• The Good Kind of Death

    I am Samuel, a Jewish boy.
    “No don’t do that!”
    Those were the last words I said to my best friend, when the Gestapo hanged him.
    “Please, don’t take her!”
    I screamed when my sister was taken to Auschwitz.
    “Don’t worry, I’ll meet you again in a better place.”
    My father told me, when I was pushed into the gas chamber.

    I am Slavka, a Gentile friend.
    “I’ll miss you, Lisa.”
    Was what I said to my stepmother, when she was stuffed into the fishing boat.
    “I hate the Nazis!”
    I told my best friend, the day before she moved to the ghetto.
    “This is the right way to go.”
    I recited to myself the day I was executed.

    I am Harrison, a Nazi guard.
    “Step to the right!”
    I yelled at an innocent Jew entering the death camp.
    “Are you sure this is right?”
    I asked the Nazi general, when we set to Blitzkrieg on Poland.
    “We’ve made the right choice.”
    My wife told me, as we held our guns to our chests.

    Unlike millions of others, this is a death we freely chose.