Against Alligator Auschwitz: Oma’s Warning by Rhys Moran

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem joined Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state leaders on Tuesday July 1, 2025, for the opening of the immigrant “detention facility” (concentration camp) at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades. Dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and more properly referred to as Alligator Auschwitz by people with a moral compass (originating on Bluesky). 

In response to these grave human rights violations, The Catalyst began a flash submission campaign for artwork and writing. Publishing of works opposed to this facility began July 4th, 2025—deliberately coinciding with Independence Day in the United States—a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Those who question and seek to disrupt the ideology of American Exceptionalism at the expense of Black and Brown lives globally can still submit their work to this campaign. 

Oma’s Warning

It was 1940. 

She was fifteen. 

Amsterdam teen, life fully ahead of her—war sure to fizzle out. 

But then—

Pop.

And

Scream.

Men in the street, men at the doors.

Her best friend, over a man’s shoulder, head smeared red.

Her best friend’s mom, dragged by two more.

Her best friend’s dad, in the street bleeding out.

Pop.

And

Scream.

The street runs red.

Bodies dragged to carts.

Men, women, children—stolen, no getting out.

Pop.

And

Scream.

The silence echoes.

Emotions gone numb.

The moment’s over, the houses raided.

But she can still hear it, her best friend’s dad’s lights going out.

Pop.

And

Scream.

Is this the same fate for people now?

The war repeating, more lives taken for a baseless cause.

No way out.

Rhys Moran is a queer writer who grew up hearing stories of the Holocaust from their grandparents.