Packed in a cattle car without food or water, you are tortured for days and days on end,

There is no way out, no place to move, not even an empty space to share with a friend,

No air to breath, no peace to sleep – you can only close your eyes and try to pretend:

What is going on, where you are being taken, only now do you begin to comprehend.

As you travel further, and those around you fall, you fear that this cattle car will be your tomb,

Overcome with hunger and overtaken with fear; they will just let us all die here you presume,

The doors open, the smell seeps into your nose, you know better, but you fear it is death or doom.

The barking of the dogs, the screaming of the guards, the twins ushered to the experiment room.

You hold on tight to your little brother, your mother’s arms holding her other children tight,

And he asks if this little boy is yours or your mothers – separating you, you cannot fight.

To the left they go, your beloved family, as a guard screams “shnell” and pushes you right,

The skeletons you see inside: eyes popping out, legs barely standing – you cannot bare the sight.

Stripped, shaved, and tattooed, they push you into a room cramped, empty, and you pray,

Maybe you didn’t escape death you say, and you wait for the gas to fall, and it begins to spray,

It is water you feel, but you do not look up for fear that your luck might run out – but it did stay.

Water: you drink the water, how good it tastes; you have beaten death – that is at least for today.

Months passed and there you are; your soul betraying your body and mind by staying alive,

In this place it is the rats, the lice, the diseases, the hunger, the smoke, which seem to thrive,

But you still breath, as those around you fall victim to death, and more and more trains arrive;

Feelings of guilt grow inside you as you wonder why it is you who has been chosen to survive.

One day as you hurry to another selection, a small piece of broken glass catches your attention,

You fear the girl, who once human is walking towards you half dead; from the other direction,

And you realize that musselman, that horrible skeleton, that scary girl, is just your reflection,

In a daze you turn around and rush quickly off with the others, not daring to miss a selection.

A mother and daughter together, something so rare in the camps, the mother is selected to die,

The daughter, stands there, in a daze so scared, begging and pleading, she gives out a cry,

They beat her and her mother screams to her that she must live; she understands, her tears dry,

They pass you and let you live, they think you are healthy; they believe your pinched cheeks’ lie.

Death and doom; just two words meaning the same thing: death, but you know there is more,

Even in this hell, G-d would not abandon his people, walk away and shut the door,

And although so many have given up, you pray and pray like you did the years before,

And you ask G-d to help you survive and tell the world, and to punish those you so abhor.

And as the Russians arrive, the liberation that you have prayed for, for so long, finally came,

In a hospital room, more dead than alive, you fight for your life, which you so wish to reclaim.

And against all odds you recover, a man asks you to be his wife, to become one and the same,

A year later you have a child, a boy, a beautiful healthy boy, who bares your father’s name.

At night you cry, oh do you cry, those tears pour down your cheeks, they flow so fast,

These crying spells, these bad memories; you hate them, but apart of you, they will forever last.

You see faces of your friends and family; they cannot speak for they were shot, beaten, gassed,

At night you cry, you pray, you relive those years –and you beg the world to not repeat the past.