~Cass Myler, Class of 2025

The road was endless. 
The camp looked as though it had been 
through an epidemic: empty and dead. 
Buna was a veritable hell. No water, no blankets, 
less soup, and bread.
Only a few well-dressed inmates were wandering
 between the blocks. 
Just you wait, kid… 
You will see what it costs to leave your work… 
You’ll pay for this later

I no longer felt anything 
except the lashes of the whip
I tried to rid myself of my invisible assassin. 
My whole desire to live
 became concentrated in my nails.
He threw himself on me, 
like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head,
 throwing me to the ground.
Bite your lips, little brother… Don’t cry. 
Keep your anger, your hate, for another day

One day, he said to me: 
“It’s over. God is no longer with us.” 
And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. 
I no longer accepted God's silence.
Every fiber in me rebelled. 
He caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves? 
Because he kept six crematoriums, working day and night?

An icy wind was blowing violently. 
But when marched without faltering.
We looked as though we were running from them.
I kept repeating to myself: “Don’t think, don’t stop, run!”

I was thinking not about death, 
but about not wanting to be 
separated from my father. 

.