Circle Within Circle

I look at the calendar and ask myself:

Which August 23 struck more deeply at the body and soul of Romania — the one in 1939 or the one in 1944?

In 1939, the war had not yet begun, but Hitler and Stalin were smoothing over formal hostilities through a pact signed in Moscow, on August 23.

Hitler wanted peace in the East while attacking in the West. Stalin wanted time to prepare, since the Russian army was not ready for war — especially after he had, without remorse, executed a large number of Soviet officers.

The pact became known in history as the “Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact”, after the foreign ministers who signed it.

But it also contained a secret clause.

Russia and Germany divided Eastern Europe between them.

The Germans took western Poland and part of Lithuania.

The Russians took the Baltic states, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, the Hertza region, and Budjak.

My grandmother used to tell me how, in June 1940, in just a few hours, the country surrendered these territories.

No one asked the Romanians in Bessarabia which country they wanted to belong to.

What misfortune to have been born in those lands!

They became prisoners in the Soviet camp called the USSR.

After the shock of being torn from Romania came other tragedies: deportations (my grandfather’s brothers were sent to forced labor in faraway Siberia), famine (my father’s paternal grandmother and one of his aunts died then), humiliation, abuse, executions — a constant state of insecurity and anguish.

My grandparents had the courage to leave everything behind and flee the path of the new Soviet occupation regime, with two small children, in the autumn of 1944.

By then, it was clear: the province was definitively annexed to the USSR.

They told me, with raw emotion, how painful that forced separation had been for them.

Later, in mature conversations with my father, a heavy tear often appeared in the corner of his eye, along with the living question:

“If Grandpa (his father — that’s what we called him) hadn’t decided to leave, what would have become of us?”

Coincidentally, this morning, a client sent me a PDF of Babette Rothschild’s book, “8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery.”

A title which, like so many others, promises simplicity and effectiveness.

And yet, when it comes to trauma, I don’t believe shortcuts exist.

Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Gabor Maté, Paul Conti, and Babette Rothschild — without a doubt, all of these authors are worthy voices to speak about the multilayered complexity of trauma.

None of them offers a “universal pill” (or at least I haven’t found it in their work).

And still, we readers are drawn to magical formulas and shortcuts:

4 steps, 3 methods, 7 ideas, the friend’s or neighbor’s solution, or the latest therapist featured on a top-rated podcast.

Perhaps you, too, find this paradox striking:

we seek meaning, yet chase efficiency;

we want authentic healing, yet we’re drawn to universal protocols and therapies packaged in marketing glitter;

we long for presence, yet we strive for optimization.

Unfortunately, we sometimes treat healing like a productivity goal — not as a process of knowing, growing, transforming; not as something relational, inner, and unique to each of us.

Perhaps some things simply cannot be rushed!

And I return to today’s question, on this August 23, 2025:

How does such a collective trauma heal?

How can we integrate loss, injustice, and terror, when there are no “quick fixes”?

How do we calibrate its echoes for future generations?

How can we prevent recurrence?

I believe that history, like personal or collective healing, cannot be made efficient or optimized.

Some wounds demand patience, testimony, understanding, personalized approaches, education — and memory.

I truly hope we will not empty that human experience of its meaning!

P.S. Before we rush to therapy, let’s remember:

History doesn’t predict the future — but it shows us how it was built.