Chapter 9

Eliezer remained in Buchenwald until April 11. All he could think about was food. On April 5 he learned news of the American army approaching. The Nazis then decided to kill all of the jews inside of the camp. Thousands and thousands of jews were killed daily and by April 10, the Nazis decided to evacuate. Then the air raid siren goes off and everyone was brought back indoors and then after a while the American forces arrived at Buchenwald on April 11. He could only think about food, that is it. He then contracted food poisoning and was confined to a hospital. He then finally looked at himself in a mirror; "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." (Wiesel 115)

Chapter 8

The eventful journey to Buchenwald weakened Eliezer's father a great deal. When they arrived he could do nothing but sit in the snow. He constantly asks to rest and and air raid strikes and Eliezer is forced to leave his father and return to the barracks. "Don't yell my son... Have pity on your old father...Let me rest here...a little...I beg of you, I'm so tired...no more strength..." (Wiesel 105) After the air raid Eliezer searches for his father, but in actuality he didn't want to find his father because it would be easier for him to survive without him. He then stumbled upon his father. He is very sick and unable to move so his son brings him soup and coffee but thinks that he should keep it so that he is more likely to survive. His father was then confined to his bed and was infected with dysentery and was constantly asking for water, but its not good to have water if you have dysentery. "I woke up at dawn on January 29. On my father's cot there lay another sick person. They must have taken him away before daybreak and taken him to the crematorium.." (Wiesel 112). 

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 starts off with the prisoners still in the topless cattle cars. The train stopped and German officers ordered the prisoners to throw the dead out of the car. Eliezer's father was almost mistaken for a dead man but he was just asleep. Then the train would pass by German towns and some Germans would throw some bread crumbs into the train and watch the starving jewish men fight over it to the death. he witnessed a son beat up his father to steal a piece of bread and then the son was killed by another man who also wanted the bread. There was no faith anymore in the car.  They finally reached Buchenwald.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 starts out with everyone running at full speed and those who stopped would be killed. "I was putting one foot in front of the other, like a machine. I was dragging this emaciated body that was still such a weight. If only I could have shed it! Though I tried to put it out of my mind, I couldn't help thinking that there were two of us: my body and I . And I hated that body." (Wiesel 85) Through the darkness and blizzard they continued to run. A boy who was running for a while decided that he couldnt go any farther stopped and was trampled to death. Everyone keeps each other awake. They then came upon a deserted village and Eliezer and his father found a deserted shed to hide in. They then are startled at the sight of the rabbi coming in and looking for his son. Finally, the exhausted prisoners arrived at the Gleiwitz camp. Many people were crushed trying to get into the barracks. There was another selection there and his father was on the side condemned to death but he was able to sneak to the other side and escape death one more time. Then all of the prisoners were hearded onto a train with roofless cattle cars. 

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 starts out at the end of the summer of 1944 and jewish holidays are coming closer and closer. Eliezer keeps on having faith issues and rebels a lot more. He constantly asks God how the jews can be the "chosen people" when they are getting massacred more and more each day. He even decides to eat on Yom Kippur, a day that jews traditionally fast. There is then another selection made....Eliezer was chosen to go to the building unit, but his father was deemed unfit to work. He is scheduled to be executed. His father gives him his spoon and knife, his only inheritance items. 

Eliezer came back from work and learns that there was another selection between the weak and those who were unfit to work. His father made this selection and was a surviver. Eliezer was reunited with his father. Many others start to lose faith in God and become depressed and angry. Then winter came around and the cold was unbearable. Eliezer's foot suddenly swells up and he has an operation in the infirmary. He was in the hospital recovering when there was news of the Russians were advancing towards Buna. Thinking that the people in the hospital were going to be executed, Eliezer and his father go with the Germans moving the prisoners to a new location. They later learned that this was the wrong decision and that those in the hospital were freed by the Russians. 

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 starts out with Eliezer at a new concentration camp called Buna. They ran into a required medical check. Next they ran into a scan for gold-capped teeth and they were to be removed. He and his father were moved to the same unit, they were assigned to count electrical devices in a civilian warehouse. Soon after Eliezer was summoned to the dentist but faked to be ill and he got out of getting his gold cap pulled. He then went back to the dentist and faked being ill once more. He was planning on going back a third time but the dentist wasn't there. He had been hanged by the Germans for secretly trading the gold caps for his own benefit. The Kapo of Eliezer's unit went on a spontaneous rampage and beats him and a French girl shows little kindness and actually speaks fluent German she said, "Bite your lips, little brother... Don't cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now...Wait. Clench your teeth and wait..." (Wiesel 53) The narrator then sees the same women several years later on a train. then the prison foreman notices the narrators gold tooth, he is forced to give it up and his father is beaten until he does so. There is then an allied air raid on Buna, during which some of the prisoners try to steal items and most are caught and killed. "The thousands  of people who died daily in Aushwitz and Birkenau, in the crematoria, no longer troubled me. But this boy, leaning against his gallows upset me deeply." (Wiesel 62) 

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 opens with all of the jews coming out of the cattle car and immediately separated based on gender. This was the last time Eliezer would ever see his mother and younger sister. "Men to the left! Women to the right!" (Wiesel 29) Soon after that Eliezer and his father meet a man who instructs them to lie about their ages. Eliezer to say he is 18, and his father to say he is forty. Then they walk in a line to a central square where Dr. Mengele stands and determines whether the new arrivals are fit for work or should be killed then and there. Eliezer tells the Dr that he is 18 and a farmer. He was filled with joy when he finds out that he was sent to the side his father was on. But, they were still not sure whether or not if they were on the side that was to be killed or on the side that was to be sent to prison to work. They started moving in the line and passed by a burning pit, where babies were being thrown in and another pit where women were being thrown in. They are led almost all the way to the burning pit before making a quick left towards the prison camp. 

The jews then began to be stripped and shaved in the barracks. They are then cleaned with gasoline and showered and clothed in their new prison uniforms. A German officer says, "Here, you must work. If you don't you will go straight to the chimney. To the crematorium. Work of crematorium--the choice is yours." (Wiesel 39) Then his father asked the Kapo in charge, an inmate that was in charge of the others, if he could go to the bathroom and the Kapo slapped him so hard in the face that he fell over. Eliezer was not even moved at the sight of his father being slapped in the face. "I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent." (Wiesel 39) They soon found their relative Stein from Antwerp. He asked if Eliezer or his father had heard news of his family and his father lied and said yes and that they were alright. This was a lie that Stein learned and then never came around again. No matter what, through all of the persecution they had endured they kept faith in God and prayed. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8wkIdXuXU8

Above is a video on Aushwitz