The Ultimate Recycling

Every once in a while something really strange and unexplainable happens to me. Sometimes it's kind of supernatural, sometimes it's more like a "religious experience" and other times I just don't know what category to put it in. For example, one morning not that long ago NPR had a story on the anniversary of the liberation of one of the Nazi concentration camps. I was still half asleep and hit the snooze button, but then I started "dreaming". I was a young girl, about 12 or 13 years old and I was getting off a train with a lot of other women and girls. A woman that I knew to be my mother was being led away by two soldiers and I knew I was never going to see her again. My little sister who was about 7, was pulled out of line by another soldier and when I went to go to her a soldier off to my left let the leash out on a big German Shepard who lunged at me to keep me from going to her. There was all this chaos and noise, and women were being sorted out into different groups and sections. I was separated from my sister. I "remember" lying on a bare wood planked "bed" and looking down at this pile of - what was supposed to be food- and saying to some person sitting next to me that I wasn't going to eat that garbage. They asked me if they could have mine and I said yes and rolled over. I started to cry in the "dream" and woke up sobbing. For a few minutes I could "remember" everything.
I knew that my little sister had been named after my Aunt - who was my favorite Aunt. I knew we were born near the border of France. I knew that my father was missing and that we were not as well off financially as my mother wanted everyone to believe we were. I knew we were there because somebody had turned us in. I knew that my mother was put to death shortly after we arrived at the camp and that I was put into a labor pool. I knew that my little sister was put into one of the brothels. I woke up with the feel of that camp all over me. I could "remember" how it felt to go through each day and just do what you had to do. Thinking that if you didn't die there, then one day it would all come to an end. But not knowing which would happen first.

I had a terrible time shaking off that "dream" and that morning I couldn't stop crying. I ended up calling Queen Snarfetta at work because I had to talk to somebody about it.
I don't know what to make of that experience. I don't know what to think.
It's not the first time something like that has happened to me, but it was the strongest. I was so upset that I stayed home from my first class that morning. It took a few weeks to stop thinking about it all.

I have always been drawn to the Jewish faith. I have thought about converting many times over the years and I really don't know why. I have a Mezuzah inside my doorpost (although I put it on wrong. It's not diagonal, it's vertical, and I put it on with Gorilla glue and can't take it off now) and a Menorah on my bookshelf that I bought several years ago.
I have always thought that if reincarnation were true, then we would have more "evidence" to that effect. Yet, I don't rule it out entirely - because I don't have those kinds of answers. I don't know what to think sometimes.

Maybe it was just a dream...and maybe it wasn't.
What do you think?

Leftover Ham Dinner