Chapter 7 :
Elie and his father are now riding on the train to Buchenwald. They are tightly
packed in cattle cars with 100 other prisoners. During the ride, Nazis gather
up all the perished and throw them out of the cattle cars to make room for the
dead. While riding, Elies father falls asleep because he is so weak and tired.
While the Nazis are throwing out the dead, they try to throw out Elie's father,
but Elie refuses. Elie tries to awake his father from a deep sleep by slapping
him repeatedly, but fighting off officers at the same time, Elies father
eventually awakes but 20 others were thrown out. There they had long days and
nights traveling, and as they passed a German town, a man threw a ration of
bread into the cattle car and watched as the men fought over it. Day after day
, there would be several people, throwing bread into the cattle car , watching
as poor prisoners desperately tried to get that little piece of bread. In one
of the battles, Elie watched as a young man fought his own father for a piece
of bread , and imagined him being that young man. One of the friends named Meir
Katz , starts to lose hope because his son was taken from him in the first
selection but it had barely hit him , that he lost his son because of all the
pain he had endured, he had to be strong, to survive. Others grieved that
night, because they had lost so many of their loved ones. By the time they
reached their destination (Buchenwald), only 12 of them get off the cattle car
and enter the camp.
Chapter
8 : Once arriving at Buchenwald, they are told to form ranks and Elie notices
that his father is becoming really weak, but encourages him to keep going with
hope of food and rest. His father wants nothing more than to just be allowed to
sit and have rest, so he sits down in the snow. An air raid drives everyone
into the barracks and Elie falls fast asleep. In the morning Elie starts to
look for his father, but not with all his heart. He soon finds him and finds
out that he did not get a ration of food and again not with all his heart gives
his father his own ration. Later on Elie's father becomes sick with dysentery
and begins to cry for water. Elie knows that it is very dangerous to give water
to someone who has dysentery, but cannot refuse his father's cries any longer.
One day as an SS officer is patrolling the barracks his father begins to cry
for water and in an effort to shut him up the SS officer beats his father
unconscious. In the morning of January 29, 1945, Elie finds out that is father
was taken to the crematory and to his shame he does not weep, but instead feels
relief.
This is an image of how the Nazis did selection and chose the Jews' fate.
This image shows the Jews raising the American flag to show they have been liberated and now have their freedom back.
This image is showing how crammed the Jews were on the cattle cars and they went for days on these with no food, water, or place to reilieve themselves.
Chapter
9: Elie remains in Buchenwald not thinking of his family, but only of food.On April 5 with the American army coming
closer and closer the Nazis exterminate all the Jews left in the camp. Daily
thousands and thousands of Jews are killed and the American Army is fast
approaching. On April 11 the American army liberates the camp and Elie and the
prisoners stay to get food. While in Buchenwald he looks at himself in the
mirror and thinks that it is not himself and thinks a corpse is looking back at
him.
