Feet shuffle across gravel, cutting into shoe soles. Soldiers glared down at their prisoners, some moving through them. As the damned walked, soldiers delivered vicious punishments, their welcome gifts. Screams of agony from broken bones, cut flesh and exposed innards littered the air. No prisoners were spared a gift for themselves. A gate squealed open ahead, words splayed across them-- "Arbeit Macht Frei", Work Makes You Free. Only heads of hair could be seen as they stepped across the threshold into Roll-Call Square, keeping their eyes to the ground and blending in. Guards were lined up, waiting for them, for their turn to bestow welcome gifts. Hours of pain and making examples of prisoners passed before any could be registered to the camp.
The broken limped inside. They were stripped of three things--civil rights, dignity and every possession, and then given personal numbers and striped uniforms to replace them. They were labeled, branded like cattle--criminal, political, gypsy, a-social, homosexual, and Jew. Demeaning one spark of life, one human being to an infinitesimal, inconsequential animal. Stripped of everything that made them individual, unique, a mass of uniforms walked onto Roll-Call Square. This was the beginning of the new life. The life where work makes you free--free through death.
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