Mary Spielton opened her eyes and fell asleep every morning as she awkwardly tried to wiggle out of her shelf like a bug stuck on its back. That was the easiest way to go through the repetitive nightmare that was Mary’s life in Buna-Monowitz. The shouting of the guards, the endless supply of work and the wretched food that just barely allowed them to continue this abhorrent dream day after day. One could easily end one self’s life around the camp if one was so inclined but Mary wasn’t one to force a premature visit from death. Mary spent her unconscious days in a factory, located inside the camp’s fences, making helmets for the “Glorious soldiers of the Third Reich” as their supervisors put it or “The pigs” as the women in Mary’s barracks called them. After many long hours, which did not register on Mary, went by she was marched back to camp and after roll call she was served what could very loosely be called a meal of whatever they could spare after the guard dogs had eaten. After this Mary went to bed, or what she called her bed which was actually the bottom of four shelves that had been set up for the prisoners to sleep on three people to a shelf. Mary would squeeze herself into the space lay down, close her eyes and after several minutes she would wake up.

 She would awake into a completely white room space and this was Mary’s canvas. She could make up anything she thought of in this world, there were no silly laws of logic or reason to stop her from doing whatever she wanted. Mary had been able to do this since she was about thirteen, but had never consistently used it until her years of imprisonment. This was the world she considered home, where all her fears and nightmares from the day just evaporated away. She would often close her eyes and command that she be in her old home in the country, where she lived before she was herded into the ghetto in Warsaw with so many others like cattle. She would command her husband and two daughters to appear there as well and they would arrive without a sound while Mary’s eyes were closed. She would have them have a huge meal together at their family table and Mary would eat until she was full and then she would eat more, she would never feel sick after words, unless for some reason she wanted to. Then when she was finished she would have her husband take the two girls and put them to bed while she poured two glasses of wine. Then they would lay together on the couch in the parlor, both wrapped in the quilt Mary’s mother had made for them and staring into the fire. Later Mary’s husband would carry her to their bedroom and they would lay in bed making love to one another and Mary would cry out in ecstasy. Then, invariably Mary would be awoken by the whistles and the shouts signaling her return to her dream world in Buna-Monowitz. This is how Mary lived and survived in her confinement for a long while.