Concentration Camp Monologue

It was watching me. It was me. I looked dead, and perhaps I was, in a way. Sure, I was still breathing, and I could see, and I could think. But I wasn't alive, not anymore. Not after living – no, dying – in that camp. We all left broken, inside and out. We were treated like nothing, they acted as if we were worthless. All of our humanity was stripped away from us, we had nothing left when we were freed. We were dead inside, because we had nothing left of us inside, and because we were completely different people from those who entered the concentration camp. I was sure that if my consciousness had a body that it would look the same as the corpse that was staring back at me. How strange we must have looked to our liberators, rows upon rows of corpses, standing, staring, starving. We worked all day and ate so little, our faces were hollowed, our bodies lacked fat and muscle. I was a living corpse. …show more content…
We were filled with hatred and resentment for our captors. To be alive spiritually, one must have God, joy, and hope. We did not have any of those things, it was impossible after everything that we had been through. We could not see God's presence anywhere anymore. Our joy was pushed aside by fear and loneliness. We had nothing, no one, not even ourselves or our own humanity. Without our humanity, we become the corpses in the mirror. So the horrifying reflection in the mirror was not just how I looked, it was my new identity. It was me. I was a horrifying