Call it for what it is. No need to make associations to the Nazi regime, however tempting the assonance that “alligator” might suggest.
“Gulag” is just fine and probably closer to the reality of a place whose environment is threatening and discourages escape.
Author: The Cat Herder General
Citoyen du monde: Peregrinator, photographer, retired librarian/archivist/academic, musician, teacher of English to foreigners, and sometime writer... Due to bureaucratic nonsense, I have left Europe. I DID not return to the US, I took at the Calgary airport and am a refugee trying to learn to understand, and maybe speak, "Jouai" here amongst the Quebecois.
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