Trains to Nowhere and Other Stories of World War II

The Senbruch Concentration Camp never sleeps. There are always trains coming and going, always the motion and sounds of loading and unloading, always guards passing, always spotlights sweeping, always dog barking, always smoke of human fat frying, frying in eternal ovens.

In rare quiet times, one can hear the wind wash through the barbed-wire fences like a slow moan.

Inside the barracks there is always needing needing, hunger hunger, spit and blood and aching bones. The corrugated tin roofs shed no starlight but if one is a dreamer one can still see them shine in the night sky. Occasionally there is the distant rumble of bombers in the distance but even if one is a dreamer a bomb is too much to wish for.

Across the camp young lovers embrace. There is no time here for ceremony, no time for religion. God is outside of the camp, or dead. There is only time for a rushed embrace, hastened words, and the almost painful promise: "When this is all over, we shall marry and buy a home. We shall have many children and worship in God's temple."

Outside, dawn is approaching. The guards change shifts and the spotlights dim their fevered glances.

It is tomorrow at Senbruch, but it is also today, and the yesterday before. It is last night.