My story is about a girl named Maria.
She is 16 when a knock interrupts the rst night of Passover, 1944. The Hungarian police give notice, “You have three days to get your things together, you are being taken to a getto.” There is no bread in the house, because of the holiday. Maria must borrow from the neighbors, give gold to friends. “We need to wash the linens; who will feed the horse and cow?“
Maria is in confusion.

All the neighbors watch as their family is taken from their home. “How embarrassing!
What’s going to happen?
What’s going to be?“

Maria’s family is gone,
the smell won’t let her forget.
They stand in line 4 am in in the cold May mornings, to be counted.
If the count was right nothing happened.
Maria learned in Barrack C there were other people from her town.

Maria is now in a working camp. One night she is awakened to find the potatoes are not right.
She must carry a rock until death or morning.
I hope she finds a salt rock, they are deceivingly light.

In winter we find Maria cleaning a
bombed German town.
She is watched, both by the SS Guards
and the towns people.
The towns people want to help. They leave bits of nourishment out for her to find.

The holes cover her body. They are from malnutrition.
I saw the scars, round silver dollars up her legs.
She is assembling munitions in a salt mine. Her wounds begin to heal.

The rumors spread,
all who have not left will be dead.
She is pulled out of a train line, too damaged perhaps? Is this the end in site?
She waits her end in this dark closet.
Maybe her hand touched the wall and feels the marks left by another,
feels the warmth of sun, a sign of humanity.

Maria is finally pulled and pushed onto a train. The destination is unknown.
There is no space; they all must stand.
She travels for two weeks,
the dead upheld by the living bodies.
Perhaps the light outside can hold a future for her?
This endless ride 8 days later
in the good hands of the Swedish Red Cross. May 6 1945.