Navarro

Chapter 1: Welcome to Camp Navarro.

— What is it, Holocaust? — barked another of the slave trader's bouncers.

— Oh, I can't explain it right away...

— We're in no hurry. Becky! Beer for everyone. And for the gal too.

Rebecca was clearly not happy with them, but she obediently brought the drinks. While the men were discussing something, I whispered to her:

— Don't be afraid, I know how to interest them and force them to leave. I can promise them heavenly valleys, where milk rivers and jelly banks flow. They gobble it up like little ones, will lick their fingers and ask for more.

— Okay, try your best, darling, — the owner of the bar and casino whispered back to me, retreating behind the counter.

— So what is this Holocaust, girl?

— Murder. Mass murder.

— So what's wrong with that? — muttered Aidan, who sat down next to me.

— Have you ever starve?

— Yes. And?

— To death? Filling your stomach with bark, grass and leaves?

— Well... N-no...

— How many other people were starving with you?

— Only me and that's all...

— Were you locked at the same place with others starving people?

— No...

— Did someone beat you to a pulp? Forced you to work until exhaustion?

— No! — the guard had already roared, but Metzger held him back again.

— Now imagine yourself the picture. Some poeple burst into your home and grab you, your family, your children in the middle of the night, or on the street, or for no reason at all. They grab you, forcefully shove you into a vehicle and take you to an isolated part of the city. High brick walls, if you try to leave they will beat you, and as punishment they will kill all your neighbors, friends, and no matter who. Or they'll just shoot you. You live there from hand to mouth, every day you see your neighbors and acquaintances dying of starving right on the streets. And this lasts not a day, not a week, but months. And so, almost all of you, hungry and dirty, are grabbed again and taken to the station. There is a train. You are separated from your family and stuffed into cattle cars. No food, no water, there is only a bucket for a toilet, and there are so many of people in the carriage that you can't even sit down. And they taking you somewhere. Train traveled for a long time. In summer time you would die only from the heat and lack of air, and in winter you would easily get sick and freeze. And now, after several days of traveling, they brought you somewhere. You spill out onto station, corpses, half-corpses, alive. There are armed people around, angry dogs, you are blinded by the spotlights, all you see around you is a fence with barbed wire. You feel a strange smell, as if meat is being fried somewhere, and you also feel a terrifying stench from unwashed bodies, corpses, dirt, feces and other joys. You are lined up and examined. Doctor wave his hand to the left, and the women and children obediently go there. He wave to the right for you, and now you are already wading with other people after people in black uniforms. They shave your head, and in such a way that wounds remain on your head. They make a number on your hand, literally using a needle to make wounds in shape of a numbers, and they also rub black ink into these wounds. You twitching? You resisting? They will beat you up and make everything even worse. Then they give you clothes, taking away all your stuff. A thin striped shirt and striped pants. After this you are not human any longer. You are a number. You have no rights. No freedoms. You are nobody. They can kill you just like that, just because you, say, blinked. Or scratched yourself.
In the barracks you sleep in extremely cramped conditions. On the shelf next to you, which is only the size of a double bed, are six more people. You are all smelly and dirty, and lice, ticks, fleas and other parasites are falling on top of you. The stench in the barracks is hellish.
In the morning you are unceremoniously woken up and driven out to the parade ground. They stand there and count people. Then they give you a job. And you will be very lucky if you work indoors. But if you're working on the street, you can forget about the chance of survival.
You're all working your ass off. Death, death, death, it's everywhere. You see death in the morning when you wake up - your friend has already died next to you. Just in a sleep. From hunger. Or beatings. Or illness. Death during the day - many cannot withstand the pace of work, or they are killed just like for nothing. You are not people for your tormentors. Death in the evening - someone could not stand it and threw himself onto the energized barbed wire. And either you would see him being shot, or he would run up, grab himself, and then die in convulsions, releasing black blood from his mouth, nose and ears. Death at night. Someone died in their sleep again.
And like this, if you are lucky, you live for several years. There is death, stench, hunger and deprivation all around. By the end of the third month, you are so hungry and exhausted that you can count your own bones. You are fed only thin soup and water, without salt or spices, and are also given a tiny piece of bread. You are all bald, skinny, dirty, smelly, you work until exhaustion, there is nothing human in you anymore, only the desire to eat and survive.
And then suddenly they give you a job. The work indoors. Well, isn't is a paradise after everything? You and other prisoners are brought into some kind of room that resembles a shower. Others are herded, you are taken aside with others. They are there like sardines in a barrel, standing right next to each other. They are all new. They were recently delivered. Not skinny yet, still normal. The room is locked, there is only a small round window in the armored door. You see people looking up and around in confusion. And then you hear rustling and knocking, as if small pebbles were being poured into an iron pipe. And then the people in the cell start screaming. They knock on the door, scream, cough, scratch the walls, sob, beg, they grab their throats, cough, tears flow from their eyes. Fifteen minutes later, their screams begin to fade.They no longer knock or kick, they just wheeze and cry. Twenty minutes later you and the others are given a gas masks. The door opens. There are corpses in front of you. All the people who were driven here died. They are blue-black, scary and dead. These are all women, old people, children, sick and disabled people. And they were all killed. Almost a thousand people in just twenty minutes. They were killed in the gas chamber, and not only these. This conveyor worked twenty-four by seven, seven days a week, thirty a month, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. No holidays, stops, breaks. Thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of people. And they all died here.
And you are now part of this factory. Tiny cog in the huge machine, the Factory of Death. They force you to cut dead people's hair, collect their hair in bags, pull out their gold teeth, examine them in case they hid something? When it's all over, you take the corpses upstairs and take them to another building. It's gloomy, with pipes rising above it. It's hot inside and smells of smoke. This is a crematorium. The living were sent here to die as well. Only in your presence will they push a screaming man into the oven, from which jets of flame are escaping. And not just one. Corpses and living. You are deafened by the screams, sickened by the smell, but you have to work, otherwise you're next. And when this cannonade subsides, you are forced to collect the ashes. Human ashes. The only thing that remain of human after this factory of Death.
And now your time comes. You are sick, weak, even a child could easily grab your legs and arms anywhere, you are so depleted. You are dying. And dying slowly. You no longer have the strength to stand up, don't even have the strength to raise your own hand. They are taking you to the crematorium. But you won't feel the heat of the stove - you die on the way there next to others like you, while you and the others are dumped in a wheelbarrow like logs, and not still living people. Your body turns to ashes in the crematorium, and your ashes fly out into the chimney like whitish smoke. You've finally died. Your ashes and smoke from you flies upward along with others. But this is not the end. It was just your story, one grain in this hell. After all, new people come to the camp, just like you, every day. And the death factory continues its work while the smoke of killed and burned people swirls above it.