wide as if to embrace my being there. I loved the cool damp air feel like it was cleansing on my face. I met my fellows as I walked ahead. Then I turned around and walked with Leslee back toward the open archway entrance. Just then, I heard the unified voices of prayer coming from for down the tracks. Young and old people were gathered together and were praying in Hebrew. It took me to the sounds in my memory of my own father and grandfather and others praying in our little schul. And I cried. I was alone for a moment, then I felt Leslee's arms around my back. We hugged, and I said, "I came to say Kaddish for them." We walked back through the archway. I felt I was home.

On Thursday we drove back to Auschwitz from Kraków where we were staying. We walked again through the camp, joined by 14,000 people from all over the world. Many were students, with the flag of Israel draped around their shoulders like capes. We began the walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the March of the Living, where in 1945 the prisoners had done the March of the Dead, freezing cold, dropping from sickness, and exhausted only to be shot or left to die.

The sun was out, it was a golden, glorious day. We were all together — in front of us a sea of the Star of David flowing before us, leading the way. We approached a hill, and as a throng, we climbed it together. I saw the sign for Birkenau; this time I recognized it. Yiddish music was surrounding us as we walked. It filled the air! And there before us were thousands of Jews, clad in the capes of Israel, placing candles on the railroads (as if to say to the Nazis, "You will never use these tracks again; now they are ours! They are the graves of our beloveds), saying prayers, putting markers on the tracks, with the names of our lost sisters and brothers, saying, "Never Again."

I was walking with my fellow travelers. Suddenly, one of them, Stephanie was next to me. And the skies opened up and the rain poured down upon us; it was as if God was crying.

Leslee and Stephanie and I grabbed each other, got our umbrellas out, covered each other with them until we were all sheltered. Stephanie and I hugged each other. I said, "We came to Poland!" The three of us walked arm in arm through the archway into the camp. And the sun burst through. And I thought, "We all came back; we didn't forget; we came back" and in the shining sunlight, God smiled.

Mim Collins is in private practice in Valley Village, and can be reached by phone at 818.763.8222 or through her professional website, www.mimcollinstherapy.com.