“Got a womb? Welcome to hell,” I say to you, my fellow beings from across the Atlantic— alive, yet condemned to a life that belongs to you no longer. I am no Virgil but I’ve already been here for a while so let me lead you through the various circles of hell. Sit back, you won’t relax, but please make yourself at home. This hell is as old as time, as the specter of death is inextricably embedded in life.

I’m writing to you from the corner of the world which I imagine in your mind lies somewhere at the dusty crossroads of the Iron Curtain and Auschwitz, south of the Baltic Sea and oblivion.