Night – Elie Wiesel
Chapter 5; Page 66: Religious Void and Defying Kipper.
Jewish New Year coming to an end, Eli feels anger - questions whether there’s a god, why he would let them suffer so; rebellious. [“What are you, my God? How do you compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to you their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies?”] Yom Kipper, Eli didn’t fast, 1 to please his father, 2 No longer any reason for him to fast (he said he turned the act into a symbol of rebellion). Selection, Blockalteste told them to run as fast as you can/ keep moving. Eli made it through (Yossi joked that he was running too fast for them to write his number down) Elis father didn’t, he had to go to a more meticulous selection as a result; passed. Winter, Eli foot injured/ swelling. Had to go to infirmary and be operated on. Evacuation, Leaves with his father well recovering from foot (People in the infirmary were told they could stay, and would be fine/not killed, some didn’t believe that).
Chapter 6; Page 85: March through a Blanket of Snow and Death. Eli, his father, and the rest of the prisoners began their march. Any who stopped or slowed down were killed. Zalman (young boy from Poland who was marching behind eli, worked in the electrical material depot in Buna) collapsed and died. Eli wanted to stop, to no longer feel anything and die. His father was the only thing that stopped him from doing so (he responsible for his father, and thought it was selfish to him) [“We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had transcended everything – death, fatigue, our natural needs. We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but number, we were only men on earth”]. After marching more than 20 kilometers since they left they were ordered to halt. Falling asleep in the snow was dangerous. Accidently Eli fell asleep and his father had trouble waking him (he did get him to wake though) after that Eli didn’t fall asleep again cause he knew it would mean death. Rabbi Eliahu who couldn’t find his son asked Eli if he saw him. Eli said no, but later remembered that the rabbis son had seen his father falling behind, and Eli wondered if he had purposely lost his father. When they got to Gleiwitz and was getting settled in the barracks people were climbing over one another to enter, and some were crushed and killed including juliek. There was another selection and Eli’s father was picked to go to the left (the weak), Eli ran after him which created much confusion among the camp and SS officers (who were trying to get Eli to go back), allowing them to go to the right unnoticed. After they were led to a very long train composed of cattle cars, and put in them 100 per car.
Chapter 7; Page 98: Train Ride of Despair and Brutal Actions. The dead were thrown out like sacks of potatoes (the living were glad they would have more room). Eli’s father was almost thrown out, mistaken for dead. They received no food, lived on snow. One day, train stopped, worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into the wagon. Stampede dozens fought and killed over the piece of bread. (Eli recalls years later, at Aden, a similar situation where some woman throws coins for the native boys). Crowd of workmen formed to watch with curious eyes. Eli even witnesses a boy named Meir kill his own father over a piece of bread. After the son seizes the bread from his father, he too is killed by other hungry prisoners. Eli watches the resulting sight with horror: ["When they withdrew, next to me were two corpses, side by side, the father and the son. I was fifteen years old."]
Chapter 8; Page 104: Fight of Willpower and Reality. They arrive at Buchenwald, Eli fears losing him again. His father finally tells Eli that he doesn’t want to go on, can’t. Eli argues with him, trying to get him to move and continue. It becomes an “argument with death itself, death his father had already chosen”. Eli was chased toward the blocks. He fell asleep. When he came to he remembered his father, and left to find him. (Thoughts of hope in not finding him went through his mind). After hours he found him near a coffee line, and his father called out to him, to bring him some coffee. He was ill with dysentery, and Eli goes to find a doctor. The doctor tells him its useless. Eli's father lies in bed for several days where he complains to Eli that his neighbors are beating him and taking his food. A week goes by. The head of the block tells Eli to look out for himself and forget about his father. Eli understands that its reasonable, but chooses to stay with his father. His father starts crying out for water, and an officer delivers him a blow to the head. On January 28th, 1945, Eli sees his father for the last time: "his blood-stained face, his shattered skull." When Eli wakes up the next day, his father is gone-they had taken him during the night. Eli feels guilty that he has no tears to shed. He doesn't know what to feel. ["But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like-free at last!"]
Chapter 9; Page 113: Bittersweet Freedom Eli stayed in Buchenwald until Apirl 11. He felt numb during that time, because of his father’s death, nothing mattered to him anymore. His only desire was to eat. April 5th the Germans decide to liquidate the camp. On April 10th the camps underground resistance movement decided to act. The Germans didn’t put up much of a fight and around noon everything was calm, the ss fled, and the resistance took charge of the camp. Later that day the first American tank stood at the gates of Buchenwald. As free men most devoured the provisions, and that was all that they thought about, not revenge or of family. A few days after liberation Eli became ill with some form of poisoning, and was transferred to a hospital. One day when he got up and took a look into a mirror, taking a look at himself for the first time since the ghetto. What he saw looking back at him was a corpse.

“We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That's all we know for sure. We can't create a new species or a new world. That's been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries. What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.” ― Carol Matas, Daniel's Story