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