JERUSALEM – Blue eyed and non-Jewish looking Jew, Samuel Willenberg, the
last survivor of the Nazi death camp Treblinka, has died in Israel at the age of 93. Only 67 people are known to have survived the camp, fleeing in a revolt shortly before it was destroyed. At least 875,000 people
were systematically murdered at Treblinka before the end of WWII.
Willenberg has a story. Everyone on this planet has a story. Willenberg's story is about more than being a survivor of a death camp. It's about being a survivor of life after the camp. Because it's almost always after the fact that our experience becomes a story that changes us and touches others.
Earth is a library of stories, some written, some not. I make my living telling other people's stories because I know how hard it is for us to tell our own. My clients include sex workers — $500 an hour escorts. They include professional men and women who have been sexually abused, abandoned, beaten and wounded. They are doctors and lawyers, businessmen and single mothers. Even the clients who want a business book, or a technical manual, come to me with childhood pain that spills out into who they are and where they are.
A year ago a client came to me with his business book, and in the middle of it he ultimately railed and bailed on the book, angry, bitter and critical. I was baffled as halfway through our contract he began to attack me verbally at every phone call. "What is going on?" I asked. I was only met with more anger. I didn't take it personally. I've seen it too often. He was in pain and that pain needed an outlet. I happened to be the person standing in front of him. It would just take me a bit longer to discover what was going on. Then one day I found out.
His mother had cancer. She was dying. His millions and millions of dollars could buy the best doctors for her, but they couldn't buy her life. She was going to die. He could not accept that. In his 30s, just as his life was going well, he was going to lose his mother to a vicious disease. I learned this because he had to cancel yet another meeting at the last minuted and I demanded a reason.
"My mother has cancer. It's serious. I have to take her to the doctor and I can't be at the meeting today." He then exploded. He raged about how backward the doctors and the hospital were - how he had been forced to fill out paper forms by hand rather than on an iPad or tablet, how disconnected the hospital was regarding technology. He ranted about how stupid and incompetent everyone around him was. That was all he said, and all he needed to say. He was in the middle of his story about losing his mother and not yet willing or able to tell it.
We all have pain. Rich, poor, black, white, Asian, Indian, male, female, old, young... we have pain. When we are in pain the best way to find relief and healing is in telling our story. The problem is, that telling our story is painful because we must experience the pain to share it. I equate it to the debridement process burn victims must go through. They've been wounded and are in pain from their burns. To heal, the dead skin, the burned areas, must be scrubbed, washed and peeled away. It's incredibly painful, but necessary if the burn is to heal. Eventually it will heal. And it will leave a scar that is a reminder, but that no longer hurts. It may be tender, or numb, or feel nothing, but it will not hurt. Writing is how we heal. It is painful, but it is necessary.
Pain will find a way to express itself, but if you want to stop the pain and heal, the only way I know how to do it is to tell your story. How you tell it is up to you. Some people go into therapy. Some
see prostitutes. Some journal. Some choose to write a book.
We don't believe in coincidences!"