Two cycles of the same direction

October 1, 1941

Majdanek concentration camp was nestled on the outskirts of the city of Lublin. It was an eyesore but it seemed as though there was nothing out of the ordinary.

“They are criminals, they should not be here anyway. Are they even true citizens? They must go back to wherever they belong. Criminals can go there to work. Make themselves useful,” Marta, a mother of three, says to a reporter. She sniffled into her handkerchief, patting a young boy shining shoes near the city’s barbershop. “I have my own household to run. I can’t really afford to worry about these… people. They aren’t my family.”

The sullen reporter, scorned for their less than indifferent attitude toward the Jews, goes about the entire city looking for the common man’s opinion of the new opening of the concentration camp near their city. To the local community leaders, like the local police, school administrators and local authorities, they saw the trains passing through with the camp workers being processed into the camp as a matter of law and order.

Mothers took care of the crying babies with a hand over their eye and a scarf over their faces. The young cried as well as the old. The old got carted off as the young.

The trains ran full steam ahead with more passengers that got checked in but not ever checked out. Not that anyone ever asked about the return tickets.

“I have just focused on my family at this point and our survival. I assume after their work is completed they take the same train to their original home. Or whatever country is willing to take them on. I don’t think about it much, I’m busy with work,” a man that worked for the local government office stated when asked about German occupation of Poland. “They have those ghettos for the Jews, I believe they will leave one way or another. I don’t like the look of that in my city.”

After days of research and talking to people around the city, the sullen atmosphere of the reporter became clear. Everyone was acting normally as though nothing had changed. The horror of what was happening next door still didn’t hit home. The reporter went home, sat down and cried.

78,000 people were killed in that camp, so close to a city that had more or less acted like nothing was happening other than their daily, boring, normal lives.

July 3, 2025

The South Florida Detention Facility, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz, has officially opened today.

Trump said, "We have a lot of bad criminals that came into the country. ... It was an unforced error."

A reporter that was living in that part of Florida went to visit the new detention facility. He heard Trump say that we will ‘teach them to run away from alligators’.

If someone got hurt or injured by an alligator or wildlife, how long would it take to find them? These questions were swallowed by the traffic of moving buses, trucks and the working class that had no interest whatsoever in answering anything beyond what was for dinner that night.

“They shouldn’t be here. They are all criminals. They need to go back to a prison, another country or to where they were born. We don’t need them or want them,” a man that worked in the local government offices (sanitation) had said.

“It’s not my place to tell the authorities what to do. It’s not my place to worry about it. This administration knows how to handle it. I believe in this country and my government,” a young woman named Martha said, taking her kids to school with a hurried expression.

The buses, trains and cars all carried on. The reporter cried alone in private protest.