Standing Room Only
The box cars were filled with cattle but cattle of a different kind in those days, human cattle,
…no, subhuman cattle, if you believed the Nazi propaganda machine… untermensch.
They were box cars filled with men, women and children; some young, some old and some in between.
The old train was moving across the vast open fields of Russia and Poland, Ukraine and also of course from Germany itself.
As if “just” plain war wasn’t bad enough in itself, this type of atrocity was beyond all measure of acts of human “un-kindness”, acts against humanity itself.
Children cried for their mothers, old men suffering from age and lives of physical hardship stood in the corners of the old railroad car as there was no room to sit.
Mothers called to their children and tried to keep physical contact with them.
These people were packed in;
“standing room only”
The old men and women stood, embraced by the bodies of others, younger or stronger, who were able to stand on their own and without intending to they were a support for these old ones.
Some died while continuing to stand, they just died on their feet.
There was no bathroom, no water, and certainly no food for these unfortunates, oh no, these were the “chosen” people alright, chosen to go from their homes, into the cattle cars and straight to the Extermination Camps.
They were labled by their Nazi rulers as the;
Untermensch
…non-Aryan “inferior people” often referred to as “the masses”.
The peopled cried out to their God;
“Is there no hope oh God for us, your people.”
And…
“Help us oh Lord God for we are being killed,
No we are being slaughtered.
Have mercy on us, for we are your Chosen People.”
But there was no mercy to be had, not this day nor for many days to come. His chosen people it seems were chosen to suffer – chosen indeed.
BrrrrApp… sounds of automatic weapon fire rang out…
Cries of pain, cries for mercy. Cries of innocent ones whose fate it seems, had been sealed.
Then a single shot rang out ….
It was evident to all what their fate would be. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The people were being exterminated one by one, groups of ten and twelve, train carloads of, of… too many to count. It was no use trying to resist even if one was bold enough to fight back. Resistance only meant a worse fate than a bullet to the head. It meant beatings, rape, torture of unimaginable pain and suffering. Why risk being hanged or, or set on fire, perhaps being forced to strip then dig your own grave while your persecutors laughed and sneered. No , oh no. A bullet to the head seemed a better way to go. Almost a benign end to a very, very dark story. 
So – men, women and children were sent on their way to the camps, a work camp if they were “lucky”. Better than the death camps where millions were destined to be.
“Oh God, my God-why hast thou forsaken me?”
When Synapses Go Bad 