Rivkah
So, since my writings on this was interesting to some people, I will write a for realz essay on this now. Also, my apologies, Professor, for missing class today. I...had some family issues. But moving on. I will also use a pseudonym for myself, as I intend to do if I ever write this into a proper memoir. The past life names, however, remain as they were.
----
A dark crimson ribbon, the sleeve of a sailor suit dress. Her hand holding onto mine, pulling me forward. I am tripping as she urgently tugs me across the high wooden bridge--on of the three that span across the Lodz Ghetto.
Now I'm sure to the average reader, this will seem like pure insanity. "Carolina, what are you thinking?! How can you possibly have these recollections; you're making it up." Perhaps after telling my account, some will think so. However, I have had such memories since I was eight years old, and there isn't much I can do in changing anyone's opinions on what I have or have not experienced. When it comes to Rivkah, the sister I once had, the sister I once loved...that is a story that begins when I was sixteen, and has no true ending. But these past few days, I have received more information than I could have ever imagined.
In the visions I have seen in both dreams and hypnosis, what I remember most about Rivkah is her laughter, How, despite everything, she was still able to do so, still find the fun in life. There were moments when she could not, and there were moments when we didn't get along, but we were still attached, and when I recall her now, I am filled with a mixture of both sadness, happiness, love and a tad of childhood jealousy.
Yes, I was jealous of Rivkah, I will admit it. For her shiny, dark hair worn in a bob, the bangs pinned to one side in the popular style back then. I thought she was prettier than me, and I longed for her light eyes; in my mind she was the lucky one. And that blue sailor suit, the one I saw over and over again, paired with the crimson ribbon in her hair. I longed for that dress, and even today I still have an urge to wear one.
My first memory in that regression was one of her, that moment on the bridge in the ghetto. Later it would switch to more painful ones, and ones that were even more hazy. But it was both a relief and a deep, lingering pain when I found out about her eventual fate.
The most vivid after the bridge was one of us at Auschwitz-Birkenau, our arrival. While I received the tattoed number on my arm with a wincing silence, she was unable to do so, kicking up quite the fuss. In the darkened, damp room, she whined and cried out, playing a losing game of tug of war with a blonde SS officer. Though he was not the one carving the permanent number into her flesh, he was far from a patient man. Each time she bit her lip and cried, turning her arm away in any attempt to make it stop he would pull her back, an iron grip on her delicate wrist. My memory of her number was hazy and unseen, but maybe that doesn't matter. Because to me, Rivkah was not a number, and never would be.
Rivkah was one of the few who got a privileged job in Birkenau--as part of the Kanadakommando she was allowed to keep some of her hair, and get extra food. That was what kept her going, though in the end it did not save her life. Kanada was an overflowing series of warehouses in Birkenau where the confiscated belongings of arrivals were sorted to be sent back to Germany, and the perfect place for what was called "organizing" in camp lingo.
In the end, however, with the approach of the Russians, prisoners were being sent to various camps left and right, and that was the fate that befell her, when we saw each other for the last time. That is a moment in the past life memories that I will never forget when I was "read" and told of her fate by a dear friend of mine, a psychic who was able to clarify what I knew. Shoved into the back of a military truck I was unable to run after her, I will never know where she died, and I will never know when or how. As for me...I was sent to Bergen-Belsen in the last winter of the war, but that is a story for another time.
My final memory flash in the regression returned to Lodz, to the ghetto, to her laughter and her insistent impatience that I follow her. The yellow star on her dress, a mark of what would follow. Every day our lives was meant to kill our sense of humanity, to break our pride, but the Rivkah I remember never succumbed to that.
And in my mind, however flawed, she never would.
----
A dark crimson ribbon, the sleeve of a sailor suit dress. Her hand holding onto mine, pulling me forward. I am tripping as she urgently tugs me across the high wooden bridge--on of the three that span across the Lodz Ghetto.
Now I'm sure to the average reader, this will seem like pure insanity. "Carolina, what are you thinking?! How can you possibly have these recollections; you're making it up." Perhaps after telling my account, some will think so. However, I have had such memories since I was eight years old, and there isn't much I can do in changing anyone's opinions on what I have or have not experienced. When it comes to Rivkah, the sister I once had, the sister I once loved...that is a story that begins when I was sixteen, and has no true ending. But these past few days, I have received more information than I could have ever imagined.
In the visions I have seen in both dreams and hypnosis, what I remember most about Rivkah is her laughter, How, despite everything, she was still able to do so, still find the fun in life. There were moments when she could not, and there were moments when we didn't get along, but we were still attached, and when I recall her now, I am filled with a mixture of both sadness, happiness, love and a tad of childhood jealousy.
Yes, I was jealous of Rivkah, I will admit it. For her shiny, dark hair worn in a bob, the bangs pinned to one side in the popular style back then. I thought she was prettier than me, and I longed for her light eyes; in my mind she was the lucky one. And that blue sailor suit, the one I saw over and over again, paired with the crimson ribbon in her hair. I longed for that dress, and even today I still have an urge to wear one.
My first memory in that regression was one of her, that moment on the bridge in the ghetto. Later it would switch to more painful ones, and ones that were even more hazy. But it was both a relief and a deep, lingering pain when I found out about her eventual fate.
The most vivid after the bridge was one of us at Auschwitz-Birkenau, our arrival. While I received the tattoed number on my arm with a wincing silence, she was unable to do so, kicking up quite the fuss. In the darkened, damp room, she whined and cried out, playing a losing game of tug of war with a blonde SS officer. Though he was not the one carving the permanent number into her flesh, he was far from a patient man. Each time she bit her lip and cried, turning her arm away in any attempt to make it stop he would pull her back, an iron grip on her delicate wrist. My memory of her number was hazy and unseen, but maybe that doesn't matter. Because to me, Rivkah was not a number, and never would be.
Rivkah was one of the few who got a privileged job in Birkenau--as part of the Kanadakommando she was allowed to keep some of her hair, and get extra food. That was what kept her going, though in the end it did not save her life. Kanada was an overflowing series of warehouses in Birkenau where the confiscated belongings of arrivals were sorted to be sent back to Germany, and the perfect place for what was called "organizing" in camp lingo.
In the end, however, with the approach of the Russians, prisoners were being sent to various camps left and right, and that was the fate that befell her, when we saw each other for the last time. That is a moment in the past life memories that I will never forget when I was "read" and told of her fate by a dear friend of mine, a psychic who was able to clarify what I knew. Shoved into the back of a military truck I was unable to run after her, I will never know where she died, and I will never know when or how. As for me...I was sent to Bergen-Belsen in the last winter of the war, but that is a story for another time.
My final memory flash in the regression returned to Lodz, to the ghetto, to her laughter and her insistent impatience that I follow her. The yellow star on her dress, a mark of what would follow. Every day our lives was meant to kill our sense of humanity, to break our pride, but the Rivkah I remember never succumbed to that.
And in my mind, however flawed, she never would.