When I was an office worker, a man stood in front of me. For the first time in my life, I found myself being treated like a failed child. I thought it was natural for me to live my life the way I felt, but he belittled me as if he was fundamentally denying me.
For the first few seconds, I didn't understand. It's true that I was an office worker, and he was at the top of the company. I had no idea what right they had to deny me that much, to treat me like a criminal.
What on earth had I done, and if I had committed a crime, what kind of laws were there? No, the police might even be more gentlemanly. He deliberately put violence into his words. The words themselves and the way they were uttered were violent.
Later, at a morning assembly or something, he talked about how words can kill people, so he thinks that moment remained in his mind. I now know that the greatest basic human right is inner freedom, but back then I was ignorant. Report to me everything you have thought and done, he declared. That's the law for companies, he said.
That's why I was in a concentration camp for 38 years when I was an office worker.
