Main Entry: 1mar·tyr
Pronunciation: ?mär-t?r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Greek martyr-, martys witness
Date: before 12th century
1 : a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion
2 : a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle
3 : victim; especially : a great or constant sufferer <a martyr to asthma all his life — A. J. Cronin>
— mar·tyr·i·za·tion ?mär-t?-r?-?z?-sh?n noun
— mar·tyr·ize ?mär-t?-?r?z transitive verb
Given these three definitions,I have to say no.I didn't volunteer for anything and very little,if anything,I did during that time was based on principle.I try not to think of myself as a victim.I was a teenager who paid far too severe a price for some not very wise choices.My behavior in Str8 was based on one constant factor,survival.I recognized early on that I made some not very wise decisions,my surroundings told me so.The eggshells that I walked on for the next 16 1/2 months was based on not making my situation any worse than it was and eventually leaving through the front door.Any other choice led to bigger and worse things.Some similarities between Straight and Auschwitz,where many of my father's relatives ended up some 30 years earlier.
Straight did not have extermination chambers however every inmate knew that once inside there was only two ways out.Liberation or the incinerators.I knew that the only way out for me was either the program deemed me fit to reenter society or be one of the lucky ones whose parents came to their senses.Amazing how they put me on Fifth Phase one week before I turned 18,where my options multiplied a thousand fold.Whether we were being exterminated or not,one constant was true in both situations,we were all just playing for time,hoping for our situation to change.
