Section 2 Summary-Ruby Umaña Period 3

In section two the Jews were packed into cattle cars, tormented with unbearable conditions. There is almost no air to breathe, the heat is intense, there is no room to sit, and everyone is hungry and thirsty. Some men and women begin to flirt openly on the train as though they were alone, while others pretended not to notice. After days of travel in these unbearable conditions, the train arrives at the Czechoslovakian border, and the Jews realize that they are not simply being relocated. A German officer takes official charge of the train, threatening to shoot any Jew who refuses to give his or her valuables and to exterminate everybody in the car if anybody escapes. The doors to the cattle cars are nailed shut, keeping them from escaping. Madame Schächter, a middle-aged woman who is on the train with her ten-year-old son. On the third night, she begins to scream that she sees a fire in the darkness outside the car. Although no fire is visible, she terrifies the Jews. They soon start thinking that Madame Schächter is crazy. The men get tired of her yelling so they tie her up and gag her so that she cannot scream. Her son watches her and cries and when Madame Schächter breaks out of her bonds and continues to scream about the furnace that awaits them, she is then beaten into silence by some of the men on the cattle car, with the approval of everyone. The next night, Madame Schächter begins her screaming once again.They soon find out where they are, when the train stops, they have reached Auschwitz station. This name means nothing to them. They are told that they have arrived at a labor camp where they will be treated well and kept together as families. This news comes as a relief, and the Jews let themselves believe what they were told. Madame Schächter again wakes everyone with her screams, and again she is beaten into silence. The train moves slowly and at midnight passes into an area enclosed by barbed wire. Through the windows, everybody sees the chimneys of vast furnaces. There is a terrible odor in the air, what they soon discover is the odor of burning human flesh. This concentration camp is Birkenau. Analysis: By treating the Jews as less than human the Nazis cause the Jews to act as if they were less than human. In the ghetto the Jews maintained their sense of common purpose and common morality. Once forced out of their homes and treated like animals they begin act like as they were animals. The first hint of this dehumanized behavior is when Jewish prisoners come when some of the deportees in the cattle car, lose their modesty and sense of sexual inhibition. The Jews become more and more depraved, by overcoming their terror. Some of them begin to beat Madame Schächter in order to keep her quiet. Not only does God fail to save the Jews from the cruel Nazis they drive the Jews into cruelty.